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Benedictines seek God, and so should you

The vocation of a Benedictine is to seek God. We seek God in the ordinary circumstances of life. Turning the idea around some say God searches, too.

What does it mean when we say that God searches the innermost depths of the heart? Nothing is hidden from God. Before any of us ever settles into reflective silence, God knows each of us through and through. In this sense, God doesn’t search out anything for God is already fully aware of the complexity of our inner lives, our conflicting motives and our spontaneous emotions. But what God sees fully we are often blind to — in denial over, actually — with the result that we can act in ways that confuse us and make no sense. It is only when we face our inner reality honestly and humbly with the light of grace that we can see clearly enough to move forward. This is the work of inner prayer which is simultaneously God’s searching the innermost depths of our hearts. (NS)

Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ,
and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.
Rule of Benedict 72:11-12

Christmas

Today we celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus. Son of God, Son of Mary. The Prince of Peace.

In an era of great confusion and unrest due to natural disasters, presence of refugees, political and religious distractions, our celebration of the birth of the Lord hopefully will re-focus our attention on the desire that God has for us: that His Divine Presence will change our lives. This is my hope.

Blessed Christmas!

Labor Day and St Benedict

“Work is a good thing for man – a good thing for his humanity – because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being’.”

Laborem Exercens (1981) St. John Paul II

The Pope focuses our attention on the the subjective experience of the worker, who bears the imago dei and thereby lends work its dignity. He raises some things we need to regularly recall. Today, too often, workers disconnect their experience from that of God’s image, and the life of the Church’s genuine experience of prayer, work, the moral life (one’s personal encounter with the Lord) and the community of faith. Their might be good reason for this fact. That is, too many of us are not doing anything meaningful in contributing to the common good; there is a lack of generatively, a failure to see work as working with God to advance His Kingdom on earth and looking forward to Paradise.  Work is not vocation; work may be more akin to one’s mission but not a “calling.” Big difference. And I think we need to revolutionize work according to the mind of St. Benedict and the Benedictine tradition.

Having just returned from the annual Benedictine Oblate retreat I attend with men and women in the greater New York City area, where we conferenced on St. Benedict’s idea of accountability as a cor ad cor experience. Today, I am also thinking of, in general terms, what the Rule of Benedict and the gift of Benedictine monasticism gives us on the theme of work. Just as accountability is a heart-to-heart experience, so is work.

In the experience of the monastery –which needs to be translated in the life of those of us not professed monks and nuns but Oblates, living in the world– work is a daily (except Sundays in selective cases) component and necessary part of the spiritual life, i.e., there is a natural rota of attending to prayer and work. In relation to our Sabbath observance which has become so non-existent today, the teaching of Abraham Joshua Heschel is worth considering anew and taking his challenge seriously. (As an aside, if you have not read Heschel’s work on the Sabbath, do so. You won’t regret the time with the book.) The Jewish scholar argues for the idea that Sabbath is at the heart of human existence. He says, on the Sabbath, the person “must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of”man and woman. So, work is placed within the ambit of the Sabbath.

Not to distract, St. Benedict’s teaching is germane for us today: work is essential to fulfilling the community’s needs without becoming an end in itself; he in fact limits work in order to prevent it from inculcating vicious habits that will distract our focus on seeking God. The monastery (our home) is a “workshop” for holiness. Further, Benedict uses work as way of keeping a monk (nun and Oblate) from sinful indolence: he should “be given some work in order that he may not be idle.” Think of all the ways we get into trouble by being idle, of having an essential focus on God.

From the perspective of the holy abbot, Benedict places a limit on how long a monk should perform any one job in the monastery. Essential common work done on behalf of others, like cooking, cleaning and reading at mealtime, are to rotate among the monks. Today, monks change these jobs weekly for the most part. The kitchen master’s job may be more stable than the table reader. In fact, no one becomes a permanent reader, no matter how good he is. The avoidable danger is becoming specialized and seeing yourself as indispensable. Likewise, the artisans from his Benedict’s experience, end up with the wrong priorities. In the Rule we read: “If one of them becomes puffed up by his skillfulness in his craft, and feels he is conferring something on the monastery, he is to be removed from practicing his craft and not allowed to resume it unless, after manifesting his humility, he is so ordered by the abbot.” No work of the artist is a work placed ahead of the companionship’s journey to conversion of manner, to holiness.

The Benedictine approach to work might be characterized this way:

NOT, What work am I called to do? BUT, How does the task before me contribute to or hinder my progress toward holiness? How does my work contribute to my life of virtue, and edify others? Is my work missionary, human, loving and creative?
NOT, How does this work cooperate with society’s expectations, material creation? BUT, How does this work contribute to the life of the community and to others’ material and spiritual well-being? How does my work make me more a man, (or, more a woman)?
NOT, Am I doing what I love? BUT, What activity is so important that I should, without hesitation, drop my work in order to do it? What is my God-given mission for the sake of the Kingdom and the good of others?

Always remembering the exhortation of Saint Benedict, Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ  (RB 72.11).

St Richard Pampuri

Don Gius’ first recorded mention of St. Riccardo Pampuri: «But excuse me», he says, «devotion to the saints has a special meaning because they are contemporary: they remind us that the mystery of Christ is present to us. And the life of Saint Pampuri is impressive in its absolute simplicity, like that of a farmer, of a country doctor whom nobody knew, [or would know] but for the goodness with which he treated his patients. And then he went into the monastery, where he was not recognized for what he was, and died like that after three years. But this is the greatest miracle of these decades that I know of, because the miracle is the demonstrating of the power with which God “leads everybody by the nose”, doing great things without anyone’s involvement! So watch out about making fun of the names of the saints and be devoted to them instead. The first devotion must be to the saints contemporary with us. If the Church makes Riccardo Pampuri a saint now or makes Giuseppe Moscati a saint now it’s because, through them, it wants to teach what is important for the Church today»
A-Game Paolicelli – here’s the reference: http://www.30giorni.it/articoli_id_14250_l3.htm

The Orthodox West

There are members of the Orthodox Church that use the Latin Mass as their Order of Worship instead of the Greek Liturgy. It is very interesting to consider that members of the Orthodox Church consider the Latin Mass, the spiritual patrimony of the historic Latin Western Church as part of their patrimony, too. In some ways the proponents look at the history and horizons of Orthodoxy as not merely being Greek or “Eastern.” Most of will say that to be Orthodox is to use the Greek forms. One needs to know that in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and the Antiochian Orthodox Church have a growing membership using the Latin Mass.

Here is a brief video, “The Orthodox West,” which documents their perspective and work.

St Teresa of Calcutta

I was looking for something on St Teresa of Calcutta for today’s 1st anniversary of canonization (tomorrow is her liturgical memorial) and I found this quote that applies:  “Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” – G.K. Chesterton

Blessed feast of St Teresa!