Another year older...

Christos anesti!  Alithos anesti! (Greek)
Christ is risen!  He is truly risen!

I took a hiatus from by blog during Holy Week and the days of Triduum to enter into the quiet and meditate on the great events of the Paschal mystery.  Here we are now in Easter Week and I am one year older as of yesterday, the Feast of Fools, and as it so happens this year - Easter Monday.  If anybody wants to do the math, I was born in 1964.

Today I showed my age by coming in late for Lauds...accidentally, of course.  My clock radio/alarm was set but the volume was turned down so while it 'went off' at 5:10am I was awakened by the bells for Lauds at 6:30.   I knew I had less than 3 minutes to get to chapel so the adrenaline rush got me out of bed at least.

This has happened to me twice in my monastic life - which covers a 20 year time span so that isn't too bad a record.   On one occasion I dashed out of bed with my heart a pumpin', threw some clothes on and ran (as fleet as a deer) down the halls and arrived in chapel with about 30 seconds to spare.  The other previous time I lay in bed and said, "I'm never going to make it, now" so I decided to sleep a little longer.

Today, I knew I wouldn't make it but I am the organist so I knew showing up late was better than not showing up at all.   It's amazing how you can't find things right in front of your face when you are in a hurry.  My hair was a bit askew and I couldn't find my emblem (it was sitting in plain sight on my sink) but I managed to look at least presentable.  I did not rush madly down the stairs, (I'm more dignified in my 'old' age) but I did make it to chapel by the end of the opening hymn.   Apparently there was an awkward silence after the bells stopped ringing, which is when the organ usually intones "O Lord open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise."  Sisters were looking over at the organ wondering why nothing was happening.   Sr. Cheryl, another organist, covered things over by going to the piano and beginning Lauds when she realized I wasn't there.   Sr. Nancy Rose who is taking lessons to play the organ, was just hoping she didn't have to play because she hasn't learned the Lauds Office, yet.

I sheepishly strode in, signaled Cheryl I was there and was on the organ bench for the 2nd psalm.  Even St. Benedict in his holy Rule has a chapter on tardiness at the Work of God so things haven't changed much in 1500 years since he lived.

Thanks be to God my alarm did go off at 3:10am on Easter Sunday morning.  Our Easter Vigil began at the un-Godly hour of 4 am.  There is a reason I did not become a Trappistine - I didn't want to get up every morning to pray Vigils at 3:30am!  Usually I don't sleep well on a night like that because I'm worried I won't hear my alarm and I usually set another one as a back up.  But my alarm went off like it was supposed to.  I went down for just a bit of coffee to help the wake up process and stuck my head out the door to get a take on the early morning weather.  There had been a chance of rain.  It was chilly, but the stars were bright, the moon was shining, a great horned owl called into the night and the Spring Peepers were singing down in our lower pond.

Spring Peepers

As I stood there listening I smiled to myself and said, "It's a good day to rise...It's a good day to rise."

Habemus Papam!

The first Latin American...the first Jesuit...the first Francis...

Jorge Bergoglio has a lot to live up to.  But what I have heard about him so far, he seems to be the right one for the job.

Last Wednesday we were just finishing up the noon dishes when a rumor spread that there had been white smoke.  Our TV room is on 2nd floor above the kitchen so we left the silverware behind and dashed up the stairs to see what was happening on TV.  (A couple of sisters on the dish crew nobly stayed back to at least dry the silverware and put it away...they did feel a bit abandoned but Pope Fever had taken hold.

When we got up there the TV reporters were saying it would be at least another 50 minutes before the new pope appeared.   Whew...all that excitement and then...waiting....

I plunked myself down in a chair to wait and listen to all the filler commentary.  I found myself glad and proud to be a Catholic as I looked out on St. Peter's Square and saw the crowds braving rain and cold weather to welcome the new pope.  "What other faith tradition has something like this?" I asked myself.  And what other faith would command such media coverage?  

I also found myself feeling sorry for the poor man who was now getting vested in the white robes of the pontiff.  I found myself praying silently in my heart for whoever it was.  What a load to carry!  So much scandal to deal with.  Nobody can ever be trained to be in charge of 1.2 billion people.  

When the cardinal came out and announced THE name, I couldn't make out anything recognizable as a name or a country.   I noticed the translators on TV didn't even translate it right away.   Our Sr. Lynn, who does not speak Italian, managed to be the first to figure it out.  I was pleased to have a non-European man selected and very pleased by the name of Francis.  

When he first appeared on the balcony I couldn't understand why he just 'stood there.'  "Why isn't he waving or gesturing to the crowd?" I thought to myself.   But then I thought, "What would you do if thousands of people were all looking at you?"  I would be like a deer stuck in the headlights.

Francis is a dangerous name to take - it's hard to live up to that one which is probably why no pope has ever picked it before.  

I just read where he spoke 'off the cuff' at his first Sunday window appearance and earlier that morning made an impromptu appearance before the public from a side gate of the Vatican, startling passers-by and prompting cheers, before delivering a six minute homily at St. Anna's, the Vatican's tiny parish church.  His security detail is not going to like this kind of activity, I'm sure!

The headlines at this time about the church are mostly about our new pope and generally positive.  In a short time this will be forgotten and other news will be fresher and more titillating.  The headlines will emphasize the scandals in our church again.  Or they will express how disappointed people are that the new pope isn't changing the teachings on abortion, gay marriage, etc.   

I plan to keep on praying for Pope Francis and for the Holy Spirit to guide him as he takes on this unimaginable job.

White smoke on the horizon

Wow, these are exciting times in our Roman Catholic Church!  Our cardinals go into conclave on Tuesday to begin an election for a new pope.  An interesting note about the word conclave -  Origin: French from conclave, a room that may be locked up; con- + clavis key.

The election of popes has a storied and colorful history.

From Wikipedia:  To resolve prolonged deadlocks in the earlier years of papal elections, local authorities often resorted to the forced seclusion of the cardinal electors, such as that first adopted by the city of Rome in 1241.  In 1269, when the forced seclusion of the cardinals alone failed to produce a pope, the city of Viterbo refused to send in any materials except bread and water. When even this failed to produce a result, the townspeople removed the roof of the Palazzo dei Papi in their attempt to speed up the election.  

In an attempt to avoid future lengthy elections, Gregory X introduced stringent rules with the promulgation of Ubi periculum. Cardinals were to be secluded in a closed area and not accorded individual rooms. No cardinal was allowed, unless ill, to be attended by more than two servants. Food was supplied through a window to avoid outside contact.  After three days of the conclave, the cardinals were to receive only one dish a day; after another five days, they were to receive just bread and water. During the conclave, no cardinal was to receive any ecclesiastical revenue. 

Hmm...imagine being locked up until you come out with the answer.  What if we locked ourselves into a room while discerning religious life until we had the answer?  Not a good idea most probably...forced discernment isn’t proper discernment.  Besides, it took me three years to discern...I would have starved by then!

I must say, having been in the Sistine Chapel in 2008, if you are a Cardinal that must be an incredible place to sit and muse who should lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.  The Last Judgment Scene that covers the wall behind the altar is a rather terrifying scene.  In the centre of the lower section are the angels of the Apocalypse who are waking the dead to the sound of long trumpets. On the left the risen recover their bodies as they ascend towards heaven (Resurrection of the flesh), on the right angels and devils fight over making the damned fall down to hell. Finally, at the bottom Charon with his oars, together with his devils, makes the damned get out of his boat to lead them before the infernal judge Minos, whose body is wrapped in the coils of the serpent.

If one seriously meditates on that, one would not take the election of supreme pontiff lightly.  

The stories in the Gospel remind us that sinners have always been in the church and will continue to be in the church, including our leaders.   My spiritual director related a story (not sure if it is true or not) about Pius VII and Napoleon.  Supposedly Napoleon had threatened to ‘bring down the church’ to which Pius VII replied, “If our priests have not managed to bring down the church in all these centuries, you will not be able to either.”  

The church is made of sinners and saints; mostly sinners.

Let's pray for wisdom and guidance for the Cardinals as they go into conclave on Tuesday.  

May they elect the man who can best guide us mostly sinners on our earthly journey to the Kingdom.

Fig trees, Manure and the spiritual life

Excerpted from a reflection I gave at our Saturday Lenten vigil service.

This gospel of this 3rd Sunday of Lent (Luke 13:1-9) once again gives us that very biblical image of a fig tree.  At least in Luke's gospel, Jesus isn't cursing it because it hasn't bloomed as he does in Mark and Matthew.  Here, the fig tree gets another chance and extra care...but the threat of later being cut down still lingers.   

We have a sanitized translation where the gardener says he will cultivate around it and fertilize it.  The literal translation is manure.    The ancients were smart enough to know to use animal waste even if they might not have known why it was so helpful.  If you go into the Lawn and Garden section of Wal-Mart you can find numerous sacks of various fertilizers or boxes of plant food to meet all of your planting needs.   If you look carefully at the description of the fertilizer usually three alphabet letters will stand out - N, P, K.  These letters stand for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.   These are the three main ingredients that plants need.  Think of them as “up, down and all-around”.  Manure is extremely rich in these ingredients, especially nitrates.  

Nitrogen helps keep leaves green, promotes healthier blooms and aids in the manufacture of chlorophyll. Phosphorous is primarily responsible for keeping the trunk/stalk healthy and helps with root growth and development. Potassium is a general help to the entire plant. 

The phosphorus component of our lives helps our trunk/stalk and helps us put down strong roots.  I would think of this as our monastic, Catholic infrastructure - the Rule of Benedict, the teachings of our Catholic faith, the sacraments, our monastic horarium.  

The nitrogen component of our lives is what we can see - the leaves, the blossoms, the fruits we bear.  I would think of this as all the acts of our daily living, speaking words of charity, acts of kindness, faithfulness to the Divine Office, Mass, lectio and adoration; how we live in community.

The potassium component of our lives is whatever is a general help to us.  This will vary for each of us.  It is those things that we do that help our spiritual growth and deepen our relationship with God.   For some it might mean keeping more silence, for others it might be some sort of fasting.

If any one of these components is missing, the whole plant will suffer.  If we don’t have the right quantity of each, those parts of us don’t develop like they should.

The thought I would leave you with is to have you ask yourself:  What areas in my life may need a little more fertilizer or different fertilizer?  Do I need more nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium?    Am I honestly bearing any fruit at this time in my life?  Or am I just exhausting the soil?  ouch!!

When was the last time you saw God's glory?

This second Sunday of Lent gives us the Gospel passage about the transfiguration.  Wouldn't that be something...to see God's glory...in dazzling, blinding light!

Our celebrant at Mass this morning started his homily with the question, "When was the last time you saw God's glory?"  

Hmmm....I thought to myself, I don't know that I ever have...at least not like we just heard in the Gospel.  What came to my mind first was the memory of our  snowstorm this past Wednesday and Thursday.  When the sun finally came out and lit up the landscape, it was rather blinding.  That was sort of an image of dazzling white, much like it says Jesus' clothes became while he was praying.  

But the glory of God is so much more.

In the bible it seems to produce the response of fright most often because it is just too overwhelming.   We don't know what to say.  Those types of manifestations of God have been few and far between for me.   I would venture to guess that it is the same for 99.9% of people who call themselves Christians.  God's preferred method seems to be subtlety.  Which I suppose is a good thing or we'd all be running around building tents (like Peter wanted to do).    God knows how easily frightened I am, I can be grateful he's a little sneaky.

view from my monastic 'cell'

I experienced his subtle glory when I heard robins and cardinals singing the past couple of days.  It's not necessarily unusual for this time of year but it's 20 degrees outside with snow on the ground!  What I like about birds is they follow the rhythms built into their DNA.  It is as if they say to themselves, "If I'm supposed to be in Clyde, MO in February and getting ready for spring, then that is where I will be, whether it feels like winter of not."

I experienced his subtle glory in the sunrise this morning.   I'm fortunate to have a bedroom that faces east so I can catch the first rays.

I experience his subtle glory taking a walk in the snow with a full moon overhead.

God's glory doesn't have to always be dazzling.  But we do have to have the proper eyes to see.  I hope you see God's glory in abundance this coming week!

Popcorn and the spiritual path

I have the great fortune to spend time at our monastery in Tucson, AZ every February because we usually host a discernment weekend at that time.  I always make sure I come after the oranges have been picked and the juice has been squeezed.  If you have ever tasted homegrown and squeezed orange juice, you know it's nectar of the gods!  Praise be to our God for creating such a wonderful drink!

In one of the talks I gave this past weekend I shared about popcorn and the spiritual path.  The reading from the prophet Joel that we heard on Ash Wednesday has a wonderful line in it - 'rend your hearts and not your garments.'    People seem to be rending their garments quite often in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was a sign of grief, anger or despair.  So, Joel is telling us to rend our hearts - in other words, crack open the hard shell we've built around it so as to let God in.

I happened upon an article in our magazine Spirit&Life by our Sr. Dawn Annette while preparing for the discernment weekend that I thought was a good image of letting ourselves get cracked open.  We started a business 1 1/2 years ago called Prayerfully Popped so Sr. Dawn 
wrote about popcorn in a spiritual light.   In it she describes how popcorn becomes popcorn.  

The shell of the kernel is very hard, you can't eat it raw, at least those of us who respect our teeth try not to!  But, there is a drop of water inside that kernel that when heated up, turns into steam and explodes outward changing the glop of starch in the kernel to the fluffy white thing we know as popcorn.  So basically, it turns itself inside out.

On the spiritual path we can either be a kernel that doesn't do anything, or we can let ourselves be transformed.  The heat that gets applied to us are those impulses of grace from God that might be urging us to do something different with our lives such as considering a religious vocation.  If we are resistant, we stay just a hard kernel that doesn't do anything.  But if we are open, (let's face it - exploding outward will not be a walk in the park), God can transform us into something unexpected.

The transformation takes place in our deepest center.  And that little drop of water inside the kernel symbolizes that our heart needs to be moist.  It can't be dry and barren.  A moist heart can soak up the word of God in whatever form it takes whereas hard and dry soil just causes the water to run off.

We have to let go of what we thought we were, the kernel of ourselves, and let God transform us into what we are meant to be.  A scary proposition! 

So, the next time you are eating a bag of popcorn, think about whether you are ready to let God turn you inside out!

 The entire article can be found here:
http://benedictinesisters.org/images/spiritandlife/SLNovDec11.pdf#page=9

Go forth now, if you can!

It’s been a quiet time in the Clyde blogosphere this past month.  My blog has suffered from inertia - that fundamental principle of classical physics:  ‘the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion.‘   So in other words, an unwritten blog tends to remain unwritten unless acted upon by an outside force.  I was traveling on some business trips for the congregation in January so that is my excuse for procrastinating.  :)

display in our hallway on Feb. 10th
 note sign under the umbrella

We just celebrated the Feast of St. Scholastica yesterday on February 10th.  She was the twin sister of St. Benedict.  We only know one little story about her from St. Gregory who wrote Benedict’s biography in his Dialogues - “The Life and miracles of St. Benedict.”   It states she was consecrated to God in early childhood and used to visit with him once a year.  On these occasions he would go down to meet her in a house belonging to the monastery a short distance from the entrance and there they would have conversation on the spiritual life and sing God’s praises.  

On this particular visit they stayed together until it was quite late.  Scholastica asked Benedict to stay on but he replied, “You know I cannot stay away from the monastery.”

When he refused, Scholastica folded her hands on the table and rested her head upon them in earnest prayer.  When she looked up again, there was a sudden burst of lightning and thunder accompanied by such a downpour that Benedict was unable to set foot outside the door.   The very instant she ended her prayer, the rain poured down.

This caused Benedict to complain bitterly, “God forgive you sister, what have you done?”

She answered, “When I appealed to you, you would not listen to me.  So I turned to my God and he heard my prayer.  Go forth now now if you can, leave me here and go back to your monastery.”  (So Benedict ends up staying and they both derived great profit from sharing their thoughts on the interior life)

I love this brother/sister dialogue...it reminds me of my growing up years with my own dear brothers.   I can almost hear Scholastica saying “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah”...after she said, “Go forth now if you can...”

It is said that St. Scholastica was heard by God because ‘‘she loved more.”  In other words, she wasn’t worried about following the rule to be back in the monastery like Benedict was worried about.  She just wanted to continue the wonderful ‘God conversation’ they were having.  

We midwest farmer folk, especially in this time of drought, would love to be able to call down rain at will like Scholastica.   But the point of the story is not being able to summon weather at will, but about LOVE.  God always hears our prayers but our motivations are important.  

Prayers asked in love united to the will of God, will surely be answered.  Submitting to the will of God is the important part....and the hardest!  

We invite the monks of nearby Conception Abbey over for Vespers and supper every year on this day.   It's a great way for us to continue the tradition of Scholastica and Benedict sharing a meal and conversation.  I understand it snowed heavily one year (before I entered) and the monks couldn't make it over.  However, we had all this food prepared so a couple of the monks came over in a four-wheel drive pickup and we gave them the food we had ready.  So, we didn't feed their souls with conversation but we did still manage to feed their stomachs!