Feast of Saint Benedict

Happy Feast!

Today, we celebrate the feast of Benedict's death. This feast is a bit more subdued since it is in the midst of Lent; our solemnity is celebrated with the Church feast on July 11th. However, we do remember his passing with story and song. My boys at school were a bit unsure of creating a feastday for someone's death, but I did try to point out it could been seen as his birth to new life...they didn't buy it. So I added this story from St. Gregory the Great to illustrate.

"In that same year when he was to leave this life, he foretold the day of his most holy death to some disciples living with him and to others living some distance away. He told the former to keep silent about what they heard and explained to the later what kind of sign would be seen when his soul would leave his body.

Six days before his death, he ordered his tomb to be opened. Soon he was attacked by fever and was weakened with severe suffereing. As the illness grew worse every day, he asked his disciples to carry him into the oratory. there he strengthened himself for his departure by receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord. While the hands of his disciples held up his weak limbs, he stood with his hands raised to heaven and breathed his last breath amidst words of prayer."

We will be commemorating the feast a bit simply here at our apartment convent. Prayer for the feast with special Psalms and responsory, steak on the electric grill, and maybe a game or two of Bannanagrams or Perquacky! I think Benedict would approve of the balance between prayer and play within community.

Blessings,

Joy and Sorrow

Greetings,

There is a mix of sorrow and joy as our elders grow old.

The joy is in their wisdom from a lived spiritual experience that spans many decades of peaks and valleys in community life as well as their own. Whether she is the baker, professor, or former prioress, her voice of experience of God's love can be both a challenge and a comfort. This is a joy I have grown to appreciate more and more. When I was away at university, I missed the wisdom from our elders and tradition...the sisters I was living with had good wisdom and offered support, but there is just something about our family way of helping each other.

The sorrow grows slowly as our elders grow old. During my last year at university, Sister Baker died and I felt the loss of my confidant and counselor. Now that my ministry is closer to home, I try to take advantage of the distance and visit more often. However, time marches on. Sister Professor doesn't always recognize me even though we have spent countless hours puzzling way at crosswords together and sharing stories of family, teaching, and prayer. Another Sister Professor has been slowly slipping away these past years and we miss her wisdom dearly. We care for them with tender love, wait with them for their Beloved, and cherish their presence while they remain.

There is a great joy in these wisdom figures, elders of our Benedictine family.
I cannot imagine our growth in learning to live in Obedience, Converstatio or Stability without them.

Blessings,

Ashes...

Greetings,

Tomorrow, I will be at home in the Monastery for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of our Lenten celebration. After being at school or university for the past many celebrations of this day, I am excited to be home as we settle into our Lenten observances. Yes, excited to be home for Wednesday soup night, morning silence, and the sisterly support of additional prayer and reflection. I'll even be home in time for the Mass we share with the college students and the Vesper's collection of the sisters personal observances for Lent.

Benedict had encouraged his monks to live their whole monastic life as a Lent; however, if it cannot be done, the monk was to consult with the Abbott about special offerings during this season of preparation. Reflection on chapter 49 from the Rule has lead me to ponder on my own "offering to God with the Joy of the Holy Spirit something of the measure required..." I have come to some conclusions of offerings of heart that I will pray will help me offer better service to God. When I return home to my convent apartment, I pray that we can discern some community Lenten observances to bring from the Monastery to convent to help each other continue to live this offering in the spirit of Benedict.

Blessings,

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Greetings,

Today the Church celebrates second chances! Chapter 22 of the Acts of the Apostles contains one of the accounts of Saul's conversion to new life as Paul. It isn't the dramatic scenes with the bright light and Christ's call that struck me today. Instead, the gentle but encouraging voice of Ananias has stayed with me.

"A certain Ananias, a devout observer of the law, and highly spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and stood there and said, 'Saul, my brother, regain your sight.' And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, 'The God of our ancestors designated you .....(St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome)
to know His will, for you will be His witness before all to what you have seen and heard.
Now, why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon His name.'"

Ananias knew of Saul's past persecutions, knew of Saul's work against the Church, but he also knew of Christ's power to change the hearts of others. He welcomed Paul as a witness to Christ and encouraged him to be baptized...all this support from a man who simply allowed God to give a second chance. If Saul the persecutor can become Paul the Apostle, I too can become someone new in Christ! This fits well with our Benedictine vow of Converstatio Morum (Fidelity to the Monastic Way). Within Converstatio, there is the daily opportunity to fully live the call to follow Benedict in seeking Christ. Every day is a second chance to be converted and more fully live washed and baptized in Christ. Everyday is also the opportunity to be Ananias for my sisters, co-workers, and students; to take on his role of welcoming and encouraging those who need a second chance.

Hmm...that leaves much to do this day...

Blessings and Happy Feast,

God in the Ordinary

Greetings,

Part of my life as a Benedictine sister is to seek God in the ordinary events of life in community. The daily horarium (schedule) within the monastery doesn't vary too often and it shouldn't. The repeated hours, the routines allow me to stop wondering what I should be doing or where I should be going, I know; and instead I can focus on God in the midst of those daily events. In fact, many of God's lessons have come through the daily life lived with my sisters or from the classroom with my students.

A recent lesson while I was home for our Monastic Chapter (community meetings) led me to a reflection on the Rule. "The brothers should serve one another. Consequently, no one will be excused from kitchen service unless he is sick or engaged in some important business of the monastery, for such service increases reward and fosters love" Chapter 35: 1-2. With all of the sisters home, there were interesting combinations of dishwashers, servers, and the like. Those of us who lived away from home found ourselves filling in duties for those sisters at home who were helping to organize the Chapter. There was laughter as we tried to remember where certain items were stored for meals or put dishes away into new and inventive locations, but it was also love. Love for those whose duties we shared; love for those we served.

Now that I have returned to our little convent of two...I'm trying to remember this lesson of loving service for one is loving service of my whole community.

Blessings,

Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus

Greetings,

The longer I live in community, the better I understand St. Theresa's vocation to Love. Her heart longed to do all things in the Church while living within the enclosure of her monastic home surrounded by her sisters. Even though I live with a freedom to teach and do that she did not have, there are times when my heart calls out to serve in new ways away from my own monastery home. However, the vocation of Love that the Little Flower taught brings all the other ways of serving to me. To do all things with love becomes prayer and doing all things for your sisters with love changes you day by day.

Benedict said that God loves a cheerful giver; Theresa might say the same thing about those who live with love for all they do. With this attitude in mind, the smallest chores or assignments become a new way to show me care and love for the sisters I live with and the students, teachers, and staff that I serve with...Love changes everything...myself included.

Blessings,

"I feel in me the vocation of the priest. I have the vocation of the Apostle. Martyrdom was the dream of my youth and this dream has grown with me. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I desired to see myself in all of them. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places...in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found it...My vocation is Love!" ~ Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, Story of a Soul

Greetings,

As my community celebrates and remembers Saint Hildegard for her teaching with the many gifts of the spirit that she shared with the Benedictines and the faithful of her time, the Church in the United Kingdom celebrated the gift of Catholic education with Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pope's reflections on his gratefulness for Catholic educators and the continued need for Catholic schools recognized all the many sisters, brother, and lay educators that have spent their lives teaching others.

Blessings & Enjoy...

ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER
TO TEACHERS AND RELIGIOUS
Chapel of St Mary’s University College

I am pleased to have this opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding contribution made by religious men and women in this land to the noble task of education…and to all the dedicated men and women who devote their lives to teaching the young, I want to express sentiments of deep appreciation. You form new generations not only in knowledge of the faith, but in every aspect of what it means to live as mature and responsible citizens in today’s world.

As you know, the task of a teacher is not simply to impart information or to provide training in skills intended to deliver some economic benefit to society; education is not and must never be considered as purely utilitarian. It is about forming the human person, equipping him or her to live life to the full – in short it is about imparting wisdom. And true wisdom is inseparable from knowledge of the Creator, for “both we and our words are in his hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts” (Wis 7:16).

This transcendent dimension of study and teaching was clearly grasped by the monks who contributed so much to the evangelization of these islands. I am thinking of the Benedictines who accompanied Saint Augustine on his mission to England, of the disciples of Saint Columba who spread the faith across Scotland and Northern England, of Saint David and his companions in Wales. Since the search for God, which lies at the heart of the monastic vocation, requires active engagement with the means by which he makes himself known – his creation and his revealed word – it was only natural that the monastery should have a library and a school. It was the monks’ dedication to learning as the path on which to encounter the Incarnate Word of God that was to lay the foundations of our Western culture and civilization.

Looking around me today, I see many apostolic religious whose charism includes the education of the young. This gives me an opportunity to give thanks to God for the life and work of the Venerable Mary Ward, a native of this land whose pioneering vision of apostolic religious life for women has borne so much fruit. I myself as a young boy was taught by the “English Ladies” and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude. Many of you belong to teaching orders that have carried the light of the Gospel to far-off lands as part of the Church’s great missionary work, and for this too I give thanks and praise to God. Often you laid the foundations of educational provision long before the State assumed a responsibility for this vital service to the individual and to society. As the relative roles of Church and State in the field of education continue to evolve, never forget that religious have a unique contribution to offer to this apostolate, above all through lives consecrated to God and through faithful, loving witness to Christ, the supreme Teacher.

Indeed, the presence of religious in Catholic schools is a powerful reminder of the much-discussed Catholic ethos that needs to inform every aspect of school life. This extends far beyond the self-evident requirement that the content of the teaching should always be in conformity with Church doctrine. It means that the life of faith needs to be the driving force behind every activity in the school, so that the Church’s mission may be served effectively, and the young people may discover the joy of entering into Christ’s “being for others”.

Before I conclude, I wish to add a particular word of appreciation for those whose task it is to ensure that our schools provide a safe environment for children and young people. Our responsibility towards those entrusted to us for their Christian formation demands nothing less. Indeed, the life of faith can only be effectively nurtured when the prevailing atmosphere is one of respectful and affectionate trust. I pray that this may continue to be a hallmark of the Catholic schools in this country.

With these sentiments, dear Brothers and Sisters, I invite you now to stand and pray.