Fr om the A bb ot Tr u s t i n g i n t h e L o r d
Our confrere, Bishop Herbert Hermes, would tell the story of a Brazilian day in 1990 when he received a letter from Pope (now Saint) John Paul II asking him to be the bishop of the Prelacy of Cristalândia in the state of Tocantins in Central Brazil, more than a 16-hour drive from our monastery in Mineiros. Bishop Herbert would tell how he fled to the chapel to be with the True Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, and how he poured out his soul to his Lord, “How could this be asked of me?” “Lord, why?” He told of how those many hours spent with Christ in the chapel that night would turn those questions that were tumbling about in his mind and heart into an exclamation: Fiat – “Yes!” This fiat spoken by Bishop Herbert was the same fiat spoken by Mary to the Archangel Gabriel after which the Holy Spirit descended upon her. It was the same fiat spoken by Peter to his Lord, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). Having sweat blood, it was the same fiat spoken by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before he would give over his life to his Father for our salvation. It was a fiat spoken from the seed of vulnerability – “How could this be?” “Lord, save me!” “Father, let this cup pass.” “Lord, why?” We are reminded by Jesus, the Son of God, that there will be hardship and maybe even persecution, but there will also be abundant grace and eternal life (cf. Mk 10). When we face difficulties in our lives, uncertainties, when we find ourselves in a place where we become very vulnerable beings, maybe even feeling a little “dumped on” by God,
what is our reaction? From where in our interior does that reaction come? Think of the parable of the sower where Jesus explains that the seed is the Word of God and the different places where the seed falls are the various conditions of the heart (Lk 8). There is the roadside, the rocks, and the thorns, and then there is the good soil – the good soil being a heart that is “generous and good.” What is it that makes good soil good soil? Minerals and nutrients, water? Of course, but what is most important is the cultivation of the ground, allowing the soil to be softened and oxygenated – to bring in the lifegiving gift of the Spirit. Jesus is saying that a heart left fallow, left idle, left uncultivated, left unguided by the Spirit will not produce in generosity and goodness. We can’t negate the fact that the rocky, roadside, and thorny areas do exist in our hearts and lives, and they produce real feelings and emotions. Through our desire for conversion we work to cultivate the heart, making it good, fertile ground; yet we must at the same time consider how we respond to the harvest that comes from those difficult areas of our lives. Conversion is an ongoing process in which we will do battle for our entire lives. There will be parts of our lives that will surrender to virtue more easily than others. To cultivate our hearts is to truly take on those difficult areas – the thorny, the roadside, or the rocky. If we are unable to go into those fractious places of our hearts, to truly take them on, failing to work that soil we encounter there, we block the opportunity for God’s grace to flow into those places of our hearts, and into our lives.
In my blood is a mission calling... - b i sh o p h e r b e rt h e r me s
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Kansas Monks
