Notes of hospitality. A Benedictine oblate blog

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

[Click picture to enlarge]

Over 1.5 million people live within a 45-minute drive to St. Leo Abbey. Five of us visited the abbey today to pray vespers with this Catholic Benedictine monk community -- the only one in Florida.

I was by myself and there was the man staying in the guest house — we met and talked with him last Sunday in the abbey bookstore — and there was a family of 3 including a child about 8 years old.

Five visitors is about average -- to pray with the monks during their times of the divine office. It is easy to greet and exchange a couple of words (literally) with every visitor and I try to do that if possible — and other visitors will often smile and speak first to me as well — again, these are not conversations — just a sincere smile and acknowledgment.

I can't remember the last time anyone was not considerate of the stillness that attends the prayers or the obvious desire of all visitors to spend the time in prayer rather than chatting.

Today after the last words of vespers, all of the monks and the visitors bow to the altar and then the monks walk out of the Church of the Holy Cross in silence as they go to dinner. The visitors are standing as the monks exit and we stand still until the last monk has left the church — well, the last monk except the guest master monk who takes care of the microphones, lights, and guests staying for dinner. And there is one other monk who stays -- the monk who plays the organ.

The monk who plays the organ will always, as he did today keep playing while the visitors — now alone in the dimly lit church after the other monks have left — gather their belongings and begin to walk to the big double doors. His gesture of accompanying us with beautiful music as we leave is a perfect example of Benedictine hospitality. I always have the feeling that he is thinking: "this little musical blessing is also for the other 1,499,995."

The Contemplative House. A Benedictine oblate blog

by cohdra

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Lectio divina, praying the divine office, the treasured spiritual retreats at a monastery, and time spent at rest in the harbor of silence, are all helped by several home improvements.

Big Ben Chimes. Every fifteen minutes we hear beautiful chimes just like those at the St. Leo Abbey where we visit. Our chimes are played on an inexpensive second-hand computer we bought from a man who repairs and then resells old computers. The computer is connected to a pair of deep bass speakers and another set of wireless speakers located in another part of the house. Every fifteen minutes we are reminded to pray. We use this chimes program. The sound from this program is of very high quality.

Wind Chimes. We like to be reminded of the Holy Spirit and the wind chimes give that reminder in beautiful sounds. Both the Big Ben Chimes and the wind chimes outside our home illustrate that although we often speak of making our home quieter, that is somewhat misleading. What we actually want to do is replace noise from the world with sounds that call us to God's peace and turn our hearts to his path. We have the grandfather chimes from Jacob chimes.

Phone flasher. Silencing the phone is a way to avoid noisy disruptions. We bought the KMFT-793 Krown Strobe Visual Flasher that allows us to see a very subtle flashing light anytime we have a phone call. Although the small flasher is called a strobe, if you are imagining the strobe lights you have seen on emergency vehicles or remember from your college days (oh, boy) — you have the wrong image of the Krown Flasher — the light is subdued and lacks anything that could be called intense.

Prayer chair. Some fortunate oblates have rooms in their homes set aside for prayer. We have not been able to do that, but I have a chair that is used for praying the divine office and lectio divina.

Candles for prayer. I like to light a candle when praying the divine office. We will light a sanctuary-style candle in the weeks before we go on retreats at the abbey.

Incense. I have not used incense yet, but after writing this blog, thought it would be another practice I should try. You can get incense online from the incense shop of Hermits of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel who are in Texas, USA.

Shades open. We like to have as much natural light in our home as possible and are surprised by the number of people whose homes have the shades or blinds shut so the home is always dark. I think people were meant to live in the light.

Home Shrine. We do not have one, but here are some links to pictures of home "altars" or places of prayer. I liked each of these examples of drawing close to God. The links are to a thread about home shrines on the Catholic Answers forum. It is a long thread and I selected some of the most recent pictures. The short descriptions are my own -- my impression of the pictures.

Simple, Benedictine

Icon beauty in gold

Celtic ocean calm

Window cross

Mother and child

Angels protecting

Prayer reading corner

Book stand. My wife reads without one, but I like to use a small wooden book stand when I am sitting in the prayer chair. I use the books The Monastic Diurnal and Benedictine Daily Prayer, both require a lot of flipping back and forth. The book stand helps.

Gardens. This takes the most time and is constantly on our list of projects, but no matter how large or small, some form of garden is part of the monastic pattern.

How does your home help you on the journey to dwell with God?

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Footnotes:

The garden picture at the top of this blog is 000_0008_0001ENHsml.jpg by cohdra and is used subject to license.

I have linked to several of the products we use -- there are places where similar or superior products might be bought and I receive no compensation for the links placed in this blog or any purchases you make. I am not associated with any of the companies listed. You must decide if any of the products would help your home, but I do think it is a sign that the first review on Amazon for the Krown Strobe Visual Flasher said the unit was purchased for a church! :)

Cassian – Our Summer Reading. A Benedictine oblate blog

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

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My wife and I are reading the Conferences of John Cassian in a translation by Edgar C. S. Gibson available at the fine Order of St. Benedict website - Cassian. This translation of the Conferences was published in 1894 as part of "A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 11."

About every day we read a chapter in the Cassian's Conferences and then discuss it.

We almost always identify the same key points in a chapter and we give the same explanation of what the chapter means for the contemplative life. I take this to mean that Cassian wrote clearly and there's not much left for: "and what does this chapter mean to you?" We talk about what the abbots meant. The Conferences are easier to read than I thought.

And we each add observations based on our own interests — my wife might mention something that is similar to an idea from St. Teresa of Avila or I will claim I see where something in the Rule of St. Benedict came from Cassian — I actually do not know enough to say "this is from Cassian," but — at least until my wife reads this blog — she does not know that.

We look forward to our discussions of Cassian's Conferences.1

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Footnotes:

1. St. Benedict mentions Cassian's Institutes and Conferences in Chapter 73 of the Rule of St. Benedict as good reading for the monks.

Cassian was born in what is known today as southern France or in Romania. Cassian lived 360 to 435 AD — which is within a few generations after the end in 313 AD of the Roman persecutions of Christians.

Cassian died about 45 years before the birth in 480 AD of St. Benedict.

Cassian traveled extensively in the Egyptian deserts to learn about monasticism which had began to flourish in Egypt about the time the Roman persecutions were ending.

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.” (John Cassian and Augustine Casiday, Saint John Cassian on prayer (Oxford: SLG P, 2006) pg. # 1.)

St. Benedict of Nursia, Italy. Born at Nursia, c. 480 AD; died at Monte Cassino, Italy, 543 AD. Benedict was author/compiler of a Rule for monks. The Rule consists of 73 short chapters on how to live in a monastery.

St. Benedict’s Rule became the foundation of western monasticism.

The weeks after Pentecost. A Benedictine oblate blog

Entrance to Church of the Holy Cross at St. Leo Abbey, Florida

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I tried to observe the seasons of Lent, Easter and Pentecost with as much concentration as I had. During Lent I tried a mild fast — the first I had ever done. The result was that I have seen first hand why Christians fast — ascesis (rigorous training, self-discipline, or self-restraint) and penance and "mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart."1 Those reasons fit well in the monastic purposes of the Rule of St. Benedict — from the Prologue:

To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King, and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.

And I have a better understanding of the importance of Pentecost as beginning the age in which we live. I like using The Monastic Diurnal because it describes the current part of the liturgical calendar as "weeks after Pentecost."2

I am better able to see the relation of today to Pentecost and also its link to Easter and Lent and Christmas when I mark the time as the weeks after Pentecost.

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Footnotes:

1. From Paragraph 2043 of the Catechism

2. Here are some of my blogs comparing "The Monastic Diurnal" and "Benedictine Daily Prayer."

"The love of God is all that matters." A Benedictine oblate blog

Church of the Holy Cross

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"The love of God is all that matters." Those words ended the homily by an elderly monk priest Saturday, June 5, 2010 at St. Leo Abbey, Florida, USA. My wife and I were on a weekend retreat there having arrived Friday afternoon before Vespers (divine office explained). Saturday's 7:00 am Lauds and 7:30 am Mass pulled us quickly into the pace of monastic time.

The elderly priest's voice was quiet and trembled a little during all but his concluding words. The concluding words of his homily were just as soft, but were spoken with astonishing authority — they stayed forefront in my mind throughout the rest of the retreat. And even now, when I thought about all that I might say in a blog after my long Lent preparation, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Octave of Pentecost absence, it was those words, "The love of God is all that matters," that first came to mind as a fitting oblate blog topic.

The love of God is all that matters. Those words began our first full day at the abbey.

We had a wonderful time during the rest of our stay.

Those early morning Masses at the abbey are much shorter than the Mass on Sundays when the abbey's Church of the Holy Cross is nearly always overflowing. But for the non-Sunday Mass, usually there are only a handful of people — typically people like us on retreat and a few local women who faithfully come every day. The morning also means the abbey church is especially cool, quiet, and filled with a much softer light than later in the day.

At Lauds (morning prayer — part of the Benedictine Divine Office) before Mass, the monks all arrive hooded and in silence that began the night before at Compline (the night prayer — part of the Benedictine Divine Office). At Compline the monks had left the abbey church with their monastic hoods over their heads. The monks do not speak until the next morning at the start of Lauds when they remove their hoods in unison and begin from Psalm 51:15, "Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall proclaim your praise."

After Lauds there is a short break before Mass. And the short homily last Saturday ended with the monk's great wisdom for the start of our retreat and for these weeks after Pentecost — "The love of God is all that matters."

Overview of English Benedictines. A Benedictine oblate blog

Monastic Life is an overview English Benedictine communities. The short, well-organized 14-page PDF summary has a detailed drawing of a typical monastery, describes daily life, and has a good description of how monasteries affected and improved the life of the wider community. This resource is from Feltonfleet School in Cobham, Surrey, England.

From "Monastic Life"

"The Importance of Monasteries

"A monastery existed to serve God in a number of ways.

● To worship and praise God
● To help the poor, elderly and sick.
● To look after and help travellers
● To maintain learning and to educate people
● To feed and cloth the inhabitants of the monastery to ensure that they could carry out their duties.
● The Medieval monastery played an important part in relieving the suffering, poverty and ignorance that was prevalent in those days of war and hardship.
● The monks were experts on medicine and farming techniques.
● They offered shelter and hospitality to the poor.
● They were often the only hospital around.
● The monastery offered a certain number of places for teaching pupils the elements of reading, writing, and Latin. This was virtually the only source of education in the Middle Ages. There was many a baron who could not read or write.
● The monasteries set a rare example of hygiene and cleanliness. Rivers were tapped to provide a supply of fresh water.
● Since the monks were some of the very few who could read and write, they have provided us with invaluable information in the form of books, pamphlets and pictures.
● Monks also promised to look after elderly (rich) people in exchange for a gift of money or land. This was called a corrody. This was rather like a medieval insurance policy that was only of benefit to those who could afford it."

I liked finding "Monastic Life" on the Internet recently especially because the document is part of the educational resources available at Feltonfleet School in Cobham, Surrey, England. The Feltonfleet School is an independent day and weekly boarding Preparatory School for boys and girls aged 3-13 years. How about that!

I am sure there are other schools providing information about the Benedictines in Medieval times, but this was the first one I found that has the information on the Internet. Well done Feltonfleet School.

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Footnotes:

Picture is "The remains of the Abbey" (Shaftesbury Abbey) by Digging For Fire and is used subject to license.

From Wikipedia:

"Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. Founded in the year 888, the abbey was the wealthiest Benedictine nunnery in England, a major pilgrimage site, and the town's central focus. The abbey was destroyed in 1539 by the order of Thomas Cromwell."

"Thomas Hardy wrote of the Abbey ruins:

"Vague imaginings of its castle, its three mints, its magnificent apsidal Abbey, the chief glory of south Wessex, its twelve churches, its shrines, chantries, hospitals, its gabled freestone mansions—all now ruthlessly swept away—throw the visitor, even against his will, into a pensive melancholy which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape around him can scarcely dispel."

Note: the links to the file on the Feltonfleet School's web site did not work when I first posted this blog, here is a copy of Monastic Life.

Allies on the Monastic Life. A Benedictine oblate blog

Here is a quote from The Monastic Life by Thomas W. Allies, 1898(1) on the history and importance of the monastic life:

"The fact that the Son of God had become man for the salvation of men, and died upon the Cross, laid hold of the heart in all its force, and the word of the Apostle that baptism into Christ was baptism into His death, had its full meaning for every believer. Such a conviction might of itself draw a young and fervent spirit, such as that of Antony, into the desert; but there is a great step between an individual mind actuated with such feelings, and a community living a joint life together in the exercise of them. While Antony was thought to be the most perfect example of the ascetic life in itself, Pachomius rather bore the title of its legislator. The first community life at Tabenna was formed by him. The power by which such a community became a house, having its own corporate life; a father, was the mainspring of its action; members, whose office was as distinct as the office of the eye, the hand, and the foot of the human body, yet who grew together from day to day, from month to month, from year to year, this power added to the individual ascetic an impact of numbers which betokened another creation. Herein lay the vast importance of the new life which sprung from the action of the Fathers of the Desert.

"Basil entered very much into this new life. He had seen it in his visits to Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. He carried it out personally in his own life with St. Gregory on the banks of the Iris in Pontus. He furthered its attainment in his capital city, Cæsarea. The formation, growth, and consolidation of the monastic family is the crown of the ascetic life; the persistence of such a family to endure not merely for single lives but for generations, preserving one spirit, is the crown of perfect success — a success incomparably more difficult than an individual life, however high its purpose and perfect its accomplishment. Since the Church herself in all her grandeur, as in all her tenderness, is one family of Christ, it may well be that a monastic family, as a crystal of like quality, however small, may be the most perfect specimen of the one Church."

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Footnotes:

The picture is new 037a.jpg by jdurham and is used subject to license.

(1) Thomas W. Allies, The Monastic Life, From the Fathers of the desert to Charlemagne (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co. Ltd, 1898) pg. 97.

These two contemporary reviews of The Monastic Life attested even then to its merit. The Month 1896 and see also The Dublin Review 1896.

The Monastic Life can be read on Google Books and Archive I could not find an old used-book version of the book (1896 or 1898) — If anyone knows where one is for sale, please email me. There are many good new reprints in hardback or paperback.

List of oblate newsletters. A Benedictine oblate blog

A list of online oblate newsletters has been added to the Oblate Spring web site, the companion to this blog. The list is by state and includes links to the oblate program’s web page, the monastery’s main web page, and locator maps.

The 1971 Guidelines for Oblates of Saint Benedict (adopted by oblate directors) lists what proper oblates strive to do. One duty is to foster a spirit of community. It’s clear the Guidelines mean the oblate community of the oblate’s final oblation, but fostering that local community can sometimes be helped by knowing what other oblate communities are doing.

If we were talking about most kinds of organizations, we would be interested in what new idea, new activities, or new practices have been successfully applied elsewhere. But being Benedictine, perhaps we are also just as interested in hearing what traditional ideas, ancient activities, and past practices are being followed at other monasteries and oblate programs.

Of course, new ideas are worthy of following too. For example, as my previous blog showed, I think the Benedictine communities should be encouraged to embrace the Internet and link people to the light of Benedictine spirituality. Yes, the more, the quicker, the better!

The nifty Connect Saint Meinrad page is the first of its kind I have seen by any monastery — it’s Saint Meinrad Archabbey’s separate web page devoted exclusively to electronic connections to Saint Meinrad, you know, I mean like Twitter, blogs, Facebook, RSS feeds, ringtones, YouTube, iTunes, etc.

The list of online oblate newsletters may help us hear the wider oblate community.

Jan. 7, 2010 Update: on the same topic is my Examiner.com article, St. Meinrad Archabbey uses social media to stay connected.

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Footnotes:

Picture is sunset3.jpg by cohdra and is used subject to license.

New Year, New Universalis Calendar. A Benedictine oblate blog

Each year around this time I toss out the last page of my Universalis calendar and print a new one for the year. When printed it’s about 16 pages so it folds up nicely and fits well with my stack of books I have for praying the divine office, reading in The Rule of Saint Benedict, and monastic study.

The Universalis calendar has the saints’ and feast days, but many web sites have that. Universalis also has the Psalm Week which is handy if you use Benedictine Daily Prayer (BDP).

Universalis is a leader in electronic versions of the divine office/liturgy of the hours (LOH) see my example of the LOH. You can read the Universalis LOH at their web site, by daily e-mail, on your iphone, and as an e-book on Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble, etc. Some parts of Universalis are available as RSS feeds.

While I use a low-tech printed version of the Universalis calendar daily to check what day it is, the wide use of Universalis technology means that it is just a matter of time until we see monks in choir each holding an e-book-type device instead of several sets of liturgical books.

Monks with Kindles? Monasteries will create electronic versions of their liturgy of the hours materials: psalms, readings, and hymns, and download them into all the monks’ devices each week. The devises will have the names of monks beside the parts they are to lead.

I do not know if Universalis will be the first to offer monasteries electronic versions of the entire liturgy of the hours for hand-held devices, but the technology is available and its benefits are becoming more widely accepted.

Whether you enjoy Universalis because you can get a handy paper calendar or enjoy the fact that when sitting at a red light or waiting in line you can read the Office of Readings for the day, take an Internet journey over to the good folks at Universalis and see the future of the liturgy of the hours.