Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC
The underlying purpose of all human development, including spiritual, is to dismantle the obstacles to full humanity and to help us to grow toward a humanity that is more complete. Desire for God is not a merely personal, or even an eccentric choice, but it is a consequence of what we are as humans.
The dynamics for divine intimacy and human intimacy are the same. I believe one is a school for the other. Most start with human intimacy and move from there to divine. But some begin with the divine, first learning how to be vulnerable before God, and then passing it on to others. A few follow the road less traveled, to give themselves over to God alone, in solitude and silence, in prayer and willing surrender in community. In responding to God’s call, a monk fulfills an important role in the Church: he visibly witnesses in his life to the absolute priority of God.
Josép, the God who searches hearts has shown you the path for your life and you have come to know it in this Order, with these brothers, running, as Benedict says, “on the path of God’s commandments, with your heart overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love”.3 Over these years your love and dedication have been an inspiration to us. That love has been deepened by the trials you’ve experienced. Today you make your commitment for life, knowing that the paschal mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising will be the pattern of your monastic life.
In a few minutes, you're going to affirm that you are making your commitment freely. To be completely honest, I think this might be stretching the truth. What I would like to suggest is that the call of God to this Order has so taken root in you and grown over these last years, that to describe it in words that resonate with the idea of consumer choice is hardly the truth. You have found and been found by God here, in the life that you share with your brothers, in a way that makes this next and ultimate step entirely necessary. No human force compels you, but the love and presence of God is compelling you at a deeper level. And to that call you are giving your consent. To do anything less would be to deny both God and your very self. Parker Palmer wrote:
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own deepest authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks, we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.4People come to monasteries to achieve their full potential. Monastic discipline aims simply at removing the obstacles to this goal.
In his latest book, Michael Casey muses on the possibility that perhaps we have put too much emphasis in the monastic life on “seeking” rather than on “finding”, on keeping rules rather than on personal growth. 5 While the monk comes here seeking God, it becomes more and more evident that God has sought us out. 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. Jesus challenges us to love as we have been loved by him. Love is a transforming power more than a superficial emotional expression. It is a disciplined habit of care and concern, that like all virtues, can be perfected only over a lifetime. Your monastic life is the call to the all-inclusive love of God. Giving a witness to that love, leads deeper and deeper into the meaning of joy, of being chosen by Christ, and of preferring nothing to Christ.
You have come into an Order and a community which is far from perfect. In your time of formation and temporary profession, the character defects of this community made you wonder more than once, as all of us have: is this for me? God intends us to live together in the fragility of human imperfection. In this we come to know ourselves, each other, and God. We need the other to be like a mirror for us. A mirror doesn’t change the image; it simply shows it as it is. Those closest to us hold a mirror up to us, revealing our good side and our dark side and reminding us that we still haven’t really learned to love. The Gospel gives us an assurance that we are operating inside of an abundant, infinite Love. So even though we will constantly fail, it is not the final word. We also have hope that everything can be healed and restored. We ask one another for forgiveness, as we confess to one another that once again we didn’t do it right. It’s when we do it wrong that we are taught vulnerability. It’s not a vulnerability and an intimacy that we need just now and then. Eventually, it becomes second nature to admit we are wrong, to ask for forgiveness but not to hate ourselves for it.
You are to be compassionate with your weaknesses and those of your brothers, and obedient in service toward all. A spirit of cooperation emerges only as we develop a forbearance toward one another. Your pursuits will include your own happiness but will always be measured by the needs of others and a generosity of spirit. Your love must be filled with courage and tenacity. As you advance in this way of life, you will strengthen your brothers to become what God has intended for us: men of prayer and work, of gracious hospitality, of humble service for all who come seeking God. The discipline of obedience to the Superior and the community is the school in which each brother practices his obedience to God. 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. The Rule sets out good and gentle guidance as to how a community can seek to identify God's will. But the task is always to discern, not to decide. Your life commitment to God is indeed a new beginning and a sign that you, with God’s help, will be able to live the good zeal Benedict encourages in all of us.6
For a Benedictine, the stability of knowing your place and community for life, provides the context for faithfulness in the instabilities of life. Contemplative life for us is the challenge of remembering God in all that we do, say and are during the day, as we live and are molded by the rhythm of our daily routine. The challenge of the vow is that it gives less opportunity to run away from those parts of us that God is seeking to convert and transform. Day by day and year by year God reveals to us more and more of the true self we are made to be. The task of conversion is not that of a moment but of a lifetime. It is a sign of our commitment to allow God to continue that work within us.
The only people who change, who are transformed, 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. We need a combination of safety and conflict to keep moving forward in life.7
Of course, that can only be done with divine love flowing through us. In this way, we can love things and people in themselves, for themselves—not for what they do for us. We look beyond what Thomas Merton calls “the shadow and the disguise”8 of things until we can see them in their connectedness and wholeness. That takes work: constant detachment from ourselves—our conditioning, our preferences, and our knee-jerk reactions. We can only allow divine love to flow by way of a transformed mind that allows us to see God in everything and empowers our behavior.
Your life vow will not put an end to doubts, and that is not a bad thing. Unlike answers that presume the static nature of God and life, doubt stretches us beyond ourselves. It is what leaves us open to truth, however difficult it may be to accept. Without doubt, our faith would be the kind that happens around us but not in us—we would go through the motions, without passion, without care---which makes the living of this life a senseless misery. Facing our doubts, we forge the beginning of real faith.
Paul reminds us in the Epistle that when faced with and wearied by life’s difficulties, we can count on God’s nearness to us in Christ. He uses the language of rejoicing to encourage us. Christ’s presence is the source of our joy. Joy is a discipline of perception, not an emotion dependent on circumstances. It’s not an escape from the pain of life; it’s a reconsideration and reinvestment in life from a liberating perspective. By perceiving and rejoicing in Christ’s living presence with us, one let’s go of being one’s own savior.
We who are here in this holy place today represent both the journey you have taken thus far and the one that lies before you. We assure you that our love and prayers will be supporting you in the times ahead. But above all we know that this step which you are taking will be a blessing to you, to us, to the Church, and to the world. +Amen.
1. Michael Casey, Grace: On the Journey to God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2018),41.
2. Benedict, Rule of St Benedict, Prologue 49.
3. Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2000), 49.
4. Michael Casey, Grace: On the Journey to God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2018), 36.
5. Benedict, Rule of St Benedict, 72.
6. Adapted from Richard Rohr: Essential Teachings on Love, eds. Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger
(Orbis Books: 2018), 224-225.
8. Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New Directions: 1973), 236.
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