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CHAPTER 72: The Good Zeal of the Monk

(A SHORT SERMON TO THE PRIORY SCHOOL STUDENT BODY)

There is a good zeal which separates from vice and leads to God and everlasting life. The monks, therefore, should practice this good zeal with the most fervent love; each should ignore what is best for himself, and instead do what he thinks will most help the others.   In fact, the monks should compete with one another in showing respect.

Yesterday afternoon, I was approached by one of the maintenance staff.  She told me that one of you came up to her yesterday while she was working in the senior lounge.  And you bought her a soda.  And you thanked her for making the place look so nice.  That is what Saint Benedict means by good zeal.  That is what it looks like when one of you ignores what is best for himself and instead, does what he thinks will most help someone else.

I can’t remember ever being more proud of this community.

 

“He is not here; he is risen.”

 

Easter Vigil 2012                                                                               Saint Louis Abbey

April 7, 2012                                                                                                                      8:15 p.m. Vigil

Homily

            “He is not here; he is risen.”

            Dear friends, we come now in the celebration of the Triduum to the first great proclamation of the resurrection of the Lord, the proclamation made by the angels to the holy women at the tomb, the proclamation taken up by the Church as her own great proclamation through the ages.

            Our faith in the Lord’s resurrection is founded ultimately on the word of the Lord himself:  he manifested to his apostles that he spoke the word of God; he revealed to them that he was both God and man; he revealed to them his resurrection according to his human nature through his prophecies of it, through the empty tomb, through his many appearances to them in the course of forty days, and through the words he spoke to them in explanation of what they were seeing, hearing, touching.  The apostles testified to the resurrection of Jesus to the people, and their testimony was confirmed by the many prophecies and miracles which accompanied it.  The Church has passed their testimony down the many ages and generations to us, and the testimony of the Church to the resurrection of the Lord is confirmed by the great moral miracles which continuously accompany her testimony, the miracles of her oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity, by the prophecies and physical miracles which have always accompanied her testimony, and by the numerous private signs shown to each human being who sincerely seeks the truth.  All this is sufficient for the natural reason alone to come to the judgment that the testimony to the resurrection of the Lord is indeed a revelation from God and is therefore to be believed as certainly true.  Nevertheless, we cannot by our own natural powers actually believe that revelation, actually make the act of faith; what is revealed is too utterly beyond the world we naturally know, too utterly beyond what is ever naturally asked or demanded of us.  Only by the grace of God can we make the act of faith, and so faith is a free gift of God, by which we believe what is revealed on account of the word of God himself.  Thus our belief in the resurrection of the Lord enjoys not only the certainty of the approbation of the natural reason, but the measurelessly greater certainty of supernatural faith based on the word of God:  “All flesh is grass, and the beauty thereof like the flower of the field; the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”  Let us, then, receive this gift of faith with endless thanksgiving for the unspeakable gift that it is, and with utter humility before the Lord, and also before our fellow human beings, for there is nothing we could ever have done to merit the gift of faith, and why we have been chosen to receive it and, as it appears, not others remains, at least in this life, an inscrutable mystery.

            The resurrection of the Lord in which we believe is the bodily resurrection of the Lord:  it is not the survival of the Lord merely as some sort of ghostly spirit, no, it is the rising of his true body from death, the reunion of his body with his soul, and the transformation of both his soul and his body into the eternally indefectible state of glory.  The body of the risen Lord was the same body he had had in his earthly life, the same body which hung and died upon the Cross; in its risen state it still bore the marks of the wounds suffered on the Cross.  But it had been transformed into a spiritual body, still a true body, but now the perfect vehicle of the soul.  And the power of Beatific Vision, which the Lord’s soul had always enjoyed, the Lord now released fully into both his soul and his body, glorifying both with a splendor neither imaginable nor conceivable by us in this life.

            The resurrection of the Lord, together with his passion and death, is his greatest glorification of his Father; it is the greatest vindication of him and his mission; it is the beginning of his exaltation to the highest heaven where he sits at the right hand of his Father, and from where he pours out the Father’s and his Spirit into all the world.  For us, the Lord’s resurrection is the confirmation of the whole of our faith, the assurance that we ourselves shall rise from the dead, the source indeed of our resurrection, not only on the last day, but beginning already in this life.  For the Lord gives us the unspeakably great promise that by conforming us through the sacraments he has instituted to his own resurrection he will work in us our own resurrection after the pattern of his resurrection, and that he will begin to do this already in this life.  In this life, by Baptism he will effect in us the resurrection of our souls from the death of sin to the new life of justification and grace; by Confirmation he will pour into our souls the fullness of his Spirit and make us witnesses to him and to life in his Spirit; by the Eucharist he will give us his very Body and Blood, his Risen Body and the Precious Blood which is in that Risen Body, he will give us his very Body and Blood as our nourishment in this new life in the Spirit, and as our communion, though in a veiled way, with him, and through him with his Father and his Spirit, and in him with all our brothers and sisters.  And then, after our death in this world, at the time determined by him, by the final effect of our Baptism he will raise our body, reunite it with our soul, and glorify both forever; by the final effect of our Confirmation he will make us to share in his being as lifegiving spirit, becoming pourers forth and breathers forth of the Spirit; by the final effect of the Eucharist he will raise us up on the last day, and, the veils and appearances of the Eucharist disappearing forever, he, seen by us face to face, will give us himself in communion, he in us and we in him, and in that communion we shall also see his Father and his Spirit as they are, and our brothers and sisters as they truly are, each at last that unique image of the Lord they were ever called to be, and all this an unending glory and joy here unknown and unspeakable.  So it is that in the Easter Vigil, in which there is first heard the proclamation of the Lord’s resurrection, wherever there are catechumens the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist are celebrated, the Lord giving the elect through those sacraments the new life through water and the Spirit and that communion, as members of his Body the Church, with him, with his Father and Spirit, and with their brothers and sisters in him.  So too it is that in the Easter Vigil, wherever it is celebrated, we who have already been made members of the Church renew our Baptismal vows and our Profession of Faith, the effects of our Baptism and Confirmation being thus renewed in us, and through the celebration of our first Easter Eucharist receive a renewal of that blessed communion in which alone our fulfillment consists.  Moreover, the renewal which is offered us will, if we receive it, bring us closer to the Lord than we have ever been before.  Let us, then, receive it, for it is the step which the Lord proposes us to take this Easter on our journey, by his grace, to him.

            No wonder then, dear friends, that the Easter Vigil is the greatest of the Church’s liturgies, no wonder that Easter is her greatest feast, no wonder that Easter introduces her greatest season, the Easter Season of the fifty days of resurrection joy, during which Christians down the ages have greeted one another with the Easter proclamation itself, whose form in Greek and Latin and English it is my joy to remind you of each year:

                                                Christos anesti; alithinos anesti!

                                                Christus surrexit; vere surrexit!

                                                Christ is risen; he is truly risen!

ABBOT JEROME LUKE RIGBY, O.S.B., fortified with the sacraments of Holy Mother Church, March 17, 2012. First Abbot of Saint Louis Abbey, beloved brother of the monks of Saint Louis Abbey, uncle of Dr. Hugh O’Brien (Eveline), Sally Underwood (John), and Clare Parham of England, valued friend and counselor to many.

Born in Surrey, England,  August 17, 1923, Jerome Rigby was clothed as a monk at Ampleforth Abbey in 1941 and ordained priest in 1950. In 1955 he became a founding monk of Saint Louis Priory, serving as Prior (superior) of the community from 1967 to 1989. When the Priory was raised to the status of Abbey in 1989, he became the first Abbot and served until 1995. In 2003 Abbot Luke contracted pulmonary fibrosis and lived in a debilitated state at the Abbey until his death, spending long hours in prayer for the community and for the extended Abbey family and giving to his fellow monks a witness of patient endurance. Abbot Luke was loved by many; no one who met him was untouched by his kindness and wisdom.

The body will be received at Saint Louis Abbey at 6:00 p.m. Friday, March 23. An all-night vigil of silent prayer will be kept with the body in the Church. Those wishing to pay their respects are welcome from 6:00 p.m. until the funeral Mass at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, March 24. Burial will follow immediately in the cemetery adjacent to the Abbey monastery. Reception will follow in the monastery.

The End is Near

Homily delivered to Saint Anselm Parish on January 22, 2011

[Note: An enormous crane was installed in the middle of the church to accommodate the renovations]

I have prepared a real hellfire and brimstone sermon for the this morning, with the intention of delivering it from that cherry picker there.  But the abbot wouldn’t let me.  So if it doesn’t have the same effect, you know who to blame.

THE END IS NEAR!

See? I told you it wouldn’t have the same effect.

There is an enormous sense of urgency in today’s readings.  “Time is running out!” says Saint Paul.  “Only forty days!” says Noah.  “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” says Our Lord.  And yet, as I was reading this passage last night…I yawned.  And that got me thinking…I just don’t feel that sense of urgency.  I could go to confession today…or I could go tomorrow…or I could wait for Lent to begin.  I mean, when push comes to shove, I just don’t feel all that bad.  And God is really, really merciful, right?  So what do I have to worry about?  I haven’t killed anybody.  I didn’t steal anyone’s pension fund or bomb a marketplace.  I feel pretty safe.  So maybe those words don’t apply to me.  Right?

Or maybe they do.  After all, those words aren’t just addressed to Nazis and hedge-fund managers and tobacco lobbyists.  They are addressed to you and me personally.  Because even for us, “time is running out.”  The kingdom of God is at hand.  The end is near.  And “you know very well,” says Saint Paul, “that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

Now, I’m not necessarily predicting the end of the world.  I’m not even suggesting that you and I are in danger of going to Hell.  (Or maybe I am.  I’ll get back to you on that.)  What I am suggesting is that this battle over good and evil has reached a crisis point; that we are being called in today’s gospel to be apostles and martyrs; that we are in the midst of what our evangelical brethren like to call “The Great Tribulation;” that, more than ever, we must be saints.

And I could point to any number of attacks on our faith, attacks on the priesthood, attacks on our moral convictions…attacks by the media, attacks by politicians, attacks from outside the Church and attacks from within.  But I’ll just go with the most recent: on Friday, our president announced that our government will begin forcing Catholic institutions to buy health insurance that includes sterilization, abortifacients and contraception.  Catholic hospitals, Catholic universities, Catholic schools will be required under force of law to act in violation of their consciences.  If I were a Catholic school administrator, I’d be starting to worry right now.

And I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but for the rest of us too, “time is running out!”  “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed!”  If we are going to be strong enough to endure persecution, if we are going to be strong enough to resist the culture of death, to be Christ’s own apostles, called to be fishers of men, then we need to repent and believe in the gospel.  That means getting to confession—and soon.  Going to mass—and often.  Praying—and praying hard.  We’re going to need to be holier, and more prayerful, and more knowledgeable and more steadfast in our beliefs than we ever have so far, because frankly, it’s starting to look like we are losing this fight.

But then…it has always kind of looked that way, hasn’t it?

After all, the Church is an anvil against which many hammers have been broken.

Father Laurence: Spending Time with God

            My dear students, in each one of us there is a desire for happiness, a happiness that can never be taken away. And that is what we are made for. That desire was placed in our hearts by the God who made us because he wants to satisfy that desire. He made us to be his friends. It’s not that he was lonely and needed friends: the three persons of the Holy Trinity enjoy each other’s company for all eternity and need no one else for their joy. But God’s love brims over and he wants to share it with other persons whom he then creates for that purpose. Our happiness is to be friends with God for all eternity.

            But where do we find God? He remains invisible to us, and sometimes all we are aware of are the creatures of this world and our need to find a place among them. Especially today we can be distracted by huge amounts of information about the world that are digitally available to us. We can become engrossed in the world and forget that place in our heart that says you were made for more than this; you were made for the infinite. The good things of this world are yours to enjoy but they are only pointers to a more wonderful good that alone will satisfy your deepest hunger.

            So how do we find this hidden God? Well one way is by doing what we’re doing now. We’ve come to the place where he tells us about himself in his word and then gives himself to us bodily so that we can live by his strength. Knowing how hard it is for us to find him left to ourselves, God opened up communication with man. He called a people to himself and revealed himself to them by saving them from captivity and giving them their own land. He gave them a law by which they could find him and the life he wanted for them. We heard a part of that story in the first reading where the people of Israel ask Samuel for a king. God is at first unwilling to give them a king, who might be seen as a replacement for him, their real king. But then God gives in, and eventually gives them David to be their shepherd. Descendants of David reigned for 400 years, but that all came to an end when the people were exiled to Babylon for their sins. But the line of David went on underground, so to speak, and eventually the perfect king was born of his descendants, Jesus who, as he shows in today’s Gospel, is not only a human being but has the divine powers of forgiving sins and healing.

            This Jesus is the full revelation of who God is. God is no longer hidden as he was before. Looking on the face of Jesus Christ, now risen from the dead, we see the love of God himself. Jesus brings us to the happiness we were made for.

            So how do you get in touch with him? How do you hook up with him so that he can bring you with him to his kingdom? There’s only one thing you have to do and that is let yourself be won over by him. Recognize his beauty, the beauty of God made man for you. Recognize as the apostles did the amazing power of this man, his ability to give divine life and friendship. Let him draw you to himself. And how do you do that? It’s impossible unless you spend time with him daily. What kind of friend is it whom you never spend time with? Speaking to young people in Madrid this summer Pope Benedict said, “I come to exhort young people to know Christ personally as a friend. Listen regularly every day [to his Word] as if he were the one friend who does not deceive.…Faith is an intimate relationship with Christ, who enables us to open our hearts to this mystery of love and to live as men and women conscious of being loved by God.”

            The Holy Father knows that during your teen years you are trying to discover what to do with your life, what will lead to your happiness and that of others. Here is the Pope’s advice: “Dear young people, if you wish to discover and to live faithfully the form of life to which the Lord is calling each of you, you must remain in his love as his friends. And how do we preserve friendship except through frequent contact, conversation, being together in good times and bad? St. Teresa of Jesus used to say that prayer is just such ‘friendly contact, often spending time alone with the one who we know loves us.’”

            Take time out daily to be with the Lord, the friend of friends. Share your life with him so that he can share his with you. Together you will be an unbeatable combination. Together you will pass through the temptations of this world, those voices that offer happiness but are really dead-ends. Not only will you find the happiness you were made for, the happiness of union with your Maker, but you will become a light for the world, one who can show others the face of the one who loves them and whom they are seeking without knowing it.