Prayer Beads in Each Hand

A Spiritual Story Part 1

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
-Proverbs 22:6

Photo by Joshua Davis on Unsplash

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The following is part one of a two-part story reflecting on a weekend retreat at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC in the Autumn of 2022. I wrote this as a personal exercise after the experience and felt that the themes of discovering congruity between traditions, albeit alternative Christian ones, was in the spirit of this dispatch.

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I made the right off of Michigan Avenue onto a narrow driveway skirted by an imposing gothic-revival building that serves as seminary for the Order of Preachers in Washington DC. I checked the map lit up on my phone to confirm if this was where I would be staying. The scenery certainly did fit the bill. Statues of a crowned Mary holding a cute, if stoic, baby Jesus, men in white habits, plus the email did say there would be plenty of parking and the parking lot I was inching my way towards seemed spacious enough. I pulled into one of the empty spots leaving the car in first, wrenching the parking brake up with a satisfying crunch before turning off the engine. I stepped outside onto the damp asphalt and looked around—vexed—phone in both hands trying to gather my bearings thinking “So where the heck do I go now.” Unconvinced that I was at my final destination I opened up my email to check, once again, the directions the retreat coordinator had sent us. Lo and behold, I was, in fact, at the wrong address. I let out a minor inconvenienced groan but was pleased to see the actual location was a brief two-minute drive away. As I made my way onto a sleepy side street, I passed the magnificent Basilica dedicated to our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, on my right, with its crowning jewel: the trinity dome colored a deep azure that on a clearer day would have almost disappeared into the sky.

I pulled into a circular driveway and was greeted by a folksy, New-England looking sign that read Washington Retreat House. I had now officially arrived. I collected my favorite travel companion: a bright teal duffel bag, older than me by at least two decades, from behind the driver’s seat and set off to the entrance of the retreat house. I entered and was greeted by the pleasant musky aroma that often graces older homes—an indication of their achievement at weathering the wear and tear of life. I tentatively stepped deeper into the empty foyer unsure of where I was supposed to go. When I came to the intersection of the hall I looked to my left and saw an official looking table with a big “Thomistic Institute” tablecloth with an official looking woman behind it and an even more official looking friar off to her left. I approached the woman, and she introduced herself with a radiant smile as the retreat coordinator. I turned to introduce myself to the friar who lifted his hand from the rosary he was fingering on his waist and gave me a firm shake identifying himself as the spiritual director we would be interfacing with for the weekend.

She handed me my name tag, a liturgy booklet, a polyester drawstring bag and a book titled Grace—bearing a name similar to our own retreat—Grace: An Intellectual Retreat. I confirmed my room number and went off in search of my quarters. After getting lost a few times on stairs that led to nowhere I finally had luck in accessing the elusive third floor. As I approached my temporary residence for the weekend the door was already opened to reveal a modest twin-sized bed with a simple desk, and a retro, orange hazard cone-colored chair dating to no later than the 1970s. I placed my bag on the knee-high table that served as the luggage stand and opened it to reveal my favorite pair of brown moccasin-style slippers. I took my boots off and slid on the plush slippers to continue my investigation of the tiny room. I peered into the door that was open on the far end of the room to reveal a jack-and-jill bathroom complete with Pepto-Bismol pink tub and shower curtain. I closed the bathroom door to the adjoining room and returned to my room and slumped into the stiff orange chair. I let out a sigh and thought to myself “What am I doing here?” I wasn’t upset about being there, in fact, I was pleased to take a weekend away from my usual commitments and focus on the interior life. But the thought did begin to creep in: what is a newly converted Orthodox Christian like me doing at this very Catholic retreat? Sure, I have been Orthodox for a little over three years now, but for all intents and purposes, I am a neophyte. Initially, I was supposed to be coming with an Eastern Catholic friend. However, due to a last-minute positive test of COVID he had to cancel. I had a whirl of thoughts going on in my head. I’d come here to learn something about the faith, and learn it from the Western tradition, my own indigenous tradition, and even if Aquinas isn’t an Orthodox saint he was important. Correction: he is important and has been for both East and West for nearly 1000 years. But the questions persisted, what was I doing, what was I looking for, what was I hoping to find in the following two days?

Noticing my emotional state beginning to spiral, I set these questions aside and got up. I grabbed the small bag I brought with me to carry my daily items and filled it with Thich Nhat Hanh’s slim volume about deep ecology, Love Letter to the Earth, a notepad, the liturgy booklet, and of course my 100-knot prayer rope. I hesitated for a moment, hand hovering over my five-decade wooden rosary beads before also stuffing it into the bag. After putting my boots back on, I set out from my room to explore the retreat house and surrounding grounds before the first Mass that would inaugurate the retreat. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to see. The house was pretty much all there was, with another pretty white statue of a crowned Virgin holding the Christ child. I came back in and found a comfortable chair to read my book. I’ve read a few other titles by Thay and while I appreciate many of his spiritual insights, one gets the sense that when you’ve read one Thich Nhat Hanh book, you’ve read them all. But I wasn’t really looking for a hard read, and the environment is important to me. Learning how to be more attentive and compassionate to the Earth isn’t a bad thing, although with the peculiarly crunchy title I was a little embarrassed about what the other retreatants might think of me, so I did my best to keep the cover concealed.

My watch gave off its high-pitched beep telling me it was time to leave for the 4pm Mass. I collected my things and set out. The Mass was to be held at one of the many chapels the Basilica has to offer, and when I entered through the lower level past the gift shop overflowing with Catholic paraphernalia, I wasn’t entirely sure which one we would be going to. The schedule indicated that it would be at the Immaculate Heart of Mary chapel, but when you have around 15 or so chapels on the lower level alone most of them dedicated to our Lady, it’s not immediately obvious where you’re supposed to be. After poking around, I found a chapel with some people I had seen walking around the retreat house, and behind the altar was a modern-looking, although thoroughly pretty, relief sculpture of Mary holding Jesus, and a bulging heart pierced with a sword. I entered and took a seat in the very last pew on the very last seat, about as far away from the altar sitting in a pew would allow. Noting my surroundings, I considered praying the rosary, but the call of my prayer rope was stronger, and I freed it from my bag. I sat down and began reciting that ancient prayer of the desert that saints and mystics have uttered countless times in various languages in a low voice with a bowed head, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”

Like every other Western convert to Orthodoxy, I have been fascinated by and in love with this most auspicious of arrow prayers, as they are called. Something about it hearkening to the dawn of those early monastics who abandoned the outside world with its trappings of a respectable and cosmopolitan form of Christianity to live a more true and vital Christian life in the barrenness of the desert made me feel in continuity and conversation with this immense line of saints and mystics in this age-old practice. The prayer, among many other things, encapsulates that mysterious whisper from the Eternal that Abba Arsenios heard when serving in the imperial courts of Byzantium when he cried out how to be saved to hear in response “Fuge, tace, quiesce.” His own journey of following these simple commands led him to ascetic feats in the desert nearly unparalleled and to fall asleep in the aroma of holiness so fragrant that he is still remembered and venerated as one of those early desert monastic-saints to be called “Great.” Although both east and West have many arrow prayers, there is none with as much history and power as that great entryway into hesychia, that quiet state of true silence and inner stillness in which the soul is immediately and nakedly before the presence of God, as the Jesus Prayer.

While I passed from knot to knot quietly whispering the prayer the priest and his concelebrant entered. Both were wearing lustrous white chasubles that elegantly flowed with each mindful step up the aisle with steepled hands. The main celebrant approached the altar, genuflected, and kissed it before spreading his hands in the orans position and intoned the beginning lines of the Mass. 

Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of the folksy, Disneyesque Masses that exist in certain quarters of Catholic sacramental life. That said, I am also not an aficionado of the older form of the Mass. Especially at a low-Mass, I find the impenetrable Latin, high volume of “secret prayers”, and long spaces of sometimes awkward silence while I just watch the priest “doing his thing” as not really being an act of worship done by everyone present. It’s a rather lovely performance to be sure, but I don’t feel like I’m necessary. And this isn’t just post-modern mush about my personal desires being the supreme indicator of liturgical validity. It’s just that the Tridentine Mass makes it feel as though no one is really necessary to be there. The priest can just do it and that’s it. Naturally, this isn’t helped by the existence of the Missa privata which only further entrenches what can only be rightly called, clericalism. And perhaps this is where my Eastern Christian, and perhaps even my older Methodist, bias begins to show. In Orthodoxy the very idea of a “private” Mass or Divine Liturgy is a contradiction of terms. The Liturgy is, well, liturgical. It is a communal work of the body of Christ for the life of the world, not some private devotion that those who have received the laying on of hands can perform at their discretion. The Eucharistic table is one that is meant to be shared by all who are baptized and chrismated in the Church Catholic, not merely those who are members of the clergy. The Divine Liturgy serves as microcosm, bringing together as an icon what the entirety of the Church, in her essence, is. For these reasons, I am generally more attracted to the New Mass done well as was exemplified in that small chapel. No baroque choirs sang Palestrina, and yet a rare and subtle power engendered in me awe at the gravity of the Holy Oblation of peace.

At the conclusion of Mass, we had about thirty minutes before we were expected to be at the main chapel in the Dominican house across the street for Matins and Vespers. I had been to the Basilica before and knew of a Ruthenian-Byzantine Catholic chapel complete with icon screen to be nearby. When I came to the chapel, I hung back to allow a pilgrim to complete his business, and after he left, I approached the icon screen and turned to the icon of Christ on my right. I made the sign of the cross and bowed from the waist three times, as I learned from watching others during my catechumenate, and gently kissed the upraised hand of Jesus arranged in the form of the “ICXC” blessing, whispering “Good afternoon, my Christ. Enlighten my darkness.” I turned to his Mother, did the same, and whispered “Jesus and Mary, you are my joy.” I took a seat in front of Jesus and began again to recite the prayer.

I was seated, gazing into the face of Christ for quite some time. The prayer tumbling almost spilling out of my mouth, and I felt in my heart that deep molten warmth of looking into the face of a lover. As if lying on a blanket outside on a sunny day in late Spring and can almost feel the weight of the light and the heat gently pressing into you. I felt that warmth spread through my whole body and before I knew it my face was streaming with tears looking into the beauty of the eyes of my beloved. I knew in that moment that as I beheld the face of Christ, Christ beheld my face. A moment of mirroring where I felt the Logos seeping into and gushing out of my very being as it fell into the abyss of mercy and love that is the very nature and essence of God. This theophany was my most intimate moment of encounter with God during the weekend and among other things it reminded me, as we often need reminding, that Christ was here with me. He had in some way called me to be here and that I was doing the right thing in being here. I wasn’t sacrificing my Orthodox faith by coming to learn and be nourished. These were all assurances that I needed, and I felt empowered after that moment of communion to continue in the weekend without fear.

When I left the Basilica, the rain was beginning in earnest. What the skies were only hinting at before were now providing in excess. I opened up the umbrella to, unsuccessfully, protect me from the thin, almost misty, autumnal drops falling from the sky and began the walk over to the Dominican House of Studies. I fell in line with a group of others who were leaving at the same time and engaged in some small talk before we got to our destination. The foyer of the Dominican House had a pleasant interior with simple white walls which connected into gothic arches reaching the ceiling. Still not having much idea of where I was supposed to go, I followed the sound of commotion coming from one of the hallways to my left. Many of the other retreatants were gathered in another common room, but to my right was the entrance to the chapel. I paused for a moment, considering joining in the din with the rest of the group. It was tempting as someone who likes to be in the mix of things, especially at church functions, but I made a choice that I wasn’t here for socializing or making friends. I socialize enough. I needed to take as much time as possible to be with God in an explicit and intentional way. I passed the shallow dish filled with holy water on my left and pushed the chapel doors open to be greeted with a dimly lit nave lined with stained glass catching the final few rays of light streaming in from the overcast day. As the door gently closed behind me, I felt as though I had traveled to the high Middle Ages in Western Europe. Directly in front of me was a rood screen, a rare sight in any Western temple, that serves as a way to separate the stalls for the monks and the seating for pilgrims and laity. I found a seat and gazed in wonder at the stained-glass depicting scenes from the life of St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers. At the front above the altar was a famous scene common to the minds of most Catholics of Mary presenting Dominic with the Rosary. As I sat there, the thought once again crossed my mind to pray the Rosary. And yet, the call to use my prayer rope was stronger so I pulled it out of my bag and began the prayer. 

I was there fifteen minutes before the other retreatants started trickling in with a few monks in their white habits interspersed among their company. I watched as my fellow retreatants, many covered by a mantilla, piously genuflected before they took their seats. Many kneeled on the hard wooden floor, there were no plush kneelers, offering up intentions of some sort or another, or simply enjoying the serenity of that quiet chapel. Soon the monastic stalls in front of the rood screen were filled with the bustle of monks and the clatter of rosary beads on wood. After everyone was settled a lone voice of one of the monks pierced the silence beginning the prayers for Vespers with the ubiquitous line from the Divine Office taken from St. John Cassian’s writings after his lengthy stay with the desert ascetics in Egypt from Psalm 68 “O God come to my aid, O Lord make haste to help me” and by reply the rest of the monks raised their voices in that clear singular beauty of Gregorian chant.

As an Orthodox Christian I love the traditional modes of singing found in the East be it the mysterious and primal oriental drone of Byzantine chanting or the enchanting polyphonic styles heard in four-part choirs of Slavic parishes. That said, Gregorian chant is unique in its soothing quality and contemplative aura. Its smooth melismatic movements gently carry the worshiper to communion with the Divine so effortlessly, it’s almost impossible to not find transcendence. For singing the psalms there are few musical styles better suited than Gregorian chant. It’s a sound that can be listened to for hours without growing weary of it.

We returned to the chapel for Compline that evening after dinner. Yet again I was entranced by the power and beauty present in that chapel. I’ve never been one for using a book to follow along with the service as I find that it divides my attention rather than focusing it. I allowed myself to be lifted on the wings of the monastics singing praises to God and for our protection through the night. At the conclusion of the service the monks began a medieval hymn to the Mother of God known as the Salve Regina while the whole gathering solemnly filed out in procession for the monks to return to their cloister. I cannot stress enough how beautiful this hymn is and the gravity with which it was sung by all those present. Even I, who had been refraining from singing, could not help but contribute my own voice to that sacred hymnody from memory to our Lady the Queen of Heaven. As we approached the monastic cloister we were stopped to face one of the priests, who sprinkled us with a silver aspergillum. The Salve Regina came to its conclusion and immediately the monks took up another hymn in Latin. The monks continued their procession leaving us behind just outside their cloister before they stopped once more after turning a corner to ask for a final nocturnal blessing. We all bowed our heads low while the abbot or prior offered his blessing for our protection in the name of the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary.

The liturgical aspect to our evening drew to a close but activities abounded before we were to retire for bed. We went up to the second floor and found seats for ourselves in a small lecture-style amphitheater. Our first talk’s subject was on the necessity of grace. I listened attentively to the professor discussing the Pars Secunda of the great Summa Theologiae. He detailed Man’s dire situation after the fall, our need for grace, and the nature of divine revelation. I had a few questions that first night but kept them to myself.

I’ve had a complex relationship with Aquinas since the days of my undergraduate studies. My first impulse as a young college student was that Aquinas was, simply put, a genius (an obvious fact which I still hold), to viewing him as the Angelic Doctor who ought rarely, if ever, to be questioned during my dalliance with Roman Catholicism. However, after my interaction with the East, and for roughly the first year after my chrismation, my feelings towards him soured somewhat. In many ways I viewed Aquinas as an archenemy to the Orthodox ethos the way many do who are told the same tales of “western rationalism” and its surrogates. Thomism and scholasticism more generally valued the intellectual capacity to know things about God far more, and even at the expense of, actual immediate knowledge with God and were to be viewed with suspicion. 

Now it is certainly the case that “Thomism”, as a late Baroque neoscholastic school of thought, took a rather lifeless, dour, and uninspired turn. Those who cling to this Manualist¹ tradition typically advocate a crude and often brutish integralism emphasizing its crueler instantiations insisting Capital Punishment is a civic virtue rather than tragic failure of human justice. A shocking persistence that many, if not most, will suffer eternal torment in hell, conveyed with such blind cruelty and gleeful brutality as to make even the most sadistic Calvinists blush. A generally narrow perspective on matters theological by abusing the Summa and later commentaries for their own political ends.

However, this first talk began to confirm the rehabilitation of Aquinas I had been pursuing of late for Eastern Christians. In fact, many of the questions I asked at later lectures centered around common Orthodox critiques of Aquinas’ theology seeking to deepen my own understanding. “Is grace created?” (yes) “If grace is created, do we really participate in God?” (sort of) “If grace is not created but is in fact God’s uncreated energeia and this grace has real divisions (prevenient, sanctifying, justifying) that are not merely logical or virtual does this introduce a split within the Godhead and rupture the notion of Divine Simplicity according to the Thomistic interpretation?” (it is created, so no). My inquiries were not that of an obnoxious fedora tipping pop-theologian. Rather, they were genuinely aimed at asking the experts (for if the Dominicans are not experts on Aquinas, then no one is) about misgivings and common understandings I’d had relating to Aquinas while I had their attention.

The walk back to the retreat house was wet and cold. I arrived back at my room boots waterlogged, and rain jacket soaked through. I had lent my umbrella to a fellow retreatant who lacked any protection and was relieved to change into my warm and dry pajamas. Although I had spent much of the afternoon and evening in prayer, I still felt called to pray my personal evening rule. I tugged at the gold ribbon on my compact prayer book with its red faux leather cover embossed with a gilded three-bar cross and the words “Orthodox Christian Prayers” to a page titled “Prayers Before Sleep.” On the left-hand side of the page was an icon of Christ and below a small excerpt from Psalm 131, “I will not give sleep to mine eyes or slumber to mine eyelids until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.” Although not technically part of the rule it sets the tone for the work about to be performed. An emphasis on devotional love prior to caring for the physical needs of the body, no matter one’s level of exhaustion. Of course, the question is raised, “Where is this habitation that I must seek out for the Lord?” I would like to believe that his habitation is within the hidden depths of the human heart. He is in fact already there waiting to be discovered and enkindled

I began my prayer the usual way by making the sign of the cross whispering, so as not to disturb my neighbors through the thin walls, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” I stood in silent contemplation before the cross on the wall that served as the room’s only decoration apart from a kitsch, black-framed print of pottery accompanied by a bible verse near the door. After making three prostrations accompanied by the Jesus prayer I began the rule, and after ten minutes or so I concluded the way I began. However, I had one more thing I felt compelled to do. So inspired by the holy work of the monks at the Dominican house I began to softly sing the Salve Regina as they normally do to conclude evening prayer. I’m not sure why I felt so compelled to do this. I already offered supplication and veneration to the Theotokos at various points while praying my typical rule. However, something overtook me. As though in these circumstances, at this retreat house, it was only right to conclude my evening with the Salve Regina.

I pulled back the green comforter and sat on the edge of the bed before turning off the lamp on the nightstand. In the dark I made one final silent petition before crossing myself and laying down and drifting off to sleep.

1. Manualist Thomism is a term often used by David Bentley Hart to refer to a particular brand of early-Modern to contemporary Thomism based off of the scholastic “manuals” used to teach Thomistic theology. As I mention above, it is generally characterized by an odious spiritual and intellectual proclivity towards that which is most cruel, most harsh, and maximally brutish.