The Initial Profession of the Monastic Vow of Br. Jacob Anthony Letchworth, OHC - February 18, 2025

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero

The Initial Profession of the Monastic Vow of Br. Jacob Anthony Lecthworth OHC, February 18, 2025

• 1 Samuel 3:1-11      
• 1 Corinthians 1:22-31      
• Matthew 6:24-27

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

I want to first, on behalf of the monastic community, welcome all of you who have come for this joyous occasion. Thank you for being with us. Anthony has been here at the monastery answering a call- trying his vocation, a word that comes from the Latin ‘vocatio’, a calling- a strong urge toward a particular way of life or career. For us monastics, a vocation is not just something that God calls us to do, it is also what God calls us to be. When people inquiring about monastic life say to me: “I’m feeling called to monastic life and I’m not sure if I should maybe discern a vocation,” my response is always: YES, followed by what was said to me by our late Brother Andrew when I started inquiring about the life: “If you have a vocation, in other words, if you are being called by God, that call will never go away. You might as well pursue it.” We can choose to answer the call or not. But that phone in our heart keeps ringing, and that phone has no voicemail or answering service. I’m sure some of us still remember what it feels like to hear a phone’s relentless ring when it is not answered (although I think today God just keeps sending text messages). 

In our first lesson, Samuel, is a boy who lives and works in the temple during a period when the religion of Israel had become dry. One night God calls to Samuel. He thinks it's the old priest Eli. This happens three times before Eli finally realizes that God, who hasn't spoken much to the people lately, is speaking to this boy. He tells Samuel to listen and obey when the voice speaks again. When Samuel finally responds to God instead of Eli, God tells him of plans to punish Eli’s family because of the iniquity of his sons. There is no task given, and no clarity. In other words, listening and obeying does not exempt us from life with all its joys and complications and struggles.

One of life’s biggest challenges is coping with uncertainty. Circumstances are always changing around us, and often in very unexpected ways. In fact, change is certainly one of life’s few guarantees. No matter how much we plan for the future there is actually little that we can know for sure about what will happen. Learning how to accept not knowing is one of the keys to spiritual health. Afterall, as Jesus tells us in the Gospel lesson today, by worrying, we cannot add a single hour to the span of our lives. Optimism and hope are absolutely important, but very often resilience and fortitude count much more.

So, dear Anthony, here you are- at a gate. You have not made it. You have not arrived. You are about to begin. Today you join the rest of your professed brothers on a pilgrimage. It is a wonderful journey of self-knowledge that will draw you deeper into the mystery that is God. The postulancy and novitiate periods have given you the map and have led you to the threshold. You are a hiker, so you know that often on a journey we encounter detours and turns that don’t appear on the map. We may journey through beautiful mossy brooks, grassy fern covered grounds, waterfalls, and incredible vistas. We may also encounter rocky climbs and muddy swamps. We may get off the path and have to find our way back to the trail. Getting upset and disheartened does not change the situation, and when we pray to God, the answer is usually, “I’m with you. Go ahead!” Accepting what is with resilience and fortitude is what helps us get to the other side, and we can do so while still enjoying all the beauty around us.

In a few moments, you will profess and sign the threefold Benedictine vow of stability, conversion of your ways to the monastic way of life, and obedience. The vow names the core Benedictine values of not running away when the going gets tough, being open to change and transformation, and listening intently and responding with your heart. 

Monastic stability means accepting this particular community and Order as our way to God. For Saint Benedict, community is not just the place where we seek God, but the very means by which we find God. Living in community is not simply about cohabitating. On the hand, it is not about being fused in unhealthy ways either. Healthy community living involves being self-differentiated as we strive to stay connected. By vowing stability, we commit ourselves to facing the difficult times of our vocation without running away. Instead, we rely on the support of the community to carry us through. As our Brother Randy has said: “Crisis is often a prelude to some kind of deeper growth.”

Conversion of our ways to the monastic way of life calls for continuous transformation into Christ. Among other things, it challenges us to reevaluate our relationship with worldly possessions by holding all things in common. In a capitalist and consumerist society, we have become so attached to things, possessions have become our idols. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus reminds us that we cannot serve God and mammon. So, conversion to the monastic way of life encourages us to trust that our needs will be met. And when our wants are not met, we can say with Blessed Mary: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your will.”

As monks we are always in a state of becoming and encountering our need for conversion at deeper and deeper levels. Through ongoing conversion, we shed away the layers of defense we have built around us in order to cope with a world that sometimes seems anything but loving. Vulnerability is the key to ongoing conversion and growth. Trusting our Brothers and constantly opening ourselves to them is a vulnerable choice because it means that we will inevitably get hurt by them at times. The good news, though, is that the opposite is also true. In community we can experience love at a deep, soulful and trusting level. 

And finally, obedience- easy to talk about and very difficult to live out. It is perhaps the hardest part of the monastic vow because refusing to obey challenges our stability in the community and in the order and hinders our conversion to the monastic way of life. It is not about mindlessly conforming and complying. On the other hand, it is not just about listening. The idea that obedience is just about listening implies that, yes, I will listen to what my superior, the Order’s council, or the community is saying. I will consider it, and if I agree I will obey. If I don’t agree, I may engage in all manner of passive-aggressive behavior, grumbling and murmuring, or plainly decide not to obey. That is not monastic obedience.

Monastic obedience involves giving our hearts to what we have heard. Like every other aspect of our life, it involves discernment and prayer. Through discernment, we strive to hear God’s voice manifested in the practices of the community and the requests of those in authority. Prayer leads us to a spirit of respect and charity toward others. No leadership role in this order is a “power” position, but a “servant” position. Even when dialogue, communal consideration, or expert advice are necessary, we respond to those in authority with cooperation so they can fulfill their leadership role with dignity and integrity. This kind of deep listening and cooperation is only possible when we do it from a place of love. It is love that opens us to hearing the voice of God in our fallible Brothers.

Anthony, you came to this monastery with a deep, deep longing for God. That longing is manifested by your great capacity for love, and your willingness to receive love. It is manifested in your love for our liturgy and communal prayer, your concern for the welfare of others, your willingness to lend a hand when needed, your devotion to your various tasks, and your love for community life. You have shown incredible conscientiousness by deeply listening and reflecting on what you hear with openness and humility. It has been a great joy and privilege to accompany you on your discernment for the past three years, first as an inquirer and aspirant, and then as a postulant and novice, and to have witnessed your transformation day by day. There is much more to come, and I’m looking forward to experiencing it with you, no longer as your formator, but as your fellow Brother. I love you. We all love you and wish you every blessing in your vocation. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

Br. Josep's Sermon for the Initial Profession of Br. Daniel Francis Beckham, OHC; March 14, 2023

 Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero, OHC

The Third Sunday in Lent - Sunday, March 12, 2023

 

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

I must begin by admitting that I feel a little bit like a proud parent who is about to hand off his child in marriage. Daniel, it has been a great joy and a privilege to accompany you on your discernment for the past three years, first as an inquirer and aspirant, and then as a postulant and novice. I have witnessed your significant development in religious life, which has been at times smooth, and at other times turbulent. You have heard me say that, although the particular situations may be specific to your life, the experiences are not unique. All of us, your brothers, have gone through smooth and lovely times, and through turbulent and challenging times in our vocation.

The period of formation is a time of much learning, but in order for that learning to be possible we have to unlearn things too. We first unlearn our romantic and sometimes distorted notions of monasticism as being a life of deprivation, restriction, or negation, and begin to recognize the life as one of learning to love God, ourselves, one another, and all of God’s creation with our whole being. It is only that love that leads us to be faithful to our profession because it motivates conscientiousness, commitment, responsibility, and diligence, even in the face of great sacrifice. A great mystic of the Order of the Holy Cross, Fr. Alan Whittimore, wrote:

“I have known very many monks and nuns who were successful in love beyond all dreams or imagining. For they have heard in their hearts the whispering of the Perfect Lover. And it has been their deepest passion and their joy to surrender themselves to Him unto death, even the death of the Cross.” To be able to hear this whispering in our hearts we must let go of our illusions, and that is a lifetime process. We are never finished.

In a few moments, you will profess and sign the threefold Benedictine vow of obedience, stability, and conversion of your ways to the monastic way of life. You will promise to live the vow for a period of three years. The postulancy and novitiate periods have given you the instructions and map, and have led you to the threshold. At this profession you are crossing that threshold and joining the rest of your professed brothers on a pilgrimage. Today is not about “making it”, or “arriving”, but about beginning a journey of self-knowledge that will draw you deeper into the mystery that is God. (Warning: often on a journey we encounter detours and turns that don’t appear on the map and were not included on the instructions!) The vow names the core Benedictine values of listening intently, not running away when the going gets tough, and being open to change and transformation.

Obedience is easy to talk about, and very difficult to live, especially when we hear the word no. One of the most excellent explanations about monastic obedience is found in the contemporary reading written by our brother Robert Leo Sevensky of the Rule of the Order of the Holy Cross. It reads:

“While none of us is called to become an automaton, mindlessly conforming ourselves to the practices of the community or the commands of those in authority, we must be careful not to avoid the hard work of transformation that comes from holy obedience. We are to strive to hear God’s voice calling to us through such practices and commands and to give them always the benefit of the doubt, the best possible interpretation, and our willing conformity, especially when it is not absolutely clear that another course of action would be preferable. This does not, of course, rule out consultation, communal consideration, or expert advice. In the end, however, our cooperation and support, even under protest, is part of the gift of ourselves. We will find it helpful in this regard to cultivate a sense of the limitations of our knowledge of even outward matters, and to treasure up instances in which our assured judgement has proved wrong.”

So monastic obedience is not about compliance and conformity so much as it is about deeply listening and cooperating with those in authority so they can fulfill their leadership role with dignity and integrity. This kind of deep listening and cooperation is only possible when we do it from a place of love, and when we acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers. It is love that opens us to hearing the voice of God in others.

Monastic stability means accepting this particular community and Order as our way to God. For Saint Benedict, community is not just the place where we seek God, but the very means by which we find God. Living in community is not simply about cohabiting or being fused in unhealthy ways, but about being self-differentiated as we strive to stay connected.

Chapter 2 of the Life of Saint Benedict by Saint Gregory the Great tells of a time when a young Benedict was consumed with thoughts about a woman he had once seen. Almost overcome in the struggle, he was at the point of abandoning his vocation, but with God’s grace he came to himself. Benedict noticed a thicket of thorns, and flung himself naked into it, rolling and tossing until his whole body was in pain and covered in blood. He was able to conquer pleasure through suffering. Before long the pain that was burning his whole body had put out the fires of evil in his heart.

It is easy to dismiss that bizarre little tale as terribly outdated because of its misguided and unhealthy view of women and of sexuality in general. But a careful look at what it is telling us about what is happening with Benedict can shed an important insight about the role of stability for Benedict. The tale speaks of loneliness and temptation. Loneliness can be a nagging experience in monastic life. It is very easy to avoid its pain by engaging in all sorts of fantasies and escapisms. Benedict throwing himself on a thicket of thorns signifies confronting our pain courageously. It is about sitting with what is uncomfortable, facing the dark moments of our lives no matter how scary or painful they seem, even when it all feels like we are throwing ourselves on a thicket of thorns, or being nailed to the cross.

Vowing stability does not allow us to evade facing the difficult times of our vocation by running away. Instead, we rely on the support of the community to carry us through. As our brother Randy has said: “Crisis is often a prelude to some kind of deeper growth.”

Conversion to the monastic way of life calls for continuous transformation into Christ. As monks we are always in a state of becoming and running into our need for conversion at deeper and deeper levels. But we are not on this pilgrimage alone. We are all in this together. Vulnerability is the key to ongoing conversion and growth. And constantly opening ourselves to others is a vulnerable choice because it means that we will inevitably get hurt by them at times, but the opposite is also true. In community we can experience love at a deep, soulful and trusting level.

So, dear Daniel, you will continue to have some glorious days, as well as some painful days. There will still be some boring days and plenty of average days. But I have been so delighted by your gentle and quiet presence, by your capacity for love that you demonstrate by all the qualities I described earlier- by your conscientiousness, commitment, sense of responsibility, and diligence in doing things for the community when no one is watching. I admire your reluctance to be the center of attention or be in the spotlight. And I have witnessed how wonderfully you thrive in this life, and have noticed your constant effort to surrender. You are on the right path because each component of the vow is an evolving surrender of your whole person to God. As we have often heard our Superior Robert James say, “Surrendering to the fact that we don’t really know anything helps us see that all is mystery and grace. Only such not knowing is spacious enough to hold the God we seek.” I wish you every blessing in your vocation. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

The Feast of St. Joseph -- The First Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Luc Simon Thuku, OHC

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC
The Feast of St. Joseph
The First Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Luc Simon Thuku, OHC

2 Samuel 7:4,8-16
Romans 4:13-18
Luke 2:41-52

Click here for an audio version of this sermon and the rite of Profession.

It seems appropriate that we celebrate a monastic profession on the feast of St. Joseph. Joseph and monastic life have much in common, not only because tradition and culture have never quite known what to make of either, but more importantly, because of the virtues Joseph exemplifies---like steadfastness, courage, compassion, hope, faithfulness, and perseverance. All are required to live the monastic life with integrity. This makes Joseph the ideal model for the monastic. These virtues have brought Simon to the place he now stands today. Desire for God is not a merely personal, or even an eccentric choice. It is a consequence of what we are as humans. We are made to meet God, and it is in this encounter that we become simultaneously fully human and fully divine.¹ The only people who are transformed by this life, are people who feel safe, who feel their dignity, and who feel loved. That’s what we try to do for one another—offer relationships in which we can change. Human beings need a combination of safety and conflict to keep moving forward in life.

As you well know, Simon, initial formation takes us outside of our familiar framework and can conjure basic questions where meaning is challenged, decisions reconsidered, and doubts unearthed. It’s alarming and exhausting. It can drain us of joy. This is true now for all of us in these uncertain times. When our private little worlds go to dust, as St. Joseph’s did also, hope digs in the ruins of our heart for memory of God’s promise to bring good out of bad, joy out of sadness, and life out of death. Hope is not optimism in the face of the dire circumstances of this pandemic.  Hope is not founded on denial. Hope is made of memories which remind us that there is nothing in life we have not faced that we did not, through grace, survive. Hope is the certainty that something will make sense, regardless of how it turns out. In a dream an angel ignited hope in Joseph; in our own conversion, we can experience the same.

Today, Simon, as you make your commitment to continue to discern your call to this life, you remind all of us that the paschal mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising is the pattern of our monastic life. The vow gives less opportunity to run away from those parts of us that God is seeking to convert and transform. Our conversion is a sign of our commitment to allow God to continue to work within us. Day by day God reveals to us more and more of the true self we are made to be.

While we come here seeking God, it becomes more and more evident that God has sought us. In the depths of the heart we hear the invitation to abide with Christ. We cannot live this life apart from abiding in the love of Christ. He is the source of our life and love and all that flows from it in community. Our monastic life is the call to the all-inclusive love of God. Love is a transforming power. It is a disciplined habit of care and concern, that like all virtues, can be perfected only over a lifetime. Giving a witness to that love, leads deeper and deeper into the meaning of being chosen by Christ, and of preferring nothing to Christ.

Before Jesus’ birth, Joseph surveyed the mess he had absolutely nothing to do with and decided to trust that God was present in it. That same trust is required of all of us today. As Benedictines, stability provides the context for faithfulness in the instabilities of life which lie ahead for all of us. Faithfulness is a prerequisite to trust and intimacy. With divine love flowing through us we can see others and ourselves in our connectedness and wholeness. The vow does not put an end to struggle. Struggle stretches us beyond ourselves. It is what leaves us open to truth, however difficult it may be to accept. Without it, our faith would be the kind that happens around us but not in us. God intends us to live together in the fragility of human imperfection. So even though we will constantly fail, it is not the final word. In this we come to know ourselves, each other, and God.

Today, we are most like Joseph, presented with situations beyond our control, tempted to divorce ourselves from it, when an angel whispers hope in our ears as it did in his: “Do not be afraid, God is here.” It may not be business as usual, or how we had planned it, but God is present here too, if we will own it.

As you continue your discernment, Simon, the more honest you are in examining your own motives, the closer you are to being yourself. The more equipped you are to distinguish the person you want to be from the one everybody else wants you to be, the more likely you are to become it. Without the honesty it takes to unmask the self, there is no hope for liberation, let alone fulfillment. When we refuse to listen to the dreams that cry within us for fullness of life, we fossilize ourselves. When we give way to the obstacles that we create for ourselves, we doom ourselves to underdevelopment.²

To make a truly life-giving discernment, we all need to squarely face what it is that gives us life. We need to speak the truth of our interests, our abilities, our desires, our boredom, our dissatisfaction—even our long-time need to satisfy others. We need the help that comes from having our confusion and despair, our disappointment and anxiety accepted and understood by those who are not themselves threatened by what we might do with our own lives. We need the acceptance and encouragement of each other so we can move beyond fear to the freedom it takes to be who we are. The power that comes with self-discovery at any age catalyzes us. It drives the young; it surprises the middle aged; it emboldens those who might be tempted to declare life over before it has even truly begun. Our fundamental obligation in obedience is to be or to become what God wills. To do what God wills is secondary. We act according to what we are, so that we can stop doing what everyone else wants us to do and begin to care more about what God has made us to do.

The Gospel gives us an assurance that we are operating inside of an abundant, infinite Love.³ Within that abundance, Simon, it’s time for you to take the next step. We give great thanks that you’ve decided to do so, as we continue this journey together.  +Amen.

1. Michael Casey, Grace: On the Journey to God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2018),41.
2. Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2000), 49.
3. Adapted from Richard Rohr: Essential Teachings on Love, eds. Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger
(Orbis Books: 2018), 224-225.

All Saints’ Day 2016 and First Profession of the Monastic Vow of Br. Aidan William Owen- Nov. 1

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC 

All Saints' Day and First Profession of the Monastic Vow- Tuesday,  November 1, 2016

Aidan's Handwritten First Profession of the Monastic Vow. 

What a glorious feast, made even more glorious by Will’s first Profession of the vow!

 Around this time last year, Matthew shared with me a piece written by Cynthia Borgeault about how the Fall offers us a Triduum in All Hallows Eve, All Saints, and All Souls Day. Triduum, which means “three days”, is the name applied to those three days that form the heart of the Holy Week celebration encompassing Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. The solemn passage through this sacred space is experienced not only as a set of external observances, but also as a journey deep within our own hearts.

Both Spring and Fall Triduums deal in different ways with the Paschal Mystery, that passage from death to life which is at the heart of Christian and all mystical paths. In Spring the days are lengthening, the earth is bringing forth new life.  In the Fall the movement is more inward. The days are shortening, and the earth draws once again into itself. Everything in the natural world confronts us with reminders of our own fragility and mortality. She wrote:

“In the quiet, brown time of the year, these Fall Triduum days are an invitation to do the profound inner work: to face our shadows and deep fears (death being for most people the scariest of all), to taste that in ourselves which already lies beyond death, then to move back into our lives again, both humbled and steadied in that which lies beyond both light and dark, beyond both life and death.”

So in the midst of this season, the days do offer themselves as a journey, a venue for the process of conversion, one that is not so unfamiliar to the inner work with which a monastic cooperates.

All Saints’ is the centerpiece of the Fall Triduum and is the thinnest of the thin places between heaven and earth, the living and the dead. We Christians dare to hope beyond the constraints of mortality. In a culture that seeks its own gratification at any cost, that spends its produce and its people as though there were no tomorrow, we dare to live as though there is a tomorrow and more, a place wherein which, and a people with whom to share that tomorrow.

In The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris describes an experience that gets to the very heart of what today’s feast is about. She writes:

“A monk said to me one day, ‘It’s time for you to meet the rest of the community.’ We walked to the cemetery, and through it, and as we passed each grave, he told me stories about the deceased.”

Today we celebrate our unity with the body of Christ throughout time. Each time we worship at the altar, the whole host of heaven crowds the air over our heads. It’s one of the miracles of God’s grace that all of time and space are gathered in that moment. At the altar, in that moment of intimacy, the kingdom, which is to come, is present.  The limitations are lifted, and we are one. For this reason the Church commends this feast as one of the five set apart for Baptism. What an appropriate context it is for Will to be deepening his commitment to the monastic expression of the baptismal covenant today, where we all receive our call to be saints.

In the Letter to the Ephesians, the writer prays that the hearers’ hearts might be enlightened, so that they may know the hope to which Christ calls them. To see with the heart is to imagine the future God is preparing. We are not only shaped by our experiences; we are shaped by our hopes, by the future into which we are living, and by the convictions by which we are living. Hope is best perceived by the eyes of the heart. Hope is best lived within a hopeful community, in the company of saints, both living and dead.

Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that “To be a saint you don’t have to be famous, or perfect, or dead.  You just have to be you—the one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated human being whom God created you to be—to love as you are loved, to open your arms to the world.” That’s a good description of the inner work of initial formation, and what Will has been tending to these past two years. As a Benedictine he has come to know that this happens in community.

We have all this company—all these saints sitting right here whom we can see for ourselves, plus those we cannot, all of them encouraging us, challenging us, and perhaps most especially, reminding us that we and they are not perfect. We are part of them, and they are part of us. None of us would be here if not for the love and prayers, the guidance and teaching of friends and family, of these saints living and dead, for whose lives we give thanks.

The vow that Will is about to make is extremely counter-cultural. We live in a society that places great importance upon external signs of success. We have to assure ourselves and others that we are valuable and important—because we doubt that we are. We live in an affluent society that’s always expecting more, wanting more, and believes it even deserves more. But the more we own, ironically enough, the less we enjoy. 

The more we project our soul’s longing onto things, the more things disappoint us. Benedict and James Huntington knew this well and addressed it in their Rule. Happiness is an inside job. When we expect to find happiness outside of ourselves, we are always disappointed.

The true goal of all religion is to lead us back to the place where everything is one, to the experience of radical unity with God and all of creation. That’s the monastic quest that Will has been living. When we live consciously we experience that basic connection. Out of that comes a sense of satisfaction and abundance, which makes it easier to live in the truth of who we are. We’re then able to draw from that abundance and share it freely with others. We stop trying to decide who is worthy of it because we know that no one is. It is pure grace and gift! Last month Will posted this in his blog:

“Eventually in every faithful life, we will reach a point–most likely many points–when we realize that we are desperately in need of salvation and, at the same time, totally unable to save ourselves. When this knowledge travels from the head down to the heart, it breaks that heart open. Such experiences are painful. But as we allow the weight of our poverty and need to break open our hearts, there is more room for those same hearts to be filled with Christ’s transforming light and life.”

This lived process he describes requires vulnerability. Vulnerability is the key to ongoing conversion and growth.  It’s a risky position to live in a kind of constant openness to the other—because it means others could, and inevitably will, sometimes wound us. But only if we take this risk do we also allow the opposite possibility: the other might also gift us, free us, and even love us. Benedict and James arrived at this truth by lived experience, which led them to emphasize building community, and crafting a Rule, and a vow that would support it.

The Spirit flows through, out, and beyond us when we live a vulnerable life—the life we see mirrored in a God who is described as Trinity, as three perfectly handing themselves over, emptying themselves out, and then fully receiving what has been handed over. Such a life naturally births creativity and generativity.

It’s been my privilege to witness the work of the Spirit in Will’s ongoing discernment these last years: his cooperation with both the work of his psyche and that of the Spirit, keeping himself vulnerable to life and love, cultivating creativity, and wrestling with all that would destroy it. The ego hates and fears change and failure, but those who are Spirit-led never stop growing. The path to holiness is the same as the path to wholeness. We are never there yet. We are always on the way. There’s no controlling or manipulating it. All we can do is recognize it and tend it. Again, Will named it when he wrote:

“As we learn to surrender this kind of dying and rising action, we allow God to turn our lives into an oblation for the healing of the world. We cannot accomplish this pouring out of our lives. We can only accede to it. In the moments when we do, we find that the crucified life that we seek draws us ever deeper in to the heart of God.”

 As I said last month at Josép’s profession, the religious life is an ever-deepening love affair. This is the only way to make sense of it and faithfully live into it.  In the words of the Order’s great mystic, Fr. Alan Whittimore:

“I have known very many monks and nuns who were successful in love beyond all dreams or imagining. For they have heard in their hearts the whispering of the Perfect Lover. And it has been their deepest passion and their joy to surrender themselves to Him unto death, even the death of the Cross.”

May it continue to be so for you, Will!
+Amen.

First Profession of the Monastic Vow of Br. Josép Reinaldo Martinez-Cubero- September 27

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC 

First Profession of the Monastic Vow-  Tuesday, September 27, 2016

1 Samuel 3:1 – 11
Psalm 121 
Colossians 3:12 – 17
Matthew 16:24 – 27

The Benedictine vow:Obedience,  Stability and Conversatio Morum
(Conversion of my way to the monastic way). 

Reinaldo, this is an important day for you and for our community.  Your desire and request to take this step into deeper commitment and discernment is a movement of the heart as well as the mind. Having had the privilege of accompanying you these last two years I’ve witnessed what has informed, inflamed, and challenged your desire. Your novitiate has been a time of unlearning as much as learning, especially learning to see what is already there.

Our journey to union with God requires self-knowledge, and self-knowledge never ends. It draws us deeper into the mystery that is God and ourselves. The ultimate desire of God is to be incarnated in us. Spiritual transformation demands incarnation. The inner work of formation, at it’s best, is to help us let go of our illusions and pretense so that we can be awake and present to what actually is. As we gradually learn to let go, we slowly unfold to love, grace, and freedom.

The vow is a commitment to the ongoing stripping away of illusions. The world—the system we construct around security, status, pleasure, and power, often become our gods. Thomas Merton wrote: “We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves. . . . “ Wisdom teachers from many traditions have recognized that we human beings do not naturally see: we have to be taught how to see. The vow is meant to be a path to decrease ego, which blocks us seeing what is there, in order to increase our access to God, our brothers, and ourselves. As ego shrinks we become more our true self because we become more Christ.

The Benedictine vow came about not as some theoretical construct, but from practical, lived experience. The vow is three-fold: Obedience, Stability, and Conversatio Morum (Conversion of my way to the monastic way). The vow names, and is essentially, our core values as Benedictines.

It‘s not about negation, restriction, or limitation. It’s an invitation to face a number of very basic demands: the need to listen, the need not to run away, and the need to be open to change

Living a vow is quite a different invitation to keeping it. Keeping it implies holding on to something that never changes. Living it involves fidelity, first and foremost to God, and second to those with whom we share the commitment. Each component of the vow is an evolving surrender of emotion, body, and spirit---the whole person--- to a God who is powerfully experienced. We do well to consider Profession not so much as an event or a fixed point, but as a spiral, as an evolving, deepening love affair.

In the cenobitic life obedience extends beyond the superior and the Rule to the other members of the community. It’s a vow of mutual collaboration. Obedience is a risky business, which is far easier to talk about than to live.  It means being prepared to take our life in our hands and place it in the hands of God. It’s not about compliance and conformity. It’s grounded in listening. At the root of obedience is the free, humble, loving surrender to the will of God as we discern it through prayer, the community, and the Superior. It’s an acknowledgement that we don’t have all the answers. We need to be open to hearing the voice of God in others, especially those whose monastic experience will benefit us.

In our reading from the First Book of Samuel we see the difference between hearing and listening. Listening doesn’t come easy. That’s why we vow to keep working at it. In the reading, and in our life, there’s lots of repetition requiring perseverance and patience. We strive to listen to the deepest voice because the loudest is usually not God’s. Listening opens the door to presence. When listening and presence come together, a new reality emerges---often nothing like we initially imagined.

Monastic stability means accepting this particular community and Order as the way to God. The genius of Benedict was to situate the individual search for God within the communal context that shaped as well as supported the quest. For him, community was not simply the place where one seeks God, but the very vehicle to achieve it. To Benedict, the key to monastic life was accountability to God and the community. Accountability galvanizes community, making the difference between cohabitation and genuine common purpose. Community is about the desire to connect and be connected. It involves growth and challenge. The heart of the community is forgiveness, which is the greatest factor of growth in any person. Forgiveness is an act of letting go, which opens our closed hearts to give and receive love.

Stability is not about idealism but realism. We all need roots. Without them we cannot discover who we are. Stability does not allow us to evade our inner truth. We vow to not run away from ourselves. Stability of place and relationship are the means toward stability of heart. This helps us to see others as they really are, and allow them to be themselves rather than the selves we would prefer them to be. Only then do we discover that all God wants of us, is us.

Benedict knew that the only people who grow in truth are those who are humble. A humble person is simply someone who is honest about his own truth. The vow is intended to help grow in that truth. Growth in the spiritual life takes place not by acquisition of something new, but by the release of our defensive postures, by letting go of fear and our attachment to self-image. Only then is truth allowed to show itself.

If stability is recognition and resting in God's complete faithfulness and dependability, then Conversatio Morum is recognition of God's unpredictability, which confronts our love of safety. It demands continuous change. The goal in changing is not self-fulfillment. The goal is Christ. There is no security, no clinging to past certainties. Our chosen idols are successively broken. We vow a commitment to openness and total inner transformation. This includes and is facilitated by common ownership and celibacy. We can only come to know and love Christ to the degree that we realize that we are known and loved. Our primary relationship is with Christ. Through him we forge our link with others, and grow toward maturity in the giving and receiving of love.

Our Epistle reminded us that in our baptism we are “chosen, holy, and beloved.“ Our old life is dead; our new life is with Christ in God.

As a result we should clothe ourselves with “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other as we have been forgiven so that love might bind all together in harmony, letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.” This was Benedict’s vision for his community and what the living of his Gospel-based Rule would look like. If we are serious about living this new resurrection life we must act like it. As James, our Founder wrote: “Love must act, as light must shine, and fire must burn.”

Reinaldo, as you have already discovered, conversion does not happen overnight or with the profession of a vow. Take heart from Jesus’ words, “If anyone wants to become my follower…” We are never finished; we are always in a state of becoming. We will keep running into our need for conversion at deeper and deeper levels. But God is present, and maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. We are not on this journey alone. We are all in this together. The longer we are on this path, the more we realize, and come to trust, and to surrender to the fact that we don’t really know anything. All is mystery and grace. Only such not knowing is spacious enough to hold the God we seek.

  

+Amen.

First Profession of Peter James Rostron - Jul 18, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother James Michael Dowd
First Profession of Peter James Rostron - Friday, July 18, 2014

Proverbs 8:1-11
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 21:4-19

Wisdom Journey

From left to right, Br. Peter James Rostron making his First Profession of the Benedictine vow, his last Novice Master, Br. Robert James Magliula and OHC's Superior, Br. Robert Sevensky (in the background, Br. James Michael Dowd, Peter's first Novice Master)

Good Morning. It is nothing less than a great honor and a tot
al joy to be standing before you today having the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you on the occasion of the First Profession of the Monastic Vow by our brother, James Rostron.  In a few minutes we will all witness the taking of this vow by James, who will become known as Peter – more on that a bit later – in a ritual that is both incredibly simple and wondrously mystical all at the same time.

Brother Robert James and I have had the great gift of sharing the shepherding of James through the postulancy and the novitiate, my having done it for James' first year and a half, and Rob having led James in this last year. I know that this is a special day for both of us – and for the entire community, for James' family and friends and for all of those gathered here today to pray with us and to celebrate this special day. 

But, in fact, I believe this is a special day for the entire Church, both that aspect of the Church which continues to labor here on earth for the Reign of God, and the Church Triumphant in heaven. Indeed, if I may be so bold, I believe this is a day in which all of Creation sings out with joy at the profession of this brother of ours into a vowed monastic life. 

Now I will admit that what I have just said is a bold statement, even a grandiose one, but I also believe it is true. And there it is, once again, the combination of a simple vow meant, at this time, for only a year, and the incredibly mystical re- framing of an entire life. A re-framing of a life, James' life, into a whole new way of approaching every minute of every day. 

And that is one of the reasons I love the first reading that James chose for this morning's Eucharist. The passage we read from Proverbs opens with: “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” Well, as a matter of fact, James did hear the call of Wisdom and her voice led him to our doorsteps and throughout these last two and a half years,  James has gained in understanding as he deepened his commitment to the monastic way. Listening to the voice of Wisdom all about him – in the liturgy, in his personal prayer, in his classes, in his work, in the experience of community, James, has demonstrated that he is willing and able to live out the first aspect of our vowed life, that of obedience. 

To know James is to know that perhaps his most profound experience of God is to be wandering about God's Creation – hiking on a trail, kayaking on the river, climbing a mountain,  camping at the latest “perfect spot” that he has found somewhere here in this beautiful river valley or in the surrounding mountains we call home. 

And he does this even right outside our back door as when I once witnessed James practically give his life to save a spider. You think I'm kidding. But one day, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and looked down our driveway where I saw James wildly waving down a delivery truck – no – not any ordinary truck, but rather an eighteen wheeler - and practically throwing himself in front of it. After all the commotion I inquired what he was doing and James told me that he was attempting to stop the truck from running over this “really beautiful spider”. I was, which I'm often not, speechless and I'm quite sure, I was staring rather incredulously at him, when he simply said: “it was beautiful, it was really beautiful.”  I realized very early on that to separate James from Creation would be to separate him from God, which would be the last thing a Novice Master should do. 

You see, within Christianity, the monastic tradition is equated with the wisdom tradition and for that, we have many tools to help us grow in that wisdom. These tools include the vows themselves, the Divine Office, the Eucharist, lectio divina, the community, learning from the people we serve. All of these tools are meant to help us grow in the Wisdom that leads us to living more fully into the monastic way of life. And James has thrown himself into listening with the ear of his heart, as St. Benedict would have it, with all of these tools. The English word obedience is taken from the Latin root which means “to listen”. 

But for James, it seems to me, it is God's Creation that is at the center of this Wisdom journey that he traverses,  and I pray that he will continue to listen ever more deeply to her call. James' experience of listening to God is what ultimately helps him to understand that a spider is in fact, beautiful, really beautiful. It helps him to understand that a being that is so often rejected or even killed by most of us because we think it is gross or icky or just plain scary is a beautiful creature of God. This experience of creation is, though delightful for James, the labor of searching for God. It is important to note here, that the laboring to know God  is at the center of the monastic experience. To be a monk is to fully engage in the search for God in all beings. And this is as much a part of our tradition as searching for God in lectio or in the Office.  For example, in a letter to Henry Murdock, one of the early Cistercian abbots, St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “Believe me who has experience, you will find more laboring amongst the woods than you ever will amongst books. Woods and stones will teach you what you can never hear from any master.”

So here we have the towering figure of Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most learned men of the High Middle Ages, recommending, even urging, an influential abbot to get out of the library and to get into nature.  A little less than a thousand years before Bernard wrote that letter, the Desert Fathers used to teach a three-fold approach to growing in Wisdom in the search for God, which they simply put as “flee, be still, be quiet”. These first monastics were fleeing the noise and the pollution and the overpopulation, and the craziness of the city to allow themselves the opportunity to be still and be quiet. And in doing that, they would begin working on searching for God within themselves by first observing how God was present in the Creation all about them in the desert. 

To be clear here, this fleeing was not an escape from the world, rather it was a way of embracing the world which, as the ancients knew, began with Creation. To experience yourself as a part of that Creation, to listen to your own breathing, to the birds, the crickets, the breeze, the rain, is to take the first step of that Wisdom journey that James has been traveling. 

That journey for you, James, began long before you ever heard of Holy Cross Monastery or even thought about monasticism. But it did lead you to our door. And what has been so exciting is to watch you take the second and third steps and many steps beyond that in your growth in Wisdom. 

That growth lead you to choose the name Peter as the name in which you will be called in your monastic life. Now in our Order, it is our tradition that a novice is allowed to choose a name at the point of First Profession, but may keep his own name – whichever he prefers. For James, he preferred to take a name and that name, Peter, is very telling,  particularly in the light of the Gospel passage that we heard just a few minutes ago. 
When I asked James why he had chosen Peter, he said, in his characteristically humble way, “St. Peter just seemed to bumble along into faith, and that seemed a fitting model for me.” And, it is certainly true that many people over the centuries have viewed St. Peter in this way. 

But for me, St. Peter is so much more than that – as are you James - and it is this passage from John's Gospel that best demonstrates this for me. The meeting between the Apostles and Christ that John is describing takes place, of course, after the Resurrection. St. Peter, we know, had denied Christ three times the night before his crucifixion, and now Jesus, asking Peter three times whether he loves him is, for me, one of the most poignant passages in all of Scripture. 

First of all, it speaks to me of Christ, even though raised from the dead, in the fullness of his humanity. Clearly, the relationship between Jesus and Peter was intense from the very beginning. And for that to have been denied, could cut deeper, I would think, than the nails of the cross. It was a deep friendship and one in which Jesus saw in Peter things that Peter could not see in himself. 

So, on the one hand, this asking of “do you love me?” is one friend seeking reconciliation with another. But on a deeper level it is doing what Christ always does with each of us – which is to call us more fully into our own conversion – a deepening of the faith experience – of the wisdom experience – that is another aspect of our vow – conversion to the monastic way of life. 

When Peter answers in the affirmative three times that he does, indeed, love Jesus, Christ invites him once again to “follow me.” But with that invitation comes the forewarning that St. Peter will be martyred. And while Christ does not offer the crown of martyrdom to all of us, a life vowed to conversion is a form of martyrdom. At the moment you take this vow, Peter, you will be committing yourself to dying to yourself, dying to your will, dying to your needs, and in its place, you will be dedicating your life to living into putting others first, living into the Wisdom Journey, living into the deepening of your love for Christ, just as St. Peter did. Your way of acting, as St. Benedict teaches us in the Rule, will be different from the world's way; the love of Christ will come before all else. You will not act in anger, you will not nurse a grudge. You will rid your heart of all deceit. You will never give a hollow greeting of peace and you will never turn away when someone needs your love. And when you fail in one or more of these areas, you will pick yourself up and try again. Now try doing all that for even one day and you'll get a taste of martyrdom!

All this obedience and all this conversion leads, I sometimes think, to the third aspect of our vow, stability. Now over the centuries, stability may be the aspect of the vow that has received the most debate. Did Benedict mean stability to one monastery, one Order, one way of life? In the end, that question remains open. But what I think we can be sure of is that all that obedience and all that conversion can lead us to the kind of stability that St. Paul was talking about in his letter to the Philippians, which we also read this morning. In it, Paul suffered for the sake of Jesus, the loss of all things, meaning that he died to self regarding the surety, his righteousness as to the Law so that he could be found in Christ, through faith in Christ. And it is that foundation of faith in Christ that is our stability. 

Peter, any one of our brothers who have lived the vowed life can tell you that so much happens over the course of your vowed life, so many changes, so many unexpected joys and sufferings, that it would be impossible to predict today what even tomorrow will bring. But know that your stability in Christ, your willingness to allow the Father by his grace to convert you day after day, and your openness to the Holy Spirit to listen and listen, and then listen some more is exactly why all of Creation – the entire universe - is singing with joy this day. You see, all of God's Creation and especially this community, know that you, Peter, like the spider, are beautiful, you are really beautiful and the Wisdom Journey that you are on is beautiful, really beautiful. And so, I don't think it is too grandiose to say that all Creation is singing out with joy this day, because one of their own is further committing themselves to Christ.  Thank you, Brother Peter, for walking this Wisdom Journey with us. May God continue to bless you on this road of Wisdom, this road of Creation. Amen.