For many and for one. A Benedictine oblate blog

Saint Benedict founded the abbey of Monte Cassino in about 529 AD. At Monte Cassino St. Benedict wrote his famous Rule.

And after a little while what had been the 6th century became the 20th century.

In 1964 upon the rebuilding of Monte Cassino abbey after its destruction in WWII by bombing, Pope Paul VI proclaimed St. Benedict “patron of Europe.”(1)

Near the beginning of the 21st century, new Pope Benedict XVI explained that he chose the Benedict name in part because of his admiration of how St. Benedict influenced an entire continent — helping to create European civilization after the destruction of the Roman Empire.

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI visited Monte Cassino Abbey and spoke about the Pope’s desire that Europe live by its “Christian principles and ideals that constitutes an immense cultural and spiritual wealth:”

“This is possible but only if one accepts the constant teaching of St Benedict, that is the "quaerere Deum", the quest for God, as man's fundamental commitment. Human beings cannot completely fulfil themselves, they cannot be truly happy without God. It is your task in particular, dear monks, to be living examples of this inner and profound relationship with him, implementing without compromise the programme that your Founder summed up in the "nihil amori Christi praeponere", "prefer nothing to the love of Christ" (Rule 4: 21).”

This also applies to my own life, I want to live by the ancient endowment (patrimony) of “Christian principles and ideals that constitutes an immense cultural and spiritual wealth.” And it is true that in my life, the greatest change in my manner of living came when I began following, as best as I could, the Benedictine way of organizing the day and praying the divine office.

A Rule that helped create an entire civilization certainly has had sufficient guidance for one oblate and my manner of daily living.

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Footnotes:

Picture is Reading by ThunderChild5.

(1) Women for Faith & Family is also the source of this quote:

"In 1964 Pope Paul VI proclaimed Benedict “patron of Europe”, because of his influence in the formation of Christendom in the Middle Ages. The Pope’s letter, Pacis Nuntius (Messenger of Peace), issued October 24, 1964 during the re-consecration of the rebuilt monastery of Monte Cassino. Pacis Nuntius declares:

“Messenger of peace, creator of unity, master of civilization and above all, herald of the religion of Christ and founder of monastic life in the West: these are the proper titles with which to acclaim St Benedict Abbott. On the fall of the Roman Empire, by then exhausted, Europe seemed to fall into darkness ... bereft of civilization and spiritual values”.

I cannot say that prior to becoming a Benedictine oblate I was in darkness, but between then and now, I can say that my world is closer to the source of the light. It is a new way of life, a new personal culture.

The Rule in 2 words. A Benedictine oblate blog

CSIRO Parkes radio telescope

In some ways, the Rule of St. Benedict might be thought of as springing from two concepts, listening and stability. If asked to summarize the Rule in two words, I would use “Listening and Stability.”

Listening is theological and vertical in the sense of the relation to God. Stability is practical and horizontal in the sense of the relation of monks and nuns to their community -- their family.

From the basic principle of “listening” flows the Rule’s chapters on the divine office, 8 to 19; shortness of prayers, 20; and lectio divina, 48; for example (1) — all part of “seeking God” (quaerere Deum (2)).

We might say that the monastic life begins with listening — not asking God to hear us, not wondering how and under what conditions God will “answer our prayers.” The first word of the Rule places its readers in the mode of listening to the divine call.

When one moves from speaking to listening, we are seeking a new world — we seek monastic stillness — we turn down the volume of the world — we want to declutter our lives so we are free to devote all attention to listening. The contemplative life comes from listening.

From the basic principle of “stability” flows the Rule’s chapters on how to live in a monastery under the authority of an abbot. The monastic enclosure marking the boundary between the monk’s life and the world serves to ground stability to a particular place. The Rule’s guidance on living in harmony and without the poison of murmuring tracks back to the idea of monastic stability.

Stability is the first of the Benedictine vows from chapter 58 of the Rule. Monks and nuns make a vow of stability, conversatio morum (fidelity to monastic life) and obedience. It is sometimes said that this is a single constellation of one monastic vow (as distinguished from three separate vows). But you will often hear monks speak about three Benedictine vows.

In summary, do listening and stability operate in different dimensions as the vertical and horizontal descriptions suggest? No, not at all. Such distinctions may even make some Benedictines cringe -- and rightfully so. Listening and stability are not separate concepts. They are linked and assist each other. That's the Benedictine way.

Listening gives direction and substance to how to be stable in a community and why it is important in the first place. Stability leads to the quiet life of conversatio morum — the necessary fidelity to a monastic life centered on listening to God.

For lay people like an oblate following the Rule of St. Benedict much of the power found in listening and stability is readily applicable to life in a family, in a home, outside the walls of a monastery. Many lay people pray the divine office and practice lectio divina. In addition to being Lord and savior, Christ is a fine abbot for any family.

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Footnotes:

Picture is CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in Parkes, Australia. The telescope was made more famous in the movie, "The Dish" which is one of my favorites.

From the Parkes' web site: "The CSIRO's Parkes Observatory is celebrating the International Year of Astronomy and the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. On 21 July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first people to set foot on the surface of the Moon. This remarkable achievement was the realisation of a long held dream of mankind. The television pictures of this historic event were received by the CSIRO Parkes telescope and relayed to 600 million people or 1/5th of mankind at the time."

(1) For explanations of these terms see divine office, reading, and lectio divina.

(2) From MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE WORLD OF CULTURE ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Collège des Bernardins, Paris, Friday, 12 September 2008

Monastics: Back is Forward. A Benedictine oblate blog

In the monastic journal “Word and Spirit 17: Monastic On-Going Formation” I am now on page 11 and came across this comment:

“A promising sign in some formation programs has been a
rediscovery of the importance of monastic practices. Many
communities that had too impulsively jettisoned revered monastic customs in the renewal period, began to recognize the importance of these practices in providing for the ongoing formation of community. This has also coincided with a deepened awareness and retrieval of symbol and ritual. What some once considered esoteric or elitist were now deemed as distinctive shapers of monastic identity.”

For the lay person wanting to live a more spiritual and monastic life, I think the same truths apply. Going back to the sources and original ways of living in the ways that became known as the “monastic life” is a good way to move forward in my own spiritual development as a Benedictine oblate.

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Footnotes:

Picture is “Gernhardt on Robot Arm” by NASA.

Activism without listening/seeking God. A Benedictine oblate blog

On June 21, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI made an interesting comment on the relationship between prayer and good works. I thought the Pope’s comment helped clarify how prayer empowers working in the world. In my extension of the Pope’s idea, I can see how the Pope’s words could also mean that the contemplative life does not create an “either/or” separation with an active life of service.

Listening to Jesus Christ and seeking God are the best fuel for work.

Pope Benedict XVI made his comments in the homily for the Mass celebrated in front of the church of St. Pio of Pietrelcina(1) in Italy.

The Pope spoke about St. Pio's work to relieve suffering of the sick:

"In the first place came prayer. ... His days were a living Rosary, a continuous meditation upon, and assimilation of, the mysteries of Christ, in spiritual union with the Virgin Mary. This explains the unique simultaneous presence in him of supernatural gifts and of concrete human qualities. And the culmination of everything came in the celebration of Mass. ... From prayer, as from an endless font, arose charity. The love he carried in his heart and transmitted to others was full of tenderness, ever attentive to the real situations in which individuals and families lived. Towards the sick and suffering he nourished the predilection of the Heart of Christ, and it was from here that the idea for a great social project dedicated to the 'relief of suffering' was born and took shape. We cannot adequately interpret or understand this institution if we separate it from the source that inspired it: evangelical charity animated ... by prayer.

“Yet ‘the risks of activism and secularization are ever present’, warned Benedict XVI. ‘Many of you, religious and lay people, are so absorbed by your many obligations in serving pilgrims or the sick in hospital, that you run the risk of neglecting what is truly important: listening to Christ and accomplishing the will of God. When you realize that you are close to running this risk look to Padre Pio, to his example, to his sufferings, and invoke his intercession that he may obtain from the Lord the light and strength you need to continue his mission, imbued with love for God and fraternal charity.’” emphasis supplied

From PV-ITALY/MASS/SAN GIOVANNI ROTONDO VIS 090622 (630)

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Footnotes:

(1) From the Padre Pio web site: “Padre Pio, [born May 25, 1887 died September 23, 1968] a humble Capuchin priest from San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, was blessed by God in many wonderful and mysterious ways. The most dramatic was the stigmata. Padre Pio bore the wounds of Christ for fifty years. Among his other gifts were perfume, bilocation, prophecy, conversion, reading of souls, and miraculous cures. People are still being cured through his intercession in ways that cannot be explained by medicine or science.” Padre Pio was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.

Short Monastic-Book Pilgrimages. A Benedictine oblate blog

After my blog about buying “Word & Spirit 17 Monastic On-going Formation” for $1.95, another oblate at St. Leo Abbey sent me a link to where someone is selling “Word & Spirit 7" (an earlier journal in the series) on E-Bay for $37.69 plus $3.50 shipping.

I am learning much from the book I bought. Every few pages I read a new-to-me idea about monastic formation (how men and women are trained/learn/develop as monks/nuns/sisters). Such insights cause me to stop reading and begin thinking. I am on page 11.

Here is what I am mulling over now from pages 10 and 11 (with footnote references omitted):

“Caught up in a wave of professionalization and compartmentalization, monastic communities are subject to losing sight of the importance of the "wisdom figures" and spiritual directors without portfolio who constitute such a vital reserve of sanctity and holiness in monastic life. The "educating of the heart," so essential to generations of monastic formation, did not always find a comfortable fit in the fonts of new programs that came into being under the rubric of monastic formation.

“There was also a form of damage control that was required
when some experimental programs of monastic formation became untracked. In the name of pluralism, ongoing formation became a Procrustean bed of centering prayer and Jungian psychoanalytic theory, Meyers-Briggs and the Enneagram, twelve-step therapies and Journaling. Helpful as some of these methods may have been for individual or community spiritual development, they often had the effect of slighting the components of mainline monastic spirituality that were expected in formation programs. The discipline of lectio divina and traditional ascetical practices seemed to be overlooked by many involved in formation, replaced by a set of individualized "career" specializations and even more basic "survival" skills for human development.”

I do not know what else “Word & Spirit 17 Monastic On-going Formation” may describe, but in relation to the lay person seeking a more ascetic/monastic manner of living in the world, the heart-centered daily conversion seems to be path for me.

Both “Word & Spirit 17" and a book I got last year, "The Love of Learning and the Desire for God," by Jean Leclercq, OSB. Fordham University Press, New York, 2001, were acquired during trips to the St. Leo Abbey bookstore when I was not looking for a book or expecting to buy one. But as soon as I looked at the cover of each book, I knew I would buy it — without knowing that each was a used book or that it was the only copy at the bookstore. And as I picked up each book I thought "this is why I came today."

Both of these books have special places in my small library, like old teachers they say, "First, you must know the question."
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Footnotes:

Picture is Santiago de Compostella by jamesdale10. My blog about this pilgrimage site is here.

Here is a prior blog on the book "The Love of Learning and the Desire for God."

Video of St. Leo Abbey. A Benedictine oblate blog

Tampa Tribune Religion Reporter Michelle Bearden prepared an excellent video about St. Leo Abbey.

St. Leo Abbey, Florida, USA, is where my wife and I are oblates. This short video might help put faces and places to what I blog about. The abbot gives all of our oblate programs and Brother Stanislaw gives the lessons for the oblate novice classes.

Michelle Bearden also wrote a Tampa Tribune article about St. Leo Abbey. My blog about the article is here.

Regardless of your denomination or faith, you are welcome to have an individual or group spiritual retreat at St. Leo Abbey -- you need not be a Catholic. Here is a map to St. Leo Abbey and my web page over on the Oblate Spring giving contact information about the abbey and the map.

I know you will enjoy visiting the abbey just for a day trip or to have a retreat. Even if you do not go there on a retreat you can pray with the monks. The divine office is chanted in the abbey church and there are books for guests. Don't worry if you have not prayed with the monks before -- they will show you what to do -- arrive about 15 minutes early and a monk will set out and explain the books. It is easy.

To also get more information you can visit the St. Leo Abbey web site. There is a retreat center and a guest house. When my wife and I visit for our own private retreats we stay in the guest house. Group retreats are mostly housed in the retreat center.

My Monk Myths. A Benedictine oblate blog

As a former long-time atheist, when I became a Christian, I changed my mind on several fundamental subjects. Or perhaps more accurately, I should say I came to see that my old ways of thinking were wrong because they were built upon dim assumptions. After an encounter with God, my entire life changed. I was led to the foot of the cross and a new life in Christ. That was about 25 years ago.

With such a large lesson in “I was wrong about that” out of the way, now I actually look forward to the frequent opportunities to learn something that will adjust my thinking toward a closer understanding of God’s truth.

One correction to my assumptions in the past few years has been about monks. I had gathered a mental montage of religious life from the wider culture, TV, books, and all the other sources that shrink-wrap our thinking. I had never met a monk.

Now that I know a few monks at the St. Leo Abbey in Florida, I can say that virtually every one of my previous images of monks was wrong.

The most striking change in my view is that monks are normal and regular people. They are approachable and welcoming. Gone is the stereotyped image of a person living in a false, make-believe land removed from world.

However, the most subtle change in my view is that monks are living witnesses to their vows of stability, conversatio morum, and obedience. Those are the vows from Chapter 58 of the Rule of St. Benedict.

My corrected understanding of monks is that they are people like the rest of us AND (not “but”) they live following ancient monastic principles with roots in the earliest days of Christianity — from “follow me,”(1) and “sell your possessions and give to the poor,”(2) to “pray without ceasing.”(3)

Monks are both more typical of human kind than my previous views AND are also more admirable Christian witnesses. Like nearly every more-accurate understanding I achieve, truth’s light is far brighter just below the world’s dull laminations.
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Footnotes:

Picture is "Abbot Philip of Christ in the Desert Monastery" in New Mexico, USA, by Bellagooch.

Christ in the Desert's web site is packed with monastic information. I enjoy, for example, the Abbot's Notebook. This monastery was where the 2006 TV show "The Monastery" (the USA version) was filmed.

(1) Luke 9:23-26

“Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” NIV

(2) Luke 12:33-34

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. NIV

Above quotes from HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

(3) 1 Thess 5:17-18

“pray without ceasing.” NASB

Above "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 Used by permission."