Newsletter - June 2023

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monks June 2023

Dear Friends,

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ometimes we entertain the thought that if we had lived at another time, life would be easier and holiness would come more naturally. A little exposure to writings from the past, however, reveals that almost everyone laments what has been lost and longs for simpler times, even those who lived in times that seem to us decidedly more Christian.

Truth be told, thinking about how better things would have been runs the risk of escapism. It distracts and discourages us from the work God has for us now.

Instead of daydreaming about how better it would have been if we lived in a different time, we need to focus on being holy in our day. Learning lessons from the faithful who have come before us and being absolutely rooted in Scripture and Tradition are vital. But we can’t reduce our faith to lamenting how it has been lost or trying to “play act” faithfulness from a different era. Our spiritual fathers and mothers have handed us the torch. It is our turn to be faithful in our context.

But how do we gain the courage and prudence necessary for engaging our time faithfully? How do we balance humble fidelity and love for what has been given to us with bold engagement with different circumstances?

This is the work of conversion. In St. Benedict’s vision, the great catalyst and focus of conversion is the sacred liturgy. “Nothing is to be preferred to the work of God,” he tells us. This is because he knew how the liturgy breaks us of self-absorption and discouragement.

It rouses our hearts to faith, hope, and love. It is the way God addresses our concerns while also presenting us with the life of His Son to which He calls us.

Because of this commitment to the liturgy, the monks fo St. Benedict’s Abbey have developed resources related to the Mass. In our weekly e-newsletter, we offer video reflections on the Mass readings in “60 Seconds for Sunday” and meditations on the communion antiphon in “Communio”. Please make sure to subscribe.

But as monks we also know the value of spiritual reading. Video remains an important tool. But reading develops other dimensions of the intellect that are important for the full flourishing of our human nature.

I am delighted, therefore, to present you with a new version of our once quarterly magazine, Kansas Monks.

This issue is the first of what will be a monthly print newsletter. In its contents you will find not only news about the Abbey, but also articles to encourage your faith and liturgical commentary on the Sunday Mass that will help you go deeper in your faith. I hope you gain as much from it as we have preparing it. Please let us know how we can pray for you.

St Benedicts Abbey, Atchison, KS

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THE LOVER SINGS

“The Lover Sings”

Abbey Schola Produces YouTube Series of Chant

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had the opportunity to sit down with Brother Florian, the Choirmaster, to talk about music in the Mass, Gregorian chant, and a series of videos the abbey Schola has been producing about the Communion antiphons.

These can be found on the Abbey’s YouTube channel, “Kansas Monks.” Over the next few months, we will feature portions from this conversation which contained fascinating insights into the music of the Mass and value of the Communio series.

One of the first things I wanted to know is why we sing at Mass. You might expect the Choirmaster to say music is critical to the worship we offer. But the reasons why are interesting.

I expected an answer that apoke loftily about how God, as the Creator of all things, is the source of all beauty and therefore the most fitting way to honor Him is with beautiful worship. Ugly or dull worship wouldn’t be fitting for the God of glory. That’s true, of course.

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But Brother Florian called my attention to the fact that worship is an expression of love. He pointed to a quote from St. Augustine (354-430) “the lover sings” and then the late Pope Benedict XVI’s comment that “when man comes into contact with God, mere speech is not enough. Areas of his existence are awakened that spontaneously turn into song” (from The Spirit of the Liturgy, ch. 2).

Music allows us to make a more complete offering of ourselves to God. As human beings, we are both body and soul. To offer ourselves truly, both must be engaged. Singing involves all of us, allowing us to make a more total offering of ourselves to God. “There is,” said Brother Florian, “the mental effort of making sure we are singing the right pitch at the right time, on the right words; the physical effort that engages our core muscles, diaphragm, lungs, throat, mouth, teeth, tongue; the social aspect of awareness of others,

Jesus Christ has become one of us and offered on our behalf and for us the perfect self-offering to God. The Mass is our participation in Christ’s worship of the Father which fulfills our vocation.

The music of the Mass, then, not only allows us to make a complete offering of ourselves to the Father and express more fully our love for Him. It also communicates a sense of God’s love for us when God’s Word is chanted and His Sacraments are sung. All the more reason for the music to be lovely and profound. 

- JAMES R. A. MERRICK, PH.D.

The Liturgy

Christ’s Life among Us Today

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esus of Nazareth lived during the first three decades of the first century in ancient Palestine. But we don’t believe His life was confined to those years. We believe He lives today, not just in our memories but actually and bodily. In fact, we think His life today is more effective than it was in the first century. We believe that Christ is pouring out His life and making His presence known to an even greater extent today than He did when He walked the earth.

But surely this sounds far-fetched! How can we say Christ is more alive today than He was when He roamed Galilee or Jerusalem? How can we believe that His life is more available to us now than it was to those who actually saw Him in the flesh?

The answer to the question of how Christ is present to us today is the liturgy. The liturgy is the way Christ lives His life among us and through us today. It is through the liturgy that Christ pours out His salvific presence and meets us in the moments of our lives with His healing grace, just as He did with the crowds and disciples in the first century. If we want to encounter Christ and to receive those same graces He gave to His first followers, we need to encounter Him in the liturgy. As the Catechism puts it: “Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church” (1069).

The liturgy brings Christ’s life to us today in two ways. The main way is through the grace of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. It is in the Eucharist that we receive Christ’s Body and Blood, sacrificed for our sins and raised to glorified immortality. The Eucharist communicates the divine life of Christ to us, fortifying us with grace (when rightly disposed) to live like Christ.

In the second place, the liturgy commemorates the life and saving works of Christ in the first-century. While we did not witness Christ’s birth, temptation, preaching, death, resurrection, or ascension, it is the liturgical celebration of these events that brings them forward into our time.

At this point we might wonder in what way witnessing the birth or preaching of Christ in “real life,” as it were, in first century Palestine is anyway like a liturgical commemoration of the event which consists mainly of Scripture readings recounting the event.

St Benedicts Abbey, Atchison, KS

THE LIFE OF CHRIST AMONG US

making sure that we are singing in tune with others as one voice. On top of that there is the spiritual effort of trying to pray these words.”

While Brother Florian concentrated on the way in which worship is an expression of our love for God, I reflected after our conversation on how first and foremost the Mass is an expression of God’s love for us.

The Mass is fundamentally an act of the Trinity for our salvation. As creatures made in God’s image and likeness, we are meant to offer God perfect praise and sacrifice.

On account of our sin and weakness, we cannot. But

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LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

However, we must be cognizant of the fact that the most significant dimension of these events is not their appearance, but their inner meaning and reality. Many people rubbed shoulders with Christ in the first century yet never entertained the thought that He was divine or that His actions brought about their eternal salvation.

Simply observing the event, even something astonishing like the transfiguration, wouldn’t automatically mean the significance is perceived and applied. One must receive the work of Christ with faith.

Precisely because it is the spiritual significance perceived by the eyes of faith that matters, the liturgical representation of the events of Christ’s life allows us to focus on its true significance and receive Christ’s work personally. With the grace of the Eucharist, the liturgical year brings forward into our day the life of Christ and allows us coordinate and conform our lives to His.

Living the Liturgy Commentary on the Liturgical Year JUNE 4 - SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY TRINITY The first Sunday of this month is Trinity Sunday. Like the celebrations that follow in the wake of Easter, it is intended to sustain the joy of Easter while celebrating its impact comprehensively. In particular, after the Feast of Pentecost last Sunday, the Church is now ready to acknowledge the full revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

While the doctrine of the Trinity was defined (not invented) in the fourth century at the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), it appears it wasn’t until early in the ninth century that there arose a specific Mass

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for the Holy Trinity. Originally a localized celebration, it began to spread throughout Europe and was adopted quickly by Benedictine monasteries. In 1334 Pope John XXII made it a feast of the universal western calendar.

It would be wrong to think that Christians didn’t honor the Trinity until the fourteenth century, however.

Just because something is established later on, that does not mean it was invented at that time. Indeed, Pope Alexander II, who reigned in the mid-eleventh century remarked that while a feast for the Holy Trinity was becoming commonplace by his day, it had not yet been adopted in Rome because it seemed unnecessary.

JUNE 11 - SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST This Sunday brings us another solemnity. It celebrates the gift of the Eucharist, specifically, the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Once again, it makes complete our understanding of the significance of Easter and exposes the work of the Holy Spirit who was recognized on the Feast of Pentecost.

The establishment of this feast dates back to the thirteenth century. It is often associated with two extraordinary events that compelled the Church to institute the feast. The first is the faith of St. Julianna of Liege (c. 1192-1258). Through a series of visions and prayers, she felt the Lord prompting her to call for a feast to honor the Eucharist. While initially she was written off as “Julianna the Dreamer,” eventually two influential prelates championed her cause.

A few years after St. Julianna died, Fr. Peter of Prague was experiencing doubts about the reality of the Eucharist. The doctrine of transubstantiation, which teaches that while the appearances and physical characteristics of bread and wine remain, after the prayer of consecration their reality or substance is no longer bread and wine but the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, was defined in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council. But debates initiated in the tenth century still simmered.

On a pilgrimage to Rome, he said Mass in Bolsena.

As he uttered the words of institution over the bread, blood began to seep from the host. Fr. Peter relayed this miracle to Pope Urban IV, who ordered an investigation and eventually the display of the stained corporal as a relic at the Cathedral of Orvieto, where it remains to this day. The miracle was understood to confirm the visions of St. Julianna, leading Pope Urban IV to institute today’s solemnity in 1264.

Prayers and hymns were needed for the new liturgical feast. Urban IV commissioned St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) who composed the greatest Eucharistic hymns the Church has known: Pange Lingua, Tantum Ergo, Panis Angelicus, and O Salutaris Hostia.

The feast became an octave for devotion that climaxed fittingly in the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (celebrated this year on Friday the 16th). Throughout the octave, there were mystery plays and pageants that taught the reality and significance of the Eucharist.

Demons were depicted as fleeing at the sight of the Eucharist while children dressed as angels led a procession through town, cheering and throwing flower petals before the Sacrament. In some parts of Europe, the Solemnity was known as the “day of wreaths” since elaborate arrangements of flowers were designed and processed on poles with the Sacrament. People would then take the wreaths to adorn their homes.

St Benedicts Abbey, Atchison, KS

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LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

The Trinity, he observed, was already adored in every Mass and in every Office, highlighting the Gloria patri (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit”) said after the Psalms in the Liturgy of Hours.

The readings appointed for the Solemnity are meant to show the Trinity as both the pinnacle of God’s revelation of Himself to humankind and the fullest experience of a relationship with God. The first reading is taken from Exodus 34 which recounts God passing by Moses on Mt. Sinai, proclaiming “The Lord! The Lord! A merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity!” This was God’s answer to Moses’ desire to see God’s face and for God to pardon the people of Israel for the sin of idolatry committed in the worship of the golden calf.

While God reveals Himself to Moses and thereby pardons the sin of Israel, He does so only incompletely, setting up an anticipation of a future, more definitive forgiveness and revelation of Himself. We hear of this perfect forgiveness and revelation in the Gospel reading. It comes from John which earlier announced Jesus as the glory of God in the flesh, full of grace and truth, an allusion to the Old Testament reading. In today’s Gospel, we read that God did not send His Son into the world angrily to condemn it, but out of love so that whoever believes in His Son would not be condemned but granted eternal life.

Trinity Sunday is truly another sounding of the joy of Easter. It reveals that God so loved the world and is ever ready to be merciful because God is love, the eternal, self-giving communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As the reading from Second Corinthians suggests, it is a day to concentrate on encouraging one another and living in peace so that the Church truly is an icon of the Trinity. 

LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

The first reading from Deuteronomy 8 exhorts, “do not forget the Lord...who fed you in the desert with manna.” It is interesting that the Israelites so quickly lost interest in the miracle of the manna. We often think that if God would dazzle us, we would be enthusiastic in His service. But as we see time and time again in the Scriptures, miracles are not sufficient to sustain faith and devotion. Still, it would be insolent to dismiss them, and today’s first reading warns us not to take the miracle of the new manna, the Eucharist, for granted.

The Gospel is taken from the so-called “bread of life discourse” in John chapter 6. There Jesus declares that His Body and Blood are the true manna or “bread from heaven” and “whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

As Dr. Brant Pitre has shown in his book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, this was a fulfillment of the Jewish expectation that God would one day send a Messiah who would be a new Moses figure and who would bring an even more miraculous manna.

Today’s feast is another illumination of the blessings of Easter and work of the Holy Spirit. Precisely because Jesus rose from the dead and “dies no more” (Romans 6:9) He can offer His Body and Blood to us to consume in the Eucharist without being suffering destruction.

And just as the Holy Spirit gave life to Jesus’ human body in Mary’s womb, so now, at the altar of every Church, the Spirit transforms common bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

JUNE 18 - 11TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME After Easter and these two great solemnities, we return to so-called “ordinary time.” Make no mistake, there is plenty of the “extraordinary” during “ordinary time.” For it is the time when we accompany Jesus in His ministry and hear His many teachings and promises.

As the great nineteenth century liturgist, Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B. (1805-1875), states in his multi-volume masterpiece, The Liturgical Year, there are two objects of attention in this time of the Christian calendar: the mystery of the Church and the life of the Christian soul.

So it is that in the first reading, taken from Exodus 19, we hear about how God was a great shepherd to the people of Israel, leading them out of Egypt, protecting

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them from danger, feeding them, and promising that they will be “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” This is fulfilled in the Church in which by baptism the faithful are washed of their sins, made holy, and anointed to share in Christ’s royal high priesthood.

In the Gospel reading, from Matthew 9 and 10, Jesus looks at the crowds and pities them because they are like sheep without a shepherd. This language recalls God’s promise to regather like a good shepherd His people after they were exiled and scattered throughout the nations. To fulfill these prophetic promises, our Lord summons His twelve Apostles, bestows upon them His authority which had just been manifested in the previous portions of Matthew’s Gospel, and sends them out to the people of Israel to preach the good news that the Kingdom of God has arrived.

This Sunday, then, recalls the beginnings of the Church and the institution of the hierarchy. Although hierarchical notions of the Church are often downplayed today and viewed with suspicion in our democratic culture all too familiar with abuses of power, we must recognize that Christ gave His authority not to everyone who followed Him, but only to the twelve Apostles.

They are to be the shepherds to gather and defend His people. The successors of the Apostles, the Bishops, have this role today.

On this eleventh Sunday in ordinary time, we remind ourselves that the blessings of the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist do not come to us as individuals but as members of Christ’s Body, the Church. It is through the shepherding of Christ’s bishops that we have access to legitimate sacraments and to a right understanding of His teachings.

It is terribly troubling when bishops lead Christ’s sheep astray, failing to teach faithfully His words, abuse them, or fail to defend them from false teachers. But the readings today remind us that Christ looks upon His helpless flock with pity and will restore to them in due time faithful shepherds. Consequently, we should always pray for our bishops and priests, and if we find ourselves confused or disheartened by error in the Church, beg Christ the Good Shepherd to rise up and restore to us faithful ministers of the Gospel. 

Once again the focus is on the leaders of the Church, though today it treats the way in which they will be persecuted for their preaching.

The first reading from Jeremiah 20 sees the prophet lamenting the ways in which the people denounce him.

He makes clear that those out to get him are not his enemies, but his former friends who are now waiting to capitalize on a misstep. Rather than worry about what people are plotting or thinking, he takes confidence in the Lord and remarks that his “persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.”

The Psalm continues this theme. The Psalmist notes that on account of his zeal for the house of the Lord, he too has become an “outcast to his brothers” and “bears insult for the sake of the Lord.”

The Gospel is a continuation of the discourse we read last Sunday, wherein Jesus is sending out His twelve Apostles to be shepherds recalling the people of Israel.

In this section, however, our Lord commands them not to fear those who oppose them but to boldly and loudly proclaim the teachings of the Lord.

For those of us who think that the Gospel is simply the message that God loves us, we might wonder why proclaiming such a message would be so dangerous. But such an understanding of the Gospel is a radical oversimplification and trivialization of what Jesus taught.

Jesus was not crucified because He told people God loved them. Likewise, His Apostles were not martyred because they were singing “love is all you need.”

He was crucified and they were martyred because He taught that the institutions of Israel, principally the Law, Temple, and its sacrifices, were no longer sufficient to save them. The time had come for something more radical and perfect. This implies that human sin is a bigger problem and requires a better solution than what they had believed. He taught that He was the Messiah, which is to say a greater prophet than Moses and king than David. Indeed, the Jewish leadership was mad with Jesus not because He taught a Hippie ethic, but because He said the Laws of Moses were always intended to be provisional and were fulfilled not merely by behavior but by interior character and devotion. Far from relaxing morality or ritual, Jesus perfected them and intensified their demands.

This meant too that the Kingdom of Israel no longer belonged to the biological ancestors of Abraham living in a plot of land in ancient Palestine. Rather the Kingdom is a spiritual reality present in every time and place, belonging to all those who are “born again” through baptismal faith. The site of worship, identified as the Temple in Jerusalem, Christ taught, was no longer a physical building, but His Body, now given in the Eucharist.

This is a very dangerous message not just because it challenged the current order and authorities, but because it was so radically specific. The implication of His teaching was nothing short of a new religion.

Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, the true King of Israel thereby displacing both King Herod and the Roman Caesar. He formed a new body of people composed of Jews and Gentiles together, called the Church. He instituted new rituals and sacraments. He revealed Himself to be the eternal Son of God and revealed that the One God of Israel is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

He commanded people obey Him over Moses. Jesus’ message is indeed about the love of God. But that love has historical and existential form which demands nothing less than that we image God. This is why Christ warns His Apostles that they will face the same rejection as He did. He tells them that they are not to fear their persecutors who can only kill their physical body. Instead, they are to “be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,” adding that “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.

But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

We might find this all a bit harsh, as we often think especially in matters of religion that nothing is particularly clear and people are just doing the best they can to live according to their own experience of faith. But we must remember the great authority and mission God has given His Apostles, and by succession, the Bishops.

To become a bishop in the Church and receive this authority and participate in Christ’s mission comes with tremendous responsibility. If they lead souls astray, if they neglect their task of faithfully proclaiming Christ’s teachings to the world, they are not just putting their own soul at risk, but the souls of the faithful.

St Benedicts Abbey, Atchison, KS

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LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

JUNE 25 - 12TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

SPIRITUAL READING

Here we are reminded of the readings from last week which shows how concerned Christ is over His sheep and His pity for them when they are poorly shepherded.

As the Psalm appointed for today declares: “See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive! For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.” 

Personal Prayer A Review

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n this delightful book, two monks of St. Vincent’s Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania explain why and how we pray as well as offer various encouragements to those who perhaps find prayer perplexing or difficult. Their experience as monks and nationally recognized spiritual directors is evident on every page.

The first six chapters cast a Personal Prayer: A vision for prayer as commuGuide for Receiving nion between human persons the Father’s Love and the tri-personal God. Such communion is made By Frs. Boniface Hicks, possible through the incarna- OSB and Thomas tion of Jesus Christ. Because Acklin, OSB Christ is truly God and truly man, we have to take both Emmaus Road, 2017 natures seriously in prayer.

Here, the authors make it plain that we shouldn’t see our humanity as an obstacle to prayer or unworthy of God’s concern. This is too often the case as we either think God can’t be bothered with our petty problems or we tend to get frustrated with our propensity toward distraction, fear, sadness, exhaustion, etc. The authors tell us that this is an occasion for humility: “Our embarrassment of ourselves and sense of awe before God give us a chance to be humble, even to lower ourselves, to be like little children...” (p. xxvi). Indeed, this is a running

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theme of the book, that prayer requires vulnerability, which means laying down the defenses we often construct for our protection and setting aside illusions of our grandeur that would often make us think prayer is unproductive.

In considering the divine dimension of prayer, I was most interested in the authors’ exploration of God’s hiddenness and silence, which anyone who has started praying knows can be infuriating and demoralizing.

God is hidden, they explain, “because He does not exist in a particular way as a particular being in a particular space at a particular time like we do. He is everywhere at once” (p. 128). We shouldn’t expect to encounter Him or hear Him like we do created things. The authors draw a connection between God’s hiddenness and Jesus’ instruction that when we pray, we pray in secret: “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). It was somewhat disappointing that the lesson here was again vulnerability. From the authors’ perspective, the hiddenness of God simply occasions us to be fully honest and intimate in prayer. I would have liked to hear about how the mystery of God allows the self to be set within an eternal frame, melting away the urgency of the present and the seeming totality of temporal circumstances.

Through the lens of the previous chapters, chapters 7 through 10 consider various forms of prayer, namely, liturgical prayer, lectio divina, Eucharistic adoration, the Rosary, the Jesus Prayer, and charismatic prayer.

Here there are some very helpful explanations of certain prayer practices as well as practical advice. We might expect Benedictine monks to have much to say about Lectio Divina, for example, but I found equally insightful the reflections on the Jesus Prayer which is more of an eastern devotion. One topic I expected to find covered but did not was praying with icons.

Personal Prayer is a helpful, contemporary book on prayer that frames prayer as personal encounter and relationship. This affords many insights into both the nature of prayer as well as common prayer practices.

There is much inspiration in these pages and I recommend this book to anyone beginning to prayer or seeking to renew their prayer life. 