Sermon for Br. Robert Magliula's Life Profession - 01 Jan 2011

Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa
Brother Robert Sevensky, OHC
Feast of the Holy Name - 01 January 2011
Life Profession of Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC, prostrate at the foot of the altar,
as a symbol of full self-giving to God through the monastic profession.

This past February I had the great privilege of attending the annual Benedictine Abbots' Workshop in Oceanside, California. The principal speaker was Dr. Michael Downey, a Roman Catholic layman and theologian. His theme was the Holy Trinity and its relationship to community, communion, and contemplation

His thesis was somewhat surprising. And that is that, far from being the most abstract and general of Christian beliefs, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is in fact the most practical and important teaching of our faith, important for the theologian, to be sure, but important also for the ordinary believer and, most particularly, for the monastic. And not for the reasons that I or most of us might have expected.

The central mystery of the Christian life and faith is the Trinity because it shapes and models and guides the way we relate to ourselves and to each other and to the whole created order. But the point of entry into the mystery of the Trinity is very concrete, very tangible and very revolutionary. And that point of entry is the self-emptying of God in Jesus Christ, what theologians, using the Greek word from today's reading from the Letter to the Philippians (2:5-11) call kenosis.

If we are to understand and savor the mystery of God and be brought into union with the Triune God, we begin not from some kind of abstract reasoning about the nature of the infinite or the attributes of perfection, but from an event—the event—in human history: the folly of the cross. According to Downey, the divine mystery rests not primarily in God's inscrutability but in the astonishing claim that God should appear in such a fashion—poor, weak, vulnerable—both then and now. It is a mystery we ponder at this Christmas season and one that we will continue to ponder through Holy Week and Easter and throughout eternity. We speak of a God who does not take away human wanting or longing but of one who is present precisely in and through our human desiring. We speak of one who knows us in our suffering and brokenness and who, emptying self of the divine nature, embraces this humanity, so that we might put on and share that divinity. As an antiphon sung over and over this Christmastide puts it with uncharacteristic exuberance: “Oh wondrous exchange! Christ became a human child so that all the children of Eve might become gods.”

Kenosis, the self-emptying of God in Jesus Christ, is in fact the gateway to theosis, that is, the gateway to being ever more shaped and molded into the image and likeness of God.

But if kenosis, God's self-emptying, is the key to understanding the mystery of the Trinity, it is also, according to Downey, the key to understanding the mystery of monastic life. That central dynamic of the monastic adventure which we call conversatio morum, conversion of life, is none other that what the author of the Letter to the Philippians proclaims: “Let the same mind be be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” And to put on the mind of Christ is to be emptied of self.

But what does kenosis look like? It is difficult to describe inasmuch as it is slightly different for each of us. Each one of us must be emptied in a slightly different way, a way uniquely adapted to our own personality and sinfulness and giftedness. The best description I have been able to find of the process comes from the pen of the popular Catholic theologian, Ronald Rolheiser:

“Scripture says that in Christ, God offers a love so pure, so self-effacing, so understanding of our weaknesses, so self-sacrificing and “self-emptying”, that it's offered without any demand, however veiled, that it be recognized.... To “self-empty” in the way Jesus is described as doing means to be present without demanding that your presence be recognized and its importance acknowledged; it means giving without demanding that your generosity be reciprocated; it means being invitational rather than threatening, healthily solicitous rather than nagging or coercive; it means being vulnerable and helpless, unable to protect yourself against the pain of being taken for granted or rejected; it means living in a great patience that doesn't demand intervention, divine or human, when things don't unfold according to your will; it means letting God be God and others be themselves without having to submit to your wishes or your timetable. Not an easy thing at all, that's why we've sung Jesus' praises for two thousand years for doing it, but that's the invitation.”

That's the invitation to which you, Robert James, are responding today and one that we must all respond to in one way or another. Today, Rob, you enter yet more deeply and definitively into the mystery of that kenosis that is yours and Christ's.

Br. Robert James Magliula,
signing, on the altar, the instrument of profession written in his own hand.
In the foreground, is the profession cross he was to receive from the Superior.

Liturgically it seems a most appropriate time time for you to do this. We are gathered here on New Year's Day, the Feast of the Holy Name, halfway between the feasts of the Nativity and the Epiphany. I am reminded of a tradition that we have at West Park of placing the figures of the Magi, the three wise men, hundreds of meters away from the Christmas creche. Slowly over the course of the twelve days between the Nativity and the Epiphany they make their way, and I'm often startled to find one peering out at me from behind a doorway or resting in apparent exhaustion on a guesthouse sofa. And somehow, as if by a miracle, they arrive at the stable just in time for First Vespers of the Epiphany.

And I think then of the T. S. Elliot's early poem, “Journey of the Magi”

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey;
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
….
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Rob, you yourself have had a long journey and, at times, a cold coming of it. From your teen years hoping to be a member of the Xaverian Brothers, a Roman Catholic religious community, to leaving them in order to find your truer, more authentic self, to your training and work as an artist, art therapist, counselor, hospital chaplain, and beloved parish priest for seventeen years; seeking human love, finding it, and then losing the beloved, and still always, always journeying on. And like the Magi in Eliot's poem, you have no doubt heard the voices saying that this was all folly. But like them you've pushed onward. Like them you've had your turning points, your disappointments, your triumphs, your beginnings and your endings and your new births. And like them, you found the place you were seeking. To quote the poet once more: “It was (you may say) satisfactory.”

What strikes me today, Rob, is how you've ended up back with your first love, that deep desire to serve God and be yourself in a religious order, in a monastic community. How vital and necessary it was that you left the Xaverians forty years ago. And how vital and necessary it was to have experienced life in all its sweetness and splendor and pain. And how very vital it is that you have come to this day...the day of your solemn monastic profession.

Six years ago, on January 3, 2006, you submitted your spiritual autobiography as part of your process of applying to enter the Order of the Holy Cross. I know it is a confidential document, put permit me to quote a few sentences from your conclusion.

“After my time in the community [as an Oblate of Holy Cross Monastery], I have no illusions about what I am getting into. Even so, as messed up as our humanity can get, I have glimpsed the kingdom in those moments of care, love, humor, and support that erupt in community, often when least expected. As imperfect as we all are in our loving, we commit ourselves to keep at it, knowing that it is God's love that undergirds all our efforts, whether they succeed or fail. I want to spend the rest of my life being part of this venture.”

Rob, all of us gathered here today as well as those who know you and love you but can't be here today, want you to be part of that venture as well. Your brothers in the Order want it. Your family wants it. Your friends want it. Your former parishioners want it. William wants it. The children here want it. The Church wants it. And above all: God wants it. God wants you. God desires you. You and none other.

Let me quote one final time from the poet T. S. Eliot, since he says it so well:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we have started
And know the place for the first time.
….
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 the fire and the rose are one.

So Rob...Shall we begin?

He did it!
Br. Rob celebrating his profession with good friend
and presider at the profession mass, The Rev. Janet Vincent,
rector of St Columba's, Washington, D