Happy Easter 2011 email.wmv

Crucified

This inauguration and this growth are both symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of a crucified Jesus,(5) and are foretold in the words of the Lord referring to His death on the Cross: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself".(6) LG 3

Arms in Surrender by Lynn O’Gorman Latchford

Listening to you as all color drained from the room
exhaling the breath of me.
Eyes stinging from a tortuous life of eighteen years
etched in a stricken face.
Watching you eviscerate a suffering self
until devoid of humiliation.
Raising your arms in surrender seeing the crucified Christ
in your tearing eyes.
Grief pouring from you in an endless stream covering a vast floor.

Words from you lie at my feet feeling them enter my skin
crawling to the heart of me.
Too familiar the refrain of violence echoed from your mouth
as you seek solace.
Wanting comfort from an audience of near apathy save one,
who hears and understands.
Arms aching with the emptiness that exists
wanting to cradle your head in warmth.
Loving you as I do from afar caught between words of comfort and restraint.

Captured by your distress and agony wanting only to soothe you
as you speak on.
This floor of dark suffering, this abyss of horror that strikes terror
into a fractured soul.
Watching you prostrated in this place of unspeakable torment
and abject anguish hoping,
Hoping you see the doors of escape that exist and are there
for throwing open to relief.
You speak of forgiveness of the unforgivable and I can finally breathe routing for you.

The purist of truths emanate from your mouth as you forgive
the evil that can exist in life.
Wondering do you know that seeing love in all, loving everything in everyone
is the key.
Unlocking the secrets to a life of peace and joy
repairing your heart with love.
Stitch a soul worth mending with the colors of life that exist
in unguarded love.
Embrace yourself gently, inhaling kindness, pull it around you as a mantle to evil,
arms in surrender to the Love that draws all things to it.


All things and people are meant to be drawn up into God. It is precisely why out of compassion for His wounded and suffering creatures, He came to us, died on a cross for us. It is why in others' suffering we see Him clearly in their face. He wants us to know He is with us. We are not alone. He has drawn us to Him at our worst moments.

Hospitality of the Heart

Being-the-Other... in Armagh from 12 to 14 April as the young theologians strove to embrace a place of Divine silence and space to reach across divides and listen with the ears of our hearts. We spoke, we listened, we engaged both the mind and the heart of our fellow brothers and sisters. We were evocative, creative and allowed the winds of change to blow silently through our souls and heard much of what happens in the world happens also here in this place, this room of "others," no longer other, but part of us.

We are no longer strangers... and as I sit now in the sunshine at a desk covered with papers and books and utensils of academia as the songs of spring and the breezes of spring and the fragrances of spring drift in through the window... but more importantly, I reflect on the mind of spring within me, as I feel nourished and loved by the presence of each of you - your gifts of self. I will treasure these memories of words spoken, glances met and eyes locked in common recognition that we go to God through each other. We are souls in journey that have proffered heaven's gifts to each other. How beautiful, how lovely, how joyful.

God bless each of you! I pray that courage is always our guide to be open and vulnerable and intimate with the Divine that exists in and for each of us. Hospitality of the heart...


Courage

A soul in journey
must depart,
before life’s favors
can impart.


The joy offered
to bestow,
from heaven’s gifts
to man below.

Embrace a future with
arms aflung,
to hang your silver
star upon.

When destiny meets you
on the path -
welcome the stranger.
Don’t let him pass.

Courage meets
those in flight.
Spread your wings
and welcome
day to night.

New Monasticism Response to Criticism by Historians

This Blog Post was posted on 2011 5 March at
http://gratefultothedead.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/new-monastic-jonathan-wilson-hartgrove-retells-monastic-history/
in support of Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove's stance on New Monastcism in refutation of a critique by a truly awesome website dedicated to history (and the like) called "Grateful for the Dead." There are many interesting topics to be discussed at this site. So have a look. But I couldn't let the blog post go without comment.

The term “new monasticism” was actually coined by Basil the Great. He wanted to distinguish his monastic foundation which was contemplative and active (service to caring for the poor and ill in local hospitals) from the extreme eremeticism of the Egyptian monastics. Some of his most faithful followers however, rejected this new monasticism for the asceticism displayed by Antony the Great, such as Evagrius Ponticus. It should be noted that the desert monastics followed the Essenes and Therapuetae, those who led a life set apart and of holiness that was an expression of the Levitical Holiness Code to care for the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the resident alien of the communities. What W-H, as well as many “new monastics” are replicating, is this same call to holiness, that is an ancient practice that continuously and dynamically renews itself to be expressed as a soul’s eremetical state of being – that society and institutional churches still fail to heed as a need of its participants. This spiritual calling to live the Gospel of the Mount, which is reconceptualized by Jesus from the Levitical Holiness Code and imparted to his Jewish followers and disciples, continues to be necessary even today. W-H is attempting to reanimate this tradition, as “our neighbor” still continues to be marginalized by ideologically politicized agendas. As the homeless, the poor, the “orphans” of our society continue to be oppressed by society at large, it will be the “monastics” who pick up the pieces of society abandoned to the periphery. And why? The monastic aim, from the Gospel’s time, Basil’s time, Antony’s time throughout history was to cultivate purity of heart. Purity of heart is found by those points of insertion a person wants to make Gospel contact, either with self or those in need. There is a reason why when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist that the heavens opened and it was heard, “This is my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Beloved was not a title, but a command to be love in the world. Purity of heart calls one to be love in the world. Monasticism is the call to be pure of heart and love in the world. New Monasticsm is the echo from the Jordan. Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove heard the call. I think we can all forgive a bit of historical lapse in his work as the aim is not to teach history but to call those to a way of life that is Beloved.

The Laity and New Monasticism

One should never forget that the history of monasticism and its original rules calling for asceticism and a life of prayer were for the laity. Those men and women called to a consecrated life of the heart. A heart set apart for God to do God's work in the world. A life of ora et labora, lived simply and in community with one another. The tenets of the beauty of this life were adopted by the Christian Church at large after seeing how successful a life lived in Gospel truth could be; having a profound effect on the community at large that surrounded these men and women of prayer and stillness. When reflecting on the words below of consecrated life, let us not forget that this is a state of the heart, mind and soul oriented to God. It is a life for everyone. We are all called to be monks at heart. It will lead to harmony of the heart and peace in the world. It is a life for you and for me.

Vita Consecrata (Consecrated Life) Pope John Paul II, 1996.

[Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Bishops and Clergy Religious Orders and Congregations Societies of Apostolic Life Secular Institutes and All the Faithful on the Consecrated Life and its Mission in the Church and in the World. Rome, March 25, 1996]

"Monastic life in the East and the West

"6. The Synod Fathers from the Eastern Catholic Churches and the representatives of the other Churches of the East emphasized the evangelical values of monastic life, which appeared at the dawn of Christianity and which still flourishes in their territories, especially in the Orthodox Churches.

"From the first centuries of the Church, men and women have felt called to imitate the Incarnate Word who took on the condition of a servant. They have sought to follow him by living in a particularly radical way, through monastic profession, the demands flowing from baptismal participation in the Paschal Mystery of his Death and Resurrection.

"In this way, by becoming bearers of the Cross (staurophoroi), they have striven to become bearers of the Spirit (pneumatophoroi), authentically spiritual men and women, capable of endowing history with hidden fruitfulness by unceasing praise and intercession, by spiritual counsels and works of charity. In its desire to transfigure the world and life itself in expectation of the definitive vision of God's countenance, Eastern monasticism gives pride of place to conversion, self-renunciation and compunction of heart, the quest for hesychia or interior peace, ceaseless prayer, fasting and vigils, spiritual combat and silence, Paschal joy in the presence of the Lord and the expectation of his definitive coming, and the oblation of self and personal possessions, lived in the holy communion of the monastery or in the solitude of the hermitage.

"The West too from the first centuries of the Church has practiced the monastic life and has experienced a great variety of expressions of it, both cenobitic and eremetical. In its present form, inspired above all by Saint Benedict, Western monasticism is the heir of the great number of men and women who, leaving behind life in the world, sought God and dedicated themselves to him, "preferring nothing to the love of Christ".

"The monks of today likewise strive to create a harmonious balance between the interior life and work in the evangelical commitment to conversion of life, obedience and stability, and in persevering dedication to meditation on God's word (lectio divina), the celebration of the Liturgy and prayer.

"In the heart of the Church and the world, monasteries have been and continue to be eloquent signs of communion, welcoming abodes for those seeking God and the things of the spirit, schools of faith and true places of study, dialogue and culture for the building up of the life of the Church and of the earthly city itself, in expectation of the heavenly city."

---- Pope John Paul II, 1996
Vita Consecrata (Consecrated Life)

The Study of Liturgy

The study of liturgy is like an enormous umbrella that integrates every aspect of prayer and worship: a thorough grounding in the Scriptures along with familiarity of the Fathers, a sense of rite and ritual and esthetics and all that goes into the beauty of holiness. We are so fortunate as Benedictines that we have liturgical prayer throughout the day shaping and forming our lives. And to be actively engaged in liturgical prayer does require an intimate presence of the Holy One and the revealer of the Mysterium, Jesus the Lord, the Paschal Mystery. Knowing the Real Presence, it is a knowledge, a gnosis, that is almost ineffable. Still, we have to pursue the many ways that Christ is present in the liturgy, all liturgy, not just the Mass, and that is why ecumenical liturgies are so important. This is where we can communicate with one another, bonded by the Word, Incarnate, proclaimed, and lived, without being entrapped by a myopic understanding of Eucharist that divides and separates. Returning to the early Church Fathers, liturgy was the primary locus of theology. It was in liturgical, sacramental celebrations that the real theological UNDERSTANDING of God, Christ, Mary, the angels and saints took pace, as it still does in the Eastern rite liturgical traditions. In the West, it is the letter, the law, that has been allowed to dominate: the mystery has been pushed aside. The liturgy is also the primary locus for mystical prayer, the hot plate and spring board for personal mystical prayer and experience. In this regard, the word mysterical prayer should be substituted for liturgical prayer. Mystical emphasizes what is latent, hidden in light inaccessible; mysterical emphasizes what has been revealed and then, experienced in a truly salvific way.

Paraphrased from Fr. Gabriel Coless, OSB, PhD, St. Mary's Abbey

Prophet Priest and King We Praise

Entomb Him we must obey.
Take Him down from the cross,
on our hearts to gently lay.
Rest in us dear sweet King,
as your praises thus we sing!
How are we to be your fruit?
Unless the harvest of you gains,
the hearts of those we have not slain,
but loved in mercy by your grace.

Let us remember in each our days,
that Resurrected we must proclaim.
Only then, then are you gift to sing,
as we render you ready - forever King.
Forgive our failing, forgive our fear,
the world is harsh and ever plunges,
in us, as in your side, the piercing spear.
But we are ready, ready to die,
for you our King through the veil of tears.

Let us not forget that we are yours,
tasked and asked to be with all.
Open their ears and hearts to listen,
as we whisper your Word as sung,
knowing then our work, it has begun.
Teach us, ever merciful Lord,
that we should humbly pray and raise;
our voices to all, exhorting the tune-
of Prophet, Priest and King we praise.