The Body and Blood of Christ

Yesterday was the Feast of Corpus Christi, the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ.    A beautiful feast indeed, but this year underlying it was a sad memory.  It marked the ten year anniversary of a tragedy that happened to our brother monks at Conception Abbey just 2 miles away.  On the morning of June 10, 2002 a gunman entered the Abbey church and proceeded into the monastery enclosure with an assault rifle.  He gunned down every monk he saw, killing two, seriously wounding two and then committed suicide in the back pew of the Abbey church.  The gunman was around 70 years old with no known connection to the Abbey that was ever found.

I had been out watering flowers at the front of our monastery when another sister yelled out to me to come inside because there was a gunman over at the abbey and we were supposed to go on lockdown.  I thought this must be some kind of mistake because this kind of thing does NOT happen in little Conception (population 56) or Clyde, Missouri (population 72).   We are out in the middle of nowhere and people don't even lock their doors here.   Rumors abounded in the early hours that 20 monks had been shot or the gunman was on the loose and we shouldn't let anyone into our monastery who came knocking.

The monks were forced to wait outside the whole day as their monastery was checked out room by room until they determined it was a lone gunman.   Radio and TV stations had descended on the area to give live reports of what was going on throughout the day.   The most impressive thing was that the Abbot was stressing forgiveness every time he was interviewed.

We waited helplessly at Clyde not knowing what to do for our brothers at this moment.   But we did the one thing we COULD do - we invited them over to pray Vespers with us and eat the evening meal with us because their church was cordoned off as a crime zone with police tape.    The Abbot mentioned during a final radio interview that the sisters had issued an invitation to pray and eat at the convent that evening.   Because everyone was listening to the local broadcast, our cooks showed up to help get food ready and our workman who drives the school bus volunteered to bring the monks over with that.  That's what happens in a small town.

I will never forget the look of shock and pain on their faces as they stepped off the bus at our monastery entrance.   Vespers was sung to a background of occasional quiet weeping as the emotions washed over all of us.  Supper was simple fare but the real food we shared was our presence to each other during this tragedy.   It was a sign to me of what the 'body of Christ' is about.

Jesus gave himself as food to share his Divine Life and Love and to strengthen us on the journey...I am convinced that is what enabled those monks to speak of forgiveness after those shocking events 10 years ago.  I know I was strengthened by the witness to forgive a most terrible crime.