Feast of St Benedict - Jul 12, 2016

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Peter Rostron, OHC
Feast of St Benedict - transferred - Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Proverbs 2:1-9
Luke 14:27-33

St Benedict

I want to share something with you that I don’t think will come as a surprise. Community is hard. It is where what we want, and what others want, and what God wants, collide. Many times, all our various desires can coincide, but often there is conflict, within and between our selves, and with God. But engaging in the hard work of community is what expands our capacity to love. As Br. Reinaldo expressed in his sermon on Sunday, living into God’s commandment to love our neighbor as our self is a revelation that there is in fact one love - God’s love - and that the more we can love our selves, in all our inner messiness, the more we can love our neighbor. We must know and come to terms with our own personal demons, and learn how to treat our selves with compassion, before we can fully love others. We are like vessels and conduits for God’s love; the more clogged we are with our own stuff, the less readily can God’s love flow through us.

This hard work of “cleaning house” so that we are better able to love, has been presenting itself to me in many ways these past months. Occasionally, it seems too much for me, and a voice yells “Flee!” But I’ve learned to pause, knowing that an even more imperative and truthful voice soon says, “Stay.” This voice has been appearing in so many different places, that I am convinced it is God’s voice. It has spoken to me in the Breakthrough program, in my new work with a therapist, in the declining health of my mother with its resulting magnification of long-festering and dormant issues among my siblings and me, in the reverberations within this community that naturally occur when four new men enter in a short period of time, and in the surprisingly profound amount of knowledge and wisdom that I am still unpacking from my recently completed spiritual direction program. I find myself in the midst of a profusion of challenge and change and growth, but within that, I’m finding a growing awareness of God’s boundless love.

One of the channels through which I’ve been receiving encouragement from God lately has been Richard Rohr’s daily email meditations. Here is some of what he has been saying recently about the hard work of community.

Our shadow self is any part of ourselves or our institutions that we try to hide or deny because it seems socially unacceptable...Our shadow is often subconscious, hidden even from our own awareness. It takes effort and life-long practice to look for, find, and embrace what we dismiss and what we disdain... Shadow work is what I call "falling upward." Lady Julian put it best of all: "First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall. Both are the mercy of God!"...[For this recovery to happen], we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of "business as usual" and remain patiently on the "threshold,” where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That's a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible. It's the realm where God can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed.”

Here is that place. Here is that liminal space in which I feel my self - our selves - operating. And this is precisely the kind of space that I believe St. Benedict was seeking to create in his “school for the Lord’s service.” A school of love. A school in which the bigger world, God’s world, is revealed. Benedict would not have been familiar with some of our contemporary language, but Rohr’s message, I think, would resonate with him. His Rule provides a structure designed to offer the stability and encouragement and safety required for the hard work of which Rohr speaks and in which I, and we, are engaged. We are now seventeen men, each with his own, unique story, each with his wounds and challenges and gifts. Each doing his own work of conversion. Living so closely together, with Benedict’s Rule as our guide and source of stability, if we interact fully and honestly with one another, if we make ourselves vulnerable to one another, if we obey Christ’s admonition that we heard in today’s gospel to give up our possessions - that is, those things that weigh us down and inhibit our freedom to grow and love - then real transformation can happen. Therein lies the value of community, especially one that is grounded in the wisdom of St. Benedict.

The earliest Christians, too, understood the importance of living in community, as was reflected in today’s reading from the book of Acts. Community is essential to the full expression of a Christian life. As members of Christ’s body it is only through coming together in community that we can fully know and be Christ in the world, to experience pain, surrender, and resurrection, as Christ did. Benedict drew on the wisdom of scripture, such as we just heard from the book of Proverbs, on his own encounters with God, on his own battles with personal demons, and on the work of others to craft a brilliant and eloquent document that has remarkably stood for 1500 years. In part, it is practical, providing for a daily routine of prayer, work, and study. It offers guidance on matters such as discipline and diet and travel. It sanctifies our lives through the vow of obedience, stability, and conversion. But, pervading all of this, it is love that gives the Rule its power and longevity and universality. The Rule is suffused with love, with compassion, forgiveness, and humility, qualities that transcend the mundane and that are at the heart of a life lived in Christ. From the opening Prologue, where Benedict says that “we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love” to the closing chapter, where we are gently urged to, “with Christ’s help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners,” one can feel the great love of Benedict, and of God.

Another strong theme in the Rule is hospitality, which is particularly relevant to our life here at Holy Cross. In her book, Hospitality: The Heart of Spiritual Direction, Leslie Hay offers several definitions of hospitality, the truest and simplest of which is “seeing and receiving all as Christ,” an imperative from St. Benedict. She quotes Daniel Homan, OSB, and Lonni Collins Pratt in saying too that “hospitality is born in us when we are well loved by God and by others.” And there again is that central core of Benedict’s monastery: love. With the guidance of the Rule, and through hard work on our selves and on our relationships with each other, we become more fully open to being loved by God, which in turn nurtures our ability to offer hospitality, to be a welcoming presence to our guests and to one another. As a Benedictine community, we can be a font of God’s love, to be spread into the world.

And, Lord knows, ours is certainly a world that needs God’s love. We have tumult and violence and suffering such as Benedict knew. As was his world, ours is in desperate need of hospitality, of community, love, compassion, humility, forgiveness. Br. Reinaldo spoke of this on Sunday. Somehow, our society needs to cultivate an atmosphere in which our impulse is to show mercy to the stranger, the enemy, to offer help and to be forgiving, rather than to vilify the “other” and pursue violent retribution. We, as a Christian community, can’t single-handedly change the world, and we can't expect change to happen overnight, but we can be a living example of the power of love. We can offer the hospitality of Christ and show others a way to live, with the wisdom of St. Benedict as our guide. His voice joins all the voices of sacred scripture and of all the saints in pointing the way. We, with God's help, must continue to listen and respond.

Proper 4 C- May 29, 2016

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br.Peter Rostron, OHC
Proper 4 Year C Sunday, May 29, 2016

 Seeing God in the ordinary
(Photo credit  Elizabeth Boe)

At last, we are settling into ordinary time. The past three months have been filled with the intensity of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, followed by the joy of Eastertide with its abundance of alleluias, and, most recently, we’ve had three great, first-class feasts: Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi. Now, we can relax and settle into the comfortable routine of what is commonly referred to in the church calendar as ordinary time. School and church programs will be on hiatus. Maybe you’ll take a vacation to visit friends, or explore interesting museums or historic sites, or just lie on a beach and enjoy beautiful sunsets. Or perhaps you’ll just stay at home, slow down, and sip on cool glasses of iced tea. It will be a relief to simply enjoy the ordinary pleasures of life.

But what about our spiritual lives, our prayer lives? They hopefully will not go on hiatus as well. Ordinary does not mean absent or less important or lacking in intensity. God is still present even though we are in between church seasons and do not have the inspiration and ritual of a major feast in these months. God is not a distant force whom we know only in sacred spaces and through eloquent prayer or festive celebrations. No, God is here with us, everywhere present in all things, in us, at all times. The stuff we are made of is the same stuff that the whole of the universe is made of, and that is God. God dwells in the ordinary, and we experience God through very ordinary prayer and in the everydayness of life. No feast or church or script, or even any words at all, are required.

Ann and Barry Ulanov open their classic work, Primary Speech, by stating: “Everybody prays. People pray whether or not they call it prayer. We pray every time we ask for help, understanding, or strength, in or out of religion. Our movements, our stillness, the expressions on our faces, our tone of voice, our actions, what we dream and daydream, as well as what we actually put into words say who and what we are. To pray is to listen to and hear this self who is speaking.” I would sum it up by saying simply that our very lives are prayer. Prayer is our relationship with God. We are part of God, God is part of us, we are never not in relationship with God. When Paul enjoins us to pray without ceasing, it really is not as difficult as one might think. Mostly, it requires us to be continually attentive and intentional - about who we are, what we are doing, who we are with - all with an awareness of God’s immediate and loving presence within and all around us.

I recently completed a four-week, intensive spiritual direction training program, which not only was relevant for my beginning work as a director, but, even more significantly, for my own formation as a monk. One of the central truths that resonated deep within me in the program was the essential role that God plays in the direction experience. There are three present in the room: the director, the directee, and God. It is prayer. As I considered this, it struck me that this dynamic extends beyond just an intimate conversation with one other person to every kind of situation we might be in, from our homes to our workplaces and to the grocery store, while enjoying a fine meal or taking out the trash, with one person or many or none, in harmony or in conflict, awake or asleep. God is present and prayer is happening always and in everything we do, in every ordinary, routine place, even when and where we may least expect it. Our task is to choose to listen, and respond, to the prayer that God is constantly initiating in us.


In the closing prayers of the spiritual direction program, one of the participants prayed aloud for Donald Trump. Many of us remarked afterward that we found this quite jarring. Why should that be? God is present in Mr. Trump just as God is present in each of us, yet for some reason we felt differently about him. Another time in the program, a participant shared his profound experiences of God while ministering to men in a local prison. He said that some of the greatest expressions of love he has ever witnessed took place among those prisoners. As the people of Galatia are turning away from God, Paul knows that God is still present among them. He addresses them harshly, but he does not turn away from them or give up on them. And in today’s gospel, we see a Roman centurion, one who bears the violent authority of the oppressor, as someone who also is a person of deep humility and love, of whom Jesus says, "not even in Israel have I found such faith." We are called to seek God in everyone, to open our hearts to every person in prayer, no matter their place in life.

Likewise, God desires us to bring all of our selves to prayer as well. There is an abundance of content and emotion that can be brought to prayer. In their book, the Ulanovs carefully explore a variety of facets of prayer, many of which surprised me. They devote a chapter to prayer and fantasy, another to prayer and aggression, another to prayer and sexuality, and another to prayer and fear. The message is that there is nothing that cannot be brought to prayer, no part of us that we need worry about keeping from God. God can take it. He can bear our anger, our pettiness, all of our failings, all of our ordinariness. After all, God already knows everything about us, and still loves us. As the psalmist said, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you...are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.”

So, why bother to pray, one might ask? God may know us, but he wants us to know him, too. When we reveal ourselves to God in prayer - in all of our ordinariness - then we are more fully open to receive God’s grace and God’s love. In the radical act of sending Jesus to us, God demonstrated his ultimate wish for us: that we let go of our selfish, ego-driven desires and turn ourselves over to God’s love and will. But that can only happen through prayer. It is in our own prayer that we discover what God’s particular desire is for each of us, and we discern what God would have us do. It is only through this completely unfettered relationship with God, exposing our whole selves, in all of the ordinariness of our everyday lives, that we can become the person God wants us to be.

There are many examples of this which God has provided in scripture. Along with Primary Speech, another of the excellent books that were part of the spiritual direction program was Inviting the Mystic, Supporting the Prophet, by Katherine Dyckman and Patrick Carroll. Sprinkled throughout the book were references to archetypal experiences of prayer found in scripture that can be relevant and inspirational to our modern lives. There is a tendency, I’m afraid, that, because they are in Holy Scripture, we assign them a kind of elevated, other-worldly status. They’re not applicable to us, they’re beyond our own experience. Yet, all of them involved ordinary people whose prayer and openness to God led them to take a risk, to trust in God, and to be open to transformation. Abraham followed God’s call, trusting that he was being led to a better place, for his and his descendants’ sake. Ruth made and kept a simple vow to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi, which ultimately bore great fruit. Moses resisted and argued and pleaded with God because he did not feel worthy or capable of leading his people to freedom, yet he remained obedient. We can do the same. We can listen and respond to God. We can choose to pay attention to the burning bush that suddenly appears amidst the ordinariness of our lives.

Lord, let this seemingly ordinary time - whose beginning was marked by the descent of the Holy Spirit into the church - be a time of deepening prayer for each of us; a time of allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us; a time of knowing our bodies to be the body of your son Jesus Christ, doing your work in the world; a time of fully realizing your love for us and our constant relationship with you; a time for extra-ordinary things to happen.  

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.

Proper 7 A - Jun 22, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY 

Br. James Rostron, n/OHC

Year A - Proper 7 - June 22, 2014

Matthew 10:24-39

            Over the past several weeks, we have observed four first-class feasts that have celebrated different facets of the mystery of our Christian faith and that have brought us into the season of Pentecost. First was the Feast of the Ascension, marking the occasion on which the bodily Jesus left us. Before his crucifixion, though, knowing what was to come, Jesus told his disciples, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” That event to which Jesus was referring was celebrated at the next feast, the Day of Pentecost. As related by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” On Trinity Sunday, we observed the significance of the then-complete Holy Trinity: God, the creator of all; Jesus, the human manifestation of God; and the Holy Spirit, the amorphous, active, ever-present energy of God. And lastly, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, we commemorated the great mystery of Jesus’s presence in the Holy Eucharist.

            And now that this grand opening is concluded, we settle in for Pentecost, a season of long, languid, hot days, of summer vacations, and of church programs on hiatus. A time of rest, until we return to our busy-ness in the fall and begin anticipating the holidays and the coming of Advent. But, wait, that is not correct at all. A slow season isn’t what today’s readings are about. They are instead filled with imperatives and risk and work to be done. And, as I have sat with them over the past week or so, I have been struck with the strong sense of the mystery and power of the Holy Spirit woven through them. Which seems appropriate since this season is, after all, named for that event when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and ignited the church. The Spirit, though, has been present always. “In the beginning...a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” An angel announced to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born...will be called Son of God.” At the Jordan River “the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon [Jesus] like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And, in fact, we are God’s beloved, too, and with us God is well pleased. The Holy Spirit is resting on us even now. And, through the Holy Spirit, God continues to urge us to spread the good news and build God’s kingdom.

             So, far from being “ordinary” time, this season of Pentecost really should be extra-ordinary time, time during which we listen to, play with, and find inspiration from, the Holy Spirit. We heard today from the prophet Jeremiah, who is utterly filled with the Spirit and ready to turn himself completely over to God’s will for him: “There is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones,” he says. “I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” Jesus delivered a similarly forceful message in today’s gospel: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household.” Now, I don’t believe Jesus intends for us to deliberately sow conflict within our families, but I do believe he is saying that we have important, urgent work to do, work that may put at risk our relationships as we know them, even with loved ones. Love of God and of neighbor must supersede all other loves.

            What is it, then, that marks a Spirit-filled life in our time? As I’ve been thinking about this, three themes have emerged for me: a Spirit-filled life is one motivated by passion, it is a life not stunted by fear, and it is a life rooted in faith. Jeremiah is clearly filled with passion, saying, “O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed.” He acknowledges that he must risk his relationships with friends in order to deliver God’s message to the people when he says, “For I hear many whispering: ‘Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’ All my close friends are watching for me to stumble.” Likewise, Jesus also is asking us to live passion-filled lives, just as he did; passion for love, for justice, for truth, for spreading the gospel: “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” Passion is fire, and as our founder James Huntington wrote, “Love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.”

            To live passionately, it is essential to not be afraid. How many times do we hear that in the Bible, “Do not be afraid?” Jeremiah indicates that he is not afraid when he says, “the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed.” And we heard Jesus tell us three times not to be afraid: “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known,” and then, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” and again, “...do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Fear will always give you a reason not to act, but action is what God asks of us.

            Thirdly, a Spirit-filled life is one of faith. That means knowing God’s love for us, trusting in God’s care for us, and letting go of our own selfish wills in exchange for God’s will. When I read the verse about sparrows in today’s gospel, I can’t help but note an echo of Matthew’s wonderful “lilies of the field” passage about faith. He wrote, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?” It is also a message of faith when Jesus says that “those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” You can let go of all the things you cling to for comfort and security, and in their place you will find something even better, he is telling us. And Paul likewise speaks a message of faith in the passage we heard from his letter to the Romans: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

            So, let us make this season of Pentecost an “extraordinary” time, by striving to live with passion, without fear, and with faith that God is with us. Jeremiah and John and Luke and Matthew and Paul and Jesus are all trying to deliver this message to us. But are we listening? Are we committed and courageous enough to take the kind of risks that these prophets are encouraging us to take? Just how far is each of us able and willing to go? How much are we willing to give up? How often do you say or think, “Hmm, I wonder if I could do this?” or “What if we did that?” only to then think, “Nah, that’s a crazy idea” or “It’ll never happen” or “It’s too risky.” Instead, consider what might happen if you were to stay with those thoughts, to allow them to unfold and grow, to share and nurture them, to approach them with passion, without fear, and with faith that God’s will may be done. Imagine the good things that you might start or join in with during this season of Pentecost, in a food pantry, a school, a prison, a hospital, or with a neighbor in need. Allow the Holy Spirit to fill you and work in you, and just see where she might lead you.

Palm Sunday - Apr 13, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY 
Br. James Rostron, n/OHC
Year A - Palm Sunday - April 13, 2014

Isaiah 50:4-9a 
Matthew 21:1-11 

Jesus enters Jerusalem

And so today we begin Holy Week, the most sacred week of the Christian year. It is a
week of profound contrasts and great tension, for us, here and now in the present, just as it was for Jesus and his followers and the citizens of Jerusalem. The week begins with the triumphal and provocative entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, with a crowd of people laying their cloaks and palms before him, shouting “Hosanna!” Yet within days, Jesus is hanging, virtually abandoned, dead on a cross. A few days later, though, he is gloriously risen and the world knows that indeed he was, and is, God’s son. His deliberately humble entry on a donkey through an eastern gate into the city contrasts greatly with the grand and militaristic entry, on horses, that some say was made by Roman troops through a western gate on the same day. We see Jesus himself experiencing a wide range of emotions throughout the week, from dramatic anger at the money changers in the Temple on Monday, to a poignant and loving Passover meal on Thursday, to despair and doubt in the garden at Gethsemane early Friday morning. And most extreme of all, and really, I think, impossible for us to fathom, are, on the one hand, the wrenching agony Jesus must have felt being tortured and crucified, and, on the other hand, the ecstatic, otherworldly joy
of resurrection and union with God, the one he called Abba.

I find that this week can be quite overwhelming. I can try to make some meaningful sense
of the great swirl of political, social, and religious issues and events from Jesus’s day all mixed together with the theological, liturgical, and spiritual implications that reverberate into the present. But it’s almost as if Matthew’s description of turmoil in the city applies to my own mind, also. It’s difficult for me to know how I want to receive, and “be in,” this week. How do I balance the extreme sadness and joy of this week? How do I take in and process the stream of events of this week while avoiding sensory overload? The conclusion I’ve come to is that I don’t, I can’t. There is too much for the “planner, achiever” me to organize and interpret and understand. I am reminded of a practice I learned while studying engineering in college. When faced with a complex problem, go back to the beginning and walk through the sequence of fundamental concepts that leads up to the current scenario, no matter how rudimentary those steps seem and how well you think you know them.

So, as I’ve been thinking about the notion of going back to the beginning, I find myself
being drawn to a recent turning point in my life, the beginning of my monastic call. About seven years ago, while I was teaching high school in Washington, DC, I began to sense that some kind of big change was coming, and I was trying to figure out what that change might be. I was also getting deeply involved in parish life at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church. One aspect of that was participation in a very rich offering of adult formation classes on topics such as forgiveness, wisdom literature in the Bible, and forms of prayer. It was in that class on prayer that I learned, or perhaps finally understood, that prayer is more about listening than about talking. Now, I don’t believe that I hadn’t heard God before, but I did become a better listener. I learned to listen to God in prayer and in nature, in other people, and in events happening around me and in the world. Being a better listener ultimately brought me into this community at Holy Cross.

And now here, as I begin to absorb the wisdom of the Rule of St. Benedict, which, by the
way, begins with the word “listen,” I am becoming aware of an equally important practice, or state of being: humility. It is the starting point for a life in Christ. Humility means knowing and accepting and being true to who you are, good and bad, as a child of God and as a child of the earth, or humus. It means letting go of all falseness and pretense and defensiveness in order to be fully open to Christ. It means acknowledging your mistakes and knowing that you can’t save yourself; only Christ can do that. It means following God’s will for you, not your own will. Without humility, there is no room for Christ.

So, if I apply this principle to Holy Week it means I might try just to humbly listen. Good
things have already come from doing so, and perhaps they will again. This message echoes in the readings we heard today. Isaiah told us, “Morning by morning [the Lord God] wakens my ear ... to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear.” Matthew’s description of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the backs of a donkey and a colt quotes the prophet Zechariah: “Look, your king is approaching ... humble and riding on a donkey.” And Jesus himself speaks to us, too, through his actions. His humble ride on a donkey did not happen by chance. He arranged for the animals to be available, and he coordinated a password for them to be released. He prepared an entry into the city that would be a humble protest of Roman imperialism. He is reminding us of his own humble birth, on the road to poor parents, and then being raised in a dusty nowhere town, and earning a living as a skilled laborer.

This week is, in a way, a concentrated microcosm of Jesus’s life, and we are being
prompted in words and actions and symbols to listen to Christ’s message of justice and peace and to humbly walk in his way, even if it leads to suffering and death, but knowing that it ultimately leads to resurrected life. As the week unfolds then, my advice to myself, and to you if you think it might be helpful, is to try not to think too much, or expect too much, or plan too much, or be too overwhelmed. Simply be present. Lay palms on the road in front of Jesus, shouting “Hosanna!” Share a final meal with Jesus as he bids farewell and washes your feet. Sit with him for an hour in the garden late into the night. Stand by him in his suffering on the cross. Be greeted by him at the tomb on Sunday morning. Let these things happen, let them sink in, and let yourself respond. Let go of your own will and listen to God’s will for you. Accompany Jesus on his journey. There is indeed a lot going during these tumultuous eight days, but let us simply and humbly listen – and have a blessed Holy Week. Amen.

Epiphayny 2 A - Jan 19, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. James Rostron, n/OHC
Year A - Epiphany 2 - Sunday, January 19, 2014

Isaiah 49:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

The Baptism of Jesus
"This is my Son, the Beloved"

We are lingering this week at the Jordan River. Close your eyes and imagine the scene, if

you will. You and many others have been drawn to this place from all of Judea and Jerusalem, seeking. You have left homes, jobs, and families and walked across dry, rugged desert to get to this oasis to see John the Baptist. Priests and Levites are also here, at the request of the Pharisees, to find out just what is going on. Jesus is here, although people don’t yet know who he is. There is a great sense of anticipation, I imagine, surrounding something very new, very exciting, and yet unknown. It is quite a remarkable scene. Last Sunday, the focus was on Jesus’s baptism, and this week it is on John’s witness to that event. John, the author of the gospel, uses a word related to witnessing fourteen times in today’s verses – words like “see,” “look,” “testified,” and “revealed.” Something extraordinary is happening, and John is making sure we notice.

What has drawn people to come here? What has drawn you to come here? John is
preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So it seems people have a desire to change the direction, the focus, of their lives. To be cleansed of their sins. To rectify their separation from God. To find freedom from the tyranny of the Roman Empire. To experience a fresh start, a new beginning. It has been a thousand years – think of how long that is; what do you know or feel about the year 1014? – a thousand years since David was on the throne. And, in the meantime, the nation of Israel has repeatedly strayed from the path God set for them. They have endured great disappointments and suffering, years of exile and waiting, and, most recently, silence. The era of the great prophets ended 450 years ago. Where is God? they must be wondering. How are we going to find our way to a better future, a future that is right with God?

Today, John the Baptist is viewed by many as the last prophet, and the first monastic, a
bridge between the old and the new. A prophet is a person through whom God speaks. In his role as a prophet, John is telling the world about the presence of God among them in the form of Jesus Christ. William Barclay writes, “John makes clear what his only function was. It was to point others to Christ. He was nothing, and Christ was everything. He claimed no greatness and no place for himself; he was only the man who...drew back the curtain” to reveal Jesus to the world. The day after Jesus’s baptism, John declares, as Jesus was coming toward him, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John understands the magnitude of what is taking place, and he is making sure that those gathered with him at the Jordan also understand. Waters parted on the second day, at the Red Sea, and here at the Jordan. From these waters of baptism an extraordinary new life in Jesus has emerged, and John is the witness who testifies to this. It is the beginning of something totally and amazingly new.

And that new beginning is still happening. As I sat before the manger here during
Christmastide and looked at the baby Jesus, I thought about Jesus being born in Bethlehem two thousand long years ago and how he continues to be born. Not just once a year, symbolically, in December, but every time a baby is born. One of my favorite authors, John Philip Newell, who writes and speaks about the implications of Celtic spirituality for our time, has written that the birth of the universe, the so-called Big Bang, is not just something that happened billions of years ago. It is still happening. He highlights the teachings of the ninth-century Celtic philosopher, Eriugena, who said that all things were made “together and at once” and remain hidden until the time of their manifestation. In God’s time, which is infinitely greater than ours, God’s wonderful creation continues to be revealed. Newell says that the world today is experiencing the birth pangs of this ongoing creation. And I see this creation as happening on many scales: throughout the universe, across this planet, and deep within each of us. All the time. 
We just need to pay attention.

It is at his baptism, I think, that Jesus finally knows who he really is. God tells him, “you
are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Just as John the Baptist wants to be sure we know this, so does John the Evangelist. A prominent theme in his gospel is that Jesus and God and you and I are one. So, God is also saying to you and to me, “you are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” When Jesus was baptized in the waters of the Jordan he at once became fully aware of his divinity and also of his humanity. He shared in a ritual act that he didn’t need but that those gathered with him desperately needed, and he received the Holy Spirit from God, the same Spirit that rests on us as well. We are human, and we are also divine. Jesus is continually being reborn, he lives within each of us, and his and our baptism is ongoing throughout our lifetimes. We continue to be cleansed in the waters of God, here on this water planet, not just metaphorically but also in the rain, in the mist, in a river or ocean, or in the sprinkle from an aspergellum at Compline. We are in every moment in the midst of dying and being born anew in Christ. Rebirth and new creation are happening continuously, in God’s time. Pay attention!

Two of John the Baptist’s disciples were paying attention when, on the third day, he, for
the third time, exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And they responded by following Jesus, who turned to them and asked, “What are you looking for?” They in turn asked, “Where are you staying?” To which Jesus replied, “Come and see.” This is an extremely powerful and moving interaction, rich with meaning. But I want to focus on the statement, “Come and see.”
Come – get up, change direction, move toward a new place; and see – open yourself to receive what the Holy Spirit wishes to give you. John said to all those present at the Jordan River, come and see this man Jesus, newly anointed by God. Jesus invited Andrew and his companion to come and see where he is staying. Andrew told his brother Simon to come and see. And Philip will soon tell Nathanael to come and see the Messiah who has just been revealed.

It is a cascade of invitations to witness God’s grace and glory made incarnate. I view it as
something like a nuclear reaction: awesome, powerful, growing exponentially. Like the light and energy of the Big Bang expanding and spreading endlessly throughout the universe. Like the cells of an embryo mitotically splitting and splitting and splitting again. Like the love that God wants us to carry and share from one person to another to another to another. We are the builders of God’s Kingdom in whom Jesus so passionately wants to live in the world. The word “religion” is derived from the Latin word religare, which means “to bind back together.” Living out our Christian faith means binding back together – giving meaning and purpose to – the primal energy that is the light and the life and the Word that was in the beginning.

So, we have a task set before us here in the twenty-first century. Come and see. Go and
look. Seek and find ways to spread God’s love in the world. Listen to John the Baptist speaking to us, in God’s time just yesterday. Be a witness to God’s love. Be prophetic, allow God to speak truth through you. Invite others to join you. I love to quote a Quaker saying every chance I get: “Speak to that of God in everyone.” It can be in small ways, like offering a smile or a kindness to a stranger. It can be in medium-sized ways, like trying to understand and respond lovingly to someone with whom you are in disagreement. And it can be in larger ways, like devoting yourself to a cause, such as writing letters or attending demonstrations or joining groups in opposition to capital punishment or to the use of drones. Or volunteering to help feed the hungry or providing shelter for the homeless. Or being a faithful participant in the outreach of your church. There are plenty of opportunities out there for you to share in John’s witness to the baptism of Jesus and its ongoing reverberation throughout the world. And, there are plenty of opportunities for you to say to others, “Come and see.”

Proper 26 C - Nov 3, 2013

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. James Rostron, n/OHC
Year C - Proper 26 - Sunday, November 3, 2013

Isaiah 1:10-18
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10

"Zacchaeus, hurry and come down" - Zacchaeus by Niels Larsen Stevns

“When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.’”

“Two blind men followed him, crying aloud, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David.’”

“They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him.”

“As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him.... They called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’”

“She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’”

There are many stories in the gospels that begin, like these, with people who come to Jesus seeking healing. And often at the conclusion of these stories Jesus says, “your faith has made you well.” But the story we heard today is different. Zacchaeus is a wealthy, seemingly healthy, individual, who does not seem to be suffering. And he does not ask Jesus for anything; he simply wants to catch a glimpse of Jesus to satisfy his curiosity about what this man looks like who has been causing such a stir. Nevertheless, Zacchaeus is saved, even though Jesus does not refer to the existence of any faith within Zacchaeus.

This unique story is found only in Luke’s gospel, and Luke has positioned it at the end of his travel account, just before Jesus enters Jerusalem. This, and the fact that it is so rich with detail, makes it very worth our while to consider the story carefully. First, we are told that Zacchaeus is a rich tax collector. He is very likely a social outcast because of his collaboration with the Roman Empire, and he would be reviled as a traitor by others in that society. It is remarkable, then, that he chooses to be present at a large, outdoor gathering where he might face the wrath or ridicule of his peers. Second, Zacchaeus climbs a tree. That is probably not something you would see a rich person doing, and it would certainly invite unwanted attention. Yet, he did show up in this great crowd, and he did climb a tree. He even ran through the crowd to get ahead of Jesus in order to do so. All of this together makes it seem clear that Zacchaeus has a strong desire to see Jesus.

Another significant detail in this story is that Zacchaeus is described as being short in stature. This is of course why he needed to climb a tree. But, symbolically, the use of the word “stature” might be telling us about more than just Zacchaeus’s physical height. It may be conveying that he is lacking in his spiritual, rather than just his bodily, growth. Still, Zacchaeus apparently had an inkling that something needed to change in his life, and he took action in climbing that tree. In doing so, Zacchaeus elevated himself above the mass of people on the ground and away from the tyrannical social order of which he was a part. He set himself above his peers and took a step toward heaven and closer to God.

Next comes, to me, the most significant, and moving, event of the story. “When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said, ... ‘[Zacchaeus,] ... hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’” This is an amazing moment. It is the moment when Zacchaeus’s world is changed. He just wanted to see who Jesus was. While he was perhaps responding to an unrecognized and ill-defined impulse toward God, there is no indication that he intended to speak to Jesus or to ask Jesus for anything. Nevertheless, Jesus noticed him and called to him. And with such urgency: hurry, I must stay at your house. Imagine yourself in Zacchaeus’s place. “Are you talking to me!?” The closest “real-life” situation I can think of is to be standing in the front row at a concert, or waiting by the edge of a ball field, or attending a lecture and to have your favorite singer, player, author, or some other famous celebrity call to you to join them for dinner. That would be totally unexpected and pretty darn exciting, a once-in-a-lifetime event. But now, let your imagination go a step further, and put Jesus right in front of you, telling you that he must stay at your house today. That would be truly amazing!

The next detail Luke gives us is that Zacchaeus was quite happy to welcome Jesus to his home, just as you or I would likely be. This adds further support to the notion that Zacchaeus climbed the tree not simply because he was curious but because he felt drawn to Jesus, even if on a subconscious level. In response to Zacchaeus lifting himself above the crowd and toward God, Jesus reached out to Zacchaeus, thereby awakening the goodness that had lain dormant within him. Zacchaeus then stood firm in the face of the crowd’s grumbling about Jesus going to the home of a sinner, and he confirmed his desire to go in the way of Christ. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” This is a powerful story of conversion.

One final, important detail is given next, when Jesus says to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.” The phrasing is very universal in nature. Jesus is speaking not to Zacchaeus, but to all those present, and to us. Also, he is speaking not only about Zacchaeus but about his family, as well as the whole nation of Israel. Salvation is available to all who are descended from Abraham. Furthermore, Jesus is stating that salvation was given because Zacchaeus is a member of this nation and not because his faith has made him well. Salvation is a free gift from God. In the final sentence of the story, as Jesus is concluding his journey to Jerusalem, he declares the significance of his encounter with Zacchaeus, which is also the good news of his mission on earth: “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Now, of course, comes the question of how this gospel story is alive for me, and for you. An answer came to me quite unexpectedly during the past week, as I prayed with the passage and began to write down some thoughts. Early last week, I returned from a workshop hosted at a convent in Ohio. It was a wonderful event, the best part of which was the chance to meet other Anglican religious from across North America, including quite a few other novices. At one point during the week, we were offered a tour of the convent. The buildings are much newer than ours, and I found myself coveting the sisters’ clean, neat, well-functioning spaces. Their roof didn’t seem to have any leaks, like ours does, or hopefully now, did. So, I’ve found myself grumbling this week, despite Benedict’s admonishment against it, about all the flaws in our living spaces here. And, this grumbling spilled over to include all the flaws in my brothers. Living in community is indeed a challenge! I’m sure we all grumble from time to time about our various communities at work, home, and church. And there are no doubt plenty of flaws to be found, some of which, shockingly, might even be our own. And our own coworkers, family members, and fellow parishioners might be grumbling about us!

This grumbling became the background noise as I prayed with the story, and just in the past few days it dawned on me that I was in need of a tree to climb. I found a beautiful painting on Wikipedia, by Niels Larsen Stevns, of the scene described in the story. There is Zacchaeus, perched above the commotion on the ground, looking down at Jesus, whose hand is extended upwards toward Zacchaeus. Like me, I imagine Zacchaeus had his share of troubles and gripes, and he most definitely was the object of grumbling amongst his peers. Yet, I see a bubble of peacefulness surrounding him in the midst of chaos. This imperfect man followed an impulse to look toward God, to make himself available to God. God responded, and in turn Zacchaeus responded to God. And from this simple interaction came salvation for Zacchaeus.

Seeing myself in that painting, up in that tree, rising above and letting go of all the grumbling, within and around me, I asked myself, where in my life are those places, real or metaphorical, that will enable me to rise above, to disengage from, the everyday, ordinary troubles and challenges of community life and of the world, where I can make myself fully available to God and to let God know that I desire to live in God’s truth? Where are they for you? Perhaps you or I find it when we go into our room and pray. Or listen to that transforming piece of music. Or lend a hand to our neighbor. Or ponder a work of art. Or watch the sunset. Or go climb a tree. We all are Zacchaeus, whose name means “pure and righteous one.” God loves us. All that is required is that we incline our ear toward God.