Fervor

Most of Thomas Merton is over my head, at least I have to read it very slowly. I've read the following quote from "The Inner Experience" several times lately (slowly) and it has a really good point: "But those forms of religious and liturgical worship which have lost their initial impulse of fervor tend more and more to forget their contemplative purpose, and to attach exclusive importance to rites and forms for their own sake, or for the sake of the effect which they are believed to exercise on the One who is worshipped. The highest form of religious worship finds its issue and fulfillment in contemplative awakening and in transcendent spiritual peace."


When we first "experience" God, or have our initial encounters with Him, there is a resulting fervor that lingers for a while. I can remember back to many such times early in my life as a Christian, and as Orthodox. But somewhere along the way, we get set in our routines, and complacency sets in to a degree. To recapture that initial fervor, we try to formulate our experience, and encapsulate God in a method. Those methods become our crutch, an easy way to seek God, without having to do the work of re-creating a real experience with Him. The root may be fear: fear that He will not respond as before; fear that He's moved beyond us.

But true faith will trust that God will always be there, beyond our feeling and sense. We trust faith, not our feeling. The contemplative experience is one of faith, one of resting and abiding in the presence of God. It is simply to be with Christ, whether we "feel"him or not. True peace comes from this contemplative moment, as He imparts His Spirit of peace to us, beyond our understanding, beyond our senses. We don't give up our liturgy, it is an integral part of our life. But our faith is in the God that liturgy focuses upon. Our fervor moves from sensual and intellectual feeling, to real awareness and knowledge of faith.