Choir practice

Tonight, after supper dishes were washed and put away, we gathered in the chapel for one of our occasional choir practices. It’s a chance for us to learn new music, review seasonal antiphons, and in general try to keep us singing as one voice. As we gradually assembled in our choir stalls, you would have thought we were gathering for prayer, not for practice. It was the same silence, the same reverence, the same sitting in prayerful expectation as it is for Lauds or Vespers on any given morning or evening. The only thing that gave it away that we were not gathering for prayer was the absence of lit candles and bells.

In the monastery chapel, we fall readily and naturally into the reverence that befits the space, no matter whether our purpose is cleaning the chapel, music rehearsal, or preparation for liturgy. There’s no idle chatter, no loud gestures, no needless extravagance. The only extravagance is that of God's goodness and glory, of our prayer and praise, and the extravagance of reverent silence in the midst of this often noisy and chaotic world. As we gathered and departed tonight in the most natural of silences, I realized the extent to which we’ve internalized St. Benedict’s instruction about the Oratory of the Monastery:

Let the oratory be what it is called, a place of prayer;
and let nothing else be done there or kept there.
When the Work of God is ended,
let all go out in perfect silence,
and let reverence for God be observed…

(From the Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 52, “On the Oratory of the Monastery”)

We interrupt this color...

...to bring you a rose abloom in winter.




Today is Gaudete Sunday, a day when we – for this one day only – wring the somberness right out of Advent’s liturgical color of violet. What’s left is a beautiful shade of rose to match the hope and joy of the scripture readings of this day.

Gaudete Sunday, or the 3rd Sunday of Advent, is so named because the first word of the Entrance Antiphon for this Sunday begins “Gaudete…”, or “rejoice.” On this Sunday, sensing the nearness of the Lord, we pause in midst of this pensive, yet hopeful, season to rejoice, to be glad. We interrupt the liturgical violet and light a rose-colored candle. We pull out a rose-colored vestment for the priest. Many of us wear our joy on our sleeves, putting on rose-colored sweaters or scarfs. We all, as it were, see the day through rose-colored glasses.

Yet even as we rejoice, we know we are still in the midst of deep midwinter. We still wander in the bleakness of the desert. We are, to use an image from today’s Gospel reading, still imprisoned, awaiting the coming of our Savior. Yet today, in the midst of bitter cold and swirling snow even here in the Deep South, we put on our rose-colored glasses and let out a joyous cry, knowing that Emmanuel is near.

Come, Lord Jesus.

The desert and the parched land will exult: the steppe will rejoice and bloom… Isaiah 35: 1 (from today’s 1st reading)

Therefore, we bow...

During Vespers this evening, a reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans began “Therefore….” As soon as the word was uttered I knew that one of St. Paul’s beautiful and carefully-wrought passages would follow on the pivot of that one word. I couldn’t help but hear the careful reasoning of Romans 5 in light of the mystery we celebrated today, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The beautiful antiphons of the Divine Office have been ringing in my ears all day as I’ve pondered the mysteries of this great feast. And now, the nuanced beauty of St. Paul's letter to the Romans. This interplay of mystery and reason, faith and understanding, is a wonderful interplay, with reason ultimately bowing before the mysteries of God.

Therefore, as this wonderful feast day draws to a close, let’s let St. Anselm, 11th century Benedictine monk, scholar, and Doctor of the Church, have the last word, as the theologian bows before the mystery of God's grace:

"The sky and the stars rejoice; the earth and the waters rejoice; day and night rejoice… O Lady, full and more than full of grace, to you I cry praise…To you I sing hail, Virgin favored of God and more than favored, you in whose blessing every nature is blessed, not only creatures by their Creator, but the Creator by his own creatures..."

(From the Office of Readings for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception)

9:30 pm in the passageway

Last night I walked through the back passageway and passed Sister Eileen, a physician, who happened to have her stethoscope in hand. I completed my errand, and then, with the stethescope image still in mind, I paused in the passageway to listen, to wrap my ears in quiet, to auscultate the heart beat of the night… Against the window, shadows breathing with the wind… Outside, the tenor voice of a distant owl… Inside, the rhythmic breath of a house turning the final page of the day, nestling warmly under a blanket of night, and falling gently asleep in the arms of God.

The first word of the Rule of St. Benedict is “Obsculta,” or "Listen.” Listening is at the very heart of Benedictine life, inclining our ear to the heartbeat of God, attending to the indwelling breath of the Spirit. We listen through Sacred Scripture, the Word of God. We listen through the Rule of our Holy Father St. Benedict. We listen through the writings of holy ones. We listen to each other. Always, we seek to incline our ear to the heart and breath of God.

Now, in the light of morning, in the midst of the busy-ness of the day, may our hearts stay inclined, our ears wrapped in quiet, our hearts listening deeply to the very breath of God.




Postscript: As a follow-up from the previous post, my errand late last night was as one of St. Nick’s elves. Sister Sara Aiden and I moved from floor to floor and door to door, delivering the treats that had been prepared by St. Nick. Nearly every Sister had remembered to place a shoe outside her door, but we elves had mercy on the two who forgot!

Making a list

It was an innocuous trip to the back porch this afternoon, but I seem to have caught St. Nick in the middle of a task. Lists were prepared, paper sacks were arranged, fruit was at hand, and an ample supply of candy filled a couple of grocery bags. St. Nick was nowhere to be found, so I snooped around for a bit and took a few snapshots.

The Feast of St. Nicholas is not commonly celebrated in the U.S., but it is a long-standing tradition in Germany. The earliest Sisters in our monastic community were primarily of German heritage, the town of Cullman was founded and settled by German immigrants, and we are a great-granddaughter house of the Abbey of St. Walburga in Bavaria. Given this background, a number of German traditions were incorporated into the life of the monastic community. We still retain some of these, and celebrating St. Nick’s Day is one of them.

On the Church’s calendar of saint days, the Feast of St. Nicholas falls on December 6. On the eve of the 6th, each Sister puts a shoe outside her bedroom door and awakens to find it filled with a sack of fruit and other goodies. It’s a fun, simple tradition, and a treasured legacy of our earliest Sisters.

While our spiritual and religious traditions are paramount, simple community traditions such as this help knit us into a family and connect us with the Sisters who lived this life before us, who lived in the rooms we now inhabit, put shoes outside these same doors, and worked on the same tables that now hold sacks of St. Nick goodies.

As I snooped around amongst the fruit and candy this afternoon, I took a good look at the lists of names. We find our names on all kind of lists around the monastery – readers for Mass, candle bearers for processions, cantors, table decorators, and the like. Yet there is another list of prime importance to us - our Book of the Names of the Dead, which was displayed in the chapel during the month of November. Our lives are intimately connected with those listed in that book. They are the ones who formed us, passing on the tradition of seeking God through the monastic way of life, as well as the particular traditions of this community, from Sister to Sister and generation to generation. When I place a shoe outside my bedroom door on Sunday evening, I’ll do so conscious of the close connection between the lists of we, the living, and the list of those who helped build, form and shape this monastic community. They, St. Nicholas, and all the saints, have given us a treasured legacy indeed.

Bearing the cross during Advent

This morning we had one of those Masses that leaves the sacristan feeling like she barely escaped with her life. The cross-bearer forgot to bear the cross. The organist couldn’t find the music for the final hymn. And there were a couple of other heart-stopping moments.

Heart-stopping if you’re a sacristan, that is. Hopefully no one else was aware that the cross was carried by someone who, as Mass was about to begin, realized that the cross-bearer was contemplatively settled in a pew far, far away. Hopefully no one else noticed that the flautist suddenly stopped 'flauting' and began searching for missing music amongst the stacks at the organ. And hopefully no one else noticed the couple of other sacristan-heart-stopping moments.

Yet from my perspective as sacristan and flautist, it was, strangely enough, the perfect opening for Advent, this season of preparing for the coming of the Lord. No matter how well we prepare, we are human. Things go awry. We lose the music amongst the music. We lose ourselves in contemplation. We prepare and prepare, yet when the lights are turned on and the candles are lit, we still need each other to help us carry the cross and sing the song.

As we prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord, it's good to be reminded of our emptiness. It's good to be reminded of just how much we need our Lord, and need each other. And it's good to be reminded of the many ways in which the Lord comes to us. Sometimes it's in the guise of the one who helps another to bear her cross and sing her song.

Postscript: Today during lunch someone said "That was a beautiful Mass." Inwardly, the sacristan smiled. She had escaped with her life.

Beginning again...

It’s that time of year. Tonight at Vespers we enter the season of Advent, beginning another round of the Church year, another cycle in which we encounter the Lord through the seasons of the liturgy, always beginning again, yet moving ever deeper into life in Christ.

The liturgical year is not a mere remembrance, or commemoration, of events from the life of Christ. We are not spectators. We are not watching a drama. Rather, in the seasons of the liturgical cycle the life of Christ unfolds, both drawing us into His life, and pouring life into us. Through times and seasons, we encounter the Eternal One.

We are able to see the seasons of our own life in light of the seasons of Christ’s life. In our own times of watchful waiting, we recognize the season of Advent and trust in the coming of our Savior. In our own times of desolation, we recognize Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and know that He is with us in our pain. In our own times of resurrection, we recognize God’s abounding power and grace.

As the liturgical cycle ends and begins, I’ve posted below some circular/cyclical images from around the monastery, taken in different seasons. Also, a brief excerpt from a wonderful poem by Gertrude von LeFort entitled The Holy Year:

...Bow down, O years, and stand still ye months, take
the shoes from off your feet ye wandering days!
For Eternity is speaking to my soul...