Prayers with monks. A Benedictine oblate blog

Church of the Holy Cross
St. Leo Abbey, Florida, USA

My wife and I went to vespers at St. Leo Abbey, Florida, USA, today. We arrived at 4:00 pm for the evening prayers in the church with the monks at 5:00 pm.

In the hour before the monks arrived in person we read and prayed. I read a portion of St. Augustine's sermon on "A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit." (scroll down in this Office of Readings.) My wife read Cassian's Conferences.

Although a man was praying in the church when we arrived, he left before the start of vespers. My wife and I were the only people to pray with the monks at evening prayer and to watch as they entered and left the church. My wife commented after we arrived back home after 6:00 pm that she had the thought while in the abbey church that it was good that there was someone in the church for vespers. Today it happened to be us.

The monks processed into the church in silence. The monks were wearing their long, white choir robes that make them seem to glide across the floor. There is a rhythm about the way they enter, take their places, sing the divine office, and leave the church. A flow and movement connects all the parts. The monks appear at the entrance — each pair of monks two-by-two — each making the Sign of the Cross together, walking to the front of the church, making one step up together onto the platform, taking a few more steps, and then bowing to each other before they go to sit in the choir stalls. They sing the divine office and then process out to complete this liturgy (public worship). And like the other hours in the divine office, this evening monastic prayer constitutes and joins with the Catholic (universal) Church at prayer.

The architecture of the Church of the Holy Cross makes the St. Leo Abbey vespers a beautiful part of the Church at prayer. The abbey church is well suited to show the cadence of the procession into the church as the monks take their places in the mirror-image choir stalls. The series of arches along both sides of the church moves the eye toward the front of the church, the rows of pews are markers as each pair of monks moves along the way, and the step onto the choir-stall platform is a physical step up anticipating the monks lifting their hearts and voices to God.

Even though we are not able to visit the abbey often, being able to pray with the monks is a major part of our lives. We will think about the prayers for days. And we know that we are blessed by God to be able to have a monastery close to our home.

Monasticism's limited relevance to my spiritual needs. A Benedictine oblate blog

The Carthusian Monastery d'Scala-Dei - Ladder of God

[Click picture to enlarge]

I could never see myself as a monk. Who would? Monks and nuns are shut away from the real world. How is that relevant today?

No, I could never be a monk except for the parts of monasticism about:

Seeking a deeper spiritual life
Seeking God in everything I do
Praying without ceasing
Silence
Meditation
Mysticism
Contemplation
Lectio divina (divine reading)
The divine office
Living a simple life free of the world's fads and clatter
Making my life the "journey to dwell with God"
Being refreshed from the wells of ancient Christian spirituality and the early desert and church fathers.

So I guess I can see that some parts of monasticism might apply to the spirituality I seek. But that’s all. No more.

Let monks and nuns keep everything else about monastic life that does not apply to me — you know, those parts about learning how to live in harmony in a monastic community and how to get along with the people we live with and share life with. That's not relevant to me, I am married with a family.

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Footnotes:

Picture is The Carthusian Monastery d'Scala-Dei by art_es_anna and is used subject to license. The link to the picture contains information by the photographer about this first Carthusian monastery in the Iberian Peninsula. Here is another summary about the Ladder of God monastery.

Pilgrims and oblates. A Benedictine oblate blog

My wife and I are back from a Benedictine oblate retreat over the weekend — Friday through Sunday evening.

Like the Mediaeval pilgrims who were told “one’s pilgrimage does not end in Santiago — it begins there”(1) we came home feeling that our spiritual retreat did not end on Sunday evening — now it begins.

We are fortunate that the conferences during the retreat were led by the abbot — the youngest abbot in the American-Cassinese Congregation of Benedictine monasteries.

When the matter is the care of souls, Benedictine abbots are a good choice. He gave much of his weekend to us and we were happy he did.

The abbot’s conferences were packed with insights from his studies on seeking and drawing closer to God, one of my favorites is from Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972):

Awareness of the ineffable is where the search begins.

Mediaeval pilgrims and Benedictine oblates learn the same truth.

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Footnotes:

(1) For more information on this great pilgrim way -- even today, see my blog giving an overview: Santiago de Compostela -- The Roads that unified Europe

Lights Arise. A Benedictine oblate blog

Yesterday I visited the St. Leo Abbey church for vespers (5:00 pm) and compline (8:00 pm). After vespers I came back inside the church about 7:00 pm and enjoyed the stillness of the quiet church for about an hour.

There are many events to watch in a quiet church. One is the lights of the saints. The afternoon sun coming through the saints’ stained-glass windows located high on the church’s west wall is cast across the church onto the church’s east wall.

The Florida sun was getting lower in the sky in the west, but the light from the saints’ windows was projected onto the church’s east wall and those patches of light slowly got higher and higher. As the sun was setting the church was fairly dark because there were only a few lights on, but I could still see traces of the saints’ light high on the east wall as if getting ready to ascend beyond the church’s interior at the end of the day.

Each time I sit quietly in the stillness of the St. Leo Abbey church I am amazed at how much action and movement there is in the church. The light through the stained-glass windows of the saints powers some of the movement.

It is movement that is just beneath my ability to see while looking directly at it, but if I look away into the stillness for a minute and then look back, I notice that the light from the saints has just moved up a bit on the opposite wall. After an hour in the church — although the process is slow — there is great change from when I arrived.

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Picture is "Kenansville,Florida sunset 2" by crossfirecw

Two Candles, One Light. A Benedictine oblate blog

I am reading “Saint John Cassian on Prayer," translated by A.M. Casiday for my Lenten reading.

Reading a book for Lent is an oblate practice borrowed from chapter 48 of the Rule, written for monks in monasteries by our Holy Father St. Benedict.

I read in my chair reserved for Benedictine prayer or reading books like “Saint John Cassian on Prayer."

A friend set up an entire prayer room in her house and that got me thinking that I could do a better job at making my prayer time more secluded from the world.

I use my prayer chair even though being an oblate has also made my “regular work time” much more a part of my “spiritual life.”

As an oblate, I see all my time as being devoted to God whether I am working or praying. On good days, the whole day seems consecrated to God — there is not one part for work and another part for spiritual contemplation.

I recognize that there is an apparent conflict in saying that my spiritual life is enhanced when I use my separate prayer chair and then also saying that my oblate practices merge the worldly and spiritual compartments of my life.

But from where I sit, either in my prayer chair or in front of my computer working, I can now see more clearly that there is no conflict and no separations.

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Picture is Candles by SeaN Rozekrans.

Meditation. A Benedictine oblate blog

Someone asked what I know about how to meditate. My wife knows much more than I do about techniques/practices and I do not know very much by comparison, but I passed along the following:

My “coming home” to meditation was when I walked onto the grounds of a 120-year-old Benedictine monastery (yes, one of the new ones!). The ancient spirituality of monasticism — dating back to the earliest desert fathers in Egypt — changed my life. What is surprising is the number of other oblates who mention experiencing the same spiritual awareness when they first visited the monastery.

Eventually, I found that my long-standing practice of slow contemplative reading was called lectio divina.

My favorite form of doing meditation is silence — not in the sense of a soundproof booth, but what I call God’s silence — hard to find. The dimly lit abbey church in the evening, a mountain, and a small island were the last three places I entered such silence. None were soundless, but all were completely still. Fortunately, the quiet, soft lights of the abbey are only about 45 minutes away. Weekends are a good time for a visit.

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The picture is "Heaven" by truebador. The photo is: "sun behind the clouds, and the cross of the "N.D. des eclaireurs" church, near "Baskinta" village-Lebanon"

Keeping Tabs. A Benedictine oblate blog

I use the book Benedictine Daily Prayer (BDP) to pray the divine office.

But BDP requires a lot of flipping from one section to another during the day and even during any particular office depending on the season or feast day.

Homemade cardstock dividers, some with text that will be used in a divine office, help avoid the flipping problems.


Some time ago I blogged about when I replaced all of my old dividers with new ones, and today I did some minor revisions and updates.

Today I added a new divider for the short little final blessing:

“May the Lord bless us,
keep away all evil,
and lead us to eternal life, Amen.

“Let us bless the Lord
Thanks be to God.”

I also added the Lord’s prayer to one of the existing dividers.


But the major change I worked on today was to redo all of the tabs on the dividers so I could change the color of the tabs.


In the past I used different colors rather arbitrarily — thinking that I needed each tab to be as different as possible from its neighbors. But I did not like that and in fact it only confused me!

So, I now have a three-color scheme based on where the dividers/tabs are in the book.


White is the color of the tabs for the dividers in the front of the BDP book, for such things as the daily Readings, Compline, the Little Hours, and a different translation for Psalm 23 for Sunday Lauds than the Psalm 23 used in BDP.


Red is the color (the red looks orange in some pictures) of the tabs for the current divine office. These tabs move in a group in the middle of the BDP book.


Black is the color of the tabs for the saints, feasts and special days which are in the back of the book.

The cardstock dividers with tabs often move through the day or the year. I also have permanent tabs on some of the pages, for the various Common for Feasts and Proper of Seasons. But I still have cardstock dividers for the Commons and Propers that I keep in the very back of the book until I need them on a particular day.

The last divine office housekeeping I did today was to print out the liturgical calendar from Universalis. While there are many web sites that have liturgical calendars, Universalis is the only one I found that has the Psalm week listed right on the calendar. Very handy. I keep the printed Universalis calendar with my stack of books I use for reading and study.


The books shown above are the ones that I am reading for the divine office and monastic study:

Benedictine Daily Prayer This book has sold for $49.95 for several years but is now on sale:
Sale Price: $34.97. Wow.

The Rule of Saint Benedict translated by Leonard Doyle

Benedictine Monachism, Dom Cuthbert Butler, 1924. Classic work of Benedictine spirituality and monasticism from the Rule of St. Benedict. Butler traces modern practices back to their origins and explains the elements of Benedictine practices.

The Love of Learning and The Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture by Jean Leclercq. The book is a series of lectures given to monks at the Institute of Monastic Studies at Sant’ Anselmo in Rome, Italy, in 1955.

OK, now I am ready to start the new liturgical year that began back in November!

I am Pro Antiphon. A Benedictine oblate blog

I have been thinking about the parts of the divine office. The antiphons, psalms, hymns, canticles, readings, Benedictus, Magnificat, responsory, Nunc Dimittis, litanies, prayers — and there may be some elements of the divine office that I have overlooked.

While I enjoy the entire divine office, I especially enjoy the antiphons and the longer readings in Vigils when the readings are from an early church father or later saint. And if pressed to give my favorite part of the divine office, it would be the antiphons because they are packed with so much of why I enjoy all of the divine office in the first place. Antiphons are like compact divine offices — full of deep spirituality and poetic imagery while also conveying the most profound truths about God.

Demanding what’s lacking. A Benedictine oblate blog

One of my favorite commentaries on Benedictine monasticism is the little book, "The Benedictines," by Dom David Knowles(1). St. Benedict’s Rule for monks written in about 530 AD has wisdom to impart to today’s world and writers like David Knowles do a good service in showing that truth.

A family is used in "The Benedictines" to illustrate how monks live together in harmony, because family-type relations are often spoken of in the Rule.

During Christmas time when some of us may have more family visits, the following quote from "The Benedictines" may help explain how to have a Benedictine relationship with all family members. This is a commentary on monks, but we can see every family here too:

“As a member of a family the Benedictine comes to realize that charity is often better than zeal and sacrifice; that it is ill quarreling in a small boat on a long voyage; that he must accept from his brothers what they have and not demand from them what they lack; that many things are healed by time. As a superior, he may have realized that here too he cannot escape from the limitations of his medium; that it is in and with and for his family that he must work; that neither hand nor head could exist without the body; that he is the head or the hand of this definite body and cannot leave it behind or tear it in pieces or transmute it into something rich and strange.”


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Footnote:

(1) "The Benedictines," A Digest for Moderns
By Dom David Knowles
Monk of Downside Abbey
Introduction by Marion R. Bowman, O.S.B.
Abbot of Saint Leo Abbey
The Abbey Press
Saint Leo, Florida
1962
Here is an incomplete, online version of this classic work.

Hoping 911 does not arrive. A Benedictine oblate blog

This happened tonight as I was arriving at the monastery for compline so it’s fair commentary under the topic of My Oblate Life.

In the five years I have had my cell phone I have been very careful not to let the battery run low. But I have been noticing that the battery has less charge so I had a good idea that on a day of especially heavy cell phone use (today I talked for 2.5 hours) I might have a call interrupted because a dead battery. Well, it happened tonight at the monastery.

Compline is at 8:00 pm and I arrived at the abbey about 7:40 pm. I had talked on the phone during the 45 minute trip to the abbey. The phone was on the passenger’s seat.

Now, I also need to tell you a bit about excellent Pasco County, Florida, where the monastery is located. It is rapidly growing, but around the abbey it is still somewhat rural — plus the abbey has been there for 119 years — everyone knows about and cares about this great local institution.

So, as I am getting out of the car at the abbey, I pick up the phone from the passenger-side seat, remove the keys and start to get out of the car. I hear the cell phone dialing in my earpiece.

Hmm, I think, the phone should be locked, oh, but wait. I look at the phone, sure enough “Dialing Emergency Number” is on the screen. Ooops. I quickly click on cancel the call and after about 2 or 3 rings, the call is cancelled — I hope.

Ten seconds later, as I am walking to the abbey, the phone rings, it’s a number I don’t recognize. I wonder if it could be 911 calling back.

If you use a cell phone “they” are able to tell where you are located, who you have been calling, maybe even what version of the Rule of St. Benedict you prefer — all I know is that they know a lot from cells phones.

I decide to let the call go to voice mail and then listen to the voice mail to see if it’s from 911. I reason that if the voice message is from 911 and they say something like — “we know you’re at the abbey so we’ll be sending the police and an emergency medical team right over” I will just call back and apologize for calling them and let them know that everyone is OK.

Yep, in just about the length of time it would take for 911 to leave the “we’re-heading-on-over-to-the-abbey” voice mail, I see the little voice-mail icon on the cell phone screen.

I replay the voice mail.

Yes, it was the 911 operator who left the voice mail message. His voice is professional, direct, concerned: “This is the 911 operator, we just received a hang-up call from this number and ........”

“And...” what? The 911 operator’s call back to my phone suddenly stops in midsentence. What comes after “AND.....” The police are rolling? The medical helicopter has been summoned from the regional medical center? The SWAT Team has been called? I need to remember to stop at Publix and buy some tea on the way home?

I look at the phone, the battery is dead, but the little hourglass rebooting icon is showing on an otherwise blank screen. I try to turn the cell phone off, it won’t turn off.

I take out the battery while I am standing at the steps of the abbey ready to go in for compline’s peace and prayer. I put the battery back in — same thing — the spinning hourglass.

I do it again, this time leaving the battery out longer. Same thing happens again. I listen for the sounds of approaching sirens, nothing yet.

Then I take out the battery and the SIM card. When I replace them, the hourglass is still spinning on a blank screen and I still cannot turn the phone off.

I wonder if I should wait to see if the phone will reset or just go on into compline.

Oh, yes, I picture it in my mind, the monks are beginning their Gregorian chant and the heavy doors of the abbey burst open as the fire fighters and Emergency Medical Personnel rush into the abbey church and point to me: “There is the guy who called, what’s your emergency?”

I decide to go into compline and take my chances. If you have read the Rule of St. Benedict you might recall the punishments under the Rule. What do you suppose the punishment was for “False 911 call during compline”? I didn’t want to think about it either.

I walked up the church stairs, looking back to see if I could see any blue or red lights off in the distance. I went in to a quiet, very dark church.

Fortunately, all I heard during compline were the 8:00 pm church bells and the blessed singing of the monks.

When compline was finished, I checked my phone and it had reset itself. I checked the voice message when I got back home to listen to the rest of the message. The end of the message was, “and if you have an emergency, please call back.” Whew!

Pope Benedict said in 2007 “A monastery is above all this: a place of spiritual power. ...Take advantage of these springs of God’s closeness in your country; treasure the religious communities,... and make use of the spiritual service that consecrated persons are willing to offer you!” Well spoken Pope, but you should add my own tip about visiting an abbey — don’t call 911 just before you enter compline.

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Photo credit: All Health Care

Source of Pope quote:

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO AUSTRIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE 850th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE SHRINE OF MARIAZELL

VISIT TO HEILIGENKREUZ ABBEY

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Sunday, 9 September 2007



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Oblate Christmas Party. A Benedictine oblate blog

My wife and I attended the oblate Christmas party Sunday at the monastery. At last month’s oblate meeting we drew a monk’s name so we could buy a gift for that monk and give it to him at the party. We drew the same name we drew last year — how about that?

One of the most enjoyable parts of getting the gift is that the gift for “our” monk is the first Christmas gift we buy, give, and see opened.

We wrapped his gift Saturday night — by itself — that small gift is on its own track through our house. Saturday night it was the time to wrap one gift for one monk and deliver it Sunday at the party.

We enjoy talking with the other oblates (oblate defined) at the Christmas party because we have much in common with them and those common interests are about the most important parts of our lives — seeking God in prayer. That creates a strong bond.

It was also good that all the gifts are for the monks. They do so much for us and the community in which they live — not the least of which is their daily prayers of the divine office they have been saying during each day, every day, for the past 119 years at this location and for about 1,500 years at other monasteries in the world. Their continuing gift to us is that they preserve an essential part of the Church — their monasteries and their conversatio morum (fidelity to the monastic life).

Pope Benedict XVI called monasteries “places of spiritual power.” We are most aware of that gift to us every time we visit. We were welcomed as Christ (from ch. 53 of the Rule). Thanks Benedictine monks.

Monastic life. A Benedictine oblate blog

Lay people living a monastic life: For many people it is the desire for a deeper spiritual life that causes them to follow this little-known and ancient part of the Catholic church.

Benedictine spirituality drew me and my wife to the Catholic Benedictine monastery near our home. We knew something was there for us the minute we walked on the abbey grounds.

Benedictine spirituality is peace, tranquility, and rest in God. For us, we had travelled many years on a spiritual path, and this was like coming to the headwaters of the stream.

Benedictine spirituality is not something added to our lives, it was the conversion of our ordinary lives into a life for God: an oblation.

Two steps forward and one farther look ahead. A Benedictine oblate blog

It’s been about two years since my wife and I first visited the monastery near our home — the abbey is about 45 minutes away on the Interstate — an easy drive and it’s just enough time to help us fully arrive when we get there physically.

We spend the drive-time talking about spiritual matters — often more in-depth discussions about topics we shared with each other at home. “I have been thinking more about what you said about ......”

Two years is also just enough time to think about where I was and where I am now since first visiting the monastery.

My current life has not changed direction from my pre-oblate life. The difference is more like the difference between partial and greater fulfillment, or between being at mile marker 10 previously and knowing I am now at mile marker 20.

I am more content, happier, and closer to God in daily life — I might say that in the two years since I began visiting the monastery I have taken two large steps forward — the greatest progress since I became a Christian. Great, right?

Yes, but having taken two steps forward has brought me to a place where I can now see farther down the road — I can see better how far away I am from the Christian soul I should have or now desire to have.

Two years ago I would have pointed to a much closer horizon.

The protection of silence. A Benedictine oblate blog

I spent most of the weekend listening to EWTN TV shows I recorded (Scandal of the Cross and Its Triumph — Bob and Penny Lord) and I played them over and over as I worked on revisions to the Oblate Spring website associated with this blog.

The TV show is on the history of church heresies. I like the Scandal of the Cross series because of its overview of large blocks of time in church history. We are more closely related to those events of long ago than ever reported in today’s press. And reading a paper from the 11th century would probably better prepare me to understand my world.

I also enjoyed thinking about a wonderful postal poem by a Square Peg Breaks Free. For me, her super poem is about time and noise. I liked the poem and the photograph by Mikey G. Ottowa.

Life has lots of noise — not the TV shows, they actually helped me see that much of what passes as news and happenings and things to follow really have little effect except as distractions today.

The postal poem and photograph helped remind me that silence’s first protection is from the noise of empty time.

What I did this week. A Benedictine oblate blog

I was inspired by all the oblate, monastic, and spiritual blogs I read this week. All the blogs I link to were particularly meaningful to me this week. Each one described some aspect of God’s love, mercy, grace or my relation to it and a path to a more spiritual life. I found myself saying, “oh yes, now I see that more clearly than I did before.”

I have also remembered the saints this week, with a focus on the Benedictine saints. I have thought about saints, read about them, watched EWTN shows(1) on saints, and prayed the divine offices about saints this week — all those activities were particularly meaningful to me this week.

Lastly, I watched several EWTN TV shows (I had recorded previously) on Catholics in Russia and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church under the Soviets.

These TV shows gave me just a glimpse at how many people have suffered and died for their faith in the recent past.

The movement of the Church from decades of underground existence to more public expressions and the rebuilding of Catholic churches and institutions such as seminaries is one of the major Church events happening in the world today. It is a big deal.

To help document the time when the Church in Ukraine was underground, about 100,000 pages of interviews have been taken so that this chapter in history will not be lost.

Being underground meant that nothing was written, no pictures were taken, everything was secret, no buildings were built, no media campaigns were conducted, no one blogged about being a Catholic, no conferences were held, because to do so meant imprisonment or death.

All worked far more than me, they faced suffering that I cannot imagine, but they never turned their backs on Truth or God’s love.

Doesn’t everything happen in or in relation to the United States? To me, as I live in the United States, I was wrong to think that those courageous Christians in Russia and the Ukraine were somehow disconnected from the life of the Church, instead I think that it was through their hands that the Church was brought to the third millennium. It was their hands on the line, not mine.

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Footnote

(1) “Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) is now “the largest religious media network in the world, transmitting programming 24 hours a day to more than 148 million homes in 140 countries and territories on more than 4,800 cable systems, wireless cable, Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), low power TV and individual satellite users.”

EWTN's web site, has extensive written materials on Catholic topics. EWTN's reference materials are some of the best on the Internet.

The line forms at the beginning. A Benedictine oblate blog

My wife and I went to the monastery recently for a special 5:00 pm vespers. For this vespers, the monks walk into the church in a slow procession — side by side in two lines. They are not gloomy or stiff. They are not hesitant, they are not hurried.

The monks convey the confidence of flowing grace. It is a regular part of what they have done many times — but they know that this is something important — they are together, walking in as one community. The entire procession is a single, free, and purposeful gesture.

The monks are cloaked in their black robes as they always are. As they move into the church and up the center aisle, I think about the stability of this ancient form of monastic worship, the divine office.

As each pair reaches the top of the few steps to the raised area where the altar and choir stalls are located, the first two monks bow to the altar in unison and then turn and bow to each other. Then the monk on the left goes to the choir stalls on the left and monk on the right goes to the choir stalls on the right. The monks are now looking across the altar — seeing Christ in each other.

This graceful movement of coming up the steps, bowing twice, and walking to their seats continues until all the monks are seated and the divine office is about to begin.

But for me, as the last two monks walk into the church, in my mind’s eye I can still see the line of monks continuing on back — more than a 1,000 years into the past — day after day of monks who also walked silently into a church and sang the psalms — those ancient songs to God. The monks in this abbey church today deserve much respect in my view, and I know that I am very fortunate to be here to watch and pray with them.

“O God, come to my assistance.
O Lord, make haste to help me.”

Everyone bows.

“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen”


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Notes:

The verse:

“O God, come to my assistance.
O Lord, make haste to help me”

comes from Psalm 70 and was quoted by St. John Cassian (360-435 AD) as the verse that should be repeated frequently by a monk to keep his mind fixed on God. According to Cassian the psalm-70 phrase was used by the earliest desert fathers to help them in all situations.

John Cassian’s accounts and interpretations of the most ancient wisdom of the desert fathers were important in the “transmission of the culture of Egyptian monasticism into the early medieval west.” It’s a long procession of monks.

Trip to library. A Benedictine oblate blog

I did not go to the monastery for compline tonight, but I was able to spend about an hour in the excellent university library next to the monastery. I checked out three Benedictine books — published in 1912, 1937, and 1954.

Each book has material on early monasticism and I want those sections to enlighten my heart. In my mind I think I have an incorrect view of the earliest practices and I want to go back to the beginning and make sure I build on a solid foundation.

I missed going to compline tonight, my favorite office, but you can be sure I was well aware that an elder monk opened the front door of the church about 7:50 pm and walked through the darkened church as he has done for over 60 years at this abbey.

Children, knowledge and light. A Benedictine oblate blog

Yesterday I visited a Catholic Benedictine monastery for 5:00 pm vespers and 8:00 pm compline.(1)

Between vespers and compline I went to the excellent library of the university that is adjacent to the monastery.

I used the time in the library to write yesterday’s blog while sitting in one of the out-of-the-way study carrels by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Lake Jovita.

As it got dark outside I could tell that the library was filling with students. A few talked or chatted on their cell phones. All had notebook computers.

About 7:35 pm, I packed up from my work and had to walk the full length of the library to get to the front door. There was a low hum of student activity. One student was staring ahead, a couple of students appeared to be getting needed rest.

As I looked around the library, it was 40 years ago for me and I knew what they were feeling — college students working on a paper at night and on themselves when they had time.

I realized that the students were so young and that 40 years gives more experiences from which to learn the meaning of life and to find love. Ironically, these students were sitting in a place filled with knowledge, yet the knowledge to treasure might be found years ahead.

I wondered what I would have thought if a 60-year-old oblate had approached me while I was a student 40 years ago and asked if I wanted to hear about the things he once thought were true, but now knows to be dead ends? Yep, he would have been the last person I would have listened to.

I wondered about the path each of those students in the library last night would take in the next 40 years of their lives. I thought, they are young, will they gain true knowledge?

I walked to the abbey church and arrived there about 7:45 pm which gave me some time alone in the quiet, dark church before the monks came in one by one for 8:00 pm compline, the last divine office of the day.

After several minutes, I heard the solid click of the church’s heavy front door. There was no other sound, but after a little while, a black-robed monk walked slowly past me.

He is a monk in his 80s (at least). He is typically the first to enter the church before the divine offices.

This monk has been at the abbey since before WWII. Those years of monastic life came with him as he glided past me in the darkness.

He got to the steps at the front of the church. He stopped, he bowed deliberately to the altar. He took a few more steps and then stopped again to shift his weight slightly to the left to take the first step for the short climb to the choir stalls.

As I sat staring ahead, I wondered what this elder monk might have been thinking about me as he walked past in the dark. Could it have been: “He is young, will he see the light?”




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Footnote

(1) Vespers and compline are two of the daily divine offices.

1,500 years together — Attachment and Detachment. A Benedictine oblate blog

Benedictine monastic practices help me unify two concepts that I had thought were in conflict. The concepts are the sense of “otherworldliness and detachment” on one hand and “this-worldliness and attachment” on the other.(1)

The monastic desire for God drives detachment. That seems easy to see.

For me, it was less apparent how my necessary attachment to this world, to family, and to work can also propel me to God.

The answer for me was found in two things I learned because I became an oblate. Many people have come to these truths without Benedictine monasticism, but for me, that’s where the light became visible.

First, is the desire for God. The Christian’s desire for God expands through time here in this world. Through the time and trials in this world, my desire and love for God increases because I become more open to God’s unending grace in every detail of my life, the good and the bad.

Suffering and joy are reconciled in the growing desire for God. “Love gives unity to all and resolves all contradictions.”(2)

Second, the monastic life expresses that desire for God in the ancient practice of the divine office. The divine office gives a “this-world” structure and manner of moving through my busy day — always grounded on that constant desire for God — and helping to unify the attachment I have to this world with the detachment that draws me beyond.

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Footnotes and references

(1) "The Benedictines," A Digest for Moderns
By Dom David Knowles, page 41.
Monk of Downside Abbey
Introduction by Marion R. Bowman, O.S.B.
Abbot of Saint Leo Abbey
The Abbey Press
Saint Leo, Florida
1962
Here is an incomplete, online version of this classic work.

(2) "The Love of Learning and the Desire for God," by Jean Leclercq, OSB. Fordham University Press, New York, 2001, page 31.

Change what you don’t like. A Benedictine oblate blog

After my morning divine office, I read the day’s section of the Rule of St. Benedict. Many versions of the Rule divide the text into sections for reading each day so that during the calendar year you will read through the Rule three times. Today I read part of chapter 18 — “In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said” which states:

“We strongly recommend, however,
that if this distribution of the Psalms is displeasing to anyone,
he or she should arrange them otherwise,
in whatever way he or she considers better,
but taking care in any case
that the Psalter with its full number of 150 Psalms
be chanted every week
and begun again every Sunday at the Night Office.”

St. Benedict (summary of his spirituality and life) illustrates one of the strengths of his Rule in the passage quoted above. He gives an instruction, but also allows for modifications. This shows great trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of those who, understanding the principle behind a particular instruction in the Rule, should be free to apply that principle to a particular setting in the future.

I try to apply that Benedictine principle in my life as an oblate. What is the principle to be applied?

There is much freedom in the Benedictine way, but note that along with that freedom there is actually more responsibility — mindlessly following a set of rules misses the deeper point of the wisdom. I must understand the living principle not the dry rule. Very Benedictine.