Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington - 25 Nov 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. James Randall Greve, OHC
Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington
Wednesday 25 November 2009

Galatians 6:14-18
John 6:34-38

James Otis Sargent Huntington, the Founder of OHC, circa 1920
Originally uploaded by Randy OHC

From the Galatians reading - For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! . The Message Bible puts it this way: “Can't you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do – submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!

Is God in fact creating something totally new? In us? Here, now? On this day when we commemorate our Founder we engage in the important work of looking back - to what is past, what is old - in hopes of becoming prepared for and open to what is new. Fr. Huntington went where there was no path and left a trail and so we pause to remember what a bold risk, what a culturally and ecclesiastically subversive thing he was doing and we pray for a bit of his spirit to fall on us and cover us. Today is not just about the past but is also a moment to look in the mirror, and then look forward to the possibilities of the future.

Not plans for this or that building but to the question of what kind of men are we called to become? What new creation is yet to be sprouted up in us? This day is an opportunity to remember that the call and vision that began 125 years ago today is an event that lives in us and with us. Each of us in the Order of the Holy Cross chooses to found the Order every day by our living out the Gospel through our Rules, our love for God and our neighbor, and our willingness to continue to be grounded in good soil for growth for ourselves and the Order. With the words from the service of Life Profession still fresh in my mind and heart, I am impressed with the emphasis on decision and will within that and other rites of passage within our life. “What do you seek?” (Are you sure? Do you really?) The call is something that happens to us – that is God's free gift to us, the decision is what we do with the call, how we respond to God's gift, every single day.

St. Paul's message to the bickering church in Galatia, harassed by the Judaizers who were putting conditions on salvation, is as relevant to us as today as in the first century: The apostle is saying: “You must keep choosing freedom, deciding for the truth, defending the Gospel against those who would attach an asterisk and small print “some restrictions may apply”. They knew the Gospel at one time but they were bewitched, lulled, seduced away from Jesus to “Jesus and”, the root of every heresy.

A new creation, not a new version of the old creation, is everything. Living the new creation means being vigilant, purifying our hearts, not sliding into the old life of the past. The truth doesn't just happen, the founding of the Order didn't just happen, the ongoing life of prayer and service doesn't just happen – faithful monks from the founder to today have day by day stood up and let their “yes” be “yes” and their “no” be “no”, took stands, made sacrifices so that we could pursue new life within the call of the monastic life.

I was reminded of the importance of decision through a recent encounter. The conversation didn't follow the script. I was in the bookstore a few weeks ago on a particularly quiet weekday when a couple who had driven down to explore the monastery came into the store. Now some visitors will quietly browse and others will be full of questions, most of which I've been asked a hundred times before but am glad to answer as they are an important part of the ritual of hospitality. But this was different.

After chatting a bit about the monastery, the man asked me “When did you decide to become a Christian?”- not an Episcopalian, or a monk – two of my more well-rehearsed little stories, but a Christian. I remember thinking in a flash “I'm a monk, I'm supposed to know this!” Without missing very much of a beat I heard myself say “This morning when I woke up.” The reaction was a quizzical but thoughtful expression and the encounter was practically over – nothing much more was said. Just as I didn't expect that question, he didn't expect that answer and it seemed to have left him without want or need of reply.

“When did you decide to become a Christian?” Something about his use of the word decide hung in the air and has stuck with me. It's just not something I believe I've ever been asked before but the question and the answer exchanged that day are important. Decide is an active, intentional word. I've mostly thought of my Christian commitment as something I've been compelled to be and do, caught or swept up into rather than a decision as such – total reliance on grace - more Augustine, less Pelagius. I thought later about my answer and the other possible and equally valid answers I could have given.

Did my conversion happen when I was baptized as an infant at St. Jerome Catholic Church? When I went with my friends to Clay Road Baptist Church and asked Jesus into my heart when I was eight? Was it through the community at West Oaks Baptist Church in the early 80s or standing at my father's hospital bedside as he recovered from two gunshot wounds that almost killed him? Was it the decision to attend Houston Baptist University or Southern Baptist Theological Seminary? Was it when I decided somewhat on a whim after having left seminary to slip into St. James Episcopal Church on a Wednesday night in Lent in 1992?

I could make the case that decision was going on when I was received into the Episcopal Church, when I responded to calls to ministry at different parishes, when I began to explore monastic life, my entry into this community, my clothing, my profession. What about the thousands of days between those moments, in the day to day grind of just doing life?Could I have decided this morning in the quiet moments before sunrise? Could my original answer have in fact been true? What if every day is when I decide to become a Christian? What if deciding to be a Christian today allows me to decide that more fully and deeply tomorrow?

New creation sounds great and if I asked you “Do you want to be made into a new creation in Christ?” most of us would say “Let's do it!” But the nitty gritty of change, the day to day-ness of working out our salvation, is hard, tough stuff as we all know. In fits of honesty we realize we don't always want what we say we want – the illusory short cuts, the quick fixes are at times too tempting when faced with the long, hard slog of transformation. Being stretched, taking risk, giving up the safety and security of what I know for another land is not easy, but it is worth it.

It is worth it because a new creation is everything and because the alternative is far, far harder and more dangerous – a smug, isolated, comfortable deadness – dead seeds on dead soil. There is no third option – it's either stewing in the juices of our own selfishness or pressing on every day for new life. So we are on the hook, trapped in a land without a no man's land, wonderfully tricked by God into waking up and making a decision. A monk is a sign of paradox – the paradox of the blessedness of sacrifice and the abundance of self-denial.

A monk dares to say “no” to everything dead, everything illusory, everything transitory, everything that obscures our new life. A monk stands up and points to the lies and says “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything”, counts it as nothing and casts it all aside in order to experience the freedom of the free gift of God's grace – a new creation is everything. The German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in The Cost of Discipleship that the one central and unavoidable question of Christianity is not “Are you willing to die?” but “Which kind of death are you going to die?” Or, as Robert Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan, says in the famous song, “You gotta serve somebody”.

What followed from this day in 1884 for James Otis Sargent Huntington? 18,462 days of getting out of bed and deciding to become a Christian, saying “yes” to conversion, new life, new creation. Over fifty years of praying, leading, preaching, raising money, moving, then moving again until his last words were “I will always intercede!” and then he died on June 29, 1935.

The monks of the Order of the Holy Cross assembled in Chapter - June 2009
Originally uploaded by Randy OHC

A new creation is everything. Fr. Huntington believed that, staked his life on it. He proved it to be true and proved God faithful. Let us become men of new creation - open, expectant, hopeful, real – now, today, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, the day after that. May the thousands of days that are past grant us their gift of wisdom and love. May the days that lie ahead grant us their gift of deepening love and hope. May we have the grace and will to follow the path shown us and cleared for us by St. Benedict, Fr. Huntington, and the whole company of heaven joined in the praise of Christ. Amen.

RCL - Proper 29 B - 22 Nov 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
RCL - Proper 29 B – Sunday 22 November 2009
Christ the King – ONE Sunday

2 Samuel 23:1-7
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37


As today’s collect suggests, nations long to be freed from sin and united in peace and truth. We yearn to move into the accomplishment of God’s desire for humanity. We hope that we all may be One with the God who is, who was, and who is to come.

In our season of Pentecost, which comes to a close, our longing for unity with God began to be fulfilled by the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

In the beckoning season of Advent, our yearning for oneness with God is in the memory of Jesus’ incarnation and in the hope of God’s renewed, unmediated presence to all of us.

*****

We cannot speak of God but in human words and metaphors. And God surpasses any and all of these metaphors. “Kingdom” is a metaphor that Jesus himself seems willing to play with but not without giving us a workout about what He might have in mind when using that metaphor.

*****

Our first reading of today comes from the second of the two Books of Samuel. These books evoke the transition of Israel, as the chosen people, from being ruled by Judges to being ruled by Kings. And this transition does not seem to be God’s first choice for Israel.

A ruler provides guidance. The rules are there to direct and keep people in the right path. Under the Judges, Israel is ruled by the covenant with God. In a way, God is their king.

The judges, who then rule Israel, are scattered amongst its many tribes. The judges have the subsidiary responsibility to arbitrate conflicts in the interpretation of God’s covenant with Israel. Under the judges, there is no centralized power but God.

But Israel fashions itself as a modern nation -- like its neighbors, really -- and these neighbors all have kings. In addition, to ruling, kings are expected to protect their people from harm. Israel thinks it will be safer with a human king. The prophet Samuel warns Israel in vain about kings and their abuses of power. But God eventually agrees to have a king anointed.

Clearly, a kingdom is not God’s first idea of covenanted relationship.

*****

Our reading from Second Samuel offers the meditations of an aging King David (the second king of Israel) on the essence of his own reign. The essence of David’s reign -- David comes to recognize -- has been God.

Whenever David was at his best, he reigned in awe of God, in obedience to God, and as an instrument of God’s justice.

David sings: “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the dew on the grassy land.”

More often than not, David also failed to rule that way. But always he repented and turned to God again, as the foundation of his kingship. And it is this faithful repentance that makes David one to look up to in the biblical narrative.

*****

Our second reading comes from the Book of Revelation.

It is too often overlooked that this book is actually a letter to 7 churches of Asia Minor who are buckling under the domination of Empire (in this case the Roman Empire).

Each of these 7 churches are made to notice the difficulties of each of their sisters. And they are made to feel one. They are made to feel one in their belonging to a reality, in space and time, that goes well beyond the Roman Empire.

And in order to make that clear to them, the seer of Patmos Island subverts the language of the hegemonic power of the time and refers to the symbols from these churches’ jewish heritage.

The seven churches are encouraged to focus on a heavenly Jerusalem that transcends the mightily earthly Rome and brushes away the ruins of the earthly Jerusalem. This is where the seven churches are reminded that they belong to a kingdom where they all are priests of God the Father rather than servants of Caesar Imperator or clients to a temple elite.

*****

In the words of one of my favorite compline hymn, they are reminded that “empires pass away but God’s kingdom stands and grows for ever till all thy creatures own thy sway.”

If you look up this last noun “sway” you will see it means power, dominion, but also “the ability to exercise influence or authority.”

God is inviting us to become co-leaders of God’s plan for humanity until we all exercise that stewardship together as One, with God.

*****

And this brings us to the clash of Pilate and Jesus’ respective understandings of truth. Pilate as a good Roman praetor attempts to judge Jesus according to the political and cultural facts of the situation.

But Jesus also seems interested in whether Pilate is seeking truth on his own behalf or is just the instrument of circumstances; “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

In this passage, I hear again Jesus-the-teacher asking “What is it you want me to do for you?” as he asked Bartimaeus and the sons of Zebedee, James and John.

What is it that you are asking for, Pilate? Do you want to know truth? Or do you seek the convenience of arguments that fit the moment’s purpose?

*****

And the argument that Jesus is the King of the Jews fits the moment’s purpose for Pilate. If Jesus does not renege on this claim, made for him by third parties, Pilate can have him executed as requested by the local religious authorities. Pilate wants to assuage these authorities on the eve of this major religious holiday of Passover.

*****

So Jesus plays along with the Kingdom metaphor for a while; but only as a negative used to project the positive image of what Jesus is about. “My kingdom is not of this world… My kingdom is not from here.”

*****

Jesus concludes this conversation with Pilate saying: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Is testimony the major attribute of a king? Jesus always points to a kingdom of another nature and of which is a witness.

And what are we called to in the presence of this divine witness? We are called to listen. We are called to exercise discerning obedience. Chewing and masticating and ruminating God’s will until the way forward for our life becomes known to us.

Where have I heard this recently? Oh yes, the Rule of St Benedict which I recently professed to use for the rest of my life as a guide to turn again and again to God.

Here are the first two sentences of that rule:

“Listen, child of God, to the guidance of your teacher. Attend to the message you hear and make sure it pierces to your heart, so that you may accept with willing freedom, and fulfill by the way you live, the directions that come from your loving Father.”

*****

So on this feast of Christ the King, Reign of Christ, I invite you to listen to, pull apart and re-construct, the many metaphors Jesus allows us to play with in order to open our hearts wider to God.

God desires us to be ONE; not to remain alienated and rebellious subjects; but to exercise whatever influence and authority we have to turn to Him, to turn into Him. As this conversion happens, with our participation and His grace, we will not be able to help but be instruments of God’s Love.

*****

Let us pray.

Beloved, You are the Alpha and the Omega. Let us not loose our alphabet of love, in-between the book-ends of history. Be our ruler, give us direction, keep us on the right path. And whenever we get lost, shed light over our steps; let us hear your voice again; that in the end, we all may see the light of your countenance as One.

Amen.

RCL - Proper 28 B - 15 Nov 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colqhoun, OHC
RCL - Proper 28 B - Sunday 15 November 2009

Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
Mark 13:1-8

Wheatfield - A Confrontation, Battery Park landfill
(c) 1982 Agnes Denes --- Greenmuseum.org

In September 2001, our monastery in Grahamstown was having some retreat days. My office was in a little hut next to the Prior’s little hut. Usually, we were very careful about the silence so I was a bit taken aback when I heard Timothy exclaim, “Oh, dear God.” I ran next door and he pointed to an email from our Brother Carl Sword who lives at 33rd and 3rd Avenue in the City. Carl had written something like, “We’re under attack - planes are flying into the Towers.”

Forgetting the retreat we ran up the hill to where we hide the TV and turned it on and we saw what was happening. For ages we sat stunned and unbelieving. People telephoned; emails came flooding in; the word got to us that no one we knew had been killed. People spoke to us with love and sorrow but the message was almost always – you can’t really be surprised, can you?

The world gathered around the United States in those days waiting to see how this nation would react… with courage? Yes; with compassion? – for our own, yes; with determination to go ahead? – Yes. But we have, in my opinion at least, let the damage go to the heart of the nation. Fear rules us, mistrust directs us and we look for the enemy under every bed.

We’re not alone – the whole world seems to be nuts. Airport security seems disproportionate – no terrorist worth his salt would fly economy – and yet first class passengers walk on the plane unscathed. Have a dark skin and call yourself Jamal and see how easy it is to move around. Or be a woman in a veil and try to ignore the suspicious stares.

The thing is that this is nothing new. It was new for us – but nations and people since recorded history have faced destruction and sorrow and have had to live through it as they were able. Some well, some not so well.

Empires come and go. Economies thrive and collapse. Fortunes are won and lost - it’s the nature of things. History shows that power – that kind of power - never lasts. But somehow we are always taken by surprise.

The Church is no different. Nothing new is going on. We still have people lined up with daggers drawn over who can be in and who has to be out; who can be ordained and who not – and for what reason. My tradition can beat up your tradition; my communion is closer to purity than yours. Our bread is more really Christ than yours.

What a sad state of affairs. It’s enough to make you give up hope.
And that’s a lead line if I ever heard one!

Because that’s exactly what this passage – the little apocalypse – is about. Temples collapsing; traditions coming a cropper; wars, treachery; destruction; things falling down and, as usual, on the heads of the poor.
While the rest of us switch to First Class and walk on unscathed.

The disciples were worried – they had taken refuge in what they saw. Things were beginning to look pretty shaky. “Look at the size of these stones”, they say – “our buildings are bigger than theirs”. And Jesus says to them – don’t count on these things. They aren’t what will keep us in life.

And then he instructs – and we never seem to listen, do we? He tells them that terrible things always lie ahead but they are not to follow the path that frightened, arrogant, murderous people would lead them down.

Jesus points them to a way that doesn’t cave in and says to them, “Follow me!” He leads them into a darkness that can never win. He leads them – and us if we will go – through the darkness of the cross to light. He leads us past armies and nations and doomsayers and privilege to where hope lies. And then he stays with us. And that’s where our hope lies. For hope is relying on the end that will surely come and that has already started. Hope is what marks us as Christ’s. Hope is staring at destruction and knowing that resurrection is constant; and that the future is rooted in that resurrection.

If we are faithful to Jesus, we will see destruction; we will suffer; we will grieve the misery of God’s people. But if we follow Jesus we will do more. We will look on all that misery and defy it; we will move into life and hope and compassion. We will see not the armies of destruction but the face of Christ. If we look beyond our safety we will know Christ in the faces of Afghanistan, of the Holy Innocents of the squatter camps of South Africa; the faces of the crack houses just down the road. We will smell the fragrance of God’s love in the unwashed women of the streets or the children who sweat with the fear of the night to come. We will walk into the dark and we will shine.

We’re going to hear more doom and gloom in the next six weeks... Advent’s coming. We can hear only that or we can down the distance we can hear a song – a song that swells in the darkness:

Glory!
Glory to poor farmers,
Glory to the people huddled in stables;
Glory to downtrodden people in occupied territories;
Glory to families fleeing the Herod of their days;
Glory to teenaged soldiers mutilated by war.
Glory to young single mothers.
Glory to men unmanned by life.
Glory to widows and orphans.
Glory to God!

Amen.

RCL - Proper 27 B - 08 Nov 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Lary Pearce, OHC
RCL - Proper 27 B - Sunday 08 November 2009

1 Kings 17:8-16
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44


The Transformation of the Widow's Mite

Today’s readings provide us with interesting ideas about the possibility of doing God’s will. In the Old Testament Lesson a great prophet assures a seemingly powerless woman that she too can be an instrument of God’s will. In the Gospel Jesus says that in the eyes of God the poor widow who gives her all for God’s glory does more than the rich man who gives to build up his own reputation. The epistle teaches that Christ himself intercedes in heaven for the honest giver.

Here Elijah is God’s messenger who assures the destitute widow of God’s providence. Elijah assures the widow with whom he wishes to stay that if she takes him in even though there is a major famine in progress, her jar of meal would not be consumed and her jug of oil would not be emptied until the day when the lord sent rain and fresh crops. What was required was that she trust in providence of God to fulfill her needs. She trusted and her supplies did not run out. This reminds me of the miracle of the loaves and fishes which fed the 5,000.

Christ has entered into a sanctuary not made by human hands to appear before the presence of God on our behalf. God himself enters into eternity to plead for us. Paul assures believers that things will be all right in eternity; his assurance does not extend to this world. The emphasis here is on the necessity of trust in God.

When Jesus encountered the poor widow who contributed her “mite” there was a big fund raising campaign underway. The king, Herod the Great started constructed of a new temple probably in 19 B.C. Construction was still underway in 33 A.D. Herod the Great was the author of the plan to replace the second temple which had been built 500 years earlier after the return from the Babylonian captivity. Herod, under Roman control, was a rich and powerful client king who ruled over much of the eastern Mediterranean. Powerful as he was, he was dependent on Rome. He was a paranoid ruler, willing to do anything rather than be assassinated. He even had his own son executed. One Roman wit said that he would rather be Herod’s pig than his son. Because Herod probably wouldn’t eat pork, the pig was less likely to be killed than his son. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.; his death was particularly disgusting referred to guardedly as “Herod’s Evil.” His son Herod Antipas was still at work on the temple in Jesus time.

The widow poor as she was wanted to do what she could for the glory of God. Unlike the wealthy and powerful she gave everything she had to live on. Her gift was of greater merit than those of people wealthier than she. She gave everything; the wealthy gave only part. In God’s eyes her gift was of infinite value and contributed the building up of the Kingdom of God. The gifts of the wealthy and powerful contributed to the building up the earthly kingdom and, though good in themselves, were of finite value and would eventually perish. In fact Herod’s new temple was completely destroyed in 70 A.D. when the Romans suppressed the First Jewish Revolt. It didn’t last long.

When I think of the dichotomy between the early temple and the heavenly temple, I think of Mt. Calvary, the Order’s beautiful monastery in Santa Barbara. The building and its location were a place that was of almost other worldly beauty. Many holy things happened there and there were many holy people there. One of those holy people was Fr. Joseph Parsell, who spent most of his life as a monk and a missionary in Liberia. I believe he gave his all and I know absolutely that to his last breath he died loving Liberia and the Liberians. The Ghanaians affectionately called him “Fr. Buffy. He died in Santa Barbara. There was a wonderful memorial service for him at Mt. Calvary. Bishop Edward Neuville, then Bishop of Liberia, preached at the service. It was a holy event and commemorated a holy life of eternal value.

Mt. Calvary Monastery was a beautiful place where many holy things happened. When I think of the fire that completely destroyed it about a year ago, I still grieve. However, I trust in God’s mercy, and with Julian of Norwich I believe that on the last day God will work a great wonder, and “All will be well.”

Homily for Br. Bernard's Life Profession - 04 Nov 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Sr. Hildegard Magdalen Pleva, OSsR
Profession of the Life Vow by Brother Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
Wednesday 04 November 2009

Romans 8: 18-27

Luke 11:9-13

Br. Bernard and Sr. Hildegard
Originally uploaded by Randy OHC

The early twentieth century British writer W. Somerset Maugham was a keen observer of human behavior. He was particularly astute concerning motivations of the mystical kind.

I have an idea, [he said,] that some men are born out of their due place…they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not…this sense sends men far and wide in search of something permanent…sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. (1)

The great St. Paul and my friend Bernard seem to me to have had that nostalgia, that longing, for a place they knew not. Each began life with a sure desire for God. Each followed life’s circuitous and astonishing path – an exploration of longing and discovery – to an end surprising and yet familiar.

Paul did not know that his dual identity as an educated Greek-speaking Jew and citizen of Rome uniquely suited him to God’s purpose in the plan of salvation. Bernard did not know that the longing in his heart would best be satisfied not in the canyons of Wall Street but in the monastic cloister.

Our reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans spoke of “eager longing”, that desire of the heart to see the face of God. It is possible for the world to provide a trysting place for that desire. But the trick is to find the place, to find what Marist Brother Don Bisson describes as the best container for next stage of the journey to God, fertile ground for the process to which we are drawn, to find the home we long for but do not know.

Bernard has found that “place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.” To live out of that longing, to live out of the desire for God, demands the virtue of hope. All creation groans in its steadfast clinging to the hope of salvation in our brother, Jesus Christ.

In a few minutes, after Bernard consecrates himself to the vows of stability, conversion to the ways of monastic life, and obedience to that life, we will hear an ancient and plaintive plea. It is a prayer rooted in Paul’s expression of longing and hope. “I have done what you asked, according to your promise, do not disappoint me in my hope.” How do we sustain such hope, hope in what cannot be seen?

In James Otis Sargent Huntington’s first rule for the Order of the Holy Cross, all the details of the rule are arranged according to three over-arching principles of monastic life: prayer, mortification and good works. Prayer, the first principle, makes all that follows possible. Prayer sustains our hope. Paul sees it this way too but he knows his failures in courage and assumes that we will have ours. So he consoles himself and us. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

The occasion of Bernard’s Life Profession, his solemn promise to follow the monk’s path of interior silence and solitude lived in community; his promise to make himself available for conversion of heart and generosity in service; that promise is made public today. In its wisdom, the Church makes it public so that the promise is known to us. In this way his promise becomes a mirror for our promises, every promise represented here; fidelity in marriage and relationship, dedication to nurturing children, the promises of the sacrament of ordination, perseverance in religious vows, faithfulness in honoring the true self, the mundane obligations of earning a living, or the duties of citizenship and service.

Neither our friend’s pledge here at this altar nor the ones we have made are easy to keep. “But the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

And Jesus, our Savior, whose promise is the source of Bernard’s hope today – our Jesus assures – “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Oh, blessed assurance.

And before all things, the monk is a person of prayer – a praying presence before the throne of God. One who, in the words of Thomas Merton, is “like the trees which exist silently in the dark and by their vital presence purify the air.” (2)

Many today question the need for any life long promises. They find the promise of religious vows particularly confounding. They do not appreciate the transformation and the joyful liberation made possible by the promise and its fulfillment. Such freedom is what St. Paul described as “the liberty of the children of God.”

In that spirit of freedom, grounded in the love of Jesus - grounded in the Paschal Mystery of his life, death and resurrection - in that freedom, our friend, our brother Bernard, makes his pledge today.

Inspired by that love and with confidence in God’s Word, let us revisit our own promises. With Bernard, let us enter into our deepest longing. Let us recommit to the journey on our way to a home we have not seen, trusting that the Holy Spirit will be our guide.

Today we can pray with the poet T.S. Eliot:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning; ……..

Quick now, here, now, always –

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire.

And fire and the rose are one. (3)

Br. Bernard puts on the cross of life profession
Originally uploaded by Randy OHC

Footnotes

(1) W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Six Pence

(2) Merton, Thomas, Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality

(3) Eliot, T.S., “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets

RCL - All Saints - 01 Nov 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Adam McCoy, OHC
RCL - All Saints - Sunday 01 November 2009

Isaiah 25:6-9
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44


We are here this morning to praise the saints, and so, as I speak this morning, I want each of you to think of a saint you have personally known – a holy person who touched your life, who helped you in your journey of faith, or who challenged you, or who opened up something new to you. Someone whose life brought you closer to God. In doing so, I want us to recognize something wonderful – that there are so many saints, so many, many saints. Who can count them?

But we can try. Yesterday I googled the question, How many saints are there? At the top of the pile of possible responses something called wikiAnswers gave two possibilities: for Protestants, everyone who receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour becomes a saint. This concept has the advantage of being based in scripture, where by one count there are between 40 and 50 uses of the word “saint” for “member of the church”. “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” says St. Paul at the beginning of the Letter to the Romans. Such a large number! Who can count them?

For Roman Catholics, there are apparently some 10,000 saints recognized by name, which is a suspiciously round number, encouraging me to think that our wikiAnswerers haven’t counted one by one, but have a process analogous to the crowd counting in our nation’s capitol when there is a march or demonstration, in which the number reported seems to depend on your point of view. But let’s take the 10,000 as a starter. That’s just the named saints. Think of all the saints whose names we don’t know, beginning with the baby boys of Bethlehem, slaughtered by Herod because they were in the same age cohort as Jesus. It’s often that way with martyrs – they’re in the way of power, and so they’re mowed down like the grass of the field – not only do we not know their names, we don’t even know how many there were. Such a large number! Who can count them?

In our worship here at the Monastery there are so many saints we have to lump them into categories: apostles and evangelists, patristic martyrs, martyrs, doctors of the church, missionaries, monastics, teachers, pastors, confessors. The Blessed Virgin Mary gets her own category. And that doesn’t include Israel’s holy patriarchs, prophets, priests and kings, its matrons and mothers and women of war, our ancestors in the faith. Not every saint fits easily into these categories, but quite a lot do. The point is, there are so many that we can’t deal with each one individually, but we have to perform a sort of spiritual taxonomy to accommodate them, like lepidopterists with butterflies. Such a large number! Who can count them?

The saints can also provide a lens through which to view the history of the Church. St. Paul and the other writers of Epistles expected that people called into the Fellowship of Jesus Christ would be saints. This is an attractive notion, but over time it proved to have its problems as an adequate description of Church membership. In the succeeding age the dominant type of saint is the confessing martyr, the believer who suffers for his faith, of whom Stephen in Acts is the proto-martyr. As Christianity assumed power, saintly action moved from the martyrdom of blood to the martyrdom of askesis, to the desert fathers and mothers, to Anthony and Pachomius in Egypt; to the study, to brilliant theologians like Basil and Gregory Nazianzen and Augustine; to church leaders like Pope Leo the Great and preachers like John Chrysostom; and even to politicians, like Constantine himself. As the Roman empire disintegrated, at least in the West, and society became less sophisticated, a new kind of saint arose, the fearless missionary wielding God’s power, like Martin of Tours, and in the East the ascetic channeling divine power for the people, like Simeon Stylites. As the Middle Ages progressed, so did the need for saintly power, to the point that no church was complete without a saint present in bodily form, offering access to the throne of grace to every ordinary needy person who came and prayed and wanted to change. Monks and mystics, scholars and the very simple, royals and peasants, famous church leaders and the nameless faithful, they are all there. Such a large number! Who can count them?

And with the Reformation and the beginning of the modern world, a new kind of saint: the person made holy by opposition to the Church itself, the follower of truth for the sake of the Gospel as that saint understood it, the Protestants first, and then the Catholics, speaking truth to power: William Tyndale the translator of the Bible and Thomas More, the upholder of papal power, both of them speaking the truth to Henry VIII. We can still hear the screams from England’s martyr fires and from the autos da fe of the Inquisition, we can still see the blood running in the streets of Paris in the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre, we can still smell the reek of gunpowder, destruction, famine and death from the Thirty Years War which destroyed as much as 30% of the populations of Central Europe in the name of the Faith. So many lost for faith. Such a large number! Who can count them?

And in our own day: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Janani Luwum, Martin Luther King, to name only the most famous. Such a large number! Who can count them?

There is so much holiness. The famous, public holiness of the martyrs, the holiness of blood, but also the quieter holiness of dedication to the welfare of others, the holiness of those who choose their work to benefit the rest of us. And the quietest of all, those who choose the path of love rather than the path of self, for whom philia replaces eros, and for whom then agape replaces philia, working selflessly with little reward or regard, grandmothers, teachers, friends of the destitute and the lost and the lonely and the innocent and the ignorant and the irresponsible, who stand like beacons of light in a world that seems to be not very friendly to its children. Think of the saints I asked you to find in your own life. Our own encounters with holiness show us another way, a better way, a possibility that the world is different than we thought, that the world is in fact God’s world, shot through with rays of love and hope and joy. Such a large number! Who can count them?

I have spent so much time enumerating saints – and I’ve left quite a lot of them out – because I want us to consider that as Christians we are called to a different reality. The “world” is always presenting itself to us as a problem. It wants us to believe that life is a problem to be solved. Most of us here today are from New York. Is anything ever good enough for New Yorkers? Of course not. Life is problems. If they can be solved, there will be more problems to be solved, and then more problems, and then more problems. The multi-headed hydra should be our mascot: solve one problem and nine others spring up in its place. Problems without end. Or so we are told.

But the way of faith – the way of the saints – presents a different reality: a world infused with God’s inbreaking love and undefeatable goodness, a goodness which never stops calling out for witnesses, which never stops recruiting collaborators. Who could have imagined how much holiness the revelation of God to his people would let loose in the world? Who could imagine the millions of lives that are entry portals for the love of God into the world? Who would have thought the transcendent holiness of God could be found in the murky depths of the last days of Nazi Germany, or in a car on a dusty rural road in Uganda, or in an inexpensive motel in Memphis? And yet the bright light of God shone there. And where else might it shine? For in truth, God’s goodness in the world is not limited by the capacity of the Christian community to express it.

I want to suggest that a large part of our work as Christians is to learn to see the signs of sanctity. We need to develop an eye for saints, as the botanist develops an eye for plants. I remember driving upcountry in Liberia from Monrovia to Bolahun years ago with Brother Laurence. The vegetation on either side of the road was just green to me. It didn’t seem much like the African jungle of my imagination, and I was disappointed. I was looking for Tarzan, I suppose. Or an elephant, at least. But then Laurence started to show me, like the science teacher he was, which trees were the rubber trees, and what that meant in the economy of Liberia, and my eyes were opened.

We have to be trained to see. And once we are, our consciousness is changed. Too often we accept the “world’s” terms and see mainly problems, which are so great that we are overwhelmed. But truly those problems are only part of the reality of God’s world. What if we change our focus and train ourselves also to see holiness, also to see joy, also to see generosity? Who in the circle of our friends is being kind, right now? Who is bearing a burden they don’t have to bear? Who is giving so that another may have? That is holiness. Train ourselves to see. Who in our community is working harder? Who is giving sacrificially? Who is quietly going about their daily work with integrity and skill when they could more easily slack off? We can all see the great heroes of holiness. We need to learn to see the holiness around us now. The Holy Spirit is at work. Let us train our eyes to see.

And when we do, the world is different. Instead of the grey place of problems, it is the field of God’s love, filled in unexpected ways with the love and power and joy and light and life of God. The world is alive with holiness. It breathes holiness. Its life is God’s holiness in the lives of His people. Is there any more unexpected place to find God than on a cross? Then why should we be surprised to find God around the corner, down the street, in this very room? Look around you. The Holy Spirit is here, at work, now, this instant.

I cannot put it better than that great prophetic sonnet of Gerard Manley Hopkins (God's Grandeur - poem from 1918):

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

RCL - Proper 25 B - 25 Oct 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
RCL - Proper 25 B - Sunday 25 October 2009

Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52


On the face of it, this is a very happy Gospel story. Bartimaeus is blind. Jesus heals him. All live happily ever after. But my grandmother taught me carefully that there were no silver linings without dark clouds as well. So lets spend a little time looking for some of those clouds... what could be more fun...

In miracle stories, the miracle tends to push the rest of the story out of the picture. There is a lot more in the story than just Bartimaeus having his sight restored.

Look for instance at the crowd. If we focus only on Bartimaeus, then the crowd is just set dressing, but that is not the case.

This is a large, enthusiastic, faithful crowd. They have gathered to cheer Jesus - to worship... It’s a crowd that could easily be compared to any Sunday morning congregation. Good people gathered to praise Jesus. We should aspire to be like them.

But look at the function of this congregation. Jesus is in the middle and over on the edge somewhere is blind Bartimaeus needing help. And when Bartimaeus cries out for help what does the admirable congregation do?

They shush him... try to keep him from making a scene... They do what they can to keep him from getting the help he needs. They literally try to stand in the way of God’s healing power.

I said we could aspire to be like this crowd - this congregation. And now I have to face the fact that, at least some of the time, I don’t have to aspire... I am already part of this congregation.

For the sake of maintaining a joyful atmosphere we sometimes stand in the way of God’s healing power. For the sake of maintaining a familiar status quo we sometimes stand in the way of God’s justice. For the sake of good liturgy we sometimes defer the building of God’s kingdom.

Well, there is a dark cloud... this story is asking me to notice something about myself that I don’t want to notice... Something that, once I’ve noticed it, requires me to do some work. I have to take care not to get so caught up in following Jesus that I forget to follow Jesus. A dark cloud...

But that’s just the first cloud...

There is something about the way this miracle takes place that leaves me with questions. I know, and we all know, people with faith as strong as Bartimaeus, who have serious needs and who ask for God’s healing - and don’t appear to receive it.

I talked with a 10 year old boy who was afraid to pray. When his grandmother was terminally ill he had prayed earnestly that God would heal her. But she died. Children have a way of putting themselves at the center of things... he had concluded that God had allowed his grandmother to die as way of punishing him. He had taken this one step further. He feared that anything he prayed for, God would do the opposite. Experience had taught him this. So he was afraid to pray.

The combination of innocence and lack of perspective make for a heart rending story. But its not unique. This story of Bartimeaus, who’s prayer is answered so quickly and so exactly, would not have helped my 10-year-old friend. It is, for me, a cloud.

Its interesting that the compilers of the Lectionary have chosen to offer part of the story of Job with this Gospel passage. We know the story of Job. He was a good and decent man who suffered terribly in the cause of what seems to be nothing more than a bit of sport between God and the devil.

After the suffering God makes things up for Job - that’s what we heard about this morning. But in the midst of suffering Job surely must have felt that God refused to hear his prayers.

His helpful friends added insult to injury by telling Job that he, no doubt, was the cause of his own suffering. Surely he must have done something bad. Yet Job remained steadfast in his faith, not because his prayers were answered, but because his faith was unshakable. That, of course, is the wager God made with the devil - so at least God wins...

When Job’s fortunes begin to turn, his friends all come back. Now they eat with him and now they show him sympathy... where was that sympathy when he was suffering? When he needed it? They were busy heaping on judgment. It’s a cloud implicit in the story of Bartimaeus. The crowd is really not interested in the needs of the needy... we tend to view the needy and the injured with suspicion and judgment. Scattered clouds seem to be in the forecast...

There is an odd twist in the story of Bartimaeus. When Jesus restores his sight he says “Go; your faith has made you well.” But Bartimaeus does not go. He stays. He follows Jesus. This is exactly not what he was commanded to do.

Bartimaeus’ gratification is instant, And so is his disobedience.

Bartimaeus’ miracle doesn’t really have the simple, happy ending we may think it has because his life doesn’t end when his sight is restored.

His identity, his livelihood was as a blind beggar. It was, at the time, not the worst way to make a living. Post-miracle Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, the blind beggar was going to need a new identity and, more to the point, a new job. His sight has been restored and his world has been turned upside down and his status quo has been shattered. That is the miracle. And that would be another dark cloud. My grandmother would be proud.

The miracle of healing for Bartimaeus is all too easy to spot. In my own experience I find that miracles are much more subtle. And I find that the miracle I want, the miracle I’m looking for, the obvious miracle, actually blinds me to the miracle that is taking place.

I had a friend some years ago who was seriously ill - both physically and emotionally. I had known him for many years and watched his downward spiral. In the end there was nothing I could do but sit with him a few evenings a week and listen to him rant.

I prayed earnestly for a miracle... that God would give me something to say or show me something to do to make things better. Nothing...

And then one day my friend pointed out to me the miracle I was not seeing. In the middle of a long list of unhappy things he paused and looked at me. And then he said: “I’m glad you still come to visit. I know I’m really difficult to be around and nobody else comes any more. But you still come and it really helps.”

The miracle I wanted - to be able to fix things - to be a hero - was blinding me to the miracle that was being given - I could accompany a friend on his journey, albeit a painful one. He told me how it mattered to him, but I find that even now he still journeys with me and brings richness, compassion, patience, to my life. Its not the miracle I prayed for. Its not the kind of answer Bartimaeus got. But it is a blessing.

Bartimaeus’ miracle is not going to be without pain. He hasn’t followed Jesus command to go, He is following Jesus. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem... Ultimately on his way to crucifixion. Bartimaeus’, eyes now open, will soon see the Son of David who has shown him such mercy nailed, with no mercy at all, to a cross. Dark clouds indeed.

The miracle I need, that we all need, is to have our eyes opened to God’s presence in our lives and in our world. But to have our eyes opened will mean that we see not only joy, but sorrow. Not only resurrection, but crucifixion. Not only beauty, but ugliness. Silver linings with their dark clouds still attached.

Jesus doesn’t offer us easy life. Jesus offers abundant life, total life. We pray that, as God opened the eyes of Bartimaeus, God will open our eyes to the life that is all around us.--