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.

Beginning Our Retreat

This evening we begin our community retreat through the morning of Thursday, September 13. 

We ask your prayers for us while we spend this special time of silence and prayer with the Lord and for our retreat master, Father James Hess, OCarm, that he may truly be an instrument of the Holy Spirit during these days.

While we are on retreat, we have prepared a "mini" retreat for you with reflections based on the Rule of St. Benedict so that you might join in our prayer in a special way.

Know that we hold you and your intentions in our prayer.  God bless!

The "Ora" of Labora

So often the term ora et labora (prayer and work) and highlighted as the Benedictine motto.  In honor of today's seculary "holy-day", we thought a few thoughts on work appropo!

In recent years we have begun describing our work as our love made manifest.  Our love for Christ, our Divine Spouse, needs a physical manifestation.  Just as husbands and wives have a physical expression of their love and care for each other in the time they spend taking care of each other through the various "jobs" they do around the house -- from cooking to laundry, lawn care and taking out the garbage, just to name a few -- so, too, does our care get expressed in the work we do here the monastery.

It is more than that as well.  In his letter, St. James proclaims I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works (2:18).  For St. James, work was not an end in itself, but rather a vehicle that allowed him express his faith.  So, too, with prayer.  Work becomes prayer when the disposition of one's heart is right:  one needs to do it joyfully, generously -- and with a desire to offer it wholly to God.

And as one can see clearly in the Latin text, the last three letters of labora spell ora -- God certainly had a hand in that!

Seeing God in everything...

A noble and delicate soul... sees God in everything, finds Him everywhere, and knows how to find Him in even the most hidden things.  It finds all things important, it highly appreciates all things, it thanks God for all things, it draws profit for the soul from all things, and it gives all glory to God.  It places its trust in God.

St. Faustina Kowalska

Divine Mercy Diary (148)



Light from Light

My soul,

have you found what

you are looking for?

You were looking for God,

and you have discovered

that he is the supreme being,

and that you could not possibly imagine

anything more perfect.

You have discovered

that this supreme being is

life itself,

light wisdom,

goodness,

eternal blessedness

and blessed eternity.

He is everywhere,

and he is timeless.

Lord my God,

you gave me life

and restored it when I lost it.

Tell my soul that so longs for you

what else you are

besides what it has already understood,

so that it may see you clearly.

It stands on tiptoe to see more,

but apart from what it has seen already,

it sees nothing but darkness.

Of course it does not really see darkness,

because there is no darkness in you,

but it sees that it can see no further

because of the darkness in itself.

Surely, Lord,

inaccessible light is your dwelling place,

for no one apart from yourself

can enter into it

and fully comprehend you.

~ St. Anselm

in Praying with the Benedictines

A Window on the Cloister