The Rule of Benedict and Honey Nut Cheerios

We have a custom at our monastery in Clyde, MO to have a portion of the Rule of St. Benedict read after Lauds (morning prayer) by the prioress.   There are 73 chapters to the Rule and because it is a 6th century document, some of the chapters are pretty strange to our ears.   Sr. Pat has been reading chapter 59 - The offering of children by nobles or by the poor - the last couple of days.  

To give a little background - the dedication of children to God by their parents, the choosing of their professions and the selection of their marriage partners was a common practice for centuries and still is in some parts of our world.  The gifting of a child to a monastery, in particular, was believed to assure the salvation of the parents as well as the child.  If poor people had a lot of children and worried about taking care of them all, it was a way of giving them a better life.  Not until the Council of Trent (1545-1563) did the church itself define a legal profession age.  

St. Benedict in this chapter makes the parents swear that they will never personally or through an intermediary give the child anything or afford the child the opportunity to possess anything.  Or they may make a formal donation of the property that would have gone to their child to the monastery instead.  St. Benedict’s reasoning is thus: This ought to leave no way open for the child to entertain any expectations that could deceive and lead to ruin.

Having said all this...what does this have to do with anything TODAY?   Just so you know...we don’t take offerings of children to our monastery!  

Sr. Pat in her commentary on this chapter talked about the danger of ‘entitlement’, (which is in fact rather prevalent in our society today), using the image of Honey Nut Cheerios.   We have a few cereals to choose from on our breakfast table, mostly healthy stuff like All-Bran, Shredded Wheat, Bran Buds, Corn Flakes, Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios - which is our only sugary cereal.  Sometimes you go to breakfast expecting the Honey Nut Cheerios to be there, but it isn’t and you wonder why not?  Egad!...did somebody make the decision to no longer purchase it?!  Why wasn’t I consulted?!   Suddenly plain Cheerios aren’t good enough any more.   

This is a little and perhaps to some, a silly comparison, but just think about your own day...what do you get upset about because it’s not there?   And if you are discerning a call to religious life, do you have some expectations about what God should be doing for you at this moment?   Do you want a little more ‘sugar‘ in your life than you sometimes get?  Sr. Pat said the way to conquer the attitude of entitlement is to change it to the attitude of gratitude.   

You know what?...plain old Cheerios will be just fine for today.  

Pioneering is not for sissies

Lake Lucern from the top
of the Musenalp

Today, September 5th, our congregation celebrates Founder's Day.   As I mentioned in last week’s blog, five intrepid sisters from the Alps of Switzerland volunteered to come to America to help teach immigrant children and start perpetual adoration in Missouri.   They left a place of great beauty to come to northwest Missouri...not exactly known world wide for stunning vistas of nature.

The sisters left their mountain abode in mid August, 1874 with the Abbot of nearby Engelberg Abbey blessing them and telling them “they would need the strong heart of a missionary and they would lose heart at all the privations and dangers they would face if they were going to America for any other purpose than the love of God.”

Their route took them to Lucerne and Basel, Switzerland and then it was on to Paris.  One of the five, Sr. Beatrice who was the chronicler for the trip, said “even nuns would be guilty of negligence if they had been in Paris without having seen the important and historic areas of the famous city.”   (I would have liked Sr. Beatrice!)  So they had a hasty tour of the more illustrious churches, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe.  August 18 found them in the port city of Le Havre where they boarded their transAtlantic steamer.   They had been at sea only a few hours when everyone but Sr. Beatrice suffered from seasickness.   After 4 days, most of the passengers had recovered but dreary, foggy weather contributed to a feeling of abandonment and depression.

On August 31, 1874, they landed in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Immediately they were overwhelmed at the rush, haste, and confusion of this new land.  Nothing was calm or restful.  On September 2nd they boarded the train for St. Louis where they arrived on the 4th.  They then boarded the train that would take them to their destination in Maryville, MO where they arrived at 6pm on September 5th only to be greeted by...no one....since the Benedictine monk who was supposed to meet them had forgotten the date of their arrival!  

A German who happened to be at the station took them to the Catholic church where the astonished priest welcomed them to his rectory.  The accommodations were cozy to say the least...it was a flimsy wooden structure, housing the pastor on the first floor and the five sisters on the second, which was two rooms in an attic without windows or ventilation.  The first several years were difficult to say the least.  In a letter dated May, 1875, Mother Anselma wrote home to Switzerland:  “If Fr. Adelhelm would not take care of us and some people bring us food to eat, we would be poorly off...from these lines of mine you can guess that all kinds of trials are waiting for us.” 

original farmhouse convent at
Maria Rickenbach, Switzerland

What I learn from these pioneer tales is that one has to not be afraid to set off for ‘distant shores’ when called by God.  Or rather, one must set off anyway in spite of fears!  Discernment is very similar.  We have a final destination but it’s rather vague and the journey there will most probably not be easy.  If the five sisters could have seen into the future the deprivations and hardships, perhaps they would never have left their beautiful mountain home.  I had the privilege of visiting our founding monastery in Switzerland in 2007, I’m astonished they left that place of beauty at all.  Look at this picture to the left...would you leave that to come to Missouri, USA????  

I think that is why God keeps us in the dark about the details of our spiritual journey, we would chicken out.  However, there are ‘Paris’ moments along the way where we will ‘see’ things we never thought we would.  Sometimes we’ll just be plain ole seasick.   Sometimes, those people we expect to be there for us leave us hanging...but then someone else comes along to help us.  

Basically, anybody who enters religious life is becoming a ‘founder’ of the future.  God DOES promise to be with us...but there can be deprivations and trials along the way.  As Mother Theresa was known to say, "God does not ask us to be successful, but to be faithful."   I often pray to our pioneer sisters to help us as we continue to found our own future here in 2012.   Mother Anselma, Sr. Beatrice, Sr. Adela, Sr. Agnes, Sr. Augustine - PRAY FOR US!  I'm sure they would help you to, if you just ask...tell them I sent you...