Monk Life + Spring 2015

MONK LIFE From the Vocations Office of Saint Meinrad Archabbey

The Evangelical Counsels Benedictine Perspectives: The Sacraments

Spring 2015 • No. 5

MONK LIFE On the cover: The monks process into the Archabbey Church during Mass for the Solemnity of St. Meinrad.

FEATURES 2......................................................................From the Editor 4-5 ..........................................................The Evangelical Counsels 6-7............................................................Year of Consecrated Life 8-9......................................................Benedictine Perspectives 10-11 ...........................................................Ministry Spotlight

This online publication can be viewed at www.saintmeinrad.org/monk-life Produced by the Vocations Office and the Communications Office of Saint Meinrad Archabbey.

Vocations Office, Saint Meinrad Archabbey 100 Hill Drive, St. Meinrad, IN 47577 vocations@saintmeinrad.org, www.saintmeinrad.org (812) 357-6318 © 2015

From the Editor Br. William Sprauer, OSB

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With this issue, Monk Life officially celebrates its first birthday. When we began this publication a year ago, we never would have guessed how popular it would become, not only with would-be monks, but with long-time monks, oblates and friends of Saint Meinrad.

It is the convergence of many talented individuals’ labor: writers, photographers, graphic designers, editors; many folks contribute to the beauty and depth that is Monk Life.

While the monastic charism is certainly its own gift to the life of the Church, each one of us brings our own particular gift to the life of the monastery. One having the gift of speech, another the gift of music, another the gift of art, another the gift of scholarly study; and the list goes on and on.

This publication, in effect, then, is the perfect metaphor for the monastery.

Many different people converge to

And this is an important point when we consider the composition of the monastery: there is no one

one singular, deserted place to do something extraordinary, beautiful, and meaningful. All of us come to the monastery bearing gifts, gifts that have been given to us by God, and we, in turn, share those gifts for the benefit of the community and the Church as a whole.

particular type of monk. We are all different, and we are all gifted in our own particular ways. And each of our gifts, if properly recognized and cultivated, contributes to the life of the monastery and, in effect, to the life of the Church at large.

This January, we were blessed to welcome five new novices into the monastery, each being clothed with the Benedictine habit, and their hair cut into the monastic “corona.” Each of these novices will bring his own talents and treasure to the monastery, and this will continue to shape our community into the image of the Kingdom of God that St. Benedict aimed to establish.

Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts, so long as we continue to sharpen our strengths and hedge our weaknesses to become the most loving people we can be. This is the goal of the monk life, and its realization is certainly made manifest, albeit perhaps only metaphorically, in this quarterly electronic publication. +

COME & SEE WEEKENDS

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MARCH 6 JUNE 5 NOVEMBER 8

Clockwise from top: Novice Jonathan and Br. John Mark sing the entrance antiphon together at Mass.

Fr. Jeremy stands in the monastic choir.

Our five new novices each with the monastic “corona.”

Br. Matthew prays during Mass.

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The Evangelical Counsels: Obedience Br. John Mark Falkenhain Throughout the course of this designated Year for Consecrated Life, we thought it might be a good idea to include in Monk Life a regular feature on the evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty and celibate chastity.

(oftentimes we can’t put our finger on it) that makes them especially attractive, distinctive and compelling.

Julia Roberts has that charismatic smile. Fulton Sheen had a charismatic way that drew millions to watch him speak about the faith on TV in the 1950s. We don’t always know exactly what it is about these people. We just know that they draw our attention. And they have a certain influence on us.

Ask just about anyone what they know about religious life, and they’re likely to mention that monks, nuns, sisters and brothers take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. These characterize the consecrated life. So let’s take a closer look at each one, beginning this issue with obedience.

After all, St. Benedict begins his Rule for monks with the word “Listen,” and listening is at the very heart of the counsel of obedience.

So, when we say that there is a distinctive charism to religious life, we mean that religious men and women offer a particular gift to the Church and to the world, and when lived right, their gifted lives have a special potential to attract people’s attention, to make a statement, to compel others.

[As a funny little aside, when I mentioned to Br. Zachary at lunch today that I was working on an article on obedience for Monk Life, he suggested I should give it the title, “Obedience: What part of ‘yes’ do you not understand?”]

First, a quick note on the whole idea of “evangelical counsels.” We have been talking a lot in our formation program lately about the distinctive charism of monastic life. A charism is a gift: both a gift received and a gift handed on to the entire Church. The word “charism” also relates to the word “charismatic.”

We say a person is charismatic when he or she has that certain something 4

What is charismatic about a nun?

How might the life of a young man entering a monastery be attractive or compelling to others? It will probably take these next three issues to completely get my point across, but I’m going to argue that it’s these evangelical counsels – obedience, poverty and celibacy – that make consecrated men and women charismatic and important in our modern world.

Obedience and Conversion To fully understand the meaning and purpose of obedience, we must first remind ourselves that the goal of our life as monks, and as Christians in general, is conversion.

Each day, we are to work at becoming the very best, most Christlike person we can be. So when St.

Benedict outlines his program of monastic life in the Rule, he prescribes a vow of obedience. He knows that obedience will lead the monk to the best, most Christ-like version of himself. How? Obedience comes from a Latin word that means “to listen.” To obey is primarily to listen, but not just in any ordinary way.

Obedience means listening in such a way that the monk puts aside his own will (what he wants) in order to do what the Rule, the abbot and – most importantly – his community need him to do.

When I take a vow of monastic obedience, I expect that for the rest of my life, these brothers of mine are going to get up in my face, so to speak, and demand something more, something better, something Christ-like of me. And when I say “yes” to them, I live out my vow.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a confrere saying, “John Mark, would you please chew with your mouth shut at table?” Or, “John Mark, you need to be a little nicer to the older guys in the community.” Sometimes the invitation to growth is more drastic and cuts deeper: “John Mark, you need to stop drinking.”

Or, “John Mark, we need for you to do something about your anger. It’s becoming a real burden to our community life.”

Obedience sometimes comes in the form of favors asked: “Could you do dishes for me this evening?”; “Would you be willing to take Fr. Michael to his doctor's

Obedience, of course, is easier when you like the person who is asking or when the task being requested is enjoyable; but we get even closer to living in the image of Christ when we give ourselves away to our enemies, or when we take on challenges that cause us to suffer some or to sacrifice. These are the little deaths of community life. This is the “white martyrdom” of the consecrated life.

Love In - Love Out Love, of course, is the one thing makes this kind of obedience possible. Love is also the primary outcome of obedience. If I love my confreres (remember, love is often a choice we make and not just something that happens naturally), then sacrifice is easier, sweeter. I recognize that the obedience itself is an expression of love, of giving myself away.

It’s like the mother who gets up in the middle of the night, without hesitating, to care for her sick daughter. She loves her child, so her response is automatic. What she wants – sleep, rest so she can get up early for work – no longer matters. Love compels her to immediate obedience to the needs of her child and it is made possible by love.

It’s like the story of a monk who is at work copying a manuscript. In the middle of copying a letter “o,” the bell rings for prayer and he immediately rises and runs for prayer, not even finishing the letter he is working on.

It sounds a little zealous and perhaps overly pious, but compare it to the mother who, upon hearing the cry of her infant, drops everything to respond to the child’s needs. As monks, our love for the liturgy and for one another should incline our hearts to leave our will behind and attend immediately to the needs of one another and the call to praise God.

attractive. But vulnerability, generosity and even self-abandon are what draw people to us.

Christ, the Model of Obedience

I remember being fascinated one day watching a hip, young guy interrupt his life to attend to a gentleman many years older than he. The young man seemed in an instant to forget about himself – how he looked, where he was going, what he was about – in order to be of service to someone much older, weaker and less attractive.

Of course, Christ is our model. We are reminded of this each Saturday evening at Vespers when we sing the Philippians canticle, how – though Son of God – He humbled himself, took the form of a servant and made himself obedient to the point of dying for us all: the good, the sinful, the friend, the foe, the neighbor, the marginalized.

I watched and remarked to myself how his care for the older gentleman did nothing to diminish his youth, his status or his strength. Rather, it seemed to generate in me a great respect for that young man and a real desire to learn more about him – who he was, how he came to be so generous, how I might be more like him.

In terms of the charismatic nature of obedience, I’m convinced that obedience is a highly attractive and compelling quality to find in a young man or woman. We trick ourselves into thinking that power, control and self-determination are what people admire and find

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appointment?”; “We need you to set aside the job you like in order to take over some work that you’ve said before might be difficult for you.”

Beyond all this, let’s not forget obedience simply makes us irresistible to God. God gave the example of what He finds pleasing when he sent his Son to bend his will to our frail human needs. Want to please God? Follow the example and accept the evangelical counsel. Obey. +

Br. John Mark reviews music before Mass.

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Year of Consecrated Life Testimonials In honor of the Year of Consecrated Life, we asked several religious to give short testimonials about their experience of consecrated life in the monastic setting. Each issue of Monk Life during 2015 will feature their responses to these questions: • What does monastic life mean to you?

• What is most important to you about monastic life?

• What is it about monastic life that brings you joy?

Fr. Brendan Moss, OSB Simply put, the monastic life means everything to me! Being Benedictine is the way I go to God. Through our life of prayer – even though mine is focused on the seminary community where I work – I am called to be present to my relationship with God multiple times a day.

Without monastic life, I suspect my intentions to pray would be good but my practice might fall short! The monastic life roots me in my relationship with Christ.

The most important aspect of monastic life for me is our practice of conversatio morum. Conversatio is the Benedictine vow of daily renewal. St. Benedict knew monks were flawed.

He knew that every person struggled in their relationship with God and that, at times, they would go astray.

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By the promise to return daily to the Lord, conversatio helps me remember there is room for me – as flawed as I am – in this house of Saint Meinrad, and room for all the monks. Conversatio helps me remember and honor the brotherhood that exists between monks.

Saint Meinrad is a place where people from all walks of life come.

And in their time on the hill, connected with this place, people grow. They grow in relationship to God, to themselves and to others.

Having grown myself and witnessing the growth of others: monks, seminarians, lay students, deacons, oblates, college and high school youth, pilgrims and guests brings me true joy.

Again and again, the monastic life reminds me of the beauty of the Incarnation. In the Word Made Flesh, God became one of us in the person of Jesus. Monastic life – which draws attention daily to the fact the Jesus is the center of our living – helps all who so desire to grow into flesh made word!

Sr. Jeana Visel, OSB Monastery Immaculate Conception, Ferdinand, IN For me, monastic life is about St. Benedict’s admonition to seek God. Whether I am at home at the monastery, or out “on mission” serving the Church in ministry, being a Benedictine means I should be striving to follow and draw near to Jesus every day.

Part of this is about what I do: prayer and service bind me to Christ. At the same time, it’s also about being aware: can I notice and appreciate all the ways God is present in this place, in this moment?

In the whirl of daily tasks, in all honesty, a lot of the time I am distracted. Still, when the community sings the Liturgy of the Hours with one voice, or when one sister shows compassionate concern for another, or when a particular

word strikes the heart in lectio divina, noticing that God is here brings joy. God is at work, here, now!

We are part of something so much bigger than ourselves. Life has a depth of meaning if God is in it, and monastic life challenges one to be attentive: to listen, to watch, to think, to feel. Where is God now?

Sometimes we walk in the dark and simply have to trust that the Holy Spirit is there. It seems God delights in challenging us to find him in ever-new places.

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While I know I have a long way to go, the older sisters in my community give me hope. They forgive me when I screw up. They encourage me when I’m tackling a daunting task. They appreciate the good they see in me.

Most of all, they set a marvelous example of how God keeps working in our lives, softening our rough edges, making us more human. In monastic life, we become better people because of each other.

Fr. Brendan speaks to a group of “One Bread, One Cup” participants.

For me, at this point (I entered the monastery in 2006), monastic life is primarily about digging beneath the surface of life. In his Rule, St. Benedict says that whether the newcomer “truly seeks God” (RB 58:7) is of primary importance.

Br. Francis Wagner, OSB What does monastic life mean to me?

Ideally, the monk should ponder this at many different points along his journey. I have discovered that the answer continually changes over time – just as the mystery of the monk’s vocation continues to unfold and deepen.

The monk does this – as Benedict explains so poetically in the Prologue to the Rule – by listening with the ear of the heart to the voice of the Lord while at prayer, at work, or while interacting with the community.

This listening involves reflecting upon (rather than simply reacting to the “surface” occurrences of life) such questions as: What is God saying to me through this? Why does this situation or person make me feel this way? What can I learn from this situation or person?

How can I change? What fruit might this produce?

All human beings are in need of such interior self-examination. The unexamined life is not worth living, as the saying goes. Monks, however, are called to this in a more particular and intense fashion – and not only for their own benefit. They serve as witnesses, evangelists and intercessors for a world that thirsts for transcendence, yet is often too confused, uncertain or frightened to peek beneath the surface of things.

In the long run, this interior aspect of monastic life should lead to a giving – and forgiving – disposition rooted in the love of Christ, the Grain of Wheat who fell into the earth and died in order to sprout new life and produce much fruit (cf. John 12:24). +

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Benedictine Perspectives: The Sacraments and Sacramentality in the Life of a Monk

By Fr. Raymond Studzinski, OSB Catholics are familiar with how sacraments, as sacred events, mark off parts of our lives.

We begin our life in faith with Baptism, and then Confirmation and Eucharist are there to complete our initiation into Christian living. Reconciliation is there to help us as we fall and turn to God’s mercy for pardon and strength.

Monks try to plumb the depths of what these and other sacraments mean for them, now and in the future. They focus attention on what is important for every Christian, namely, the immensity of God’s love for us.

dramatic moment when suddenly the Spirit descends and the voice of God is heard. Thus begins Jesus’ mission in which He shares the special relationship He has with the One who sent him and the Spirit who sanctifies by drawing all people into a special relationship as his brothers and sisters.

Later, Jesus sends his disciples out to all corners of the earth to baptize all in the name of the triune God. The Baptism they now impart is a sacrament in which this special relationship with the triune God and with one another is now brought about. It’s a life-altering moment when divine life begins to course through our veins.

We spend the rest of our lives trying to absorb what has happened to us and trying to learn

the way of living and acting that accords with being part of God’s family. In this way, the monk and all Christians are together in pondering the depths of this sacrament.

Still, our life is one long struggle of trying to remain mindful of who we are as God’s family, but we fall often.

We are helped in being faithful to our baptismal identity by other sacraments, such as Reconciliation, which reminds us of God’s constant forgiveness. God is so much on our side that the Lord Jesus left us the Eucharist, a sacrament of love, which we are to share and so find ourselves strengthened and nourished.

In the Gospel of Luke, two disciples on the road to Emmaus meet a stranger on their way and later break bread with him. They recognized him at that moment as the Risen Lord. Luke tells us

The sacraments, channels instituted

by Christ to communicate the gift of God’s very life to humanity, empower monks and believers.

Baptism is the beginning moment in a lifelong journey punctuated by many other sacramental encounters.

Jesus’ own Baptism was that 8

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Even though St. Benedict in his Rule says little explicitly about the Eucharist and the sacraments as such, he nevertheless structures a life which is Eucharistic and sacramental to the core. It a life that is open to the gracious presence of God in sacrament and in a created world where God touches people in various ways.

Fr. Raymond greets Br. Benedict after their jubilee Mass last summer.

simply: “With that [breaking of the bread] their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight” (Lk 24:31 NAB).

The encounters of monks with the Risen Lord in the sacraments, likewise, open their eyes. They are readied for looking at the world differently, for seeing the world, people, things, events around them as sacramental.

Everything becomes charged with a power to connect us with God, to bring us to an experience of grace, of God’s gift of self to us.

Benedict had such sacramental vision and so tells monks to regard guests as Christ, for He is welcomed in them; to

prize care of the sick above all else, for they are to be served as Christ; and even to regard utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels.

To live sacramentally is to live imaginatively, seeing not a barren reality but a world filled with meaning and significance, a world of grace and possibility, of love and forgiveness. For the monk to live in this way is to be a beacon of hope for other people who are caught in the trap of a life that seems to be going nowhere.

Monks do their part in our time in keeping hope alive. One source

where they replenish their own hope is the Eucharist. For Benedict, monastic life is Eucharistic, permeated with gratitude. In the Eucharist, we are also reminded and challenged that we ourselves are to be the body of Christ, a graced sign of the power of God’s love that makes us one.

Our world needs sacraments; otherwise, we despair of ever overcoming all that keeps fragmenting us. Monks and all Christians are called to be sacraments ourselves, a sacrament of love, God’s love made visible through our presence and care. +

Clockwise from top left: The novices receive instruction from Archabbot Justin during the investiture ceremony, marking the beginning of their novitiate year.

The northside of the Archabbey Church on a foggy morning.

Br. Matthew prays with the monastic community during a Mass on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception.

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Ministry Spotlight: Teaching Future Priests

By Fr. Guerric DeBona, OSB

As I write this, the spring semester has just burst into bloom: the students have returned from their various retreats, eager to begin again. Sensing that rejuvenation has always seized my imagination in a way I find hard to describe, but I know that such newness plays out in the classroom.

I can still recall that first day on a hot August morning in 1986, newly ordained and facing about 20 Saint Meinrad College students with a quantum leap survey course in British Literature, which I mischievously referred to as “From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf.”

In some ways the work of a literature teacher is something like a quilter, isn’t it? We stitch together disparate texts into some kind of 10

I stretch that vast array of colors and textures on a fragile wooden frame to pass on to others what I myself received: the dazzling fate of English that has sustained the West for centuries, the music of language that has both comforted and confronted everyone from shy high school freshmen to stuttering kings.

As a homiletics teacher, I have an opportunity to facilitate the Word of God for those who will preach a word to the weary. My students, newly minted, confident interpreters who have the courage to become what St. Paul calls, “the stewards of God’s mysteries,” rarely disappoint me. They return to their dioceses full of good will and the Good News, eager to speak a prophetic utterance that will deepen the faith of the baptized.

When I began to teach preaching fulltime some years later, the texts shifted to biblical literature but the students still brought their own interpretive powers to the classroom. These future preachers would map their own gifted tapestries, gleaned from the new wineskins they had purchased as future ministers from dioceses across the country and the world.

On that same steamy August day almost 30 years ago, I would claim not only a blackboard (remember those?) but also a spiritual director’s chair as well. When I first entered the monastery on the first days of 1980, I gasped at the tireless efforts of the monks and lay faculty to cultivate the inner gifts of their students.

threaded coherence by setting the poetry or the novels or the plays in their context.

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The most dynamic and intense part of a monk’s life is the interior journey, a gravelly trek coursed over a lifetime and wondrously facilitated by the daily rhythm of ora et labora. And so when the Rule speaks of the heart “expanding” as the soul searches for God in community and under an abbot, I am invariably reminded of my work as a teacher and spiritual director at the seminary. It’s a privilege that has humbled me and made me ever thankful to the Lord who has called me to such ministry.

In addition to teaching in the seminary and school of theology, Fr. Guerric serves as a spiritual director for several seminarians.

Consider this: you come to a school in the middle of cornfield as an 18-year-old on the edge of selfdiscovery and run headlong into a tradition that is 1,500 years old and shaped by a Church that is diverse, global and driven by the ceaseless wind of the Holy Spirit.

A directee finds extraordinary advantage with the wealth of wisdom experience only a Benedictine community can provide.

We are bound to see how others have blossomed in the course of bringing their spiritual insights and prayer experiences before the living God. Yes, I was one of those directees once upon a time and my own spiritual directors over the years have been my best teachers.

I owe all of them a debt of gratitude I can never repay.

We all take circuitous routes in running God’s commands to the finish line. But I know that eventually I return home to what a Carthusian author refers to as “the hermitage within,” where I live in the presence of God’s consoling mercy. The walls of that little house are covered with quilts and tapestries sewn from my work as a teacher, spiritual director and, in the last several years, novice master.

Countless are those who have helped me craft those remarkable tapestries over three decades; these quilted prayers have harbored their own silent treasure of thanksgiving, recalling my life-giving monastic vocation and the God who has formed and reformed me. +

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Sharing the consolations (or, for that matter, the desolations) of the spiritual life with another profoundly influences our own faith experiences and has drawn me deeper into friendship with Christ

Jesus. Those folks I have had in direction and on retreats in the College and the School of Theology probably have little or no idea how much my own life of faith has grown from companioning with their witness to the Gospel.

Novice Thomas, Novice Timothy and Br. James sing the thanksgiving hymn together after Communion.

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Interested in the Monastic Life at Saint Meinrad Archabbey?

Contact Us: vocations@saintmeinrad.org www.saintmeinrad.org

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S I PRAY, REveal to me your way for me to you, lord god.

Amen