Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Leo Sevensky
The Second Sunday after Pentecost B, June 2, 2024
Click here for an audio of the sermon
In August 1994, thirteen brothers from Holy Cross Monastery set out on a once in a lifetime pilgrimage to the great monastic sites in Europe. It was an amazing month-long journey where they visited Rome, Subiaco and Monte Casino, Camaldoli and Naples and Florence. And that was only Italy. Then there was Switzerland and Belgium and Luxembourg. And of course, France to visit the ruins of Cluny, which was once the largest church in Christendom, and the young very vibrant ecumenical community at Taize and the community at Bec in Normandy which was so influential on the life of the English church. It was a true pilgrimage. The point was never to get there first, wherever there might be, but to get there together and experience it as a group.
Travel can affect us in many ways. Some travel is designed for purely practical purposes, but the vacation or holiday travel or even pilgrimage travel that some, perhaps many, of us will do this summer have the power to change us profoundly. Travel allows us, if we are willing, to see the world and the human family in its rich diversity and nature in its rugged beauty. It allows us to learn about ourselves by moving with others, especially others that we live alongside and think we know all too well. It permits us to encounter other cultures, even apparently similar ones such as Western Europe, and better see our own culture in its uniqueness and contingency. And it can help us to understand a little more clearly our own place in the world as we weigh our choices and their consequences.
All travel, even dreaded business travel, offers unique opportunities to catch a glimpse of the face of Jesus present, though often hidden, in the lives and faces of others and, as our friend Bishop Stacey Sauls reminded our community yesterday, particularly in the lives and the faces of the poor and the marginalized.
What were the results of our 1994 community pilgrimage? It's hard to say. Such exposure and adventure is certainly no magic bullet, either vocational or otherwise. It turned out that of the thirteen of us who went on that pilgrimage, six subsequently left our community, though they might have left in any case… pilgrimage or not. Of the seven who remained, only three of us still survive, and here we are together in this Chapel this morning.
Today at 2:00 two vans will arrive to take eleven of our brothers and, believe it or not, our financial advisor to Newark airport to fly to South Africa for a visit of slightly more than two weeks. They will join our Superior who is already there to visit with our brothers at our priory outside Cape Town, to visit our Holy Cross School in the Eastern Cape, and to explore something of the life and culture and history of that complex country, however briefly. And like all travel, it has the potential of allowing them to explore their own selves as well: motives, cultural baggage, privilege and poverty. And unlike our experience of say Switzerland or Italy and France in 1994, the poor and the marginalized will not be hidden from their sight, at least not readily. They are everywhere there, and by extension so is the face of Christ.
Today’s scriptural readings have much to say about Sabbath and sabbath time and sabbath rest. Whatever its deeper meaning, the Sabbath is a gift and an opportunity to see our world and ourselves differently, more clearly, more connected and perhaps more holy than we knew. Rabbi Abraham Heschel in his book on the Sabbath reminds us that for the Hebrew people and their spiritual descendants, Sabbath is the central temple or shrine, one made not of wood or stones but out of time itself. The reading from Deuteronomy tells us that Sabbath is a time of rest, of non-work. In fact, it later developed extremely limited travel restrictions for the Sabbath. But there is something of a Sabbath dimension to travel. And while travel is rarely restful, it can often be interesting and rewarding and holy.
Every Sunday at the conclusion of vespers we say a prayer to usher in our Monday sabbath day. It captures for me the essence of both the sabbath rest and the adventure of travel:
O God, in the course of this busy life you give us times of refreshment and peace: Grant that we may use our Sabbath to rebuild our bodies and renew our minds that our spirits may be opened to the goodness of your creation and our lives refreshed with the bounty of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Whether going on a pilgrimage or beginning a sabbatical leave or just starting our day off, it is helpful to begin and end that time with prayer.
My brothers know that I am a regular source of monastic trivia and that I’m frequently reminding them of how we did it in the old days, even though I may not have experienced them personally. I am, after all, the archivist of the Order. One of the things I am reminded of this morning is the traditional monastic practice of beginning a journey with certain rituals. Our Rule from 1900 says that the going forth of a member on the mission must always be a solemn event. He will prepare for his journey the day before, so that he will not be hurried immediately before leaving. He will make a visit to the Chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, and will receive the blessing of the Superior. And he will say the itinerary of our breviary before leaving the house or in setting out on his journey. After returning to the house from he will receive the blessing from the Superior and will say the Thanksgiving.
The itinerary is a brief service of prayer that was normally included in all breviaries or monastic prayer books. It begins with the invocation: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth” and then continues with the beautiful psalm 121 which was one of the psalms of ascent said by ancient pilgrims as they climbed up to Jerusalem, and later by centuries of Christian travelers as they set out on their journey:
I lift up my eyes to the hills; *
from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the LORD, *
the maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved *
and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.
Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel *
shall neither slumber nor sleep;
The LORD himself watches over you; *
the LORD is your shade at your right hand,
So that the sun shall not strike you by day, *
nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; *
it is he who shall keep you safe.
The LORD shall watch over your going out and your coming in, *
from this time forth for evermore.
This is followed by three brief prayers. I invite you, my brothers, who are setting out on your journey to South Africa to please stand as we here join in these prayers of blessing over you and indeed over all travelers.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, who brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and preserved him unhurt through all the ways of his pilgrimage, be to you in your journey a support in setting out, a comfort by the way, and a protection from danger that you may prosperously reached the place where you go and at length return home in safety.
Lord Jesus, who travelled with the disciples on the road to Emmaus: Be with you in the way that you may know him in the Scriptures, in the Breaking of Bread, and in the hearts of all whom you meet.
May the Holy Spirit, who by the leading of a star guided the wise men to the newborn Christ, enable you in your journey to find and serve him in all that you do, and with him in the end enjoy the glory everlasting. Amen.
Go with God! Via con dios! Idź z Bogiem.
Safe travel.
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