Harvest-time at Mount St. Bernard

Having grown up in a city like Chicago, there is often a disconnect between the source of our food and the food that appears on the table. This, I think, is especially true during periods of plenty. It is almost as if the crops are raised in the storeroom, right next to where the cows are milked.

On 13th October we had our Harvest Vespers and a Harvest Mass this morning. After the Office of None (9th Hour) the other postulant, the novice and I were asked to make a special arrangement for vespers. Basically we were given a little less than 2 hours to come up with a concept, collect the materials, and arrange something "harvesty." A few members of the community offered helpful suggestions like, "use fruit," or "use some ivy." At first the suggestions did not seems so helpful, but we were able to utilize them. We sat down to plan a few things, and went off to get our supplies. Then God's inspiration kicked in to high gear. Not only did I pick up what I was supposed to, I picked things for the one arranging flowers. The one getting fruit picked up other things for decoration such as a field worker's hat and gloves, a scythe, and hay (to the calves dismay, I later heard). I picked some strands of red ivy, and some fine branches with red and golden leaves. Another picked strands of grape leaves. Within forty-five minutes everything was arranged, and it looked like every single thing had been planned to the nth degree. While we did use some things that were not grown here: pineapples, coconut, and oranges for example. The overwhelming majority of that which we displayed came from our land. We had milk, honey and eggs from our animals. We had jars of gooseberry and black currant, and red currant jam. We had not only some ears of corn, but the (top 3 ft.of the) stalks as well. The flowers picked from our own garden (Thanks Fr. Hilary) made for quite the impressive display. And with my American background, when I saw a pumpkins, we had to add it.

In my opinion, sometimes when we attempt to be grateful to God for every single thing in our lives, we miss the mark. There is just way too much. Sometimes when we focus on one single thing (or concept) for which to be grateful, we can really direct our energy, thoughts, prayers, and voices. And this produce, literally from our own back yard, sustain our bodies. So we pause at this time to thank God for the bounty of the earth and our sustenance.

Psalm 89: 13-14
The Lord will make us prosper
and our earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before Him
and peace shall follow his footsteps.
©The Grail, England 1963

God's Blessings and Peace to you all.
Please continue to pray for me.

On the Feast of St. Joseph

I would first like to thank all the people who have contacted me with positive feed back. I am shocked at how many have visited my blog. In the sidebar you can notice the "Feedjit" application. I have seen that I have had visitors from all over the US and Canada, Spain, Austria, and England. A special hello to my visitor from Chesterfield! I used to live in Sheffield.

I have talked about liturgy a number of times here on my little digital soapbox. Too often discussions about the liturgy focus on an individual Mass. And largely speaking, I have fallen into that rut.

At my parish, one fellow normally does the reading and the psalm at daily Mass. One day when he was sick I was asked to do the reading. After the Mass, the priest asked me if I would become a lector. As part of the training the new lectors were given a workbook for the liturgical reading. The lay-out of the book has pronunciation guides and delivery suggestions on the left hand column and a discussion of the theme of the readings along the bottom of each page. This workbook opened my eyes to liturgy extending over a number of Masses.

The first few times I did the readings I practiced a few times before Mass, but I never read about the themes. Last Sunday, I started reading about the theme, and I had a "duh"moment. I was surprised at just how dull-witted I can be. The first Sunday of Lent relates the story of Noah. The second Sunday of Lent relates the story of the Ten Commandments. And the third Sunday of Lent relates the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, the angel intervening, and God's promise to make Abraham's descendants as many as the stars of the heavens.

Over the course of these three weeks two great themes have been put forth: Salvation and Covenant. [Many people reading this probably already knew these themes. That is why I call it my "duh" moment.] In a previous posting I mentioned how I did not view Lent as a dreary season. This is why. Week after week we are reminded of God's abiding love for us. Even when the readings deal with wickedness, the readings continue on to talk about love, forgiveness, anointing, and salvation.

One of the many reasons I love the church is that the church arranges the readings over time to reinforce the teachings of God's love for us; it is not just a one-off event or once-a-year reading. The churches that focus on Spiritual Entertainment do not get this wonderful gift. The liturgy offers us so very much, and it is inexhaustible. The more of it that I understand, the more there is to understand.

Spoiled for Choice

I received a very nice email today. In the I was asked how I narrowed down my decision to two communities, especially when they were not in the same order. I responded to his email. And then I thought that maybe other people would like to know how I got to where I am in my discernment.

With the sheer volume of choices in religious life one truly can feel spoiled for choice. One needs to itemize what is personally important. I itemized the characteristics of cenobitic communities that are important to me in the following manner:

1. A Community Loyal to the Church
   
2. Where the full Liturgy of the Hours are prayed most of them in common.
   
3. Where the "Christian Prayer" version of the Liturgy of the Hours is not used.
   
4. No completely external apostolates. eg, some monasteries have parishes many miles from their location.
5. A place where people are basically happy.
6. A place where liturgy is celebrated worthily.

I have visited communities where belly-aching about the church is the norm. I was even at one where our late Pope John Paul II was referred to with an expletive and an ethnic slur. When there are real issues about the church, there needs to be a clear and open forum where things can be discussed. When people just want to flex their moaning-muscles... I have better things to do.

Some people like me want to pray the entire office, but not everyone wants to pray it in common. One needs to decide if the office in common is important to you.

I freely admit #3 is my prejudice. I have prayed the British translation for many years, and I think the American translation is a wee bit bland.

When I first started looking at monastic life I noticed that some had far flung parishes or other apostolates. This conflicts with my desire to pray the office in common.

I also admit that #5 & #6 are quite subjective.

All of this being said, I realize that every single day can be put in to my carefully constructed box. For instance, one may have duties that take them well outside of the monastery. But these are general guidelines. I know that if I were uncomfortable with the liturgy, life would be difficult. I am also not saying this is how all cenobitic life should be, but communities that have these characteristics in their life are attractive to me.

If there is anybody reading this already in a monastic community, I would enjoy hearing from you on what I wrote. Not that I do not look forward to anyone who chooses to comment.

The Impotantance of Liturgy to me (and hopefully some others)

I have friends from every segment of the social spectrum. To some of my Christian friends -both Catholic and Protestant- who do not put a great emphasis on liturgy. All of my Orthodox Christan and Eastern Catholic friends have an expectation from their respective liturgies. And when we look at different religious communities, not all of the pray the divine office and some pray only Lauds and Vespers.

I think for nuns, monks, and those who share monastic spirituality: liturgy is HUGE. Namely because it is a huge part of the day. I think it must be tough on those who have responded to God's call to the monastic life and are then asked to run parishes or schools. But I digress.

There is one blog that I follow closely call Sub Tuum. It is written by Br. Stephen at Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey. He has referred to the "Reform of the Reform" especially with respect to the Mass. This I find to be very interesting. In people's sincere desire for dignified worship, I think there are too many red herrings thrown at people. I have seen websites that refer to experimental liturgies (let us charitably say "well meaning, but poorly executed"). The ones to which have been referred are unfortunate, but they are by no means the norm or common.

As I was growing up the Novus Ordo was already in all of my local churches in Chicago. I have only attended a handful of Tridentine Masses. The first two were not even at Roman Catholic churches. The first one, including deacon and subdeacon, was IN ENGLISH, and at an Anglican parish in Staffordshire, England. The second one was at an Old Roman Catholic parish. I have been to a few Tridentine masses lately. I have seen some celebrated elaborately with amazing choirs. I have seen some rushed through quite quickly. There was one where I think the priest said the Mass in one long breath.

The red herrings are that all Novus Ordo or Ordinary Form Masses are not these haphazard or even sacrilegious liturgical travesties. All celebrations of Tridentine or Extraordinary Form of the Mass are not these glorious dazzling liturgical spectacles. When the Mass is being celebrated with dignity; when the lectors read well; when the priest's actions are sincere, devout and deliberate: that is a the type of liturgy I want to attend. Whether it is the Ordinary Form of the Mass or the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, it is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is my opinion. I would welcome hearing anyone else's opinion.

Back to the "Reform of the Reform." This interests me because I see some good results from the renewal from Vatican II. Full, active, and conscious participation in the Mass resonates with me. I have been to Masses in which I felt like an observer. Discussions of the Liturgy in terms of Liberal and Conservative are think do nothing. The Mass is not intended to represent a political party or faction.

I do believe that the intention of the Second Vatican Council was to affect renewal in the church. I also believe a lot of things were done in the name of the council that were mistaken or outright bad. But there are plenty of people who want worthy celebration of the liturgy. I think one of the best examples of this that I ever saw was in the town of Stafford in England. A Polish priest was brought in to celebrate the Mass in Polish. This man celebrated the Mass with such dignity (and dare I say holiness) that he started attracting many people to his Wednesday morning Mass. The priest changed languages from Polish to Latin because the Polish people became the minority at that Mass, but English speakers may not have been the majority. There were Polish, Lithuanian, Indian, Italian, and a variety of others who attended this Mass. The priest told me that he chose Latin as the most pastorally effective language.

That event reminded me of when I went on pilgrammage to Our Lady of Walsingham (also in England). My group was praying the Rosary as we were walking. Among are group was one fellow from Romania and one from Viet Nam. When they were leading the decades, they switched to Latin. So there we were eight of us from six countries praying in one language that we all understood. It was pretty cool.

Again, I would love to hear the opinions of others on this topic.

My Visit to Spring Bank Abbey

Last September I visited Spring Bank Abbey. I received a very warm welcome from everyone there, including Luxor and Ludwig. The abbey is set in a beautiful, largely undeveloped part of Wisconsin near LaCrosse, and I was there just as the fall colors were coming on to the trees.

Beside the initial hospitality, I was also impressed with the simplicity (or straightforwardness) of life. One of the postulants was installing a dishwasher, the monks do their own cooking, the rest were working somewhere on the abbey grounds. Everyone was doing their part. My previous experience of religious life did not seem as equitable.

I also like the liturgy. There was a formality to it, but there was no excess. Maybe it is good to describe it by saying: there was dignity without pomp. The Mass is the Novus Ordo and celebrated in Latin. The entire Liturgy of the Hours is prayed in common everyday (Deo Gracias)with the exception of Sext and None on Saturdays. Vigils is prayed in English, and the rest of the "Hours" are in Latin.

As I understand it, the core of Cistercian life,spirituality, even architecture is to strip away that is unnecessary and distracting. The oratory reflects this: the pews and choir stalls are plain light-stained wood. I do not recall any stained glass windows in the oratory, but there were prismatic crystals hanging in the window. The focus of the liturgy is the words -scripture and prayer- and not the building.

I will soon be going up to the Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey to get another glimpse of the life that they share. I am grateful to God that I have the time to do this and that the monks allow me this time to discern my vocation.