Life Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Aidan William Owen - February 12, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
Life Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Aidan William Owen - February 12, 2019

Song of Songs, 8:5-7; 10-14
Romans 8:18-30
Luke 15:11-24 [25-32]

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

Who chose these lessons, these Bible passages?

Well, Br. Aidan, that's who.  And if you know him at all, you can hear him and his interests and his heart all over them.  From the Song of Songs through the Paul's Letter to the Romans to the ever evocative story of the Lost Son, we are hearing themes and memes and questions that Aidan and we have pondered and wrestled with for generations.  Of course, there are no doubt more private or interior reasons for their selection that only Br. Aidan knows.  And I'd venture to say that there are other reasons or motives that even he is as yet unaware of.  Scripture is like that: we think we know what we are getting into, and then find ourselves surprised, challenged, rebuked, transformed.  We think we know where we are going with some familiar psalm or biblical passage and discover, if we stick with it long enough, that it has another, often more profound and more relevant role to play in our journey.

And what's true of Sacred Scripture is true even more so of God:  we think we finally have a handle on the Holy One only to discover that, on the contrary, it's the Holy One who has the handle on us.  How frightening, disorienting and wonderful.

And then there's vocation...the way we live out that relationship in our lives.  Chosen, we think, for good reasons, solid, apt. And then we find out  that we may not have been in the driver's seat at all.  As Paul says to the Romans:

“..those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son... And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

That's you, Br. Aidan.  And that's us too, brothers and sisters. That's all of us here today.

The first reading today may be especially puzzling or surprising to many.  It is from the Song of Songs, a book traditionally ascribed to King Solomon.  What it is is a love song, a rather sensual and erotic love song, a dialog between the Lover and the Beloved.  But those who know something of monastic history know that this tender, racy, exquisitely lovely paean to human erotic attraction and sensual love also know that in the Medieval period, during the flowering of the monastic spirituality, it was next to  the Gospels, the most commented upon text from the Bible.  Not bad for a book of only 8 chapters!  And this is because the monastic tradition had not yet fallen into the unfortunate segregation between so-called different kinds of love—agape love, brotherly love, erotic love, contemplative love—that we find in 20th century writers.  Rather they knew that—to quote out of content—love is love.  And our love of God, our love of the True and the Beautiful, our love of the Just and Holy, follows a shape and a desire that is not foreign to the love between people, whether that of spouses or friends or scholars.  We learn about loving God by observing these loves in our world and even in ourselves. The monastics of old knew this.  And we constantly need to rediscover  it.

The Song of Songs tells us that:  “...love is as strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.  Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.”  I think it certain that the tradition saw in this love strong as death, this passion fierce as the grave the person of Jesus, whose victory over death is, first and last, a victory of love, a triumph of Life. If, as Paul says, the whole creation is groaning, it is groaning for a full participation in that victory, yearning as does Aidan,  as do we all, for fullness of Life.

In some sense, it was Br. Aidan who already wrote his own profession homily.  It is in his blog “Grounding in the Spirit” posted on January 6 and titled “planting tulips in a time of war.”  If you have not read it, I urge you to do so.  It is both a profound reflection on one man's vocation journey in dialog with a short story or dream narrative which is also his and an honest exploration of the dynamics of hope.

The title “planting tulips in a time of war” takes its weight from Br. Aidan's love of and concern for the future of the earth and the grounding and revolutionary act of planting tulips or other fall bulbs.  It is about the hope implicit in it, the outrageous character of committing small acts of beauty when the heart is breaking and the world around us and perhaps within us is falling apart.

Br. Aidan says:

“Part of the reality I live with is that...I still choose to stay.  My choice isn't painless. But it isn't difficult either. I don't chose to stay because I love monastic life, though I do love it. I don't choose to stay because I feel somehow God has ordained me for it. I don't believe in that kind of God. I choose to  stay because this is who I am. I am a monk. And not just any monk, but a monk here, in this place, on this land, in this moment of history. I stay because I cannot do otherwise.”

Could this be what St. Paul was getting at after all, with all his talk of predestination and justification and glorification?

Br. Aidan goes on:

“I stay in the monastery because it is who I am. But it is also who I choose to be. I choose to allow this land, this place, these people to claim me.” 

And:

“I also choose to stay, because not to choose is to die.”

This manifesto published a month ago rings clear today and it will echo every day in Aidan's life as it does in all lives.  I think of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great 12th century Cistercian founder, who asked himself daily:  Bernard, what are you doing in this monastery? And he asked not an opportunity for a quick exit when the going got rough, but as a reminder, the kind of reminder each of us needs, whether the subject be monastery or ministry, profession or relationship or life story. And as an opportunity to revisit, recalibrate and recommit.  It is true of all of us:  “Not to chose is to die.”

Yes, planting tulips is a very great act of resistance.  And it would be nice if, as part of the ceremony today, we gave you tulips.  But no, instead we are going to give you a Rule and a Cross.  A Rule to remind you and us that we are partners together in this enterprise that we call monastic life, Christian life, human life.  And a small wooden Cross, you one and only possession. But we we give you that cross with the reminder that we follow not the cross but the Crucified One. He is the One who will meet you when you are still far off and run and put his arms around you and kiss you. The One who will bring out the best robe and put it around your shoulders. The One who will put a ring on your finger and sandals on your feet and will kill the fatted calf and celebrate.  Because, finally, finally you have come home.

Br. Aidan, today we all celebrate: for you, for ourselves, and for the countless people, of many faiths and none,  who dare to risk and to hope and to trust...and to plant tulips.

Thanks be to God!

Life Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Josép Martinez-Cubero - November 20, 2018

Life Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Josép Martinez-Cubero - November 20, 2018
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Well, I admit that I’m feeling like a proud father today as we gather to celebrate this love story. The significance of being created in the Image of God is that we always remain capable of a relationship with God. This is a human potential that is never lost. We are made to meet God, and it is in this encounter that we become simultaneously fully human and fully divine.1

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.4

People 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.

CDL Life Professions - Nov 1, 2014

Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel, California
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
Sermon preached at the Life Profession of 
Br. Dennis Lee Gibbs, CDL, and Sr. Greta Ronningen, CDL
of the Community of Divine Love
Saturday, November 1, 2014

Revelation 7:9-17
I John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Br. Dennis Gibbs, Bp. Mary Glasspool of Los Angeles, Br. Robert Sevensky and Sr. Greta Ronningen.

I begin with a quote from Father Dan Ward, a Benedictine monk of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville:

Monastic life is not a static life of perfection... but a journey of coming to recognize human weaknesses and then depending upon God's mercy and help to grow into a tender, understanding and gentle person. Thus, monastic commitment is not a commitment to be instantly perfect, but a commitment to seek God and grow into perfection. This is why a monastic makes monastic profession rather than takes vows. Vows are a state of existence in which a person promises to live now: poverty, chastity, and obedience. If the person does not keep one of the vows, the person transgresses the vow and fails. But with monastic profession, a person promises to be on a constant journey of seeking God .... The journey is not complete on the day of profession, but on the day of death. A monastic fails in monastic life when the person stops seeking, when the person stops growing, when the person stops depending upon God for loving kindness and merciful forgiveness.  

I believe that we can all identify with this.  Though he is talking about monastics, what Fr. Ward says is equally applicable to all Christians, indeed to all human beings.  Life is, as we all know, a continuing journey, and the narrative is not complete until we die.  And it is true that for monastics the journey differs somewhat from that of other people, perhaps a bit more focused, perhaps a bit more dramatic.  But the goal or end or purpose is the same: to become, as Fr. Ward says, a tender, understanding and gentle person, able to recognize at once our own human weaknesses and our total dependence on God's mercy.  

The distinction that Fr. Ward makes—that between taking vows and making profession—may be a bit technical, but it is worth considering.  Vows are all or nothing, at least as commonly understood.  You either fulfill them or not, you either observe them or not.  But the monastic tradition speaks of making profession, of standing for something, of  committing oneself to a process, the end or outcome of which we cannot clearly see.  Perhaps that is why the Church now speaks more readily of a baptismal covenant rather than baptismal vows.  The word “covenant”—like the word “profession”—carries with it the expectation that we are bound together in and through relationships, relationships that will change us, transform us, and take us to places and into situations that we could not for the world have imagined.  

Today's reading from the First Letter of John for this glorious feast of All Saints reminds us of this deep truth.  First there is that primal relationship which expresses perhaps the deepest truth about any of us:  “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”  But then the author goes on to say: “Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”  Which is to say, our future is open, and by embracing this reality, we too are open to we know not what.  The future is all in God's hands, and so are we.  But the author also adds:  “What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”   All that we know is that we will be or become like God, and that is knowledge enough. 

So it is with you, Br. Dennis. And so it is with you, Sr. Greta.  The road you profess to follow today until the end of your lives is a road that will lead you to you know not where.  But what we do know and what you profess today is that you will become like God.  And as Christians we can say more: you will become like God as seen and met in Jesus Christ.  And if you abandon yourself to this quest, you will become like Jesus and like those whom Jesus describes in those new commandments that we call the Beatitudes.  You will be blessed, you will be happy, even as you become poor in spirit, meek, compassionate, hungry and thirsty for justice and righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, perhaps even persecuted or reviled for the sake of truth, for the sake of love.

As Christians we may also confidently say: you will fail, you will fall short.  You will find that your best efforts are not quite good enough. You will find that there is still something of the unredeemed in you, that your love can grow cold, you patience can wear thin, your vision can become clouded.  And you will be disappointed by your community and by your Church and by the society in which you live and labor.  And your recourse and your one refuge and hope will be the love and mercy of God and the holy gift we have from God to forgive ourselves and each other and to begin anew. Every day.  Always. 

So today you claim that incredible journey for yourselves.  But you claim it not only for yourselves. You also claim it for the Church and for the world.  

Some thirty plus years ago, the great scholar of religion Raimundo Panikkar who lived and taught in Southern California, wrote a book called Blessed Simplicity. The Monk as Universal Archetype. In it, he says:

“By monk, monachos, I understand that person who aspires to reach the ultimate goal in life with all of his being by renouncing all that is not necessary to it, i.e., by concentrating on this one single and unique goal.”

And that goal is to attain interior simplicity of heart and mind, not primarily by renunciation, though that is the tool, but by integration, but becoming single-minded, single-hearted, possessed of a unified and unifying vision which can see the presence and power of God, of ultimate reality, in all things. You are, both of you, possessed by that desire, else you would not be here today. And so it is for your own profoundly human and holy integration that you take this step, that your profess this covenant journey deeper and deeper into your life in Christ.

But you do it also for all of us here today...and in fact, for all the Church and for all humanity. For all people share, as it were, that same desire. We might say, as Panikkar does, that all people have within themselves an inner monk or nun, a deep-seated yearning for that blessed simplicity that brings you here today.  They share in that longing for ultimate integration and singleness of heart and mind and soul which is our birthright and God's promise to all God's children.  

In one sense, this is the archetype: a universally shared human desire and basic human structure. But in another sense, both of you are now archetypes, reminding each other and all of us of that inner God quest which, if we are honest, will not let us go, no matter how much we may sometimes wish it would.  In your monastic profession, undertaken for your own salvation, you become living reminders and tokens of the longing for God that burns in every human heart, a longing that will ultimately lead all to final integration.

Greta, Dennis...God has brought you to this day.  And God will not disappoint you in your hope, though he may well take you along some very interesting pathways and to some apparent dead ends.  But always remember: it is a journey, one which begins today and ends with death.  And it is a journey to be made together...with your nascent Community of Divine Love, with your parish and diocese, with your colleagues and clients at work, with strangers and even, perhaps especially, with enemies.  

In his Rule for monasteries, St. Benedict speaks of this journey.  And though he sometimes refers to it as a race, towards the very end of his Rule he speaks of it more communally.  He says, “Let us prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.” All together—that the key.  It is now less a race and more a pilgrimage.  And as we know from any real pilgrimage, the goal is not to get there first but to get there together.  “Let us prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.”   And so he will, he will. That's his promise. That's his desire. That's his hope...for you and me and all of us.  What a journey.

So sister, brother: let us begin.