Br.Barry - Wednesday Chapter Talks 29 October 2014

BBC Documentary - Br. Barry at Melrose Abbey

Fw: Chapter Sixty Four - Rule of St. Benedict

On Thursday, 30 October 2014, 

Br.Barry ...

Chapter Sixty Four.

Chap. 64 of the Rule is entitled ‘The Election of an Abbot’. Verses 3 -6 give an indication of how St. Benedict viewed the monastery’s relation to the local Christian community.

If a monastery elects a man who ‘goes along with its own evil ways’ then the local Christians have not only the right but the duty to intervene in that monastery’s affairs: ‘they may be sure that they will receive a generous reward for this’; ‘they may be sure that to neglect to do so is sinful’.

Specifically, the local bishop, other religious superiors as well as ordinary Christians are urged to keep an eye on what the monastery is doing.

There was, of course, quite a dramatic example of this here at Nunraw a couple of months ago. The community reversed its decision to build a new Guest House after considering the forthright views of other individuals and religious communities.

Be that as it may, these verses of the Rule and those recent events at Nunraw do highlight the monastery as a local or particular or individual church, in the sense that St. Paul refers to ‘the church of God in Corinth’ or ‘the church in Thessalonika’.  A ‘local’ church usually refers to a diocese so we won’t use that term.

Our Constitutions state: ‘The monastery is an expression of the mystery of the Church’.  Monastic profession is often described as a deepening or strengthening of the Sacrament of Baptism.

 When the various aspects of monastic life are seen as primarily the practises of an individual church then they take on a different perspective.

One advantage of this perspective is that it guards against the danger of seeing Xtian monastic life as mainly a part of a wider inter religious monastic culture. In that view, Xtian or Catholic monks are regarded as having more in common with Bhuddist and Hindu and other forms of monasticism than they do with baptised Christians. It is quite a common view in a certain type of monastery–devotee. It is also perhaps present in some monks: Thomas Merton was, I think, probably guilty of this at one point in his life.

Another Cistercian writer, in the 1990’s, constantly contrasts ‘monastics’ with ‘the baptised’, as if the former were not included in the latter. Although, to be fair, it is obviously unintentional.

The Eucharist is the source and the summit of the Christian life so it follows that the monastic community is most clearly a church at its Eucharistic celebration and a monk is most a monk when he participates in the celebration of the Eucharist.

When the monastery is seen as an individual church, the Divine Office, even the littlest of the Little Hours, is carried out not just on behalf of the Church but as a means, second only to the Eucharist, to deeper communion with the Church. As Columba Marm

ion wrote ‘when in choir, we bear a twofold personality, that of our misery, our frailty, our faults but also that of members of Christ’s Mystical Body’.

Lectio Divina becomes not just a traditional monastic practise but principally a sharing in the Church’s calling to receive the Word of God. Mary, the Mother of God, is traditionally the model of the monk in this regard, ‘pondering these things in her heart’.

Mary is also the model of the Church: ‘the whole mystery of the Church is inseparably bound up with the mystery of Mary’, as someone expressed it. So in Lectio these two, monk and Church, coincide and by means of his reading the monk goes deeper into the Church.

But what is the Church?

As in the Word Incarnate, the divine and human are present but cannot be separated so in a similar  way the Church is made up of visible and invisible elements that are inseparable. We see the visible in the Church’s organisation, its hierarchy, its members, its worship, its activity and its buildings.

The invisible is accessible to faith: the Holy Spirit, the soul of the Church; Christ, its Head; the Father, of whom St. Paul says ‘to the church in Thessalonika which is in God the Father’.

All these are present in the little church which is a monastic community and its monastery.

These verses of the Holy Rule illustrate that the monastery is nothing but part of the Universal Church.

Prayer by Br. Patrick

Chapter Sermon

Patrick Br.

Wednesday Community Chapter Talk 24 September 2014

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PRAYER

We know from Scripture that Christ’s relationship with His Church and with the faithful individual soul is a spousal one. When a young couple meet and are drawn together they talk a great deal in the phase of getting to know each other, but gradually as their relationship deepens, their communication becomes less verbal until, when they are an elderly married couple, they are content to be in each other’s company with precious few words spoken and yet their relationship is much stronger into the deep.

Jesus invited Simon Peter to put out into the deep. What can we understand and learn from this invitation? I would suggest it is an invitation to put out into the deep “of prayer”, not only for ourselves but for others, to contemplate the face of Christ.

Water has been used as the theme or symbol for taking a risk in our search for deeper union with God, a letting go and letting God. We often talk of being in deep water when we are in some kind of trouble, being swept away by powers greater than our own, or of jumping in at the deep end, which can sometimes be an act of faith when we speak of prayer without words or images and no apparent fruit. This type of prayer is like facing the sun as it shines on us. It is sun that tans our skin and whether we see it or not, we are changed.

Simon Peter’s net reminds us of the enormous catch of fish that he cught after he had faithfully cast out into the deep and the Gospel of Luke goes on to tell us how God will give us good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over and poured into the lap, when we give generously.

We recall that Jesus also invited Peter to put out into the deep when He asked to come to Him across the water of prayer. Christ also wants us to come to Him across the water of prayer. Water and desert are both silent, vast and lonely places. They are profound symbols for entering into the depths of prayer, which can also be silent, empty and lonely for we are entering deep and unknown territory. Water and desert are used throughout the Old and New Testaments to signify the call to live and act in faith, to turn to God so that he might fill us with an overflowing measure of love. With regard to water, we can think of Noah’s ark setting forth upon the mighty waters of the flood, negotiating uncharted waters, relying entirely on faith that God would eventually bring him to safety as promised. Likewise, when we go into the darkness of contemplation, we too must trust that God will guide us.

Ezekiel speaks of the cedar tree which he tells us has grown tall, nourished by the deep springs of water. We can understand this to mean that our lives are enriched by the nourishment of prayer, that our faith can grow tall. The man wading through the water up to his knees is also part of Ezekiel’s vision of the river which makes the land fruitful.

In the life of Jean Vanier by Kathryn Spink, she tells of Jean’s brother  who became a Cistercian monk of Orval and had the reputation of great holiness. She suggests that he was the powerhouse of prayer behind Jean’s immensely fruitful apostolate, breaking completely new ground, with mentally disabled and handicapped. Jean’s parents lives are in the process of being examined with a view to possible canonisation. I don’t think Jean’s apostolate would have been as successful without that backing.

It was said recently that a comparison can be made between the mystics and antiaircraft guns. The mystics have the range to contact the enemy planes which are out of range of the others. What power must have gone out from that little Carmelite convent of Lisieux. Talking about wars it was revealed to a seer that was the prayers of Teresa of Avila that saved Spain from involvement in the last war. I’ll finish with a quote from the recent letter of the Father General. It is essential to recover the mystic dimension of the heart, or rather at the source of our vocation. Mystical does not mean escape from reality but being aware of the total reality and consequently placing the centre of our life and heart a relationship, an experience of God.

Pope - best picture at Madrid "Let the children come to me"

St Bernard of Clairvaux 20th August 

Best picture in the World Youth Day

                                                                            

                       

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Saturday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time

Saint(s) of the day : St. Bernard of Clairvaux,

 Abbot and Doctor of the Church (1091-1153)

Solemnity - Sermon in Chapter by Dom Raymond

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Raymond . . .
Sent: Sat, 20 August, 2011 9:00:02
Subject: St Bernard of Clairvaux

ST BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Bernard of Clairvaux is, one of the most outstanding figures in the history not only of the Church but of western civilization.  To recount his life would be to write the history of the monastic orders, of orthodox theology, of heretical doctrines, of the second crusade, and of the destinies of France, Germany and Italy over a period of almost forty years.  He was the colossus of the twelfth century, spanning both ecclesiastical and civil society. Counsellor and reconciler of popes and kings, his tireless activity and his profound and extensive writings touched on every aspect of human life and they left an indelible mark on the Christian civilisation of the west. 

We are all familiar with the outline of his life.  Born in 1090 to a family of the lower nobility, he was the son of a crusader, and his family, particularly his Mother, were renowned for their charity and devotion to the church

Window lower panel
St Bernard vision of BVM

St. Bernard of Clairvaux - instruments of the Passion
Roscrea College Chapel Windows Harry Clarke Studios

He entered the monastery at Citeaux at the age of twenty two, along with thirty of his close family and friends.  Few monasteries could ever have boasted so large a number of eager postulants at one time, and in the worn down community of Citeaux, these dynamic young people breathed new life.  Three years later, Bernard was appointed abbot of the new foundation at Clairvaux.  With the new and vigorous life that Bernard had breathed into the Cistercian Order, it continued to flourish and expand.  In 1118  Clairvaux founded three daughter abbeys – it was in fact to have the most numerous offspring of any Cistercian house and it was the influence of Bernard that promoted the extraordinary rapidity with which the order grew.  At the end of Bernard’s life there were 338 Cistercian abbeys of which no fewer than 68 were directly founded from Clairvaux.  It was the bounding energy, the huge personal magnetism, the leadership and the eloquence of St. Bernard that made this possible.  The finest spirits of the age flocked to the Cistercian abbeys where silence, simplicity and the doctrine that work is prayer were the order of the day.  We have heard so often that because of the effect of St Bernard’s preaching, mothers hid their sons and wives their husbands in case they should desert the home fireside for the Cistercian cloister.

We know that grace builds on nature and certainly Bernard had many natural  gifts which had a great impact on those with whom he dealt, but there must have been a great deal more to it than that.  St Augustine says “Love and do what you will” which has been interpreted as “The secret of influence is love”.  I would suggest that, even among the saints, he was outstanding for his love for God and for his fellow man, and that was the real secret of his astounding influence.  It was only to be expected then that one of his greatest works is his book entitled “On the Love of God”.  Just to list some of its chapter headings is to make a wonderful meditation on the subject:

1                   Why and how we should love God?

2                   How greatly God deserves to be loved?

3                   How many incentives are there for loving God?

4                   Who is consoled by loving God and who is best able to love him?

5                   How much are we Christians obliged to love God?

6                   The fruit and rewards of loving God.   7          The three degrees of the love of God.   

And so on.....

The influence of his writings still persists.  When Angelo Roncalli was elected pope as John XXIII he chose to read Bernard’s book “On Consideration” a remarkable piece of writing giving advice to the newly elected Cistercian pope, Eugene III, an ex Cistercian.

Finally, we are all aware of Bernard’s great love for Our Lady, a love which is one of the continuing characteristics of the Cistercian Order.