Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Daniel Ludik, n/OHC
Commemoration of Father James Huntington, founder of the Order of the Holy Cross
Monday 25 November 2007
Genesis 12:1-4a
Galatians 6:14-18
John 6:34-38
Love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.*
* from "the Rule of James Otis Sargent Huntington and his successors" ed. 1996.
Most of us in the Order have heard these words so often that it must sometimes sound like a tired old cliché. However, I think in these words James Otis Sargent Huntington distilled the essence of the cross we have to hold high in the Order of the Holy Cross, and that is the Gospel imperative: Love God above all else and your neighbor as yourself. Indeed a heavy cross to bear.
As God told Abraham in Genesis: Leave your country, your family and your father’s house for the land that I will show you, and I will bless you and make you so famous that your name will be used as a blessing. Like Abraham, our Founder also listened to God’s call to move to another land and was also blessed for his obedience. He not only moved to another land, at least metaphorically, but he became a radical in the way that he practiced his profession as a priest. He was so radical that he became a monk and founded a monastic Order! He devoted himself totally and tirelessly to the cause of the disenfranchised, the voiceless, the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the excluded, the OTHER.
He went before us to guide us in the footsteps of Christ, holding aloft the cross as a symbol of God’s amazing and unconditional love. Through our Founder’s efforts and ministry the Church adopted new, and perhaps radical, new policies for social justice
The cross of unconditional love should be held up by the Church, above all, but it seems to have slipped a bit.
However, what I hear daily when there has been yet another get together in the name of the Church, where good food and fine wine was undoubtedly served, is: We do not care for the poor, we do not care for peace and justice and we do not care for people suffering and dying from HIV/Aids.
I have grown up under apartheid and it has taken me many years and many difficult experiences to understand how incredibly cruel it is to exclude people from even ordinary day to day living experiences, but much more so to exclude them from something as holy as worship and prayer. The sad truth is that, the more we try to exclude somebody for whatever idea or threat we may perceive, the more we deprive ourselves of a whole and complete experience!
Paul goes further and points out in Galatians 6:15 that it does not matter if a person is circumcised or not, what matters to him is that a person should become a whole new creature. Thus, through Christ we can all become new and enter into God’s love. That means everybody!
Why don’t I get it? In my naïve way the church is supposed to be a haven for the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the hurt, the excluded, the rich, the happy, the sad, gay, straight, black, white, add to the list.
Why is it then that the church has allowed herself to be distracted into this long drawn battle about gay issues? I do not know the Bible all that well, but the message that is loudest and clearest from the Gospel for me, is that all are included in the Kingdom of God. That is the good news that Christ brought us.
It is also the message of God’s love that the Gospel proclaims to us: unconditional love. Our cross! How can the church that is the institution of God and for God, build in conditions for membership? How can you proclaim the unfathomable and unconditional love of God for all, yet at the same time throw conditions in the way of some people?
I cannot claim to know the thoughts of Father Huntington, but judging from his legacy that is woven into the fabric of our Order, I would imagine that he would be quite uncomfortable with the debate going on in the Church today.
This debate about an intrinsic human condition, while the results of manmade conditions; people dying of hunger and war and preventable and curable diseases in their tens of thousands, are largely ignored!!!!!!
The fallback for many in this debate, and thus the justification for having the debate at all, is to make it an issue of choice: Oh, he or she chose to be different and can chamge to be like us. Well, if any of my gay brothers somewhere in his life made a choice to become gay, I would like to hear about it, but as a very good friend of mine said about choice: I am not a masochist. Why would I choose to be ostracized by my friends, family and church? Ever since I can remember I knew that I was different, and when old enough, I could identify this sense of being different as being a lesbian. So, that settles it for me. I know her and I love her and I believe God loves her. Totally!!
How can the Church then fly in the face of God and tell his people, the people that he created, are not good enough for his church? Oh, sure you can come, we love the sinner, but not he sin. As long as we have the prerogative to decide what the sin of the day will be.
I think the challenge for us and the Church is to follow the example of the Founder and do something totally unexpected, and thus help bring about justice. Look at the Order, the legacy of his obedience to the call from God. Yes, we have our problems and there were problems in the Order before, but that just emphasizes our human nature which in itself is a blessing, because we are thus constantly challenged out of our comfort zones and to think in new ways.
And that is what gives me hope, this ability to change.
Just think if the whole church would return to obedience and live the Gospel imperative to love God above and before all else, and your neighbor as yourself. Just think how wonderful a world we could live in! God, through Christ, has shown us what unconditional love looks like. If we all endeavored to love as best we can, we would not presume that we have the right or the power to exclude anyone from God’s grace.
As Jesus says in John 6:37; all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will not turn away. All who come to me!! Once again, who are we as Christians, or the Church, to turn people away, or to put conditions in their way that makes full participation impossible? The message I get from the Church is: do not break your heads over this; we will dictate the double standards.
Paul goes on to point out that the only thing he can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through whom the world is crucified to him and he to the world. Thus we are joined through the cross into one communion with God. It is this cross that the Founder Father took up, and that we in turn take up when we enter the Order. The Cross of unconditional love, of inclusiveness, of patience.
It is this cross that the Church seems to have lost and that we should help reclaim for everyone.
I truly believe that one day we will live in a world where everybody is just another person that is created in the image of God and held in love, but that can only happen when we all bear the cross of love.
As the Founder also says in his Rule:
Holiness is the brightness of divine love and love is never idle; it must accomplish great things.
Amen
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