James Otis Sargent Huntington OHC, Founder - November 25, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero OHC

The Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington OHC, Founder, November 25, 2023

 

Galatians 6:14–18

Psalm 34:1-8

John 6:34–38

 

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.
 
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?
 
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.   ~George Herbert


This poem by 17th century English poet George Herbert is one of my favorites because to me, it most beautifully and clearly characterizes the intimate mystical relationship God so desperately desires with us. The scene is a banquet, a feast, a celebration of life, joy, freedom and belonging to which each of us is intimately invited. But we hold back, afraid of going in. It is Love who invites us, Love with capital L, that is, because love is what is most essentially true of God. The invitation is profoundly personal. It is to me, as I am, unconditionally. It is to you, as you are, unconditionally.

One of the great mystics of our Order, Fr. Whittemore, described Religious Life as a “love affair”. Like Jeremiah, we have heard in our hearts what Fr. Whittemore called “the whispering of the perfect lover”: “O LORD, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and I have prevailed”.

Becoming a Religious begins with the experience of what, theologically, is called a “vocation” or call to the life. It is exemplified by biblical stories such as the one from the Book of Genesis we just heard. God calls Abram, a wealthy man from a great patriarchal lineage, to leave the security of everything he knew and loved, and to follow God’s guidance and promise. In the Holy Scriptures God also calls Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, the Virgin Mary, Paul, and many others. In the Religious tradition God has called Antony, Benedict, Francis, Clare and many others, including our Father Founder, James Otis Sargent Huntington.

In the post-modern world, this call is still heard as a convergence of interior factors such as attraction, desires, and even awareness of personal limitations, with exterior factors such as people we admire, a lifestyle that seems attractive to us, or even opportunity presenting itself. God works with everything and transforms it into something new. Those of us who remain in Religious Life know that the other motivations that were there all along, perhaps less clear, but ultimately, more powerful, begin to surface: love for Christ, a desire for union with God in prayer, zeal to proclaim the Gospel, and desire to be part of a community centered on the spiritual life and committed to looking for the riches of God as it depends less on the riches of the world.

Sister Sandra Schneiders describes Religious Life as a “prophetic lifeform in the Church whose prophetic character is rooted in and derives from the celibate solitude that unites contemplative immediacy to God and solidarity with the marginalized of society and expresses itself in the vows that address to the world the challenge of the Reign of God”. Religious Life is a mystery but requires no justification to those who embrace it and can provide no defense to those who challenge it. It was to this mystery that James Otis Sargent Huntington was called. We are here today because Love bade him welcome, and he sat and ate. He stayed. Like Abram, he heard the call of God and walked away from an upper-class lifestyle to live as a monk at a time when monks were held in derision by many in the Episcopal Church.

The founding of what came to be the Order of the Holy Cross was born out of a conversation between Father Huntington and Father Robert Stockton Dod. It was Father Dod who led Father Huntington and Father James Cameron, who joined them soon after, in the formation of community life beginning in the autumn of 1881. But both Dod, and Cameron left within the next two years. Father Huntington chose to stay the course, and that’s why we are here today. He persevered after both his companions had left. He persevered through what must have seemed like a failure. He was not the more dominant character of the three, but the stronger. As Br. Adam McCoy states in his history of our Order: “It is in this sense that Fr. Huntington became Father Founder: not that he had the founding vision, but that he had the founding strength to remain faithful, and his faithfulness raised up a mighty work.”

His decision was undoubtedly fueled by his conviction that the virtues of monastic life- humility, obedience, love- could serve as an example for all Christian life. The distinction lies in that, in monastic life the individual relinquishes independence in order to become part of a unified body, guided by the Holy Spirit. In his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul gives us an account of some traits that characterize a Spirit-led community. It begins with the understanding that life according to the Spirit is not something that can simply be structured according to human expectations. It is a counter-cultural orientation of the heart especially in western culture, which places a great deal of emphasis on independence and self-sufficiency.

On the Vow of Obedience in his Rule for the Order, Father Huntington wrote: “We are to die to our isolation and separateness as individuals, that we may live in the energies of a mystical body wherein the life is one, and that the life of Jesus, our Head. The community is thus our means of entrance into union with our ascended Lord.” So, for Father Huntington, monastic life is characterized by the interdependence of its members. That means that we support one another in times of need, encourage each other to flourish, and are even willing to challenge one another when necessary. Our common welfare depends on the spiritual health of each member. There is no room in a Spirit-led community for domination, manipulation, bullying, controlling others, competition which says that you must lose so that I can win, resentment, envy, or revenge. On the other hand, Saint Paul tells us that spiritual health is characterized by love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We all have a stake in helping one another achieve these fruits of the Spirit and to walk faithfully in Jesus’ way.

This was Father Huntington’s vision for the monastic life, a vision that serves as an example to the entire human enterprise of what is possible when we accept Love’s welcome. A community of monks devoted to imitating the crucified Christ who bore the cross for love of the world. A community that keeps its vision focused on Jesus and sees the depth of God's forgiveness, grace and love. A community that keeps its vision focused on Jesus as the ultimate example of a life of service and sacrifice that reflects the Reign of God here on earth.
 
It was this vision which carried Father Huntington, who in his rule for our Order wrote that “love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.” It was this love that carried him through a life full of struggles: periods of depression, burnout, temptations to escape, and disappointments. Yet, his faith never seemed to have wavered. He stayed the course. He followed the path. Love bade him welcome, and James Huntington did love. Indeed, at his deathbed, he made sure that the message to his brothers was that he wanted them to have joy, and that he loved them. He seems to have been the embodiment of the imperative of Saint John’s Gospel, that it is by our love for one another that we will be known as followers of Jesus.

Blessed James Huntington, intercede for us. ¡Que así sea, en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

The feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington - November 25, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Randy Greve, OHC

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

Holy Cross, West Park, New York

November 6, 1915

My dear brother: 

When I became Superior of our community two months ago, a large amount of correspondence was handed me by my predecessor in office.  Among these letters was one from you, dated November 3, 1913. In it you make some enquiries about our Community, and imply that you have, at times at any rate, had some thought of making trial of the Religious Life. 

I do not know just what information was given you, or if you felt that your questions were satisfactorily answered. And, of course, I do not know what is your present state of mind.

But two things are very clear to me. One is that the needs of the Church in our time and land cry loudly for the increase of Religious Communities, for the devotion to God in the Religious Life of numbers of men, both laymen and priests. The other is that, if a man has received from God the high privilege of entering a Religious Community, he does himself a very great – probably an irreparable – injury, and injustice, if he lightly turns away from it. Will you let me say a word to you in regard to both these points?\ 

1. The Needs of the Church 

Consider what responsibility rests upon the Church in this country. It is nothing less than the conversion of America to the Catholic faith, the uniting of all the divided sections of this great nation in a common belief in God, and a common effort to carry out His Will, as He has made and is making it known. This, I say, is the responsibility of the Church in relation to the American nation, and to the whole world. You are a member of the Church. The responsibility rests on you. What are you going to do about it? What contribution have you to make? God may have made it plain to you that His plan for you is that you should marry and bring up a family of children to serve Him, and to work for the Church and for the country. He may have called you yourself to be a lawyer, a doctor, a soldier, a merchant, a sailor, an engineer. If so, well and good. But if you have no such definite call as would preclude your entering a Religious Community, then is it not at least likely that it is in such an association that you can do the best for your Church and your country? In how many enterprises men are realizing the power and effectiveness of combination! Men join together to mine coal, to build railroads, to manufacture automobiles, to publish books, to slaughter their fellow-men.

Is it only work for God, work for souls, work for the highest interests of humanity, in time and eternity, which shall continue to be done by isolated individuals, in hap-hazard, hand-to-mouth ways, with no concerted action, no thought-out plans, no economy of effort, no leadership or statesmanlike action? For God’s sake, let’s get together!

2. Then your own needs. 

You were created for union with God, to know Him, to love Him, to share His life now and forever. To fulfill that purpose, for which you exist, you must strive to be like God, as He revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. You must aim at perfection, to be perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect. That means hard work. Can you do it better alone, or with others to help you? When Our Lord was on earth, many people listened to Him and tried to do as He said. But to some His call was, ‘Follow me’. He chose some to be with Him, to live as He lived, to be strong against the world by sharing His poverty, joyful by having His friendship in a life of chastity, free by giving up their own wills in loving obedience to Him, ready to go anywhere and do anything at His bidding. 

Christ still calls some to ‘vow perfection’ by promising to follow Him in poverty, chastity, and obedience. Is He not calling you? Is there any other way in which you can be sure of ‘acquiring perfection’, of attaining to God and having Him as your portion forever? Of course it is a hard life, in some respects the very hardest. To get up before five o’clock every morning, to live on the rations given you with no choice as to your food, to pray, in chapel or in your cell, four times a day, to work under orders, to go where you are sent, to do as you are told whether you like it or not, to bear humiliation, to fast, to be ridiculed by the world, and to keep on at all this as old age arrives, and to die in harness at the end – this is not an easy life. But is it a harder life than Jesus Christ lived? And isn’t it true that those who live it wouldn’t exchange it for anything the world can give, that it is they who keep their freshness and elasticity, who have brightness in their eyes, a smile on their lips, warmth in their hearts? Is it not they who see the fruits of their sacrifices in the salvation and sanctification of other souls? 

At any rate, don’t play fast and loose with a call to be an intimate friend of Jesus Christ. If you believe He wants you in the ranks of the Religious Life, make up your mind once for all, and come as soon as He opens the way. If not, do whatever else He has for you, and may He bless and help you to do it with all your might. We shall continue to have you in our prayers. 

Faithfully in our Blessed Lord, 

James O.S. Huntington

Superior O.H.C.

I quote this letter in full because his own words say more than a paraphrase ever could.  What a passionate and inspiring summary of his life and an insightful glimpse into this remarkable man. My heart fills with hope as he paints the vision of who we are to be and what our lives here mean.  These were not just words to him.  He believed and lived this to his last day.  He is again freshly present to me in these days. He clearly and prophetically articulated the call of the Church in the modern world. He integrated personal prayer with matters of justice. He advocated for the vulnerable and marginalized.  He believed in the power of interdependent community life as the source of mission and renewal.  The specifics are different for us, but our questions are not much changed from his. 

Father Huntington was, to use a phrase from Theodore Roosevelt, a “man in the arena”.  That is what a monk is to be in his mind – no sideline spectator or armchair critic to the needs of the time, but always ready and eager to plunge in and serve.  Yet he harbored no fantasies about this life, knew full well the difficulties and the obstacles.    The struggles were plentiful (there was never quite enough money, never enough vocations).  He yearned for a wide and lasting legacy in the Church when the Order’s very existence was not guaranteed.

Saint Paul speaks in Galatians of boasting in the cross “by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” This mystical language of Saint Paul is at the front of Father Huntington’s mind in his letter.  Within the risks and unknowns was the cosmic vision of life in Christ.  Through our acts of love and service we proclaim that we here on this quiet piece of land on the shore of the Hudson River in New York, USA in the year 2020 are partnering with God for the renewal of creation, the salvation of the world in and through us.  Both Saint Paul and Father Huntington remind us that only by being crucified to the world are we living in reality, which is a deep mystery: exaltation in humiliation. Fullness in hunger. Freedom in obedience. New, resurrection life in dying to the false self.  

In her biography of Father Huntington, Vida Dutton Scudder recounts a brief but telling anecdote about him. 

“On one occasion”, she writes, “a friend, finding him plunged in deep sadness over the defeat of his earnest efforts in some specific matter, asked him how the failure of his prayers affected him. Father Huntington paused a moment. Then he said gravely: ‘I still praise God for granting the prayers of other men.’ Presently, his features illumined with a solemn glow, he added: ‘And ever, forever, I praise Him for what He is.’”

I am prone to turn saints into super-humans who could rise above unimportant emotions like sadness, whose faith in the good working of God’s good will made them immune from the fleeting concerns of us mere mortals, enraptured as they were in the heavenly vision.  But of course, great leaders such as Father Huntington are very much human, have egos – sometimes very large ones – and wills and agendas and want to get their way, which is usually a good and holy way.  James Otis Sargent Huntington did not always get his way.  The most interesting thing to learn from the lives of saints is what they did when they did not get their way. I catch myself equating thriving with doing what I want, having a certain kind of agency over my life, feeling content about that.  What I know from experience is when I feel stuck, when things do not go the way I want, when I would rather be doing something else, I do not like that very much, but it is then that growth really happens.  Let someone tell me “no” to something I really want to do, and then things get interesting.  My definition of what is important is biased. I want to see our Order grow and thrive, but I don’t want to refill the paper towels.  But it is in those times of uncomfortable growth, by God’s grace, that a deeper reality is disclosed to me – and with it a deeper invitation.  “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  I cannot offer for crucifixion what I don’t know about myself, what is repressed or avoided. I cannot allow to be converted what I do not own. Being crucified to the world is not becoming numb to its joys or sorrows, but even more present to all of the experiences of life.  The paper towels are part of my conversion, too.

We are recipients of a call and as people of passion and commitment bound and vowed to reflect the reign of God and bring it to earth. Inherent in that very call is the encounter with all in and around us which inhibits and blocks the good we see and the good God desires.  If part of what we are about is to imagine what could be, dream what is not yet, work for what we will never live to see, are hearts will get cut and squeezed and wrenched and share with the saints the stifling constraints of these bodies of death because we will always come up short.  Love, and then wait for your heart to break. Then conversion really begins.

  

The sadness which Father Huntington felt so deeply so often, which we feel at various times, is human and therefore holy.  We are to welcome it, be present to it, pray with it.  But that sadness is not the end of the story. It cannot pass judgment on our work, undo our love and service.  It is real, but there is something more real than the sadness.  The bedrock under the soil of sadness, beneath the acedia, despair, desolation we experience about our vocations, our work, whether it matters, whether we are making a difference, is the crucifixion of our wills in union with the Crucified Lord.  As a soul unfurls, the capacity and availability for the breadth of human emotion and experiences blossoms.  And at the cross I lay my emotions and experiences, my gifts, my vision, my work, my plans, so it is all there crucified to me and I to it.  The needs of the Church and the world and my soul, what was done and left undone, all that is me which has been given to me by the Crucified One is offered back to the author and source, and with him laid in the tomb and there, in a wonder and beauty and mystery beyond our imagining raised new – finally and forever whole and pure and perfect.

Amen.

The Solemnity of James Otis Sargent Huntington - Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Aidan Owen, OHC
The Solemnity of James Otis Sargent Huntington - Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Nehemiah 5:1–12
Galatians 6:14–18
John 6:34–38

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

In the name of the One God, who is Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing. Amen.

You know the man. He was, in Fr. Whittemore’s recollection, “a big man. He was holy. He had a massive intellect. His head and features were beautifully moulded. His lips were full, mobile, extraordinarily expressive. His large eyes looked through yours into the depths of your soul.”

You can still experience that gaze in the extraordinary pastel portrait of Father Huntington in the crypt. He still looks through you into the depths of your soul. But gently, sweetly, and tenderly.

“Our Father Founder was a born leader,” Fr. Whittemore continues. “Men followed him with devoted loyalty. He led. He never pushed. He had more respect for the liberty of everyone with whom he came in contact than anyone I have ever known.”

Yes, he was a leader, a founder, a visionary. He was a tireless advocate for justice for the working poor. He was also a devoted and humble servant of the community he founded, famously hating the title “Father Founder,” because he felt it separated him from his brothers, as it almost certainly has done.

I will admit to feeling some sympathy with this hesitance. In preparing for this sermon, I kept asking “what is uniquely holy about the Founder?” How is he, apart from the rest of our deceased or living brothers, particularly saintly?

Yes, he founded our Order. But he didn’t do so alone. He was simply the only one of our three founders who stayed. And yes, his thought, personality, and piety have shaped us, particularly through the treasury of his Rule. And yet, it is perhaps truer to say that the tension between Father Huntington’s personality and vision and that of Father Hughson have shaped and continue to shape us, supported all the while, by Father Whittemore’s remembrance of the early years and his gentle, unifying vision, which continues gives silent shape and structure to our sense of ourselves.

These three together, I would argue, were and continue to be the great, guiding lights of our common life.

Where, then, do Father Huntington’s particular sanctity and witness lie?

Father Whittemore remembers a particular and striking detail of the Founder’s life. He writes “The Father encouraged one to ‘live dangerously.’ He said to me once that each of the saints was within a hair’s breadth of being a heretic. Apparently what he meant was that the saints were not content with taking conventional ideas of religion ready-made and timidly or slothfully resting back on them but that they pushed their wills and affections and reasons to the uttermost in their courageous quest for Truth. Because it was indeed Truth that the saints sought and because they surrendered themselves to God at the cost of their own inclinations and sentiments they were preserved by Him from error and led on to fuller and fuller visions of His glory.”

Father Huntington’s great respect for the freedom of the individual—seen here particularly in his encouragement to ‘live dangerously,’—is, perhaps, his most palpable legacy to us, his children. He was so insistent on the importance of individual liberty that he came close to making an idol of it, so close as to be within a hair’s breadth of being a heretic.

We can see this in his enthusiasm for new ideas, in his instinctive “yes” when a member of the Order suggested a new course or ministry, in the careful attention he gave to his brothers and those under his care, and in his desire for the Order to develop the capacities of its individual members rather than to form pious automatons. He felt that, in general, “we should consecrate the things of this world not so much by their disuse as by using them for God’s glory.”

We can also see his fanaticism for the liberty of the individual in his reticence to offer his opinion in community meetings, lest he sway the common mind, a reticence that also shows up in his shyness and his apparent ambivalence about personal closeness. And we see it, too, in his reported unwillingness to say no to his brothers, even when it was in their own best interest that he curb their actions.

Why this focus on freedom?

The answer shines forth from his Rule, whose beating heart is its soaring passages on the surrender of the monk to God. He writes “We are to bear in mind that the vow of obedience is the portal of the religious state. That sate is constituted by a covenant wherein the soul gives itself, all its powers and faculties, together with the body and all material possessions, to God. […] From this it follows that obedience is the chief among the three vows of the religious state, since by obedience man offers to God the intellect, the will, the whole being, as not only a sacrifice but a holocaust.”

He goes on, “The virtue of obedience is the dying to self, to self-interest, self-pleasing, self-love. ‘Christ became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.’ […] We obey not that we may live more peacefully, but that we may die more perfectly. The peace will come only when the sharpness of self-annihilation has been felt, when, through death itself, we have entered into the liberty of the sons of God, and can say, ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’”

True freedom can only be found in loving submission to the one who first modeled that submission for us. The submission of our monastic obedience, which is to say our free gift of ourselves to God through our common life, can only be accomplished to the degree that we are free to make that commitment. Only a free person can submit; otherwise we live in a kind of slavery, coerced by our needs, resentments, and fears.

The result of the free offering of our entire self to God is the perfect freedom of the children of God, where we, too, can say that Christ lives in us.

We see the fruits of this free self-offering in the Founder’s life, and they are the signs of his sanctity and the promise of our own. He was, in Father Whittemore’s recollection, “the most utterly pure and innocent adult I have ever known.”

That kind of innocence rises from the ashes of our self-immolation. It is not the innocence of children, of never having hurt or been hurt. Rather, it is an adult innocence and a Christian one. It is the innocence of one who has been found guilty of all charges, who has been forgiven utterly and completely, and who has been reborn beyond all understanding through the love and mercy of Jesus.

It is the kind of innocence that looks at what the world calls reasonable and laughs, not with derision, but with love and compassion for the confused muddle in which we find ourselves. This innocence is the peace that the world cannot give. And it is the source and the end of Christian hope.

In the end, it is perhaps Father Huntington’s innocence and that of all God’s saints that comes closest to heresy and to holiness. For in a world that is falling apart around us, none of us is free from evil’s stain. We all have blood on our hands, greed in our hearts, and pettiness on our tongues.

To trust so totally in the mercy of God that we can offer ourselves freely and completely—what foolishness that must seem to the world we live in. What foolishness it must seem to us, too, much of the time. To dare for the innocence of the redeemed really is to live dangerously, freely, and joyfully in a violent, chaotic, and beautiful world.

May God’s mercy bring each of us to that innocence and freedom of the children of God. And may Blessed James and all the saints intercede for us always. Amen.

The Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC

Fr. James Otis Sargent Huntington– Friday, November 25 2016

James Otis Sargent Huntington was not the first Superior of the Order of the Holy Cross—that honor goes to Father Robert Stockton Dod who along with Father Huntington and Father James Cameron joined together in 1881 on the Lower East Side of New York to begin the community that came to be  The Order of the Holy Cross.  But with Father Cameron's departure from the novitiate in October 1883 and then Father Dod's departure due to health reasons in March 1884, Fr. Huntington was left holding the title and the responsibility for the nascent Order.  Others soon arrived, of course, but the job fell to Father Huntington. And as Br. Adam McCoy says in his formative history of our Order:  “It is in this sense that Fr. Huntington became Father Founder: not that he had the founding vision, but that he had the founding strength to remain faithful, and his faithfulness raised up a mighty work.”  (p. 38)

Fr. Huntington served as Superior from 1884 until the very first opportunity he had to relinquish the position with the Life Profession, in 1888, of the second member of the Order, Fr. Sturges Allen. But he went on to serve again as Superior from 1897 until 1907 and then again from 1915 to 1918, and finally once more from 1921 until 1930, a total of twenty-four years. 

When he was elected in 1921, Father Huntington was already 67 years old.  By that time he had been living the monastic life for over forty years and, as we might say today, he had many years of leadership experience under his belt.  He was a seasoned and highly respected figure.

So I was surprised to read an entry from his daily meditations dated August 3, 1922, one year into his final nine-year term.

Before I read it, let me explain that it was then part of the Rule and tradition for each monk to make a daily meditation. But far for being an exercise in non-verbal contemplation, making a meditation generally consisted of a rather set pattern. The night before, a topic or Scripture passage was chosen. The next day, one then elaborated on the passage with three “points” or mini-reflections. These were to be written out in a notebook or journal, and then the whole exercise concluded with a “resolution” or intention for the day.

Our archives is filled with such books of daily reflections and meditations.  They are not always literary or spiritual masterpieces...they were never meant to be.  They were the stuff of private prayer.  But many of our early members, such as Father Huntington, were articulate and literate to a degree that astounds me, and much of what they wrote bears reading, both for their theology and spirituality as well as for what is revealed of their personalities.

So let me read to you that entry from August 3, 1922, by Father Huntington.The announced theme is “A civil ruler takes his oath of office,” and it begins with a quote from the Gospels that was likely the passage on which he was meditating that day: “Blessed is that servant whom his master shall find so doing... whom his lord hath made rule over His household, to give them their portion of meat in due season.”

 
He goes on: 

“In starting afresh on my office as Superior I must realize that I ought to be ready to give an account at any moment.  As “The Son of Man cometh when ye think not.”  A steward must be ever on the tip-toe of expectation for the return of his master. “Give me an account of thy stewardship.”  The call may come at any moment. “Be ye ready also.”  Alas, if the call were to come today how far behind I should be!  Why is it?  Am I unsystematic and for that reason wasteful of time and energy?  Am I attempting more than I should?  Am I giving disproportionate attention to things outside the community? I was, perhaps, wrong in accepting the office in regard to my family, yet that hasn't taken many hours in the course of ten years. I do not spend time in recreation or in study. Is it that I work slowly?  Is it that I ought to use the services of others more than I do?” 

And his resolution?  “To watch patiently today to see where the leak is.”

I love this entry.  I can so identify with it, as I would imagine so many of us here today do. Here is a monk of forty plus years deeply accustomed to the rhythms of the life and the duties and responsibilities of  leadership asking the same questions we all ask from time to time if not constantly.  Why am I so apparently unproductive?  Am I responsible enough, or am I over-responsible?  Do I try to do too much or not enough?  Am I disorganized?  Am I just slow?  Do I delegate?  What have I sidelined?  Recreation? Leisure? Study? 

And we can all add to that list, can't we?  Healthy relationships, community, physical exercise, proper nutrition, adequate rest and sleep, cultural development, creative endeavors, the arts and culture. Where is the leak in your life? In mine?

And it's an interesting resolution our Father Founder makes, isn't it?  A resolution not to rush to instant change or to reach for the quick fix but to watch patiently to see exactly here the leak is, to see what's actually going on, to look perhaps for the root causes of the problem, and then to begin to act on that.  It's an invitation, really, to become skilled observers of our own lives, exercising loving curiosity so that we can see where and what has sidetracked us. And to go on from there.  In this as in so much else, Father Huntington comes across to me as very humble and honest and even forward thinking. It is what endeared him to so many and what, I imagine, also perhaps frustrated those who wanted more decisive action...I think, among others, of his contemporaries such as Fr. Sill and Fr. Hughson. 

But strangely enough the meditation for that date does not end with his resolution. Father Huntington goes on to say, and I quote at length:

“There is a hierarchy of duties. We must use the Gift of Counsel to decide what is the most important of and what is less so.  All strength, or all wisdom, comes from God...consequently we must be sure that not only anything that separates us from God...but also anything that hinders us from an even closer union with Him is a weakening of those powers by which alone any effective work can be done, any lasting good accomplished.  “Mass and merit never hinder work.”  This is a brief statement of this principle.  Whatever lessens our assimilation of necessary nourishment stops our power to do anything whatsoever.  We must eat to live and we must live to work. So it is in the physical order. But the same principle holds in the spiritual order.  The first necessity is to have spiritual vitality, and for that we must use what feeds and re-invigorates our spiritual life.  Prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, above all Mass and Holy Communion, these are our first necessity. These we must secure if the new start is to be effective.”

This passage, too, cuts to the heart of Fr. Huntington's spirit and to ours as well.  If we are to be effective workers in whatever department of life, we must needs make sure that we are being nourished spiritually.  Prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, the Eucharist....these are not luxuries but vital necessities.  And not only for Superiors or monks or clergy but for all Christians.   We know this.

What I find fascinating is that after more than forty years in the monastery, Fr. Huntington still needs to remind himself of this, still needs to be called back to this fundamental truth.  I have to admit that, after my thirty plus years, I found it a great relief to see that I wasn't alone in my struggle to live into this truth.  It is at the heart of any vocation and of all Christian living.
 
So what to do?  Well, we could do worse than to appropriate for today at least, Fr. Huntington's own resolution for August 3, 1922:  to watch patiently for where the leak is. And then, with God's help, to perhaps apply a patch. The image I'm left with is of a bicycle tire, a patch here, a patch there...sooner or later, it is all patchwork.  But the end of that process is, in a sense, whole new tire.  I wonder if God is doing that with us, helping us to recognize and patch the leaks one at a time until one day we become a whole new tire, all patched up and ready to roll.
 
From what I can tell, this seems to be what God did with James Otis Sargent Huntington. Why shouldn't God do it with us as well, one leak patched at a time until with James, the saints and all the ordinary men and women of God, we find ourselves reinvigorated and renewed, transformed ever so slowly yet more and more radically into the mind and heart of Christ?
 
Why not?

Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington - Nov 25, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Magliula, OHC
Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington - Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Galatians 6:14-18

John 6:34-38

James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC

Fr. Alan Whittemore wrote an unpublished work entitled O.H.C. He describes it as “candid camera shots…honest, unadorned impressions and memories of men with whom I have been intimately associated” In the concluding chapter he wrote:

The real reason, the only truly sufficient reason, for becoming a monk is to be crucified. That is what happens. The Religious Life is a contrivance of Divine ingenuity whereby a soul may be crucified with Christ. The vows are the three nails with which we are nailed to the cross. It sounds grim, but it’s true. Do not attempt to become a monk or nun unless you intend from the bottom of your heart to surrender yourself wholly to Jesus, to hang with him on his cross with perfect submission to the will of the Father on behalf of human souls.

Robert, our Superior, gave me this manuscript while I was looking for material on the Founder. It was written between 1947-49.His intention in writing it was to give the youngest members of the Order an intimate glimpse of the men who formed us, we read it aloud in novitiate class. It’s not surprising that Fr. Whittemore, in the concluding chapter, draws from the words of the Rule our Founder wrote and lived in describing our life.  He conveys the flesh and blood reality of the Founder. This is crucial if saints are to serve as models for us in this life, not just for those in authority, but for the whole community. It’s the most moving, humorous, and loving works I have read on the Order. Much of what I want to hold up for us on this feast rests on Fr. Whittemore’s reflections. 

Even though there are photos and paintings of the Founder throughout the monastery and guesthouse, for me, they have never really conveyed James’ physical presence until I read Fr. Whittemore’s description. Physically, he describes our Founder as having a large body with big strong hands. “His head and features were beautifully molded. His lips were full and extraordinarily expressive. His large eyes looked through yours into the depths of your soul.’ For an experience of those piercing blue eyes, stand before the Founder’s portrait in the crypt. 

James Huntington was a born leader. He was holy. His self-discipline contributed an iron element to his sanctity. He had a massive intellect. Reason was his predominate faculty. His every thought and action was expressive of a deep well-integrated thought. As a result, one could always reason with him. In fact, he encouraged the brothers to express their ideas and deepest thoughts and helped to develop them. He had a great respect for liberty. He never tried to compel one to his opinion. He saw the positive element in either side of a question. Even when he presided at Chapter meetings as Superior, he withheld his opinion afraid of smothering the ideas and free choice of others.  

Even as he aged, he was forward reaching, interested in the future, looking for enriching change and development He was more abreast of the latest books, ideas, and gadgets than the youngest brother. His instinctive reaction to a plan or project was affirmative. He led; he never pushed. His ideal for the Order was that of a family, fostering cooperation and teamwork. He welcomed suggestions and criticism. He not only consulted, but also accepted feedback on his sermons, speeches, and articles from the youngest men in the community. He encouraged self-expression allowing individual brothers to develop and contribute their fullest personality to the life and work of the Order. He inspired affection and loyalty in all sorts of people. He never talked down to them, even children, and was skillful in presenting truths to them simply. His memory was inexhaustible, quoting long poems and sermons. His work ethic was strong and focused, working painstakingly to get a thing done. 

Lest we despair of our own shortcomings, let’s not lose sight of his. We must remember that he was a New Englander raised in a privileged Victorian family. He had an austerity that was described as coming dangerously close to arrogance. He was cursed with a scrupulosity against which he struggled for most of his life. He was rigorous with himself, with a dread of anything too personal. There was loneliness there, and although he may have discouraged expressions of affection, he didn’t despise them. There was also an aloofness, due in part to his shyness, although he struggled to be gracious. He seemed a little afraid of having too good a time. He was very conscious of his background, his breeding, and his Harvard education. His keen mind could be contemptuous of weaker ones. There was also a streak of weakness in dealing with the more strong willed. 

His exaggerated fear of disease from his youth translated into concern for others even with the slightest malady. It also made him wonderfully understanding in the confessional. His deep sense of filial relation to God was full of love and tenderness, mirroring the attitude toward his human father who was devoted to him. His sense of humor was quiet, reflecting his early training, which discouraged loud laughter. He even developed a way of laughing noiselessly, appreciating jokes, even on himself. Over against these traits of nature was his tremendous humility. Fr. Whittemore wrote: “He was the most utterly pure and innocent adult I have ever known.” 

James believed that the chief hope of helping people was through religion. He never allowed his profound interest and extensive involvement in the economic and social issues of his day to overshadow his evangelistic work. He felt that his prime vocation was to establish Religious Life in the American Church, subordinating his social and political views to that end. For him the spiritual life was understood in terms of organic growth and development. This related to the Order as well. He believed that life and growth involved adjustment to changing conditions. If the time ever came when the Order ceased to change, he believed that it would die. To him, no amount of apparent piety could substitute for the virtues of courage, generosity, joy, and kindliness. He would refer satirically to “a good religious  as a person who never whispers in halls nor is late to an office but whose heart is filled with fear, scrupulosity, indignation, and bitterness”.

For years the leadership of the Order passed back and forth between Fr. Huntington and Fr. Hughson. Each was ablaze with zeal, sincerity, and love for the Order. Their practices, their policies, and their whole outlook on monastic life were diametrically opposite. I believe that it was to the very tension between them, as well as to the positive principles for which each stood, that our Order owes a vast deal of its richness and strength.

No leader is perfect, and there is often a season when one particular set of skills and gifts are required for our common life. Our history proves that the Holy Spirit has a way of bringing life out of our most fearful and less than perfect choices. No leader frees us from accountability or daily responsibility for our own conversion. The best we can hope for is that they inspire, challenge, encourage, and assist in our transformation. Certainly we would not be gathered here today had it not been for James’ faith, courage, and perseverance. For that we give thanks.

Fr. Whittemore, concludes this work, inspired by what he witnessed in the Founder’s life and death:

There is a beautiful secret which I have saved for the last and which makes all the difference in the world. It does away with the grimness and renders the Religious Life the dearest, sweetest, and blessedest thing in the world. The Religious Life is a Love Affair. All souls are invited to become the brides of Christ but the Religious does not wait for the life beyond the grave. He steels a march on the others. They have heard in their hearts the whispering of the Perfect Lover. And it has been their dearest passion and their joy to surrender themselves to him unto death, even the death of the Cross.”

Blessed James, pray for us. +Amen.

Solemnity of James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC - Nov 25, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother Roger Stewart, OHC
Solemnity of James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC - November 25, 2014 


Nehemiah 5:1-12
Galatians 6:14-18
John 6:34-38

James Otis Sargent Huntington

One hundred and thirty years ago, James Otis Sargent Huntington made his Life Profession in the Order of the Holy Cross, and a great adventure began that continues to this day.

The prophet Nehemiah also began a great adventure by responding to reports of the bad and demoralized condition of the survivors after the captivity and ruin of Jerusalem. He had not advanced his rebuilding project very far when he became aware that relationships among the people were not right. He could not continue until he had corrected the injustices.

From the start of his ordained then professed ministry, Father Huntington worked in situations in which rampant social injustice was all too apparent. His first efforts went into doing all he could to improve the lot of the downtrodden, and his fame as a Christian social pioneer remains widespread. He threw himself into both challenging the oppressors of his day and stirring up the Church of his day to work for justice.

I think that both Father Huntington and the prophet Nehemiah were motivated by what they would have called the fear of God, a phrase that is no longer in fashion. Nehemiah addressed his prayer to Yahweh, God of heaven, the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps a covenant of faithful love with those who love him and obey his commandments. Both Nehemiah and Father Huntington knew that social injustice is incompatible with life in God's kingdom.

It pleases me that our Founder's Day falls between Christ the King on Sunday and Thanksgiving Day on Thursday this week. The vision of God in the form of our risen, ascended, glorified Lord Jesus Christ whom we worship and obey was a significant part of Father Huntington's spirituality. On Sunday morning, we heard the following from 1st Peter during Matins: Proclaim the Lord Christ holy in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have. Father Huntington wrote a Rule for an Order of monks who would respond to that call.

In his chapter on the Vow of Obedience in the Rule, Father Huntington wrote: The opportunity for this surrender is afforded in our community life. We are to die to our isolation and separateness as individuals, that we may live in the energies of a mystical body wherein the life is one, and that the life of Jesus, our Head. The community is thus our means of entrance into union with our ascended Lord.

My visit to communities of our Order in the US has given me the rare opportunity to live within and yet be alongside those communities, to experience and also observe their life. I had the privilege while at Mount Calvary Monastery in Santa Barbara, CA, of attending the life professions of the first members of the Community of Divine Love, and so witness how the life of our Order has somehow spilled over into that new community. I also had the privilege of attending the funeral of our Br. Nicholas, and so witness how much our Order's presence in that part of the country has mattered and continues to matter to people there.

What matters, wrote the apostle Paul in our reading from Galatians, is a new creation: faith working through love. Earlier in the letter, he wrote: We are led by the Spirit to wait in the confident hope of saving justice through faith. … Be servants to one another in love. … Carry each other's burdens; that is how to keep the law of Christ.

I have seen the sights in New York City. I have seen the Fall glory of the Adirondacks. I have seen the vastness of the Pacific Ocean from the heights of New Camaldoli near Big Sur. But in my time here living in and with the community of Holy Cross Monastery, I have seen something I think even more wonderful than those wonders.

It has been said that a society or an institution must ultimately be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members, not those with access to power and privilege. I have seen how members of this community try to support the more vulnerable ones, with compassionate gentleness and a self-giving presence.

I had the privilege of attending group meetings in which the community somehow managed to create a safe space for its members to talk honestly about their lives, physical, emotional and spiritual. There was a real intimacy and vulnerability with one another.

I had the privilege of attending a community meeting in which the progress of the newest members was evaluated. Whatever other aspects of their life in community might have been considered, their kindness always seemed to be a significant factor. See how they are learning to love.

I have even had the privilege of attending a house meeting in which the community discussed its business affairs for the coming month. I was moved by the sense of a family deciding together. Who knew a house meeting could be a source of encouragement?

I have heard a senior member of the community declare that he feels he has nothing left to say … and then preach beautifully out of a different place within himself. I have heard an older member preach so movingly about the tenderness of God's relationship with him. I have heard a veteran member preach the light in a Scripture passage I thought didn't have any.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he. These words from the prophet Zechariah rang out during the Office of Matins on Sunday, to be followed by: Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope!

I'm not sure exactly what those words would have meant to Zechariah's hearers, but I love the sound of them. When I hear them, I have the image of the monastery as a stronghold and of the monks as prisoners of hope.

I think the strength of the guest ministry here and the testimony I have heard from various guests indicate the effect that the encounter with such a community has on those who come within its influence. I myself have experienced the genuine welcome and generous hospitality.

After the prophet Nehemiah had seen to the rebuilding of the walls of his own stronghold, the scribe Ezra read from the Law of Moses. The gathered people were moved to tears by what they heard, but Nehemiah stopped their weeping. “Today is sacred to our Lord,” he insisted. “Do not be sad; the joy of Yahweh is your stronghold.”

After a solemn ceremony of expiation and a communal renewal of commitment to its God, the rebuilt wall was dedicated and it is recorded that: There were great sacrifices offered that day and the people rejoiced, God having given them good cause for rejoicing … and the joy of Jerusalem could be heard from far away. Thanksgiving Day is on Thursday. Just saying.

Father Huntington said the following during a retreat address here at West Park: We are to think of ourselves as charged with a peculiar and important responsibility to carry to others what we have received on their behalf. … We are taken apart because we are called into a special relation with God. But, once established in that relation, we are to find that He is tremendously concerned about the world, and that He would have us share in His effort to save it. … God is working there. Can it be right for us to turn away in indifference from what He is doing? Must we not rather be eager to recognize His action and to know by His Spirit how we are to cooperate with Him? Knowledge of the world, knowledge of God's work in the world, knowledge of what He wants us to do in the world – these are the lines on which our minds must work. … All this involves effort, time and courage. We must be at pains about it. It must be the business of our lives. It must unify our lives.

Blessed James Huntington, intercede for us.


Amen.

Solemnity of James Otis Sargent Huntington

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother Adam McCoy, OHC
Solemnity of James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC - November 27, 2012 
(transferred from Nov 25)

James Otis Sargent Huntington, Founder of OHC

    Today we are gathered in celebration of the man we count as our Founder, though he never considered himself so, James Otis Sargent Huntington.  Many are the glories, many are the triumphs of his life: pioneer of the monastic life for men in our Church; tireless worker for the rights of working people and for social justice; founder and promoter of work for the poor and neglected; spiritual advisor to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people during his long ministry; a man of deep and transcendent prayer whose mere presence radiated goodness.  

    Two weeks ago or so Br. Robert circulated to the community a report of a meeting of Buddhist and Roman Catholic monks.  The monks spoke of mid-life crisis and senior burnout, disappointment and disillusion.  At the end of the discussion, the participants in that discussion realized that “To be disillusioned is to recognize the truth that I stand on no ground, to discover how dependent I have been on everything around me, to realize that everything I was looking for, had I found it, would have been a substitute.”  The reporter quoted the very wise words of Michael Casey: 

    "Monastic life is not really about self-realization, in the immediate sense of these words:  it is far more about self-transcendence. These are noble words, but the reality they describe is a lifetime of feeling out of one’s depth: confused, bewildered, and not a little affronted by the mysterious ways of God. This is why those who persevere and are buried in a monastic cemetery can rarely be described as perfectly integrated human beings.”

    Using this as a lens, I would like to look not at the glories but at some of the struggles Fr. Huntington faced, to see if we might profit by his example in facing them, as we profit by imitating him in his bright and public successes.  In this I am also thinking about that avatar of monastic life, Anthony of Egypt.  There are plenty of mighty works recorded in St. Athanasius’ biography of St. Anthony, but what we remember best, I think, are his struggles.  He and the whole desert tradition made it their primary business to discover, confront, name, struggle against, and in some measure, with God’s help, reach a point where the reappearance of their particular demons could be put in their proper perspective, and the life of the monk could be directed more and more powerfully to God.  This was Anthony’s heroism, it was the heroism of the desert, and, I would suggest, it was Fr. Huntington’s, and perhaps ours, as well.  I want to suggest five crises in his life which Fr. Huntington met and struggled with and turned to good.

    Fr. Huntington did not “found” the Order of the Holy Cross.  It arose from a conversation he had with Fr. Robert Stockton Dod, whose excitement seems to have been the greater of the two.  They were joined by Fr. James Cameron.  When the three of them began the Order’s life in the autumn of 1881, it was Fr. Dod who led the way in the formation of community life.  It was Dod who consulted the experts in England, who wrote the first Rule, and who led them in the early days.  What must Fr. Huntington’s feelings have been when, just a year later,  Fr. Dod entered into a cycle of chronic illness that turned out to be both emotional and physical.  For the next year and a half, his illness was the constant backdrop to their community life, and Fr. Cameron left a year later, in October, 1883.  By March, 1884, Fr. Dod had left as well, leaving Fr. Huntington alone of the first three.  Fr. Huntington was young - he was only 29 when Fr. Dod left - and he was strong, but what a blow.  In his later life he was occasionally troubled by the small numbers of people coming forth to join the Order and persevering, but he never let that get in the way of new exploits.

    In the summer of 1902 the Church of the Advent in Boston invited Fr. Huntington to become its Rector.  For a Boston-born-and-bred Anglo-Catholic like Fr. Huntington, could there be a more attractive prospect?  It is instructive to understand the context of that offer.  The Order had acquired the West Park property in the fall of 1899.  The hard work of planning and fund raising occupied almost three years, during which time the community prevailed on Fr. Huntington to write a new Rule.  He was reluctant to do so, but did, and it was adopted in October, 1901.  Construction began with the laying of the cornerstone in June, 1902.  Bishop Potter of New York, who had warmly encouraged Fr. Huntington in the early stages of his vocation, refused an invitation to attend, writing in utter disdain, “Once you were the head of a Brotherhood engaged in the service of the poor.  Now, I believe yours is a “contemplative” brotherhood, and you a roaming preacher.  I must own that neither your aims nor life interest us.”  During all this time Fr. Huntington had been Superior, and had borne the brunt of these great activities.  How interesting that the writing of the Rule Fr. Huntington was not at all eager to put down on paper, and that the preparation for construction of the monastery come at the same time.  And that Bishop Potter’s renunciation of Fr. Huntington is almost simultaneous with The Advent’s invitation to priestly glory.  Fr. Huntington did not answer that call for at least two months.  We can perhaps imagine the struggle in his soul, stinging from Bishop Potter’s utter disdain, uncertain of his worthiness to write a Rule, tired from the efforts to undertake construction.  In the end, he decided to stay.

    Fr. Huntington was devoted to his family.  He was in constant contact by letter and visited them often.  He was especially close to his father and mother.  His father, Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington, was in many ways the inspiration for Fr. Huntington’s vocation as an evangelist, and Fr. Huntington cannot be understood either as a person or as a religious figure without reference to Bishop Huntington.  His father died in July, 1904, followed soon after by the death of his brother, George Huntington.  Fr. Huntington seems to have borne up for two years, but in September, 1906, tendered his resignation as Superior.  The Chapter re-elected him nonetheless, 
and he consented, but soon afterward embarked on a long trip to Europe, which lasted into the summer of 1907.  When he returned, he again tendered his resignation, and this time the Chapter accepted it.  His mother, Hannah Dane Sargent Huntington, died in 1910.  Soon after that, Fr. Huntington spent a considerable time with his three sisters in Syracuse, who ministered to him.  The next winter, that of 1911-12, he went to Florida with Fr. Lorey, who seems to have been similarly afflicted, to convalesce.   These events were clearly something close to nervous breakdowns, and they coincided with the difficulties of Fr. Henry Rufus Sargent, the third member of the Order and a titanic personality.  During exactly these same years Sargent underwent a long and fairly public crisis of conscience, which culminated in his conversion to the Roman church and subsequent expulsion from the Order, the month before Fr. Huntington’s mother’s death.  Heavy times, but Fr. Huntington, wounded though he was, sought help and soldiered on.

    Just before going with Fr. Lorey to Florida for convalescence, Fr. Huntington wrote and published a series of articles on the failure of the ideal of the religious life as he had understood it.  They are depressing reading.  The background to them is what was perceived by many Anglo-Catholics of the social justice persuasion as the failure of their movement, crystallized when in 1907 the General Convention passed a canonical change allowing preaching at Sunday services by clergy who were not ordained in the Episcopal Church.  This Open Pulpit movement gnawed at Anglo-Catholics for years afterward, and was the straw that broke Fr. Sargent’s back.  It obviously laid heavy upon Fr. Huntington as well.  He lays what he sees as the failure of missionary monasticism, which, building on his father’s teaching, was his own vision, to a lack of nerve in a church now driven by a kind of  congregational life which looks to its own well-being and not to the conversion of the nation and the world.  It seemed to him the death of an ideal, and one can wonder whether so much recent death in his own life is not the emotional background to his analysis.   But he did not let the death of what he hoped for discourage him.  He writes, in peroration:

    "The virtues of the monastic state are, indeed, the virtues which characterize the Christian life everywhere, – humility, otherworldliness, obedience, self-sacrifice, purity, love.  But that which distinguishes the monastic ideal is that, according to it, these virtues are no longer practiced by each individual, living his own life, doing his own work, but they are practiced by a number of individuals who have abandoned themselves to live and act in common, as a single unified body, moved by one impulse, guided by one will."

    The fifth struggle of Fr. Huntington which I would like to point out happened at the Chapter of 1930, when Fr. Hughson and the adherents of his more “advanced”, ritualist, historicist and conservative brand of Anglo-Catholicism carried the day.   The Chapter elected Fr. Hughson Superior, and officially titled Fr. Huntington as “Father Founder”.  It was a title Fr. Huntington never wanted, knowing it to be factually untrue.  If anyone was the founder of the Order, it was Fr. Dod.  Fr. Huntington felt elevated to irrelevance, put out to pasture, made redundant.  But despite his protestations, even as the Chapter of the Order – we in the corporate sense – were sidelining him, enacting our own particular patricidal drama, the greater truth did not escape the community.  Fr. Huntington had persevered.  In face of so many struggles, many more than those we have examined this morning, Fr. Huntington had remained steadfast.  The demons of abandonment, of exhaustion, of grief, of the loss of his original vision, had been met and struggled with and recognized and named and had lost some of their power.  He was, in the late autumn of his life, not unlike St. Anthony, who emerged from the fortress of his struggle an almost-new Adam: “The state of his soul was one of purity, for it was not one constricted by grief or relaxed by pleasure, nor affected by either laughter or dejection.”  He had seemed to have lost in the struggle between his vision and Fr. Hughson’s, and so he turned that loss to good.  His last five years are a marvel of public speaking, spiritual counsel and private encouragement to multitudes of individuals who sought him out.  The fiftieth anniversary of his life profession in November of 1934 was greeted with a vast outpouring of love and praise from every part of the Church and beyond.  After his funeral in 1935, which Fr. Hughson did not attend because he was in Liberia, the Presiding Bishop called him “the best loved priest in the Episcopal Church.”

    So, what is struggle and what is glory?  Is there something problematic with a person who has great times of struggle?  Should we view such a person as a detriment to monastic life because it does not, at the moment, seem productive?  Is monastic life to be measured by our successes according to the standards of our culture?  Sometimes I wonder if the glory we gain in the ordinary understanding of glory – institutions founded, buildings built, people attracted to vocation and membership, financial and other kinds of stability – sometimes I wonder if all these are not like the simple service of a meal.  The food must be cooked, the table must be set, the dishes must be served, the mess must be cleaned up.  But the important thing is not the cook, the servers, the cleaners, but the food and the fellowship of the meal, what the food can build in the body and what the spirit can gain from friendship and conviviality.  All of what the world sees as our great work is in service of the actual lives of the monks, messy and incomplete and fraught as they are.  All in service of providing an arena for their battles, small and great, a safe place for them to meet the demons, to engage the struggle.  That is why we do all this.  

    We are always talking of being counter-cultural.  Perhaps Fr. Huntington’s life can point us the way.  Which is greater – the founding, the preaching, the writing, the counseling, the great works, or the acceptance of the struggles that his life brought him, losing companions, facing exhaustion and the temptation to escape, owing up to his own weakness in the face of grief at the death of loved ones and the loss of friends, the realization that his ideal had not triumphed, the indignity of an honor which placed him on the shelf?  I would suggest that his greatness has its roots in his struggles, that without the struggles the greatness would not have emerged, and that the greatest struggles are those he feared the most because they penetrated to the heart of his life.      The monastic life gives to monks the time and the space and the opportunity to encounter our demons and to engage in the struggles they bring.  Fr. Huntington was not diminished by engaging his struggles but rather those struggles created in him capacities for growth and for a deepened character of sympathy with others.  Could he have accomplished his great works if he had been spared his griefs?  Perhaps some of them, but perhaps only in the vigor of his youth.  Would he have been the man from whose life flowed such grace and goodness?  I doubt it.   

    I think God loves us because of our struggles.  What kind of monastic life does not have its demons?  Is a monastic life without struggle worth the effort?  In the Kingdom of Heaven, who will be marked out as the greatest among us?  Perhaps it will be those who do great things that the world can see and touch and measure and remark and praise.  But I think, in fact, the greatest among us in the Kingdom of Heaven will be those who courageously faced their demons and engaged in the struggles their life brought them.  And of those demons, those struggles, only God knows the true story.  Perhaps the greatest in God’s eyes are not the strongest but the weakest among us, as the world would account them, who only with God’s help can meet and name their demons, and who even with God’s help win perhaps only small victories.  Perhaps we should revise our estimates of each other and ask, Who among us faces their demons, who among us struggles perhaps without our even knowing?  Perhaps the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are quite unknown to us now, but so greatly loved by God because he knows and sees them in their fullness.  

    Maybe being perfectly integrated is not the goal for monks.  Maybe the monastic goal is to put our imperfection into the heart of Christ.