Br. Andrew Colquhoun's funeral - May 31, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Br. Andrew Colquhoun's funeral – Sunday, May 31, 2015

This is a day of powerfully mixed emotions. We remember the life of Br Andrew – and that is a joyful occasion. And at the same time we say goodbye to Br Andrew – an occasion of immense sorrow.

Andrew was, like any true Scotsman, a teller of stories. And one of the stories he loved to tell was the way in which he entered Holy Cross Monastery. He'd been coming on retreat with increasing frequency and each time he came, he found it harder to leave. At some point he was really agonizing as he went up the driveway and this thought went through his mind: “You don't have to go... You don't have to say goodbye.” And so he discovered his monastic vocation.

This story is in my mind because, just as Andrew hated to leave the monastery, I hate to see him go. But in some sense he still doesn't have to go. Andrew remains with us in spirit in a very real way. Our task is to remember him in loving and honest ways so that his spirit remains with us. And I can hear Andrew saying if don't tell the truth, I will haunt you... So lets begin the remembering...

Andrew's life was complex. Anyone looking for linear story telling should not look to Andrew. He was born in Scotland as the 2nd World War was starting. His father died when he was a young lad and his mother determined that their future was brighter in the United States – so they boarded a ship and sailed for America. Andrew completed his education in the US, including college and seminary, and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. But his believed his heart was in Scotland and so, as a young man, back he went.

He served in Edinburgh at the Kirk of the Canongate. Anyone who has visited Edinburgh will likely have walked past this historic church. It is about half way between the castle and the new home of the Scottish Parliament. These days the neighborhood is posh beyond words, but in the 1960s it was grim. This was Andrew's first adult encounter of true poverty and it inflamed his passion for social justice.

It was also at this time that Andrew met Helen and the two were married. They moved first to the south-west of Scotland, but then Andrew had to deal with the reality that Scotland was not his home. And so he and Helen emigrated to the US – Andrew was always quick to point out that he was the only person he knew who emigrated twice...

Andrew served in a number of Presbyterian Churches and two sons, Rob and John came into Andrew and Helen's lives – but Andrew became increasingly aware that parish work was not where he was called and so he began the transition to Hospital Chaplaincy and undertook the training to be a Supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education. You see how cluttered the story is already... we're just getting started...

The work of Clinical Pastoral Education begins with learning about yourself. You must know yourself very well in order to be able to help others. Andrew, never one for half measures, delved wholeheartedly into this work. And he learned powerful things. Among other things, he learned that he needed to get sober. And he learned needed to come out. And he learned he needed to become an Episcopalian. I'm certain that for Helen, Rob, and John, who were with him on this journey, it was a complicated and painful time – but ultimately grace-filled.

Through the various pieces of Andrews life so far – emigrating, changing careers, getting married and starting a family, getting sober, discovering himself, ending his marriage... one thing becomes clear: Andrew gave his heart away many times, but more importantly, he never took it back.

Andrew gave his heart to Scotland and, though he emigrated not once but twice, he never took it back. He gave his heart to Helen and, even though the marriage was dissolved and they got on with their lives, he never took it back. He gave his heart to Rob and to John and though I know the path from childhood to adulthood is complicated and rocky, he could not have been more proud of the adults his sons have become. And Ian, his grandson, well there wasn't anything on earth Andrew loved more than being a Grandfather... Andrew gave his heart freely and totally and he never took it back.

Andrew, in the fullness of time, fell in love with the Order of the Holy Cross and Holy Cross Monastery and gave his heart to us. And so began a new adventure. Andrew was always a man of deep passion and his anger could be quickly roused. When someone was being ill-treated, Andrew's fire could burn. When someone was being irresponsible, Andrew's tongue could lash. Andrew could give the Old Testament profits a run for their money when his righteous anger was stirred. And in the monastery he found a home for his passion.

But lets be honest... Andrew's passion could be just as quickly stirred and his tongue just as sharp at a jar of peanut butter left on the counter... or a coffee cup left on an end table... an indignant and self-righteous rant was sure to follow. And Andrew's humor, always sharp and frequently outrageous, could slip from biting to brutal. And when his humor had been cruel or his righteous anger unrighteous, just as quickly, an apology would follow. And this is another fundamental piece of who Andrew was – he did not leave things unsaid.
Truth came quickly from Andrew's mouth. And when he regretted what he said, or how he said it, apologies came just as quickly and they were very real. The Rule of Benedict tells us not to go to bed carrying angers and hurts from the day. Andrew, to the very best of his ability, lived this. So while his death leaves many hearts broken, few are left with unfinished business. Andrew loved enough to tell the truth and hear the truth.

Andrew spent much of his monastic life in South Africa – yet another migration and another great adventure. He was instrumental to the forming of a new community in Grahamstown and he gave his heart, as was his custom, to South Africa, and most passionately to the children who gathered around the monastery. These were kids who's home life was frequently terrible. Poverty and alcoholism, which seem to walk hand in hand, had left their families in tatters, and so Andrew gave his heart to loving these kids and to helping to bring others to the work of sobriety – and as we know, once given, he never took back his heart.

We really couldn't remember Andrew without thinking about music and laughter and the warmth of true hospitality. He loved a crowd – because he loved the people in the crowd. Since Andrew's death I have been quite startled by the number of folks who have said the same thing... I was in some sort of trouble and Andrew knew what to say... I was sorrowful and Andrew knew how to comfort me... I was on the wrong track and Andrew told me the truth I needed to hear to get myself turned around... These were not long, massive, deep conversations, they were casual, over-the-dinner-table, in-a-crowded-room sorts of conversations.

Andrew loved people. At the same time, people frequently drove Andrew crazy... he did not suffer fools gladly. And many is the time when he told me how out of patience he was for so-and-so only to sit down a little later with that same person and have a life changing conversation. I'd tease him and say – I thought you couldn't stand that person... and he'd smile and say something like – well I got over it...

I know this is a room filled with loving memories of James Andrew Colquhoun. We say goodby to his incarnation, but not to those memories... not to his spirit. And at the conclusion of this service, as we place his ashes in the columbarium in our crypt, I hope you will stay and share some memories and some refreshments... Andrew would love that. And more importantly, Helen, Rob, John, and all of Andrew's brothers in religion would love that too.

Throughout our Christian tradition and long before, spirit and breath were understood not just as closely linked, but as the same thing. So in Genesis, God breaths on us and we become living souls. And Jesus breaths upon the disciples and they receive the Holy Spirit.

Andrew was, more than just about anyone I have ever known, a person of great spirit. And so it was all the more painful to watch as Pulmonary Fibrosis claimed his life – a disease which literally takes the breath from you. And in the last few months many of us have watched as day by day there was less breath, less spirit in Andrew. And Andrew, who as we know did not leave things unsaid, made it abundantly clear that this was not a way he could live.

I truly don't think this was just Andrew being concerned about quality of life – though that was part of it. I think it is more that Andrew could not live this way, rather than he would not. Andrew's spirit was huge, fun-loving, justice-seeking, judgmental, loving, angry, nasty, outrageous, boisterous, perhaps occasionally obscene... the list goes on and on... He he could not live his life otherwise.

As Pulmonary Fibrosis restricted his life to less and less – because he could not get enough breath to do things – he still found joy in living. He remarked to me not long ago that people would be shocked if they knew how many different women he had showered with in the past few months... I doubt I could have faced the reality that I could no longer even bathe myself with such good humor. But Andrew, characteristically, chose to give his heart to the aids who came each morning to help him – he welcomed them with love and gratitude. And finally, he welcomed death with love and with gratitude. For now his spirit is set free.

I hope you will help us celebrate who Andrew was and who he is. Perhaps in story, perhaps in song, perhaps even with dancing... who knows. But I do know that if we celebrate joyfully and remember truthfully, then Andrew will be honored and we will be blessed.

Lent 2 A - Mar 16, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Year A - Lent 2 - Sunday, March 16, 2014


Genesis 12:1-4a
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17 

Nicodemus visits Jesus at night

It’s interesting to me that since Lent began we’ve had some discussions about the realization that we here in the community are not all dreadfully sure what to do about this season.  Benedict says that the monk’s life should be a perpetual Lent – that seems to mean getting a book to read, cutting back a bit on food and sleep and staying aware of God and life. 

A couple of years ago in the refectory during Lent a guest almost knocked me over getting to the side table – “I’ve given up gluten for Lent” said he.  “Why?” asked I.  “Well, I think it may be healthier. I wondered later whether that was more righteous than giving up chocolate – who knows – he’s still around – I could ask him.
It’s Lent again!

The Lectionary for today shows us two God seekers – neither of whom is to be despised or denigrated.  Abraham gets touted the most, of course, and probably rightly so.  He is the model of faith – monastic in his response to God’s call to leave everything and walk into the unknown. Maybe he heard a voice, maybe he just, like most of us, got a feeling that he needed to go.

My brothers, have heard me on this before but one of my conversion moments came when I heard a saying of Yogi Berra.  He said: when you come to a fork in the road, take it.

A light went on and I remembered all the hours and agonizing times I had spent trying to discern (I almost hate the word now) what God’s will for me was.  How could I figure out what to do and be faithful?  Mr. Berra hit the nail on the head for me – don’t dither at the crossroads, keep going.  Sounds like Abraham maybe.  I can almost hear Sarah, saying “Where?”  Abraham: “We’ll know when we get there but God said we would become a great nation and be a blessing.  Sarah, I hope, said, “Yes, but how much do I pack?”  They went and it was reckoned to them as righteousness.  Abraham got the credit but Sarah did the packing and did most of the work, I bet. And off they went home.

So that’s maybe a Lenten clue… don’t try to figure or manipulate the righteous response – just keep going.  Gluten or no gluten, keep walking faithfully into whatever these strange days will bring to you.

Then there’s Nicodemus.  We criticize him because he doesn’t get it.  Brothers and sisters, I’ve been a disciple for the better part of a century and I don’t get it.  I love Nicodemus because like the good and faithful Jew he was, he argues with God.  He doesn’t take anything at face value.  I don’t think he was so literal minded as we try to make him… that’s how Jews argue about Torah. That’s how they get into the heart of Scripture.  That’s how they plumb the depths of God’s lovingkindness.  They argue and then they pray.  They mourn and then they dance.

Nicodemus stuck with Jesus in spite of his puzzlement.  His longing brought him from the darkness of a place of God’s absence right to Jesus’ presence. I love Nicodemus – he asked the questions I ask.  And I love Jesus because he wasn’t meek and mild, because he looked at this longing human being and said “You’re not getting it.” And he taunts him on closer and closer to the light of God’s heart.

I love that these men didn’t just exchange tracts and agree to disagree. I am grateful that Nicodemus didn’t just say “Thank you, Jesus” and go away empty. I am grateful that Abraham and Sarah plodded on to the maternity/geriatric ward against all sense. And Nicodemus, I’m sure he, like us, was broken open and filled completely when he heard:  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  

That’s what Lent is about, then.  Not groveling, not guilt-ridden, not punishment and certainly not emptiness.  But fullness and joy and relief and heading home. 

Giving up gluten and chocolate is a fairly feeble sacrifice…maybe a whole heart and a love overflowing among the poor and the lost and lonely is more what is desirable.

Christmas Eve - Dec 24,2013

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Year A - Christmas Eve - Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Isaiah 9:2-7 
Titus 2:11-14 
Luke 2:1-14(15-20) 

The monastery's St Augustine Church all decked out for Midnight mass.

I’m thinking about all the memories floating about here tonight…and I’m enough of a softy to imagine that most of them are good memories. I’m also enough of a realist to know that some of them are painful and full of aches to some of our hearts. A mixed bag, but all part of the memory and longing that fill each Christmas.

I grew up in Scotland when it was still pretty Calvinist. Christmas was not a holiday for most people…there was a war going on and that made things even more austere. My father always worked.  The Kirk didn’t have services unless Christmas was on a Sunday… popish, you see. We celebrated at home with a good dinner and a clootie dumpling (look it up!) but what we were really looking forward to was New Year – Hogmanay.

I remember well the bleakness of the war years and the lightening up of peacetime. We immigrated to this country on December 21st and I thought America was all light…Christmas trees everywhere, presents wrapped in shiny paper with ribbons (not brown paper packages tied up with strings). Tinsel and bells… and parties with plenty of food.  You people knew how to party.

It took a little while to see beneath the glitter to the ordinary human sorrows. It took some time for me to acknowledge the fear of knowing that underneath I was more different that even my accent showed.  I went to an all white school – class of ’54 and laughed at the boys who wore green on Thursdays with a lump in my throat that somebody would find out.  One of the misfits, one of the lonely ones.

But each year God intruded and  comforted again when the magic, loving time of Christmas came…and I could go alone to Church at midnight and step into the mystery of a love that broke through any darkness the year could have brought, finding comfort in a mothering, fathering God.

So many memories… I’m sure you’re remembering right now, too.  Here in this holy space which is so full of prayer…

But one memory in particular stands out for me. Our first Christmas pageant in South Africa.  Most of the local children had been unchurched when we got there and our Young Adult Service Corps volunteer took it upon herself to organize a pageant.  She worked very hard with those kids.  They had it down pat.  We invited people from the town and the cathedral to see this triumph.  The church was full.

It started off fine -  the narrator set the stage and then Gabriel appeared. She was six feet tall in a bed sheet with a tinsel halo.  Mary was perfect, quiet in blue.  Joseph didn’t know exactly what was going on but then, he never really did anyway!  Gabriel made her announcement -  Mary froze; Gabriel announced again – Mary stayed frozen. And again – frozen.  Finally, Gabriel lost it, swore at Mary, ripped off her halo and threw it at the Virgin. Joseph, God bless him, still didn’t know what was going on.  The shepherds decided to rescue the performance with a dance that made Miley Cyrus look staid.  The director started bawling and the congregation went into hysterical laughter.  Even the mothers were in stitches.

I loved it!  I treasure the memory.  Afterwards, we all had a cup of tea and recovered our composure.

Since then there have been beautiful Christmases.  Since then, we’ve built more memories sharing them together here.  But I go back often to that vivid memory of a bunch of young people who got so lost in and bewildered by a strange story; to the young volunteer who so wanted to do it perfectly and didn’t realize that she had. To the congregation of blacks and whites in rural South Africa who had a raucous good time together all unselfconsciously.

It was perfect because that’s how Jesus always comes.  Not into the sweetness but into the mess of life.  Mary’s there, timid and fearful.  Giving birth away from home and comfort; Joseph holds his little wife clumsily because what does he know?  And like the shepherds of Mariya uMama weThemba we don’t know what to do either and if we have sense we dance and rejoice.  It’s a bittersweet story… of poignancy and tragedy… of refugees trying to get their documents.  People with unknown futures and pasts we often can’t talk about.

We get lost somewhere in the middle of the story…lost with our memories, our sadness, our longing and our loneliness.  And Gabriel pitches her halo at us and says “Glory, Glory – pay attention, people, Glory!”

The world is still a mess.  Children are born under bridges.  Mothers aren’t all lucky enough to have a kindly Joseph.  Fat cats still dominate, wars still destroy the innocent, gun are given as presents.  But the memory of goodness and possibilities and love inexplicable survives and blooms and the promise of this night is that the light will come and a baby’s cry will  break through.  And that cry is the cry of God with us …now , tonight, in this place, in our midst, in our selves.

Easter Sunday C - Mar 31, 2013

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Easter, Sunday, March 31, 2013


Luke 24: 1-12

The Women at the Tomb - William Bouguerau (1825 - 1905)

I once heard someone remark (maybe it was me!) about the Easter Vigil that, just when you think it must be about to end, it doesn’t!

I have had time for the first year in many not to have had much to do for the Triduum.  It has been wonderful to let the liturgy wash over me and pull me in.  As always for me Lent raises up so much to think about and pray about:

• personal things like:  how am I coping with the increasing limitations in my physical life, endings and frailty and how is that God is growing old with me and more content to sit by me as a companion?  
• but also: how do we show our faith in the face of gun violence, the call for compassion in marriage equality?  What do we have to say about Syria and North Korea?  What about Monsanto?  And what about my cowardice or passivity in the face of injustices and suffering?

This Lent  has been a heavy season.  I’m ready to lighten up.  It must be getting near the end.  Time for brunch and dessert (editor's note: Easter brunch is served to our guests after the two and a half hour Easter vigil is completed).

But these three days haven’t been entirely without pressure, however.  This sermon was coming up.  So I’ve been constantly aware of this Gospel reading.  I discovered something.  The last verse, the one about Peter is a late addition.  The earliest versions stop with the statement that the apostles thought that this was just an women’s fantasy and the apostles didn’t believe the women.
  
According to the Scriptures the only people who stayed faithfully at the cross and went to tend the body of Christ were the women and their voices are not heard. They’re still not heard.

It preys on me, that… not just about those women but about all the unheard women, indeed, all the people whose voices are smothered, ignored, discounted and distorted.

Jesus was one of them –- he said over and again -– If you have ears, hear me!  And he still cries that same cry.  Sometimes it’s his own voice; sometimes it’s his sisters’ voices, his children’s, our neighbors around the world; in Mexico, in Canada, Native people everywhere – no voices. The Xhosa people around our monastery in South Africa – defeated because no one is listening. 

It’s the children of Sandy Hook; the people of Staten Island; the drunks and druggies, the whores and the old people.  The lonely and those who die forgotten.  Their voices are so often drowned out by greed and bigotry or by the noise of our blasé contentment.

It has been pointed out that Jesus’ crucifixion was just one among thousands.  Not a unique event at all.  'Just another annoying Jew who wouldn’t shut up.'  Another act of unnecessary suffering among millions.  They are all around us. 

What makes this one distinctive is that this crucifixion is the act where Humanity and Divinity hear together the tearing, the rending of the veil of separation.  And now God’s voice is made clear in the voices of the suffering of the world.

I don’t know where we dug up the idea that Jesus died to appease an angry God; I believe that in Jesus’ death, God dies.  God with us, God poor, God woman, God gay, God forgotten, God of Auschwitz, God of the barrio, God in prison, God raped, God starving. God dying again and again and again.

The Resurrection we rejoice in today only means anything at all when the Mary's are heard.  When the fear of the apostles is banished in the peace the Risen  Christ brings.  When we hear the voices and embrace the truth in broken hearted love, then Resurrection happens again and again and again.

And just when you think God’s patience must be about to end, it doesn’t.

Our call is not to leave Jesus hanging on the cross but to join him as God’s resurrected and resurrecting people in listening and giving voice to the voiceless ones. 

Christ is Risen!  Say Alleluia!

Epiphany 4 C - Feb 3, 2013

HolyCross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC

Epiphany 4 C – Sunday, February 3, 2013

Jeremiah 1:4-10
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30



There was a young woman in South Africa who brought groups to the monastery for retreat.  She was not always easy to deal with but we got to like and respect her for her straightforward ways.  Her principal gripe was about people who had decided that their favorite flavor of Christianity was Christianity Lite.

from the cover of the book by the same title, by Glen Berteau

These are the people who want a faith that is pleasant, appealing, refreshing but which carries no weight with regard to their living out the Gospel.  These are folk that want to leave Church after their visit on Sunday feeling better – relieved to have had their dose of Christianity for the week.  Strengthened to read the Times and to tut with dismay at dismal or upsetting stories but strong enough now not to be unduly disturbed by events of most of the world.  If they invite others it’s with words to the effect that they should come with them to Church – it will make them feel better.  You know, “When I skip Church, I just feel something is missing.”

It’s kind of discomfiting to recognize one’s self in this, I hope!  Even the search to discover God can be so tainted – I want to draw near to God because God makes me feel better.  I pray and read the Bible for my own up-building; my spiritual welfare becomes paramount.

It’s a delicate balance, isn’t it?  Is it bad to feel good?  Am I wrong to want the comfort of feeling near to God?  Are my needs and longings to be ignored or put down?

Certainly not!  Scripture and history are full of testimony of the joy that saints have found in their discipleship even through whatever struggles life put before them.

But the gospel for today intrigues.  Jesus has just proclaimed his mission and the villagers liked it – at first.

They spoke well of him – we know this fellow – Joseph’s boy.  He’s one of ours.  I suspect as Jesus did that that their expectation was that this local boy would be a mine of gratuitous help for them.

The trouble was that Jesus knew them too well.  He’d grown up among them after all – and he challenged them.  “Are you the only people with widows or lepers?”

And the tide turned.  Jesus is not willing to be claimed and held by their limitations.  And you just heard the story – they got angry tried to kill him and he left them.

His call is always to the most broken, to the least of these.  His heart is for love and not for ease.  He is driven beyond comfort to the desperate, the crushed, the starving, the lepers of the world.  He’s driven too to the person who can’t get a job, the exhausted single mother, the depressed Veteran, the teenager who’s all confused… fill in the blanks.  And if the truth be told, sometimes your name is in the blank.

And where he leads we follow.

I love I Corinthians 13.  It never fades, this great hymn of love.  But it’s so easy to turn it into Christianity Lite.  To think of Love with a Hallmark veneer.  But Paul’s not talking about the sweetness of affection.  He’s talking about the love he experienced at the hands of the Risen Lord.  Blinded and sent to journey to God knows where to be stoned, imprisoned and finally put to death.  That’s the love he means.

We are on that same path.  We are preparing for the journey here.  Praying, longing for God, drawing into God’s broken heart.  And the nearer we are drawn, the farther out we are expected to reach.

The more we open ourselves to God’s love, the wider the circle becomes.  The more sweetness we know, the more we can taste the bitterness of the world’s sorrow.  The closer to the Cross the deeper the pain of God’s people penetrates our hearts.

There’s another option, of course…  We could just order a great big glass of Christianity Lite – and die of thirst.

Advent 1 C - Dec 2, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Advent 1 C - Sunday, December 2, 2012



Jeremiah 33:14-16
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

The Monastery's Advent wreath with greenery from our grounds;
pine, spruce, holly and red-barked dogwood.

When I was a youngster – up through first year of college, I tried to be a fundamentalist. I could talk about the plan of salvation, the four spiritual laws, wallowed in the inerrancy of Scripture and looked for God to clear up all the chaos that was in my life. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But some of Scripture just didn’t make sense if I took it literally. Seven heads and ten horns…what would that look like? Total destruction except for people in a boat? Evolution was too fascinating and believable. And I couldn’t hold on to all that assurance. If God had a plan for my life set from before I was born, it wasn’t working very well and why was he keeping it a secret? Bit by bit, I changed direction and began the walk into freedom and an awareness of a God who isn’t unbending, who hasn’t stoked the fires of hell for anybody who hasn’t said the right formula to be saved. It’s a long walk.

It’s a long walk because I’m afraid most of us don’t want that kind of freedom or indeed, can bear that kind of love. It’s much simpler just to throw everything on to God and for me to bear no responsibility – just to believe.

We proclaim a God with attributes that are of the Gospel. We say that God is loving; God is forgiving; God watches over us; God will protect us and the people we love. When God comes up in conversation that’s the God we talk about. Especially, at this time of year when we are surrounded with carols in the shops and “Away in the Manger” is juxtaposed with “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas” and the Little Drummer Boy just keeps beating his damn drum. But except for sensory overkill and a generally frazzled feeling, most of us are quite happy during these days of preparation.

Yet the lectionary for Advent is unsettling. What is with all these doom and gloom readings? Are they predictions of punishment? Does “watching” really mean “watch out?” There’s a road sign on the single lane roads in Scotland that says “Beware of sheep!” Is it safe to turn your back on a God who brings all these things? Within us we seem to believe in a God who punishes in pretty cruel ways. Our talk says “No” but deep inside I’m afraid that’s the God I may believe in.

It is a striking thing to me that when Jesus gives us a choice of two things, we seem to glom on to the harder of the two. “Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven…” why do we choose to focus on the binding and not the freeing? For I think most do go for that option. Certainly the much of the Church seems to.

And when tragedy strikes, why do we try to affix blame? It’s women bishops or gays or socialists or Big Business or welfare recipients who brought it on – whatever the “it” may be. It’s Black Friday; it’s legalized marijuana; it’s whatever seems not to fit my expectation of what is decent or moral.

But what we are truly saying when we express such opinions is that we believe in a God who is capricious and vindictive. We believe in a God who made us and who waits with bated breath for us to mess up before we are blown away or burned in hell. And, friends, that is sinful. That’s idolatry. That’s worshipping a false God. That’s not the God revealed in Jesus.

I can find nowhere in Scripture an instance where catastrophe is not countered with promise of restoration. Exile and the desert wandering always point to the Promised Land. Wars and rumors of war always indicate the coming of the Son of Man. The prophets warn us but point us to return to our God who seeks. Jesus says that when bad things happen, look for the Son of Man, God in the midst of the heartache and struggle – right there – not absent. God with us.

Maybe that’s what’s frightening. Maybe this Advent, in the aftermath of Sandy and the bitterness of the political campaign, in the exhibition of the boys in government strutting in contest over the fiscal cliff, may be what we really fear is that Christ will come and speak the Word that will not pass away.

Maybe Jesus is not talking of a distant future but today – today messed up as it is may be may turn out to be the time. Today may be the day when He calls us to cease all wars, to feed the hungry, to cherish the abused and terrified children, the degraded women, the demeaned Gays and Lesbians. To give the barefoot beggar some shoes. To turn to our neighbors in love whether here on in Afghanistan or Israel or Palestine or Uganda.

We get glimpses – after disasters people open their hearts and wallets to help. It’s when things get back to normal that we slide back into indifference or worse.

And so, Advent is a time of expectation, of longing.

Maybe the expectant One; the One who is longing most is God.

Watching for us.

Feast of our monastery church's dedication - Oct 4, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Feat of the Dedication of the monastery church
Thursday, October 4, 2012

When Brother Robert and I were still fairly new monks, we sat at dinner one day and a guest asked, “Why are all the monasteries on this one side of the river?”

As one, Robert and I answered.  He said, “Because the real estate is cheaper on this side.”  I answered, “Because this is the sacred bank of the river.”  For a moment, the guest was forgotten while our spirits dueled in the refectory but then we collected ourselves… and changed the subject!
My hunch is that we’re both right!

Whatever the truth may be, building this place was an adventurous undertaking.  A handful of monks built the first monastery for Anglicans since the reformation.  Right here.  The photo in Holy Cross, Br Adam’s book, of the community in 1922 shows 16 monks. Just about the time we built the Middle House and the Church.   And around this same era we embarked on domestic and foreign missions, sending men off as far as Liberia.  I don’t think we’ve ever lost that sense of adventure; the willingness to dare, to make changes, to step out or withdraw as needs have arisen.

And one of the major acts of the Order was to build this Church, dedicated to St Augustine of Hippo.   On St Francis Day it was dedicated and from then on for more than 90 years it has been the soul of this place.  For whatever else we do, we ground it in our prayer.  Throughout the days, men and women have come to this place and in its stillness, listened for the sacred.  Listened in anxiety, in joy, in willingness and unwillingness.  
Our own Fr Hughson wrote in An American Cloister: “The Chapel of a monastery is a power-house where one seeks and finds grace and light for every need.  Not only at stated times when it is of obligation that the brethren be present, but through all the hours of the day the members of the household, guests as well as the Religious, come here to the feet of our Lord to find strength and peace in the divine companionship.”

All that is true – it’s a sacred space but it has taken many a “blow and biting sculpture to polish well these stones.”  Nothing holy seems to come easy.  Think of Abraham and Jacob, Rachel and Leah, Blessed Mary, Mary of Magdala.  Think of Benedict and Francis, of Dorothy Day and Paul Jones.  Think of James Huntington and the early brothers.  All of them followed through struggle and often through heartache for love of God.  Think of Jesus the Christ, the forerunner, the Messiah, broken for love’s sake to bring us to peace.

This is a holy place; God lives here. It leaks from time to time; it makes clunking noises; the paint falls off and the doors squeak but God lives here.  God lives in this exquisite, squeaky, drafty place because we pray here.  God takes all the leaky, misfit stones we call our selves and builds temples where peace can thrive and where the poor and broken can find shelter.  The brethren who built this Church carried the love of their Lord to teenagers in the mountains of Tennessee and the mansions of Connecticut.  They walked into the bush of Liberia and witnessed to love there.  They came back to pray here and went again.  Thousands of people have sat here – they’re still here and they’re still coming.  They come here because this is none other than the house of God.  And it is the house of God because they come here.

We will continue to come here.  It is a holy place.  Angels ascend and descend here. Disciples leave home and venture out. Broken people come for healing.  Those who can’t see come for vision.  We come because this is our power-house as Fr Hughson wrote.  We come to this holy place to be nourished and readied for the battle against suffering.  We come for the weapons of peace which are love.  We come for the treasure contained here.

Cheap real estate; thin place – God is that treasure.

Pentecost B - May 27, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Pentecost B - Sunday, May 29, 2012



Acts 2:1-21
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Flower buds on Pentecost's Eve
like flames of the Holy Spirit hovering in Creation
Picture by Marie-Noelle Del Alamo
For more of her recent Holy Cross Monastery shots, visit her slideshow

Back in 1970 I was minister in North Carolina.  The congregation had a good number of families with children and we had a great time in Sunday School. Particularly with the K through 3 group – ages that still delight and surprise me. One night at a Church supper we lost the kids!  I led the hunt and we found them hiding in a room, giggling and terrified at the same time as only children can pull off.  Finally we got the story – they were afraid of the Holy Ghost!!

A little teaching and a lot of ice cream soon sorted that out.
But I’ve never really forgotten that.  I can still see the delightful fear and sense the delicious tremors.  And I’m sorry to realize that I got them over it.  Now I’m sure it’s humdrum for them as it has become for most of us.

The Holy Spirit is a conundrum for most of God’s people.  The Father we can picture; the Son we can imagine.  But the Spirit is elusive – an enigma.  And so we either ignore her or go overboard and claim that the manifestations of the Spirit are the sole proof of faith as though the Spirit were the magician of the Trinity  – you know, unless you speak in tongues you’re not quite there yet. We’ve distorted the Spirit, I fear, as we try to understand.  We have boxed in the Spirit to suit ourselves.

But remember Paul.  I love his description of the Spirit as the sighing prayer of God within us – uttering the longings and mystery of love until it permeates the whole longing creation.   No prescription or proposition can capture that wonder and mystery.

How many images of the Spirit capture that terror that awe brings!   Wind, fire, movement in the darkness, sounds and voices, the never quiet dove cooing, cooing; and in the Celtic tradition – the Wild Goose – never tamed, driving on and on through storm over huge distances, on and on.  Never settling forever but driving on and on again.

Fascination and the glamour of mystery – never controlled, never controlling but always offering change and challenge – leading mysteriously into darkness to find light. That’s the Holy Spirit.

Suzanne Guthrie quotes in her meditations for this Sunday from Eliot’s Little Gidding:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
    Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
    To be redeemed from fire by fire.

From Suzanne's blog At the Edge of the Enclosure

In our anxiety we work hard to tame the Spirit – reduce the Spirit to a warm feeling; a benevolent guide that will help us decide what job to take, what decision to make.  When we get along well, it’s that Sweet, sweet Spirit at work.  When we’re discomfited we wonder why God has left us in confusion or distress… never understanding that often confusion and anxiety are the way to truth.

We want the Spirit to pull us back into our dream of what used to be – for my generation, it’s back to the fifties.   Some of you want the sixties and seventies – never today – always back to Eden, the pristine garden.

And yet, I don’t believe in Scripture that the Spirit ever moves that way. It seems to me that always God is pointing us further and deeper into a new way.

Eliot continues:

Who then devised the torment?  Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
    We only live, only suspire
    Consumed by either fire or fire.

I do believe my little friends of so many years ago were more perceptive than we jaded adults are.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to be among us, within us – and then stand back.  All these gifts of the Spirit will lead us not to tranquility or comfort but into love.  And,

Love must act, as light must shine and fire must burn.

From the Rule of James Otis Sargent Huntington,  founder of the Order of the Holy Cross

Good Friday - Apr 6, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Good Friday - Friday, April 6, 2012

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:16-25 or
John 18:1-19:42

Christ of St John of the Cross, by Salvador Dali, 1951

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

inspired by a St John of the Cross sketch - voted as Scotland's favorite painting in 2006

We have just heard and experienced a profound expression of the Passion story and I feel like the gild on the lily standing up to preach as if I could say it better.  But needs must…

It was the Triduum and the Great Vigil of Easter that clinched my journey into the Catholic tradition.  So much of what had been my faith experience had fed my head quite beautifully and fully but mystery tantalized me and drew me beyond my understanding.

That journey has continued: it continues today.  In this mystery God draws us beyond what our minds can fathom to a depth that can’t be uttered.  It leads to a place within us where we stand with deep longing; a place where we fear to be known and yet fear that we are not known.  God has entered that place in the Incarnation and knows these very fears and loneliness and silence that we hold secret.

Each utterance of Jesus from the Cross is a human cry – from the goodness of the heart comes the cry of “Forgiven them”; from the emptiness of the forgotten ones comes the despair of abandonment.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In this liturgy, we are not celebrating only a transcendent Godhead wonderful in the heavens.  We are enraptured by the incarnate love of God in a human, suffering soul.  Glory is to come but on this day God echoes the cries of the broken and lonely hearts spurned and mocked by greed, power and wealth.  These cries speak of sorrow, suffering and emptiness.  But they speak, too, of the triumph of the human spirit through Grace.

I want to read a story about one of these voices of triumph.  It came from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and it’s only one of hundreds such stories.


The Commission brought an elderly black woman face to face with the white man, Mr. Van de Broek, who had confessed to the savage torture and murder of her son and her husband a few years earlier.  The old woman had been made to witness her husband’s death.  The last words her husband spoke were “Father, forgive them.”

 The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996

One of the members of the commission turned to her and asked, “How do you believe justice should be done to this man who has inflicted such suffering on you and so brutally destroyed your family?”

The old woman replied, “I want three things.  I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”  She stopped, collected herself, and then went on.  “My husband and son were my only family. I want, secondly, therefore, for Mr. Van de Broek to become my son.  I would like for him to come twice a month to the location and spend a day with me so that I can pour out to him whatever love I have still remaining in me.

And finally, I want a third thing.  I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus died to forgive.  This was also the wish of my husband.  And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. Van de Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven.

The assistants came to help the old woman across the room. Mr. Van de Broek, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, fainted.  And as he did, those in the courtroom—friends, family, neighbors, all victims of decades of oppression and injustice—began to sing “Amazing Grace.”

Life triumphant through love.  Transformation of tragedy to victory.  Wholeness coming from brokenness… that’s what today means.  This is a GOOD Friday – Good and amazing.  Thanks be to God.

Christmas Eve - Dec 24, 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY --- Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Christmas, Year B - Saturday, December 24, 2011

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

The creche 2011 in the Visitors Gallery in our Saint Augustine Church

Picture credit: George

I love this night.  I love the mystery and wonder.

This is not a night for scholarly insights about the theology of the Incarnation.  It’s not a night for arguing about doctrine.  It’s not a night for cynicism or carping about the possibility or impossibility of miraculous birth.

It’s a night of wonder and of things beyond understanding.

It’s a night that calls us to put our doubts and resentments aside for a while and let the wonder and the message of peace take over.   This is the holiest and most mysterious of nights.  This night we forget everything but the miracle of the Baby and the wonder of the Holy Family and the Shepherds.  It’s a night to listen for angels and to put aside for a little while all the things that bring us down.

The minister of the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh read a poem to us every year on Christmas.  I read it every Christmas.  Perhaps you know it?  John Betjeman wrote it… 

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

….

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true?  For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

(you can find the whole poem here).

This has been a hard year for so many people – too many wars, too much economic hardship, so many disasters – earthquakes, floods – people still out of work – our government striking poses and not seeming to do much else.

We need a break.  This is a good night to focus on the miracle and the hope that Christ brings – Peace on earth – goodwill for God is pleased with us.  It’s good to fall into the softness of the Mother’s breast and be nourished; to be like children for a moment – children full of trust and love and spontaneous laughter.

But let me tell you one little story to put in your minds and hearts… a young mother who is a friend of mine wrote to say her little boy was Jesus in the manger scene at their lessons and carols.  She said “He was adorable but he wouldn’t stay in the manger!”

Brothers and sisters, neither will this One!

Happy Christmas!

Proper 27 A - Nov 6, 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY --- Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Proper 27, Year A - Sunday, November 6, 2011

Amos 5:198-24 --- 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 --- Matthew25:1-13

Preaching rotas have a way of tripping me up – so do lectionaries.  I’d like to have a bit more leeway.   You know… Oh, I don’t like this gospel, let me pick another that’s more comfortable.  One that won’t kick up so many questions.  One that won’t go against what my mother taught me about sharing, for example.  As in, “If you don’t give these young women some of your oil, I’ll be very disappointed!”

Picture credit: Frank Starmer

These strange passages of Jesus’ discourses are not the kind of Christianity most of us want.  We had a friend in South Africa who said that what the Church desires is Christianity Lite.  Non-disturbing, comforting, reassuring following the meek One who loved children so much!  Who told us to be like children.  (By the way, anyone who thinks that means being nice and eager to share, doesn’t know children!)

In our efforts to keep things nice, we often just don’t read what is there. We see what we want to see. And what we seem to want is for difficult truths to go away or at least to simplify. So we pick and choose.  This part fits my ideas, I’ll keep that.  Oooh, this is not nice, it must be wrong.

I don’t mean that all portions of Scripture have the same weight for us.  Cultures have evolved, ethics have matured, and so on.  The Levitical laws do not all apply in our faith tradition.  We don’t keep kosher.   We may not stone adulterers.  You might get pork for lunch.

But some aspects of the Bible speak of things that are immutable, unchanging.  The things which deal of justice and God’s righteousness which is love are not always palatable to our ears.

The words of the prophet Amos are among those.  After putting the people squarely among those who perpetrate what they condemn in others with regard to the poor, he tells them this… don’t expect the Day of the Lord to raise you up. None of your efforts at righteousness will count for anything because you trample the poor and take from them levies of grain; you tax them but don’t pay any yourselves. (oops, did I just say something awkward?)  You do all the “God” things and neglect the godly things. You preach morality; you sacrifice, you sing all the right songs, you pronounce yourselves God’s people but until justice flows like rivers and righteous concern for the poor and needy pour out, I do not hear you.

So the prophet calls us to live as God’s people must.  Not with outward show but with inner love.  And that won’t come about automatically.  It takes practice. It comes from an open heart that doesn’t seek its own wellbeing but seeks the righteousness of God – that is, a righteousness that streams from love and spends itself in justice.

So to the ten bridesmaids!  Not a clear story of redemption at all, I don’t think.  Why didn’t the five prudent ones share their oil as out idea of politeness and propriety would demand?  What about if someone asks for your shirt, give him your coat, too? What’s happening here?

I don’t believe this passage is about going to heaven or even being ready for the second kept out?  Is heaven, then, all about good behavior?

And it’s certainly not about good manners or being good boys and girls.  What Jesus is calling for in these last days is for his disciples to be prepared for whatever might come.  Being a bridesmaid isn’t just about a pretty frock and parties. If the lights went out, nothing could happen. This is a story about faithfulness and commitment.  Life in the kingdom, comes with responsibility.  The wise ones knew this. They had prepared themselves with the hope and expectation of what was coming.  They couldn’t give away the oil because it was the oil of long perseverance, the oil of faithfulness. Not something that can be dispensed automatically.

Jesus calls us to life in a kingdom that fully demands response.  Christianity Lite is for comfort, for pleasant Sunday mornings. Or pleasant weekends in the monastery.  Life in the kingdom calls us to be ready for the demands of being truly human as Jesus the Christ was.  Life in the kingdom comes fraught with danger and the weight of being the people who do justice and love mercy.

There’s really no time for Christianity Lite.  Look around us. Look at the desperation in the world; look at the hunger in the eyes of people. Face the unrest and fear humanity faces. Consider economies based on war and greed. Nothing soft will be sufficient to the challenges of love.

Look into the face of Christ and it will become clear as the Day.

Saint Michael and All Angels

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC,

Saint Michael and All Angels - Thursday, September 29, 2011

Genesis 28:10-17
Revelation 12:7-12
John 1:47-51

Next year will be my fiftieth anniversary of ordination – fifty years of pastoring, praying and preaching.  And this is the first time I remember preaching about the angels!!!

That feels odd because Scripture is full of angels… from the Garden of Eden to the garden in Revelation.  Angels with Abraham, angels with Lot, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel.  Hosts of them at the Birth of Jesus.  They appear to kings, to the poor. They glorify God in heaven and tromp the earth.  They are fearful and beautiful.  Some are righteous and some are crooked. They bear good news and they mutiny and rebel.

How come I’ve never preached on them?  Well, we’ve become so rational and so intellectually elite that we scorn such quaint ideas.  Unless, of course, we’ve gone off the deep end and into that place where people see angels everywhere… guarding their cars, in the garden like gnomes and fairies, or hovering over babies.

We don’t become angels when we die; they don’t get their wings when a bell on a Christmas tree rings; Della Reese and John Travolta are not angels! Nor do we become angels when we die.  Cherubs were never babies.

We’ve given up the angels!  We have let them go to those we call superstitious or the naïve.  We have turned them into shadows of themselves and stolen their power.  The mystery and beauty have become suspect.

But Scripture shows us beings with power.  Maybe that’s why we don’t mention them. We don’t quite understand what they’re all about.  They’re messengers. They speak for God...and so we fear them.  Each instance of their appearing seems to be imbued with awe.  They don’t look different, but their power and presence means that they usually have to start their messages with “Do not be afraid.”  Fearful and wonderful!

I think most faiths have the equivalent of our angels – beings from the heart of the Divine power who testify and challenge and protect the created universe.

It’s sad that we ignore them and I miss them.  Especially now, I miss them.  Now when other powers are rampaging in rage and arrogance and blindness through the world. 

Michael, Archangel, we need you!  We need your righteous sword that will cast down injustice and war-mongering. Defy tyrants.  Stand in darkened rooms where children are raped and protect them. Raise your hand against wife beaters and bullies. Give power to the weak; strength to the afflicted.

Gabriel, Archangel, who stood before the Maiden and announced a Savior, speak again!  Speak of the One who comes to dark and empty places in the human soul. Call us back! Proclaim the freeing Word that gives hope to the hopeless and joy to the mourners. Announce the coming of the One who restores and makes new.

Raphael, Archangel, spread healing in famine ridden Africa and in Asia; and in our military hospitals, in half-way houses, and under the bridges where homeless people shelter. Fight for an end to endemic illnesses; bring nourishment to the people starving needlessly. Teach us to spend our resources on life not on death.

Uriel, Archangel, you stand in God’s Presence where there is only Light.  Shine Light in our darkness.  This world is subsumed by the darkness of greed in business, in government.  Light must shine on the needs of the poor; on prisoners and addicts.

Angels in all your hosts, strengthen our voices to glorify the Redeemer, to speak to and for the lonely and voiceless.  Guard our children, cradle the sorrowful.  Shine, for God’s sake shine!

Now maybe that’s too outlandish for belief.  Maybe I’m verging too far on superstition.

But I don’t care. If you don’t believe in the angels, then for Christ’s sake become one.  Become a healer, and a proclaimer; become a warrior against hunger and hopelessness and evil.  Be a Light Bearer in the darkness around us.

Do that for Love’s sake and, believe me, you will find yourself on the side of the Angels…you will be Messengers of God, bearers of good tidings, protectors and lovers of God and God’s people. And the angels will rejoice!

That’s probably good enough!

Saint Michael Archangel

Picture credit: Saint Michael Parish, Bedford, MA

Proper 14A - Aug 7, 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Proper 14A - August 7, 2011

1 Kings 19:9-18
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33


In 2003 I woke up in Rome one morning about 3:00. I thought I’d slept funny on my left arm. It was floppy. I rubbed it to bring the circulation back but it didn’t come. So I took a shower, put on my habit (one handed) and about 5:30, knocked on the door of a monk from Peru who spoke only Spanish. There followed a pantomime – me flopping my arm and he taking my blood pressure. Then, general mayhem. A few of us piling in a small car and heading off to a hospital emergency ward. I won’t go into sordid detail but having no Italian and no English speakers around was a tad disconcerting. And in Rome hospitals, you fend for yourself. Finally, we unearthed an old English nun who translated: Father, you’ve had a stroke!! My worst fear of all illnesses confirmed. But a funny thing happened (to quote Brother Christian) immediately, I felt calm and knew that I would cope.

When I was in the hospital, two of the nuns from the Formators’ program came to visit me. They asked me what psalm I’d like them to read to me and I asked for Psalm 29…. The Voice of the Lord --- and in the Temple of the Lord all are crying, “Glory!

They finished. We were quiet. And then they said, “Why on earth do you like that psalm?” I tried to explain that I was comforted by the “Glory” in the midst of everything falling down and blowing away but I don’t think they got it. I still love that Psalm – Thursday second week Matins and First Class Matins.

It comes to me when I read about Elijah and his experience. Frightened, hiding and in flight, he knows God at the still center of all the chaos in his life. And he knows he must go on into whatever lies ahead. This account of the storm and Jesus walking on the water gives the same numinous feeling. I have no desire to rationalize the experience away. It transcends all normal understanding. It must only be received. It calls for unbelievable bravery from Peter. His testing of the “ghost” bounces back with Jesus’ invitation… “Come on!”

And all goes fine until he looks down!! Fixed on the stability of Jesus he does the impossible. But, distracted, he sinks. And Jesus takes him by the hand. No tragedy. He doesn’t drown. He’s warned to hold on to trust.

Not a bad word for these days. There’s so much stormy around. Government is at low ebb morally; the economy here, awful as it is, protects us from the starvation of the world. Seen any photos of children from Somalia lately? Wars feed wars; the planet is suffering.

Life and its experiences often take us into the storm - sometimes of our own volition and sometimes by circumstances. Illnesses, job losses, broken relationships can feel very stormy. Nor are storms always awful. They can be majestic and freshening –restoring balance and giving nourishment, watering things.

Our Order is going through that kind of storm right now. We’ve stepped out into school raising in Grahamstown. Here at Holy Cross Monastery we have a Prior of the new generation and he’s knocking walls down. We are looking to start an internship program for college age people who will work out in the neighborhood. We’re hoping to found a food pantry. And at the center, the still point, Jesus is holding out his hand saying,
Come!”

The response of the faithful to storms of any kind is, I believe, to live on. I think we‘re doing that. In all times of life we are called to respond to Jesus’ invitation to come and we will do just that. Any move to hunker down in the boat and shelter is to miss the Glory, to lose out on the vigor of faithfulness Jesus calls us to. Doubt right now is cowardice. Jumping out of the boat into the storm is elation and faith.

I get seasick on boats anyway!

Feast of St Benedict - Jul 10, 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Feast of St Benedict (transferred from July 11) - Sunday, July 10, 2011


The Associates in retreat have been steeped in monasticism this weekend. Following the saints of the Desert… holy ones who, if the truth were told, were a little nuts – not that nuts is necessarily crazy! Who in their right mind would walk away from everything to go live in an empty place with no distractions to do nothing but pray? Not many. Even then, there were not many but they were lovers of God. We’ve got the stories gathered together and they make a sizable collection but they were a small portion of people in the grand scheme of things.

Perhaps what would surprise them more than anything else is that a group of fairly comfortable folk in a yet to be discovered continent two thousand years after them would be gathered to hear their wisdom. They had not the grandiosity to dream like that. Single minded and simple in their longings, they lived their lives out in love with God.

They paved a way that disciples have walked since then and will continue to walk.
Benedict whom we celebrate today was in his own time, such a one who fled… they called it “fuga mundi”- flight from the world.

You probably have heard Benedict’s story. He was a disappointment to his middle class parents, I’m sure. A college dropout who left the greatest known city to go live in a cave in an isolated valley to think and “find himself.” And there he sat, trying to get away from what appeared to him to be an evil and sick world.

He didn’t get away with it! Shepherds came to the holy man… the poor of the area always hunger for what is beyond… they know their need.
And so the people gathered… from the cave, our saint began to live with the seekers and finally left Subiaco, winding up next to the highway at Monte Cassino. His monastery is right by the way to Rome, the center of the (somewhat) civilized world of the day. And there he finally stopped, grew old, and died.

What is wonderful to me is that Benedict didn’t seem to have a five-year plan. He didn’t write a book on the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monks”; he wrote a reflection steeped in Scripture of how to live together in a strange and often hostile world so that the Kingdom of heaven would be evident. We call it “The Rule”. I’m not sure what he called it, or if he even gave it a name. But he did lay down so clearly a human journey into the heart of God. And his call has become the norm for monastic life. And even more – a guide for mothers with teenagers, for postmen, for nurses, for teachers and students, for grandparents and in-laws – for anyone who is longing for a closeness with God, a life rooted in Christ.

Benedict calls us away from the spurious security of a life based on standards that don’t really last and gives a glimpse of life together. Life bound up in common prayer, common ownership; life shared and growing.

The Gospel passage for today had me a bit stumped. It always has stumped me in the past. Jesus seems to be calling us to be crafty. The tower, the army are symbols of security. But then he does what he does so well, he shows up that security for the sham it is. “Therefore – and I think he means “but” – if you don’t give up all of that misplaced trust, you won’t follow me. If you want to build towers and gather forces, do it, but if you want to follow me carry the cross. That’s another stumper! What is the cross?

I heard a man once describe his mother-in-law as “just a cross I have to bear!” I’m sure his mother-in-law could have reversed the sentiment. But the saints of the desert, Benedict the saint of Nursia, our James of Haddington, Massachusetts, the Associates of the Holy Cross, the wild men of OHC, and all the odds and sods of history who have walked this way, in cloisters or out of them, know better. The cross is no burden – it’s the treasure buried in the field we sell everything to get, it’s the pearl of great price in our lives. It pulls us into God’s love and sends us back to our true community, the community of the faithful people, the community of God’s hungry and poor, the stranger at the door. The desert fathers and mothers thought they could escape and disappear but they didn’t for here we are, chewing on their wisdom and humor; their wonderful grasp of reality. Benedict thought he would escape but God thought differently. He didn’t die in that cave but in the house by the roadside where travelers and pilgrims were sheltered and fed.

We are no different. This holy place is not a shelter but a way station on the journey for thousands of pilgrims.

Armand Veilleux, a Canadian Trappist* said…

If someone comes to the monastery because he finds the world is sick and evil and he wants to leave it and find his salvation in the cloister, it would be better to send him back to the world and help him to love this sick word as God loves it.

Benedict likes that! Believe me!

Holy Father Benedict, pray for us.

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* abbot of Notre Dame de Scourmont monastery in Belgium