Henri Neumann (Sunday Forum)

by Debb , Saturday, April 18, 2009, 11:32 (1497 days ago) @ Francis

» I have to kneel before the Father, put my ear against his chest and
» listen, without interruption, to the heartbeat of God. .. .

This is a deeply meaningful image.

»
» In his university courses, Henri often repeated Tolstoy’s story of the
» three isolated monks who managed to pray truly and deeply from the heart
» without the theological benefit of a proper religious education: “Three
» Russian monks lived on a faraway island. Nobody ever went there, but one
» day their bishop decided to make a pastoral visit. When he arrived he
» discovered that the monks didn’t even know the Lord’s Prayer. So he spent
» all his time and energy teaching them the Our Father and then left,
» satisfied with his pastoral work. But when his ship had left the island
» and was back in the open sea, he suddenly noticed the three hermits
» walking on the water—in fact, they were running after the ship! When they
» reached it they cried, ‘Dear Father, we have forgotten the prayer you
» taught us.’ The bishop, overwhelmed by what he was seeing and hearing,
» said, ‘But, dear brothers, how then do you pray?’ They answered, ‘Well, we
» just say, “Dear God, there are three of us and there are three of you, have
» mercy on us!” The bishop, awestruck by their sanctity and simplicity, said,
» ‘Go back to your island and be at peace.”

Francis, I love that story. It reminds me of Marele Day's novel "Lambs of God" about three nuns living isolated on an island, going quietly feral, until an emissary from the bishop comes to suss out their land for possible use as a tourist resort! The nuns, not as simple-minded as they seem, provoke a profound spiritual change in the emissary.