Monastic Immersion Experience 2017-2018

Upcoming Monastic Immersion
Experiences:

  Thanksgiving Weekend
November 24-26, 2017

New Year

December 30– January 1, 2018

Holy Week and Triduum

March 25-31, 2018

Corpus Christi

June   1-3, 2018

Additionally, women are
welcome to come at other times as their schedules permit

Concluding the Retreat

Suscipe me Domine 

This morning at Holy Mass we renew our profession, re-commiting ourselves to our promises of stability, conversion to a monastic manner of life and obedience that we each made on the day of our profession.

That's why retreat is so important.  Sometimes we can get so busy with the needs and cares of daily life, that we can forget that first fervor, that first love that initially brought each of us to the monastery.

We all need to take time to step aside and let God renew us.  We hope that these reflections we have shared with you over the last few days have been a gift in your lives, as these days of retreat have been for all of us.  Together, let us pray the verse that we will sing at Mass, echoing that first time we sang it on our profession day:

Suscipe me Domine secundum eloquium tuum et vivam: 

Et non confundas me ab exspectatione mea.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto

Sicut erat in principio,

et nunc et semper,

et in saecula saeculorum.  Amen.

(If you uphold me by your promise, I shall live;

let my hopes not be in vain [Psalm 119:116]. 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. 

As it was in the beginning,

is now and will be forever.  Amen.)

Eighth Day of Retreat

Preferring Nothing Whatever to Christ

In Chapter 72 of his Rule, St. Benedict talks about the good zeal that he desires his monks to have that leads to God and everlasting life.  This zeal just as Webster defines does mean eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something:  self-forgetfulness. 

It's the final goal, God and everlasting life, that makes the self-forgetfulness possible.  And it is in looking at Christ, and his cross, where we have our greatest example. 

And it is in the cross that we find our consolation, our encouragement to seek the narrow way and foster fervent love.  Boniface Wimmer, in writing to the monks who would come with him from Germany to make the first foundation of Benedictine monks in the United States could only promise them the cross.  Christ promised the same thing to his apostles and disciples.  Can we expect any different?

Lord

Jesus

Christ,

give me

an ardent love of your cross.

May it be my consolation and my hope.

May it lead me where I would not chose

to go, so that I

may follow in

your footsteps,

your paths,

your ways,

not my own.

May it give

me courage

in difficulties

and strength

in weakness.

Amen.

Seventh Day of Retreat

Uniting Ourselves to the Cross

At the heart of the Christian life stands the cross.  You can't go around it.  It's present in everyone's life:  from the greatest saint to the greatest sinner.  The difference is the saint learns to embrace it and the sinner always tries to avoid it.

At the end of Chapter 7 (on Humility), St. Benedict tells us

Now, therefore, after ascending all these steps of humility, the monk will quickly arrive at that perfect love of God which casts out fear (1 John 4:18).  Through this love, all that he once performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally, from habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue.  All this the Lord will by the Holy Spirit graciously manifest in his workman now cleansed of vices and sins.  (RB 7:67-70)

It is love that makes a saint out of sinner:  love of Christ, and love of his cross.  Not the love that our society so strongly calls love, when it's lust.  Not the "love" we have for our car, or our favorite dessert.  No, it's the self-sacrificing love mirrored so beautifully by Christ on his cross.  A love so great that He was willing to offer himself so that we could be re-united to Him.

It's not an easy love.  It calls for a lot of death to self.  A lot of stumbles, and backslides.  A lot of picking yourself up and beginning again.  A lot of surrendering yourself, only to have to do it again and again because our human nature is not good at letting go.

Is it worth it?  Yes!  Is HE worth it?  Absolutely, positively, YES!

Lord, I desire your cross

and at the same time I run from it.

I want to give myself to You,

but keep pulling little bits and pieces back.

Lord, help me to embrace the crosses in my life,

and help me to be able to

surrender my life fully into your hands.

Please, Lord,

help me...

Amen.

Sixth Day of Retreat

The Work of God

Coming together six times a day to chant is what our life at the monastery is truly about.  Our vocation, our ministry, if you will, is to sing the praises of God. 

The Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer of the Church, is for all peoples -- not just monks and nuns in monasteries.  The psalms take us through a whole gammit of emotions, not just what we are feeling at the moment.  The psalms help us call to mind God's faithfulness and our sinfulness, God's glory and our lowliness. 

In other words, The Liturgy of the Hours necessarily puts those words on our lips that we find difficult to express -- be it thankfulness and praise when we are going through a particularly difficult struggle with something to an acknowledgement of our sinfulness in the midst of a surge of pride. 

Most of all, The Liturgy of the Hours helps us pass through the Church year with a greater appreciation to God for all that He has done for us. 

Lord,

You search me and You know me.

Thank you for allowing me,

an unworthy sinner,

the grace to sing your praises

in the name of the Church.

Help me to be mindful

of my brothers and sisters

who I uplift in my prayer.

Amen.

Fifth Day of Retreat

Lectio Divina

Interestingly enough, St. Benedict talks about lectio divina, or prayerful reading, in Chapter 48, The Daily Manual Labor.  The monks day was punctuated with The Liturgy of the Hours; lectio divina provided a means for the prayer that was begun in the oratory to continue and the fruit that came out of the time spent in lectio divina could then be further mulled over during times of work -- thus sanctifying the entire day.

Too often we confuse lectio divina with spiritual reading.  Both are important, but they are distinctively different.  The best book used for lectio divina is the Bible, Old Testament or New.  Our aim is to allow God's Word to transform our hearts.

Spiritual reading encompasses many different categories, from books on the saints, writings of the saints, theology, Christology, church history, etc., and while the text we read impacts us, can change us, it doesn't put us in touch with God's own Word.  Only Sacred Scripture can do that.

Lord,

let your Word come alive for me,

as I sit with Sacred Scripture. 

Let it transform my heart and mind,

may I hear your still small voice

leading me into deeper union with You.

Amen.

Fourth Day of Retreat

Using the Tools - Part II

The first tools dealt with duties toward those around us; the second half deal with duties toward the self.  One might wonder why this is so, but then again the Greatest Commandment was to "love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all you mind, all your soul and all your strength;" and Christ told us the second is like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  With that admonition from Christ in mind, it only makes sense that the second half of St. Benedict's tools of good works deal with the self.

And this part of the list does not seem like dos and don'ts, but rather challenges on how to live an authentic Christian life.  Giving over selfwill and allowing God to be God and admitting and claiming him as our King.  St. Teresa of Avila whenever she referred to God would call him her Majesty. 

While that sounds crazy, unheard of, stupid perhaps to our democratic sensitivities, until we claim Jesus as our Lord and King, our Master, we cannot fully surrender to Him working in our lives.  And that is what the second part of the tools is about.  And there's even a line, Verse 74 to be exact, to console us when we fall and need to pick ourselves up:  never lose hope in God's mercy. 

Lord, you know my heart.

You know my good intentions,

and You also know my sinful folly.

Fill my heart with so great a love for You,

that the narrow and rugged path that I am on,

widens in the delight of that love.

Help me to yearn for You

with all my heart,

all my soul,

all my mind, and

all my strength.

And Lord,

help me to love myself,

with the same love

with which You love me.

Amen.

Third Day of Retreat

Using the Tools - Part I

Chapter 4 of the Rule of Our Holy Father Benedict lists a number of "tools" to help us live a more Gospel-centered/God-centered life.  Tools are only a help though, if we put them to use.

The first tools that St. Benedict lists have to do with the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments, the Corporal Works of Mercy, rounded out with other admonitions on how to live with/get along with others.  Some might call it a simple list of dos and don'ts.  Unfortunately, most of us have a problem with someone else suggesting how we are supposed to live -- God, at times, included. 

Monastic life is a call to live the Christian life in a radical way.  It calls us to love deeply, be extravant in sharing ourselves, to hold nothing back -- to give our all. 

And like others, we do fall.  Someone recently shared a story about a monastery in a city where everyone one wondered want on inside.  As so one day one of the monks was out, and the people who encountered him on the street wondered if they dared ask.  Finally someone got up the courage and approached the monk and inquired, "What's life like in the monastery?"  His reply?  "We fall down, and we get up.  We fall down, and we get up.  We fall down, and we get up."

But that's the Christian life.  And that's why St. Benedict in his Rule, provided his monks with these first set of tools.  So that we can learn how to live with one another better, how to love more generously, how to share ourselves.

Lord, You search me and you know. 

You know when I stand and when I fall. 

Help me to remember that You are there

to help me to rise up when I stumble. 

Help me with your grace

so that I may love as You love,

see as You see,

give as You give,

live and You live. 

Lord, make me a mirror of Yourself.

Second Day of Retreat

Silence

When one thinks of the word silence, normally the first thought is the absence of physical sound.  Yet, when we learn about silence in Chapter 6 of the Rule of St. Benedict, he is referring to refraining from speech -- even good, edifying conversation.

Why the emphasis on silence, you might ask?  It is in silence that one is able to enter into deep communion with God.  Prayer becomes wordless.  It is an act of love.

Yet, on the other hand, absence of speech is at times in hurtful when it is done in giving "the cold shoulder" to someone who knowingly or unknowingly hurt or offended us, i.e. we act unloving.

We should desire our relationship with God to be one where we are content simply to be with Him in silence.  A good image of this is the older couple who sits quietly beside each other, not needing to chatter, enjoying the beauty of the sunset together.

Lord, may I learn to savor and value silence in my life, not as an absence of noise or speech, but as a means of deeper communion with You.  May I be mindful of the impact of my words, or lack of them, on those around me.  May my speech be an instrument of your love.

First Day of Retreat

Obsculta

 The first word of the Rule of Our Holy Father St. Benedict is listen (obsculta).  If we are to truly listen to another person and more importantly for the voice of the Lord, we need to put aside our own thoughts.

Have you ever heard someone make the comment that someone is a good listener?  What can that mean, but that the other person puts listening (i.e. actually paying attention to what the other person is saying) ahead of what they are going to say next.  They put the other person first.

The same is true with prayer.  In giving our whole attention to listening for God to speak, we put Him first -- not our own agenda of what we would like God to do for "us." 

Prayer is about changing us and changing our hearts, not changing other people or circumstances. 

Lord, so often I let my own thoughts become distractions

when spending time with you.  Help me to become a

better listener to those around me and most especially

of your voice calling to me.  Amen.