Remember when...

In a monastic community, the fragrance of memory rides on the air that we breathe. It is not stale air. Not even close to stale. Whether we’re honoring an early monastic saint or chuckling over something that happened last week, the fragrance is infused with the lively vigor of seeking God with all of one’s being. The call that led our Benedictine ancestors to seek God through the monastic way of life is the same call that animates us here at Sacred Heart Monastery. It is a summons that resounds through the ages, and we deeply feel our spiritual kinship with ancient holy men and women who heard the call, just as we deeply feel our kinship with one another today.

These past days have been full of lively memories of spiritual kinship. With the Community gathered for our annual summer meetings, followed by a Jubilee celebration, stories abounded even as new stories were being formed. These stories are not just stories. They are the fragrant memories of seeking God together through shared prayer and work, memories that have helped mold and meld us as one. They are memories that help carry us forward toward future years of prayer and work and yet more stories, memories, fragrance. They are memories that help form a single community from the otherwise unrelated stories of our individual lives – a common call, a common life, united and anchored in God.

We remember our monastic ancestors through stories, through their writings, through images on holy cards and stained glass, and especially through the liturgy. But we also remember them through our lives here today. The day-to-day life in our monastery may differ in some material ways from that of long ago, but animated by the same charism and call, the essence is the same – a group of individuals called to seek God through a common life under a Rule and a Prioress. In other words, we seek God together, through community – and there can be no community without memory. And so we “remember when…” and “remember who…,” breathing deeply of the fragrance of living memory that rides on the wind, memory that helps carry us forward in this ever-ancient, ever-new charism and call.




Postscript: In the monastery, "the lively vigor of seeking God with all of one’s being" entails not only prayer and ministry, but also the shared tasks of life in community - from the profoundly spiritual to the tiresomely mundane to the festive and fun. For seven of us, the decoration of these cupcakes for some guests last week will certainly form a "remember when..." Decorating cupcakes may seem like far too mundane an activity for a spiritual pursuit such as monastic life, but the “daily” is the stuff of which our life is made. It is the medium within which we live out our call to serve one another and others, and it is the matter out of which our memories – and bonds – are formed. Even in just the few short years I have been at Sacred Heart, many memories are already implanted deeply – painting a community room with Sister Tonette and Sister Therese, walking across a frozen pasture as part of a funeral procession, helping Sister Regina in her rose garden, many adventures with Sister Madeline… These activities have become memories, bringing me into the on-going story of this community and into the long lineage of those who have sought God through the monastic way of life.

Praise and thanksgiving

"With praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God..."

These words comprised the opening clause in a handwritten document that I read aloud during Lauds yesterday morning. Not only was I the one who read the document, I was also the one who wrote it. As I wrote, I rendered each word with careful precision. I used permanent ink on linen paper. I aimed for lines as straight as a compass needle. I was very, very careful. And prayerful.

The words on the linen page comprised the text of the renewal of my vows, and I read them aloud in our monastic chapel before God, the Saints, my Prioress, and my monastic Sisters. With these words, I renewed my temporary Monastic Profession to this Benedictine Community. With them, I marked one of the final steps toward Perpetual Monastic Profession.

Slowly making one’s way toward perpetual profession (often called ‘final vows’) involves a lengthy period of discernment and formation. I am six years into what, in our Community, is typically a seven year process. During the final two years, one annually renews the temporary vows that were made some years earlier after completion of the Novitiate.

It’s serious business. It’s serious for the Community as they help a person discern a call and assess the individual’s readiness for a lifetime commitment to the monastic way of life. It’s serious for the individual who seeks to hear God’s call and respond in faith. And it is serious for the Church, because our vocations are not our own, they are in service to the People of God.

It was also serious for St. Benedict over 1500 years ago. Here’s what he had to say about receiving new members into his 6th century monastery for men: “When he is to be received, he comes before the whole community in the oratory and promises stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience. This is done in the presence of God and his saints…He states his promise in a document drawn up in the name of the saints whose relics are there, and of the abbot, who is present. The novice writes out this document himself, or if he is illiterate, then he asks someone else to write it for him, but himself puts his mark to it and with his own hand lays it on the altar.” (Rule of Benedict 58,17-20)

For centuries, monastic men and women have been drawing up documents of profession – hand written, carefully rendered, read aloud before God, the Saints, and the Community, and then placed upon the altar with one’s own hand where it is signed with the unique contours of one’s own name.

The search for God through the monastic way of life is serious, and joyful. The road is winding, yet the Rule points us straight toward our goal. The words of profession are ancient, but the contours of my name are uniquely my own. Through my monastic profession, and with praise and thanksgiving, I join the unique contours of my life to those of my Sisters - and Benedictines of every time and place - as together we sing a song of praise to God through our fidelity to the monastic way of life.


Postscript: Our song of praise continues tomorrow as we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Sister Bernadette and the Silver Jubilee of Sister Karen Ann. Though perpetually professed, they, too, will sign renewal documents as this is traditionally done at these milestone points. Photos from the Jubilee Mass and the luncheon can be found on our Community News page.

Blueberry season

Five weeks of near-total immersion in graduate study at Saint John’s, delightful though it was, left me feeling a bit ‘heady' and I’ve spent this first week back home letting my hands - not my head - do the talking and listening. With renewed appreciation I have savored some of the simple, tangible aspects of ordinary life here at Sacred Heart - the familiar heft of familiar doors as my work carries me through the monastery, the precious weight of chalices and linens as I prepare for Mass, practiced fingers on my flute as I rehearse with Sr. Lynn Marie and Sr. Magdalena… These ordinary activities and routines have held greater resonance this week having been without them for over a month. But now, their familiar presence lets me know I am back home, back in my familiar places and spaces. Back home with my Sisters, my Community.

I really knew I was back, though, on Friday afternoon. We had been gifted that morning with six gallons of freshly-picked blueberries and they needed to be sorted, de-stemmed and rinsed. The call went out for extra hands in the kitchen and I was able to respond. For nearly an hour, I stood shoulder to shoulder around a work table with Sisters Emilie, Regina, Magdalena, and Therese as we removed stems and discarded the few berries that were a little under- or overripe. We talked a good bit. We laughed some. We occasionally worked for a stretch in silence. We chased down the occasional blueberry that jumped ship and rolled away. We each taste-tested a few. Our fingers slowly grew purple.

It was the most ordinary of monastery afternoons – a random group of Sisters, a random range of ages, an ordinary kitchen chore. When it was done, we each turned to our varied other responsibilities. And I turned to the deep certainty that yes, I’m home.

My school work at Saint John’s is directed toward an eventual graduate degree in Monastic Studies. But my real education is not the ‘head’ work of academics. It is here, in the monastery, shoulder to shoulder with my Sisters, engaged in our common work, immersed in the tangible world, my hands filled with sunlight and rain, my heart slowly ripening…it is here, in this ‘school for the Lord’s service,' that I learn and study and grow and live.


Postscript: The monastery is described by St. Benedict in his Rule for Monks as a "school for the Lord's service." (Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue, 45). No matter how many courses one may have on the monastic life, there is no substitute for the tangible reality of living it!

Silently, imperceptibly...

Somewhere within the unfolding of new growth there is a moment in which, ah, yes, the new thing suddenly is. The flower has opened. The fruit has formed. The sediment is at long last a stone, or the stone at long last, sediment. But rarely is the process of change perceived. We don’t know what it is happening until we wake up one morning and suddenly there is fruit on the vine or a flower on the stem.

Interior growth – including monastic formation – is the same. Suddenly the seeds planted by scripture, by the Rule, by instruction, by experience, blossom. But the growth itself is unseen, the moment of flowering, unobserved. One day it simply is, having been quietly taking shape far out of sight. Silently. Imperceptibly.

During my weeks here at Saint John’s, a Sister from another Benedictine community has been a fellow student – Sr. John Paul of St. Marys, PA. It has been nice to have another Benedictine Sister around, and we’ve had a number of conversations about school, about monastic life, and about our approach to school as monastics. We’ve each noticed that, despite our very different personalities and our formation in different communities, we have some similar approaches that are distinct from our non-Benedictine classmates. Not better or worse, just distinct. In talking about it one day, together we realized, “We’ve been formed.” We didn’t notice the moment when it happened. It was silent. Imperceptible. But the Rule of Saint Benedict and the customs of our respective communities have gained a solid interior foothold, and suddenly, in this new environment, we each became aware that we had changed.

There is a certain amount of study involved in monastic formation. But mostly it is simply living the life, observing and absorbing, allowing oneself to be corrected and taught. It is not passive. Rather, one must be highly engaged. Yet the real conversion takes place out of sight until one day new life suddenly is, and in a moment of recognition one pauses to say, “Ah, yes,” before returning to the slow unfolding of quiet growth in the monastic way of life.

The proliferation of silence

“Take with you words,” wrote the prophet Hosea. His context (14:2) was confession and conversion, but the phrase somehow seems to capture the essence of compressing two graduate courses and an entire semester’s worth of words into five weeks. I have taken so many class notes that the ink has run out of two pens and I've had to purchase a third. My spiral notebook overflowed and I had to begin a second. With three papers down and one to go, I fear the laptop will soon overheat from overuse. Words have been proliferating prolifically, and when I depart Saint John's one week from today, I will take with me words.

But yesterday, with my third paper completed, I left my words on the shore and took a kayak out onto Lake Sagatagan. Another Sister accompanied me, and though we spoke a bit, we mostly paddled desultorily across calm waters and let the loons do the talking. The air was filled with reverence. The sun shone without need for comment. The translucent lake revealed quiet life beneath the surface. In the distance, a bald eagle circled, dived, and lifted prey from the water. A shoreline patch of lily pads gently tapped against the hull as I roused them from their afternoon nap. There were no words, no pens, no paper, no rat-a-tap of fingers on an overused keyboard. Just the proliferation of silence.

Over these past weeks, I have delighted in words – in class, in conversation, in prayer, in writing. But as the words have accumulated, I’ve also kept silent vigil within, letting the words of scripture settle deeply, proliferating in silence. No matter whether we are in school or out, may we all cultivate the fertile soil of silence in which the Word of God may "blossom like the lily, and strike root like the Lebanon cedar (14:5)."


Postscript: One more week here in Collegeville, then back home to Sacred Heart… Speaking of words, through letters and email the Sisters have kept me up to date on what’s happening at the monastery. For the latest word, here’s the link.

"First, you take a maple sapling..."

Conversation topics amongst the theology students here are often wide ranging. At dinnertime one night this week, as we moved from Heidegger to hunting (I am not kidding!), we stopped briefly on the topic of homemade snow shoes. One student actually knew how to make them and began, “First, you take a maple sapling and bend it into an oval.” The instructions went on from there, but I was already captivated by the initial image of a young tree that, instead of becoming protecting shade, becomes a protecting shoe that prevents one from sinking into the snowy depths.

The pliability of a young tree is such an appropriate image for the flexibility and adaptability required of monastics as we engage in the conversion of heart to which the Rule of Benedict calls us. This adaptability isn’t just the practical kind where you can shift your activities as easily as a conversation can move from Heidegger to hunting. Rather, it’s about the capacity to interiorly move and breathe and bend and grow as we are formed more and more into the likeness of Christ. To borrow words from Ezekiel, we exchange a heart of stone for a heart of flesh.

Today, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we commemorate the expansiveness of Jesus’ heart, a heart that encompasses in love all being, all time, all creatures… A heart that provides shelter from heat and protection from the miry deeps… A heart that pours itself out in self-giving love... May our hearts beat, move and expand with and in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, encompassing in love all those to whom God calls us in service.

"...As we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexspressible delight of love." (Rule of Benedict, Prologue, 49)


Postscript: I remain here at Saint John's with two more weeks of class yet to go. Then home to Sacred Heart!