Kansas Monks November 2023

k ansas Dear Friends, As you know, the town of Atchison, Kan., where our monastery is located sits on the western banks of the Missouri River. There is much beauty found on the wooded bluffs that overlook the river, upon which our monastery sits. Yet along with this beauty there can be danger and wildness. Over the years, the town has experienced devastating floods.

One of our departed brethren used to tell the story of his mother’s visit for his Solemn Profession. She spent the night in a hotel and that evening there was a flash flood. She awoke the next morning to discover that her car was swept away in the flood.

This story reminds me of the teaching of Jesus toward the end of His Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 7:2129. He warns that not everyone who comes to Him on the Day of Judgement and greets Him will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus then says that whoever receives this teaching is like the wise man who built his house on the rock. When the rains came and it was flooded, his house remained. But those who do not heed this warning, says Our Lord, are like the foolish man who builds his house on the sand. His house was swept away in the flood.

Our Lord knows that wise people, when they foresee danger, take precautions. He tells us that we should approach the building of our eternal future the same way that we would wisely approach the construction of our earthly home. He calls us to build our faith to withstand the storms and crises

monks November 2023 that will inevitably come as we seek to live in a world that is still beset by human sin and evil.

This is a good reminder for us as we enter the month of November. November is a month traditionally dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory—a tradition in the Church that began with the Benedictines. As we pray for our deceased loved ones, we can also keep in mind the words of Jesus. We can consider how our faith might be threatened or weakened by the ways of this world. And we can work to try to build up our faith, not least by availing ourselves more frequently to the graces of the sacraments.

In Christ,

Abbot James R. Albers, OSB

IN THIS ISSUE The Sacramental Sound of Heaven

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The Dignity of Purgatory

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Living the Liturgy

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THE SACRAMENTAL SOUND OF HEAVEN

The Sacramental Sound of Heaven An Interview with Adam Bartlett

By Dr. James R. A. Merrick

I sat down with Adam Bartlett who, alongside Bishop Andrew Cozzens, was honored by St. Benedict’s Abbey with the Lumen Vitae Award this year. We discussed several topics, including the importance of sacred music, the special suitability of Gregorian chant for the liturgy, how his organization Source & Summit is equipping parishes across the country to renew sacred music, and an exciting new initiative that will feature Br. Florian chanting Bartlett’s settings on the Hallow prayer app.

Bartlett was involved in liturgical music at an early age, first “strumming the greatest hits of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s” in his local parish and then, in college, singing praise songs in the LifeTeen movement.

Today, however, Bartlett is known as a composer and reviver of chants for the Mass. I wondered what was behind his transition from praise music to chant.

At the heart of it was a recognition of what the liturgy demands and what the Church teaches about sacred music. He explained to me that the liturgical music in which he was initiated was very devotional and evangelistic, concentrated on representing personal desires and experiences of God in contemporary idiom. “But the liturgy has greater demands,” he said, with a bit of gravity in his voice. The liturgy is not merely a moment of self-expression; it is “about the mystical body of Christ coming into a sacramental participation of Christ’s perfect prayer to the Father, which carries with it the whole of the Church’s tradition and authority.”

Quite simply, personal familiarity and self-expression are lesser goals than the goals of the Mass. The liturgy invites us into something greater. It invites us to join the chorus of the angels and saints in heaven.

It asks us to take our place alongside our spiritual fathers and mothers who passed down the Mass to us, requiring some measure of respect and gratitude

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for what they have given to us. Liturgical music, he said, “must bear the weight of the Church’s tradition.”

Above all, the Mass gives us the means by which we can participate in the perfect worship of God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The work of evangelization, the practice of devotion, the transformation of culture—these things are important, Bartlett admitted.

But in the Church’s mind they are to happen outside the context of the liturgy; they are what we do after we have been inspired, refreshed, and graced by the Mass. Liturgical music, consequently, must “put us into contact with the heavenly liturgy, which transcends the here and now, transcends time and space.”

But why does this mean that we should renew Gregorian chant? I pressed him on this point, explaining that I grew up in an environment which said that the incarnation of Jesus Christ entailed that God wants our worship to be inculturated, that is, the timely transformation of contemporary cultural forms into the worship of God. Why should we return to an earlier cultural form for the worship of God today? What’s so special about Gregorian chant?

The primary purpose of sacred music, Bartlett explained, is “to set the words of the Mass to music.”

The vast majority of the words of the liturgy are the words of Sacred Scripture. Because of the great authority and inspiration of Sacred Scripture, the musical form used must be one which “embraces” those words, “never altering or changing them for poetic or metrical or other musical reasons, but preserving them, elevating them, allowing their beauty to be manifest, and lifting them to the realms of prayer. If we sing other words, however wonderful they might be, we are actually bringing something into the liturgy that is alien to it.” We need a musical form that is suited to the words of Sacred Scripture.

Bartlett reminds us that in the history of the Church, “the primary musical form that has sought to sing the words of the Mass from Sacred Scripture is Gregorian chant.” “This musical style,” he said, “has been cultivated

since the earliest centuries of the Church and has become for us a sacramental, a sensible sign that points to an invisible reality, which in the liturgy is the sound of heaven.”

Gregorian chant was never popular music; it was not the folk style of the first century. “Scholars have said that Gregorian chant would have been just as alien to the culture of St. Thomas Aquinas as it is to us today.”

As far as we can tell, chant was a style that was always set apart for sacred ceremonies. “Chant began with the cantillation of the Psalms in the Jewish Temple and synagogues, and early Christians took up the chanting of the Psalms in the Mass at a time when the Jews were saying that the chanting of the Psalms should no longer be done because it should be reserved for Temple worship.” For those who would like to know more about the history and practice of Gregorian chant, Bartlett recommends Gregorian Chant: A Guide to the History and Liturgy by Dom Daniel Saulinier, OSB. How is Bartlett working today to put the faithful back into contact with the riches of the Church’s sacred music? I wanted to know more about Bartlett’s work in starting Source & Summit, an organization that supports parishes and apostolates in renewing the music of the Mass. The mission statement on the website is inspiring. It observes that “our times are crying out for a new renaissance—a new blossoming of timeless truth, beauty, and goodness…and it all begins with the way we worship.” Bartlett told me that Source & Summit was created specifically to help fulfill the liturgical aims

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DR. JAMES R. A. MERRICK

Adam Bartlett and Abbot James Albers, OSB, at Abbot’s Table X

of the Second Vatican Council, which he describes as drawing people into “a full, active, and conscious participation in Christ’s prayer to the Father through which the work of our salvation is accomplished and which meets us in this world but takes us into the world to come, the world of the heavenly liturgy.”

Source & Summit supports the implementation of the Second Vatican Council in a number of ways. It composes vernacular chant settings for the singing of Sacred Scripture in the Mass. It publishes annual missalettes with the music of the Mass made accessible for all parishes. Most of all, it is a innovator in technological solutions that help parish worship leaders plan the liturgical music of the year. “This is what our digital platform is all about,” he said, “it is a groundbreaking digital tool designed for parish music directors, musicians, and liturgical ministers to help them coordinate and manage all aspects of the liturgy programs.” The digital platform provides access to a significant library of liturgical music. This liturgical music can be adjusted, for example, transposing a song into a different key. It can also aid directors in the creation of booklets for the congregation and scores for the choir.

But one of the more recent initiatives of Source & Summit that has Bartlett excited is a partnership among St. Benedict’s Abbey, Source & Summit, and the Hallow prayer application. Brother Florian, Choirmaster here at St. Benedict’s Abbey, will be chanting Bartlett’s compositions of the chants for the Liturgy of the Hours.

With the Divine Office gaining increasing interest, through the influence of Bishop Robert Barron and the growing popularity of Benedictine monasticism, this is a very timely and helpful resource.

I must say that Bartlett is a very thoughtful as well as extremely talented leader in liturgical music. It was very obvious to me why St. Benedict’s decided to honor him with this year’s Lumen Vitae Award. And after our conversation it is my hope and prayer that his work will continue to gain influence and that he is successful in helping the contemporary Church better realize the liturgical aims of the Second Vatican Council by renewing the sacred music tradition of the Church. 

THE DIGNITY OF PURGATORY

The Dignity of Purgatory

By Dr. James R. A. Merrick

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rowing up in an Protestant home, full of good faith and family, to be sure, I was taught that there was nothing I could do to overcome my own sinfulness. I was born a wretch, you see, and, while that may be true in my particular case, I was also told I could do nothing to change that. I was a wretch after all.

The good news, I was then told, is that God realized the situation was hopeless and decided instead to ask me to put my faith in Jesus who not only succeeded where I had failed but also offered His life as an atonement for my faults. If I just put my faith in Him rather than in my own efforts or intentions, if I, in other words, turned away from my wretched self to the Holy One, then God would count that as good enough. He would remove my guilt and, upon my death, instantaneously transform me into the holy and righteous person I could never be in this life.

This never meant, according to my parents and pastors, that I shouldn’t try to be good here and now. But I should just be aware that improvement is likely to be scant, success impermanent. And whatever progress I seemed to make I should know it wouldn’t impact my eternal fate one bit nor remotely resemble that eternal transformation I would experience upon my death.

Whatever holiness there is to be experienced here and now, it has more similarity with dung than beatitude.

There is certainly great consolation in having the bar set so low and having someone else graciously do all the work for you. I mean, look, if I called up a contractor to help me formulate a plan to stop my dilapidation of a house from sinking, and he realized what a miserable builder I was and then decided to do the work for me for free out of pity, I would rightfully be overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.

But over the years the paradigm just didn’t seem to fit both what Scripture itself described nor my own experience. On the one hand, I had a desire to actually be good. I didn’t just want to despair over my wretchedness, but I wanted to actually grow in virtue and

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holiness. But according to this way of looking at things, it would be better for me to concentrate my thought on the righteousness of Christ than on my own.

On the other hand, I couldn’t quite understand why, if God could “zap” me in an instant upon my death to make me holy, He wouldn’t do that now, especially since He so regularly seemed to command me to be good in this life. Why couldn’t God begin the process of sanctifying me now and bring it to completion after my death?

This was soon accompanied by another question: what would my experience of becoming automatically holy upon my death be like? With such a radical transformation, would I even be recognizably the same person? How could I make sense of such a radically different paradigm for my experience and decision-making? Such an instantaneous “zap” seems very mechanistic and impersonal. It seems to reduce me to a piece of machinery or software that can be shut down, upgraded, and rebooted to perfection. Wouldn’t it be far better if I actually became, through a series of decisions and discernments, holy?

Truth be told, this way of explaining the Protestant position isn’t representative of the best versions of their doctrine. But I can say that in my younger years I kept thinking that God should give me a zap of holiness every once in a while so that I would be immune to temptations. And that zap for me represented a shortcut, a way out of the struggle for sanctity. In other words, when faced with the challenge of goodness, I looked to God as justification for alleviating my responsibility. The distinction between turning away from my wretchedness to Christ and despairing in myself and blaming God became real fuzzy.

All of which is to say that purgatory came to make a lot of sense. Sure, the Protestant position is cleaner and more convenient. Sure, it is unsettling to think that we will be held accountable for all of our sins and undergo a period of post-mortem punishment Continued on Pg. 6

DR. JAMES R. A. MERRICK Gustave Doré, 1867, Dante and the Eagle, Wood Engraving

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and purification. But there is something immensely dignifying about the fact that God doesn’t just want to zap us but wants us to actually become just and holy, wants us to know and choose the good for ourselves.

Purgatory, it seems to me, confers a great dignity on the human person. For purgatory teaches that human imperfections can be corrected and that we can become, with the help of God’s grace, actually good.

Furthermore, purgatory tells us that it is important to take responsibility for our failures rather than just sweep them under the rug. The doctrine reinforces a strong sense of the importance of justice for holiness and that the spiritual life does not advance by ignoring faults or postponing the life of virtue.

But, you might be thinking, part of the understanding of purgatory, especially to the fore during this month of November, is the belief that the prayers and penances of the living can decrease the dead’s “time” in purgatory. As the Catechism says, “From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead” (CCC 1032). Isn’t this notion the equivalent of the Protestant view of the “spiritual zap” upon death? If the purpose of purgatory is to get a person to accept responsibility for their sins and to be perfected in goodness, then how does it help to have someone else’s goodness become a substitute for their own?

We need to understand this carefully and, of course, recognize that we are speaking about something that hasn’t been fully revealed to us. But one of the things we should recognize is that no one sins or is saved in a vacuum apart from the presence of others. It is not the case that what I do only affects me nor is it the case that the actions of others cannot be part of my own self-understanding and faith.

When we think about the Masses, prayers, and sacrifices the living offer on behalf of the dead, we should understand that these are acts of charity, and charity is the greatest catalyst for conversion. When a soul in purgatory sees the charity of the Church

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towards himself or herself, when he or she experiences the grace of God being applied, they are encouraged, inspired, and empowered to endure the purifications and penalties more fruitfully.

It is not that a living person’s penance or prayer is substituted for a purgatorial soul’s progress, but that the former merits a special intervention from God and is an act which moves the soul to grow in love. We all know that acts of love can wake us up and prompt us to repentance. And it is no less the case with the acts of the living toward the dead in purgatory.

Of course, none of this speaks to the way in which it is good, holy, and just for us to care for the faithful departed as members of Christ’s body. But it is enough, hopefully, to motivate us to use this month of November well and to do what we can to aid the holy souls in purgatory. 

Commentary on the Liturgical Year

By Dr. James R. A. Merrick

ALL SOULS AND THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER

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ne of the lamentable aspects of modernity is the way in which it often influences us to look down upon our forebears and generates a compulsion to distinguish what we do today from what was done in the past. We can live under the impression that in order to express our individuality we need to break away from all precedents and influence of the past.

So it is that a characteristic of the modern age is a kind of historical criticism, an approach toward the study of the past that serves primarily to justify the modern era at the expense of all that came before. The past is treated as the foil of the future, and we engage in historical analysis mainly to set the revolutionary agenda of the present.

When we are prone to think of how our forebears have set us back, we will seldom reflect upon the debt we owe them. But such a critical and spiteful attitude toward the figures of the past is one of the things that differentiates modern people from the peoples of the past. For in times past, there was a great awareness that justice or piety demanded that we honor our ancestors.

There was a consciousness that contemporary people owed a debt to all those who have gone before them.

During the month of November, we do our best to resist this modern mindset. The month is dedicated to remembering, praying for, and offering penances for the faithful departed. We try to honor the dead and pay our debt to them.

Of course, one of the easiest things we can do, if we don’t do it already, is add the prayer for the dead to the prayer before meals. Although it is not a holy day of obligation, we can of course attend Mass on the Commemoration of All Souls on November 2nd and pray for the faithful departed. Another common practice is to prayerfully visit a cemetery from the 1st to the 8th of November. There is also “Catholic trick-ortreat.” In times past, families would bake “soul cakes” and when someone knocked on their door, they would give out a soul cake in exchange for the promise that the recipient would pray for one of their deceased relatives or friends.

LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

Living the Liturgy

1 NOVEMBER – ALL SAINTS

T Bl. Fra Angelico, 1425, the Last Judgement, Tempora

he Solemnity of All Saints has its roots in the earlier practice of commemorating martyrs in the catacombs and during special times of the liturgical year. It was plain to the early Christians that whoever was persecuted to death for Christ was so closely conformed to Christ’s Cross that they were immediately ushered into heaven. A distinct feast day for the martyrs arose in the eastern Church during the fourth century while in the western Church a Feast of All

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LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY Abbot James Albers, OSB

Holy Martyrs was established by Pope Boniface IV in 610. This corresponded with the gift of the Pantheon to the Church by Emperor Phocas.

But just as devotions arose in devotion to the martyrs, over time devotions arose around individuals who, while not martyred, nevertheless lived life of exceptional holiness and who were known to perform favors, both during their earthly lives and after their death.

Thus it was that the feasts of the martyrs were broadened to include all saints during the eighth century and transferred from a mid-May date to November 1st in the ninth century by Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV respectively. Part of the reason for this alteration is that it was easier to feed the pilgrims who journeyed to Rome for the feast after the harvest.

The fact that Rome was inundated with pilgrims to the point of causing a food crisis shows just how eager the faithful were to honor the saints and seek their heavenly help. All Saints was indeed a popular and often public holiday throughout the Middle Ages. But it wasn’t made a holy day of obligation until the fifteenth century under Pope Sixtus IV, who also appointed All

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Saints to be marked by a vigil and octave, both of which were suppressed in 1955 by Pope Pius XII. The principal purpose of All Saints is to honor God by recognizing the merits of the saints. The work of Christ is a work of redemption, meaning that it shines forth and is magnified in the lives of all the redeemed.

Thus, to fully appreciate the whole of the work of Christ, we need to appreciate what Christ continues to do throughout history.

There is also good symbolism in the fact that as the world grows gloomier and darker during winter, we are reminded of the bright lives of the saints who can inspire us to pursue holiness rather than sink into sloth. We should hope that one day the faithful will be seeking our help in heaven, and that our name will be sung in the Litany of the Saints.

5 NOVEMBER – 31ST SUNDAY IN ORD. TIME

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he focus of today’s Mass is the shepherds of the Church. The first reading from the prophet Malachi sees God scold His priests. He says that they dishonor His name and offered idolatrous sacrifice. The

LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

priests have led the people of Israel astray and used their office for their own gain. This is contrasted with the second reading which is taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. There the Apostle Paul speaks of how he and his companions “were gentle among you” and worked “day and night” to proclaim the Gospel to them. Hence, St. Paul and his fellow ministers cared for God’s people and made sure that they knew the Word of God. These two readings set up the Gospel where Jesus tells His Apostles not to be like the Pharisees who mislead the people of God and using their authority to enhance their status in society. Sometimes we are tempted to think of the Pharisees as religious conservatives, and therefore as countercultural figures who simply wagged their finger at the rest of society. But as the Gospel indicates, the Pharisees were something of elite figures in the society of the day. Jesus points out that the Pharisees loved “the places of honor at banquets” and “greetings in the marketplaces.” The Pharisees taught things in a way that advanced their social standing.

The kind of priests or shepherds Christ desires is not those who do everything they can to accommodate the Church to the culture, nor use their office in order to gain recognition and advantage. Rather, Christ desires shepherds who, like the Apostle Paul and his companion, preach the Gospel and do everything they can to convert people to the Word of God. This Sunday we ought to pray for such shepherds.

12 NOVEMBER – 32ND SUNDAY IN ORD. TIME

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t is worth reflecting on the Collect – the first oration or prayer of the Mass. It is a very old prayer, coming down to us through the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary. It is one of the few orations that is quoted in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (see paragraph 1742).

It begins by invoking the “Almighty and merciful God.” This is an interesting combination of the attributes of omnipotence and mercy. St. Thomas Aquinas made much of the fact that divine mercy was an expression of God’s omnipotence. Quite simply, because God is all-powerful, He is not threatened or inconvenienced

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1897, Compassion, Oil on canvas

by our weakness. Moreover, He is ever able to devise a way to restore us.

It asks the almighty and merciful God to “graciously keep us from adversity.” In the original version of this collect, the language was stronger. It was “keep us from all that wars against us.” As several commentators have noted, the language of the collect is militaristic.

Anyone who has pursued a devout life knows that

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LIVING THE LITURGY TODAY

things “war against us.” There are, of course, our own wild passions. There are then the false teachers and voices of this world that deceive and distract us. Then there are the demons that seek to pull us down into the service of the Devil, souring our hearts and making us doubt God’s grace.

How differently would we look at the spiritual life if we took seriously that it is a battle? If we knew that we were under attack? If we knew that there were forces hell bent on our destruction? The Christian life is a life of peace, but not it is not peaceful. It is a battle. It means enduring “tribulations.” It requires much vigilance and diligence. It requires great discipline, wisdom, and determination. It demands fitness.

Let this Collect awaken us this Sunday to the fact that we are in a fight for eternity. Let it stir us to bravery and action. Let it rouse us to leave behind all that holds us back and take on the discipline that frees our mind for God’s service. As we pray this prayer this Sunday, let us ask ourselves what we are doing to become fit for the Lord. Let us have in our minds one behavior that

Fr. Vinícius de Queiroz Rezende, OSB

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wars against our holy desires, one thing that hinders us from doing the works God has given us and ask that the Lord would unburden us from it.

19 NOVEMBER – 33RD SUNDAY IN ORD. TIME

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s the liturgical year draws to a close, we have some readings about how the wise person waits and is ready for the coming of the Lord. In the Gospel, we have the parable about the ten virgins. They are all on a journey to meet their potential husband. Half of them were foolish and half of them were wise. The foolish ones brought their lamps, but no oil. The wise, however, “brought flasks of oil with their lamps.” Since the bridegroom was delayed, they “became drowsy and fell asleep.” When he finally arrived, the foolish virgins awoke only to realize their lamps were going out. They asked the wise virgins for some of their oil, but the wise ones replied, “No, for there may not be enough for us and you.”

For Pius XI Christ’s universal kingship means as much for politics as it does for personal spirituality.

“It would be a grave error,” Pius XI warns, “to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power” (Quas Primas, 17). “If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ” (Quas Primas, 18).

As the Creator, only Christ knows the true order of governance necessary for all people to live in harmony.

When individual nations pursue their self-interest apart from the reign of Christ, they can only create disharmony. What we pray for today in the Mass is the restoration of all things to the rule of Christ the King.

26 NOVEMBER – CHRIST THE KING

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his Solemnity is a relatively new one, having been instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas. Pius XI established this solemnity in response to the First World War. It served as a reminder to the European nations that there could be no peace unless rulers returned to a recognition of the universal kingship of Christ.

Pius XI pointed out that Christ’s comprehensive kingship is a consequence of his divinity. Christ is Lord not just of His faithful followers, but of every creature because He is the Creator of all. There is literally no dimension of reality that exists apart from Jesus Christ, thus all of creaturely life must be ordered and subjected to Him.

Hubert and Jan van Eyck, 1432, The Almighty (Ghent Altarpiece), Oil on wood.

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This parable has been given several interpretations over the years. Most commonly it has been understood to be a call to the life of virtue. Everyone can be good every so often, turning on our charm and niceness when it counts. But to be consistently good requires virtue, for a virtue is a quality in the soul which inclines or disposes it to a good.

As it relates to this parable, commentators have said that the foolish virgins are likened to those who are simply good when they feel like it or when the conditions are right. They are able to feign goodness but when the going gets tough or as time goes on, they are unable to sustain goodness of character. The virtuous, however, are like the wise virgins who have developed consistent habits of behavior and constantly desire the good, such that even when things are difficult, they can still act well. The virtuous, in other words, have a depth of soul that enables their goodness not to be fleeting.

This parable nicely pairs with the Collect for this Sunday, which prays for “the constant gladness of being devoted to you, for it is full and lasting happiness to serve with constancy the author of all that is good.”

What we ought to aim for in the service of the Lord and pursuit of holiness is constancy, not mere flashes of goodness. For as this parable reminds us, it is only those who persevere until the end, whose light does not go out, who will get to see the Bridegroom.

November Prayers The month of November holds special significance for the deceased. It is important to keep those who have died in our prayers. Please feel free to request prayers from St. Benedict’s Abbey via our website (QR code below).

upcoming events All Souls Day Procession November, 2 See website for more information

www.kansasmonks.org/prayer-requests For the first week of November, a plenary indulgence is available for souls in Purgatory. One can help those in Purgatory by devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the deceased.

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