Kansas Monks Newsletter - April 2024

kansas monks

Dear Friends,

Happy Easter! Christ Our Lord is risen! Alleluia!

The Resurrection of Christ is rich with significance. In the first place, it represents the Father’s verdict on the ministry of Christ. Humanity rendered its verdict by condemning Christ to death. In raising Christ from the dead, the Father pronounces the Son as innocent and authenticates His ministry as the beloved Son of God and Messiah of Israel.

The Resurrection also tells us that a new creation is coming. This life is not all there is. There is a new life, a new heavens and a new earth. Death is not the end, but a new beginning in which we either eternally enjoy life with God because we have consistently chosen Him in the present life or we are frustrated by an eternity that is defined by the unveiled presence of God because we have rejected it fundamentally or foolishly here and now.

Far from diminishing the significance of this life, Christ’s Resurrection intensifies it. What we do in this life carries over into the next. This should embolden us to work in the present for eternal reward.

As Abbot of the Community at St. Benedict’s Abbey, I must work to see that our monastery is in a good place to carry on Christ’s work well beyond my time. This is one of the reasons I have launched the Journey in Stability, Forward Together Capital Campaign. The monastery is poised to enter a new phase of its ministry. But we need to be good stewards of our resources, which means critical upgrades and the reduction of future costs.

April 2024

As we look forward to the new life secured for us by Our Lord’s Resurrection, let us work now to build up His Church and bring His salvation to future generations. Please check out our website – www.kansasmonks.org – to learn more about our Capital Campaign and how you can partner with us to build the Kingdom of God.

In Christ,

Abbot James R. Albers, O.S.B.

A LETTER TO ORPAH

A Letter to Orpah

By Br. Jean-Marie Hogan, O.S.B.

In this new series, Br. Jean-Marie explores different biblical stories by writing letters to a variety of interesting characters. Feel free to use to this letter as a unique way to place yourself into the lives of the people of the Bible.

Dear Orpah,

Ihope that you are faring well in your native country of Moab. My condolences on the passing of your late husband, Chilion. I hear he was a great man, and I am sorry for your loss.

I am writing to inform you of some recent events concerning your sister-in-law, Ruth. After returning to the land of Judah with Naomi, she set to work gleaning in the barley fields near Bethlehem. As she happened to be in the field of a certain man named Boaz, a kinsman of your late father-in-law, he took notice of her and treated her kindly. He saw to her provisions and prevented the workers from troubling her.

It is the law in Israel that when a man dies leaving behind a wife but no children, his next of kin should marry the woman and raise up offspring for his deceased kinsman. Since the immediate next of kin was unwilling to do so, I am pleased to report that Boaz and Ruth are now happily married. I hear her descendants are destined for great things.

By the time this letter arrives, you may have found a new husband from among your own people. If so, blessings on your union. A word of caution, though: be careful about worshipping his gods. There is only one God, and He is the God of Naomi, Ruth, and their people. All others are false and deceptive.

I expect you may have to have someone read this to you. It’s a shame they don’t teach more women to read and write. I do hope that may change some day.

Shalom.

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1826, Ruth in Boaz’s Field, Oil on Canvas

Let It Be

By Fr. Daniel P. McCarthy, O.S.B.

WhenMary gave her fiat, “let it be done [unto me]”, she conceived and bore a son (Luke 1.38 NV). Her fiat was one of the most momentous events in the history of salvation for it gave way to the incarnation.

This same word was used by God in the creation of light: Fiat lux, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1.3). This polite command, fiat, expresses the intention of God that there be light. It was sufficient for God to express the intention, and light came into being. The account continues, Et facta est lux, “And light came to be” (Gen. 1.3). There is a shift here from God expressing the divine intention, Fiat lux, “Let there be light”, and

the appearance of light in the physical world, Et facta est lux, “And light came to be”.

This same shift from intention to observable, concrete reality is seen in the creation of humanity. First God expresses the divine intention to create humanity, Faciamus hominem, “Let us make the human”, and this intention was sufficient for the creation of humanity next described in flesh and blood, Et creavit Deus hominem, “And God created the human”.

The most powerful words ever spoken, “Let there be light”, “Let us create the human” and “let it be done unto me”, all express intention, divine and human. The follow up descriptions of what was created, “And

Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898, The Annunciation, Oil on Canvas

light was made”, “And God created the human”, are descriptions of physical reality.

There is a difference between intention and concrete reality, between mental action and physical activity. The way we talk about them is also different. Intention is indicated by such expressions as “let it be”, “let there be”, “let us create”, but physical reality is indicated by such expressions as “it came into being”, “he created”.

These two different ways of talking preserve an important distinction between mental activity and physical action, even though the mental activity was sufficient for the creation of light, humanity and for the incarnation. Some of the most momentous events in creation and salvation history are intentions, mental actions, commands, while the physical actions are described in an almost secondary, factual way. A general giving an order is mental action, the soldiers moving on the field is physical activity.

I am concerned that the distinction between mental intent and the description of physical reality is readily being lost in our daily speech. The description of

physical reality and observable events has come to predominate to such an extent that I fear there may be little awareness of how we speak in a different way about intention and mental action.

I believe that recovering this distinction in our speech will help us understand ourselves and one another better.

For example, when I express my hopes, I do so in a way that indicates an awareness that my hopes move beyond my present reality. When I hear you express your hopes, I learn about you and how you move beyond your present limitations. When we talk together about our hopes we hold one another’s dreams, intentions, aspirations, and we hold them in contrast to the physical lives we share in the moment.

Sometimes dreaming in hope can go badly wrong, if not understood as reaching beyond present reality. A dreaming pastor once said, “This high altar is too tall for this church, so If I were to renovate this church, I would remove the middle part of this high altar”. That was so badly misunderstood by the parishioners who loved their church and heard the wild pastor to say, “I have decided to renovate this church, and I definitely will cut down the altar”. There began a rebellion [true story].

Later in life I came to understand better the distinction this pastor made between his dreaming and (actual reality): “If I were to renovate this church (but I am not actually going to do so), I would remove the middle part of this high altar (but I am not going to do that)”. The parishioners felt so threatened that they mistook the dream for reality: “Father has decided to renovate and is planning to cut down the altar”.

Another difficult example is when I express my opinion as if it were reality. In that case I’m not able to distinguish my own opinion from physical things. I lose my opinions and ideas, my intentions and beliefs, my personal commitments, some of the most powerful forces in my life.

A man once responded to my idea, “This is my position, and I am not budging from here”. I realised that he had made his opinion geographic. He had given his idea a place, and his reason had been confused with that spot on the floor. His thinking had become so concrete that not even he could budge it. He did not

William Blake, 1794, The Ancient of Days, Relief Etching with Coloring

realise that he had cut himself off from any competing values he might have, or from his ability to negotiate an agreement or to recognize the different opinion of another. Perhaps he too was feeling so threatened that he mistook this one opinion for the entirety of his reality.

When you and I both express our intentions as if they were reality, then there is little room left for friendly disagreement, for different opinions, for changing our own ideas over time. When I cannot distinguish between my reality and your opinions, then I lose my ability to see you, I lose my respect for you in your difference from me.

If people are not able to distinguish their thoughts and ideas from observable actions and concrete reality, then I fear we may lose the ability to reflect on our inner world, ideas, beliefs, decisions, even creative commands such as Mary’s “let it be done unto me”.

But if I can express my own opinions as my mental action, distinct from my physical activity, then I can explore my own inner world, my hopes and fears, my beliefs and doubts, my dreams and commitments, all forces which drive me personally. My fears and doubts become less overwhelming if I see them as my own inner conversation.

If I can distinguish between your opinions and our shared world, then I can also come to know your own inner world, your values and ideas. Your fears may become less contagious and more an opportunity for empathy and profound compassion. When we discuss a topic, there is room for disagreement out of respect for our differences. There is freedom to change my mind and respect for your changing your mind.

My most deeply held beliefs come into full-color as do my values which drive my actions, commitments which allow me to grow in love for another, principles such as honor, truth, trust and vulnerability at the core of my being, and we also come to see other persons each in one’s own full-color.

My experience learning the Latin language has helped me to gain better mastery over these two different ways of speaking in English because they are essential elements of both languages. I suspect that when members of monastic communities used to

study more Latin or even Italian and other languages, we had more developed and better honed language for negotiating differences. We understood better and were less threatened by our different ideas and concerns, our hopes and dreams because we could distinguish them from brute reality.

Perhaps the study of Latin and other languages today would help monastic life to offer a distinctive perspective that will help to make our world a better place.

CHOOSING TO WALK IN HIS STEPS

Cho osing to Walk in His Steps

By Fr. Jay Kythe, O.S.B.

WhenI was a child, my parents would go to bed and then ask me to make sure that the front and the back doors were locked. Frightened, I would wander through the darkened house to make sure that those doors were locked. Why I never turned on the lights, I don’t know! But I made sure that all four locks on our front door and the four on our back door were secure. Four? Yes, four. We also had bars on all our windows.

I grew up in New Orleans, LA, which was always around the top five murder capitals of the US annually. Looking back, I probably lived in a bad neighborhood but never realized it. I just thought everyone lived that way.

I was taken back to my childhood when I read a meditation from Pope Benedict XVI he wrote when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger:

If a child had to venture out alone through the woods on a dark night, he would be afraid even if he were to be shown a hundred times that there was nothing to fear. He is not afraid of anything specific, to which he could put a name, but in the dark he feels insecure, an orphan, he feels the sinister character of inner existence. Only a human voice could console him; only the hand of a person he loves could banish the anguish, like a bad dream (“The Anguish of an Absence,” 2006).

My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

The point here is quite simple: to stay connected to the Lord, to pray and listen to Him, and we will not be afraid. But we are afraid! On this journey through the dark woods, there is a fear of the unknown then there is a fear of death. Through His Resurrection, Christ removes the latter. But often the former fear remains. Consider the witness of the children of God from the

Book of Revelation: A great multitude, uncountable, from every nation, race, people, and tongue, standing before the throne, wearing white robes and holding palm branches. They are worshipping God day and night. For these are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Think of these martyrs. They walked through the darkest of places. In the eyes of the world, they failed because they died. They may have gone to their death singing or trembling.

The method of their journey through the valley of the shadow of death is not important. What is important is that they heard the voice of the Good Shepherd calling them. And they followed. Then they no longer feared even death itself, which was defeated by that Good Shepherd.

This is important to note: like the child walking through a darkened house or a forest, they may have been afraid. They may have cried. They may have sung hymns of praise. But they all heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and they followed.

And so must we.

I’m speaking of a certain virtue of perseverance here. We may walk on such a path, our own personal via Dolorosa. We may stumble and fall several times. We may sin and receive reconciliation and stagger on. We may be enthralled by the beauty or distracted by the thorns. We may deal with a hundred forms of fear.

In every case, there is the action of putting one foot in front of the other and moving on, no matter the feelings. For before us is the Good Shepherd, the very one who suffered, died, and rose from the dead. The very One who trembled in a garden and then kissed the Cross given to Him. The very one who fell three times and still chose to get back up again. The very one who climbed a certain hill to His place of execution.

At every Eucharist, we hear His voice echoing from

the altar: “This is my body … given up for you / this is my blood … poured out for you.”

These words are crucial: the crux, the place where heaven and earth intersect, and the place where we must live. The choice isn’t about fear and courage. The choice, rather, is about accepting these words that serve as a lighthouse to bring us to heaven. This is my body … given up for you.

Therefore, I must give up my life for Him.

Whenever I choose myself, I choose to turn in on my self. I choose selfishness over self-gift. The lesson at this crux, this crossing of heaven and earth is the lesson of choosing to give of myself as He did. “Not my will but yours be done.” “This is my blood … poured out for you.” I give until it hurts. I choose to walk one step forward at a time, through the pain, the grief, the tears, the fear, the thorns. I choose to give, trusting that He will take my blood and unite it to His, for the salvation

of the world. In my own small way, I shall offer myself to Him, and let Him do with me as He wills.

In our monastic life, we have a verse from our Rule that guides us: “keep death daily before our eyes.” This is a reminder to us to keep persevering on this path that God has set before us. It will lead to our deaths. Afraid or unafraid, we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd calling us. Then we shall walk with confidence, towards heaven.

Photo by Anya Valladares

Living the Litu rgy

Commentary on the Liturgical Year

By Dr. James R. A. Merrick

7 APRIL – 2ND SUNDAY OF EASTER/DIVINE MERCY

“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Throughout the Scriptures, the theme of sight is prominent. At the very beginning, there is the question of seeing the goodness of God. After almost every day of creation in Genesis 1, God sees that His creation is good. Then Eve, succumbing to the Devil’s dare, sees that the forbidden fruit is good. This sets up a recurring contrast between what God sees and what humans see as good.

A key message in the Gospel of John is that to truly

see Jesus for who He is, one must behold Him in faith. Reality, including our own destiny, cannot be rightly understood apart from God. He is not only the source of all things, but all things have their place arranged by His omniscient Providence.

This is why faith is greater than sight. Faith is the ability to perceive what vision alone cannot. By its knowledge of the Word of God, faith is able to see the world as God sees it, to know the world in truth. Faith is understanding and interpreting reality according to God’s providential purpose.

Caravaggio, 1601, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Oil on Canvas

To return to the Gospel for this Sunday, for Thomas to see that Jesus is raised from the dead is no doubt wonderful. Far better is to know by faith the significance of His resurrection for salvation.

14 APRIL – 3RD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Last Sunday, the Gospel reading ended with St. John remarking that the things he wrote down were written so that his readers might believe. This Sunday the significance of Scripture for our faith is underscored once more.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, the resurrected Lord meets with His astonished and confused followers. He tells them not to be afraid and then proceeds to explain how the events of His death and resurrection fulfilled the Scriptures. It is just one of several instances when the Lord engages in a post-resurrection Bible study of sorts with His followers. These instances show that Our Lord believed understanding Scripture is important for our faith.

Consequently, the Church cannot devalue, diminish or discredit the Scriptures. In these and other moments, she has learned from the Lord that the Scriptures are vital for our faith. More specifically, the

Lord thinks it is necessary for His followers to understand that nothing He does contradicts, undermines, or changes the meaning of Scripture. Rather, His work fulfills or brings to perfection what was spoken in the Old Testament.

Unfortunately, there have always been those who like to pit the work of Christ against the Scriptures, acting as though what Christ has done somehow relativizes or even supplants the older texts. In the early days of the Church, there were the Gnostics who often rejected the Old Testament as a whole or who suggested that only certain themes of it were significant and that it was the duty of the reader to discern the true from the false portions of the Bible.

The father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, opened up a modern version of this mode of interpretation with his Law-Gospel dialectic. At the risk of oversimplification, Luther argued that God fist gave the Law to His people in order to show them that they could not be just or moral. Having brought them to their knees by showing them that they cannot reach the standard of perfection, God then, in the New Testament, offered grace, mercy, and forgiveness instead of requiring His people to fulfill the Law.

LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

In our own time, many operate with a version of this dialectical approach to the Bible. Common today is a tendency to think that the God of the Old Testament was a harsh, judgmental, and legalistic God who demanded obedience and exacted punishment. Jesus, however, gives us a new image of God as a God of love, forgiveness, tenderness, and mercy. On this view, the Church should not rigidly apply the law and hold the faithful to exacting standards but must always reform her norms so as to reach out in mercy.

The problem, of course, is that Our Lord never gave the impression that mercy or forgiveness means modifying or abrogating moral standards. In fact, He calls people to both repentance and obedience, at one point saying that love is demonstrated by obedience. In His Sermon on the Mount, He does not relax the moral standards but perfects them, making them not just about external behavior but internal attitudes, thoughts, and desires. “You have heard it said before, ‘You shall not commit adultery…’ but I say to you, you should not even lust…”

This Sunday is a good opportunity to reflect on how important it is to understand Scripture for a right understanding of our faith. If Our Lord spent His time after His resurrection ensuring that His followers could rightly see how His work did not oppose or abrogate the words of the Old Testament, then we too ought to endeavor to understand the right relationship between the ministry of Christ and the promises and laws of the Old Testament.

21 APRIL – 4TH SUNDAY OF EASTER

“The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.” Amidst this wonderful psalm of praise to God for His mercy and goodness, there is this line that the House of God would be built according to a stone that was rejected by the builders.

We could easily read this Psalm as a kind of blanket endorsement of the underdog or marginalized. It often is read this way, in fact, especially in today’s culture which seems fixated in normalizing the abnormal. But as much as we would like to see this as some generic encouragement to the distressed, oppressed,

or discouraged, it is not the original or even spiritual meaning of the text.

The imagery is that of the Temple. This is the building that is in view. The builders are, of course, the priests and religious leaders. The text means to describe the divergence between the religion and worship that God desires to cultivate and that of the priests of the day.

In ancient construction, the cornerstone was not just the first stone set in place in a building. In the ancient world, it was the standard of measurement. The cornerstone established the proportions and possibilities of the entire edifice. Thus in rejecting the cornerstone, the “builders” or religious leaders are rejecting a certain kind of building.

By having in mind a different cornerstone, the psalm tells us that these religious leaders had in view a very different sense of the worship and religion of Israel than their God. In the context of Israel’s history, we know that many of the religious leaders were corrupt. They used their ministry for their own gain and social advancement.

These priests wanted the religion of Israel to be a political and cultural status symbol. They wanted their temple and its customs to be evidence of their national and cultural superiority. They wanted it to serve the lusts of the flesh. Historically. it seems that many of the priests were more impressed by the pagan rituals and theology. They sought to conform the religion of Israel to the religious sensibilities, values, and expectations of their neighbors. They wanted a religion that simply made them better exemplars of the morals and piety of the times.

The Psalm for this Sunday, then, tells us that the house that the Lord desires to build is different than the institutions of the day. God sought to establish a religion that His priests and even His people did not want.

This story is not unique. Throughout history, many of the “builders” of God’s house are interested more in leveraging religion for their own gain. They desire a religion that is suitable to making them popular, powerful, and adored. These “builders” are always interested in domesticating God and turning their religion into some sort of cultural leverage or status symbol.

God’s choice of the discarded cornerstone, then, is not a way of telling us to root for the underdog or

expect the unexpected. It is not a blanket endorsement of the unpopular or new. It is rather a warning against all schemes that rival that of the Lord. It signals the divergence between the will of God and the designs of men, even those who labor in His Name.

If we are to worship God rightly, if our faith is to be true, then we must adhere to the Law of the Lord. We cannot build a different building because it is more fashionable or pleasing to our time. We can only conform ourselves to the cornerstone who is Jesus Christ.

28 APRIL – 5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER

The theme of this month nicely crescendos in today’s Mass. We have heard in various ways over the past few weeks the importance of being faithful to what the Lord has revealed and obedient to what the Lord has commanded. This Sunday, we hear the Lord command us to “abide” in Him. He likens the relationship between humanity and God to the relationship between a vinedresser and His vineyard. The Father is the vinedresser and Christ is the vine. Christians are the fruits of Christ’s vine.

In order for us to bear good fruit, we must abide in the vine. Of course this means remaining faithful to Christ, both in terms of what we believe and in what we do. But the imagery of the fruit’s relationship to the vine calls us to contemplate a deeper meaning.

The imagery casts Christ as the source of life and growth. In this way, it moves us to consider how Christ is an interior principle in our life. Sometimes we can think of the faith as simply an addition to our lives or even a kind of lifestyle choice. We have a set of values and beliefs about the world and we simply supplement them with Catholics beliefs and values. For some, there is a bit of a mix and match dynamic to this. The problem here is that these values and beliefs tend to be compartmentalized. They are only “activated” or acted upon based upon deeper impulses of one’s self. The values and beliefs remain superficial.

The imagery of our relationship to Christ as fruit to the vine suggests that Christ is to be the very life of our soul. He is living out His life in and through us. “It is no longer I that live, but Christ in me,” says St. Paul.

To relate to Christ in this way means to allow our very lives to be a vessel of His. Our lives become a

medium for His life. Here our very goals and sense of personhood are transformed. Our life is an ongoing act of surrender to the Lordship of Christ.

To abide in Christ, then, is for Christ to see one’s own life in terms of the life of Christ, to define one’s sense of purpose, destiny, and meaning by His work. It is not the wider culture nor a sense of racial, ethnic, or national identity that orients one’s desires and goals, but the life of Christ. Being faithful to Christ means at least believing as true the things He taught and doing the things He commanded. But ultimately it means having one’s identity defined by Him. 

If you did not register for Abbot’s Table XI, you may still attend virtually via the Abbot’s Table live stream on our website or the Kansas Monks youtube channel. Follow the QR code below to go to the livestream.

Kansas Monks

EDITORIAL TEAM

Editor-in-Chief - Abbot James Albers, O.S.B.

Managing Editor - Dr. James R. A. Merrick

Art Director - Philip J. Smaldone

Advisor - Fr. Matthew Habiger, O.S.B.

Advisor - Seth Galemore

Advisor - Garrick Lambert

Advisor - Josh Harden

Advisor - Dwight Stephenson

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