Holy Cross Day - Sep 14, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve, OHC
Holy Cross Day – Sunday 14 September 2014

Isaiah 45:21-25 
Philippians 2:5-11 
John 12:31-36a

St Helena and the exaltation of the Holy Cross
detail from the icon cross in the monastery church

The Collect for this day, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, is, as we have already heard, particularly beautiful and evocative.  It is worth repeating:  “Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen” Every Collect contains the same basic structure: an address to God that includes an attribute or action of God, a request to be granted the grace and power to live lives that embrace and reflect God’s presence and action, and the Trinitarian conclusion which reminds us of the essential truth that the God to whom and in whose name we pray is one God in three Persons.  Collects are a concentrated declaration of the Christian life in the context of the day or season and so are a summons to celebrate and resolve.  For Holy Cross Day our celebration is to glory in the mystery of our redemption.  Our resolve is to renew our commitment to take up our cross and follow Christ. 

For some idea of what this means we look to the readings from Holy Scripture.  Each of the Scripture lessons for Holy Cross Day reflect a similar structure of celebration and resolve, pointing toward the mystery and wonder of Jesus’ death on the cross and our call to follow him.  In Isaiah, God’s righteousness ultimately triumphs over all evil and injustice, ushering in a universal acknowledgement of God’s glory.  In the light of this promise we recognize the sovereign nature of God. In the letter to the Philippians, Jesus is the ultimate model of self-giving love and humility and now risen and ascended is the one to whom all shall one day bend the knee.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of his cross as his glory, the act that conquers evil, atones for sin, trampling down death by death - and the event and sign that draws all the world to him.  But don’t we cover all of this on Good Friday?  Why another day, stuck in the middle of September, to recall Christ’s death on the cross?

A bit of background:  the official story of the origin of this feast is basically this:  in the fourth century, St. Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, who had legalized Christianity, led an expeditionary pilgrimage from Rome to Jerusalem.  While digging through a pile of debris in the area thought to be the original hill of Calvary, they found a cross, which they believed to be the true cross of Jesus.  On the site the first version of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built, later to be replaced by the building which now encases what are believed to be the actual places of both Jesus’ crucifixion and, at the other end of the church, his resurrection.  The dedication of the first building took place on September 14, 335 and became the date of Holy Cross Day at that time.

Beneath the official story lies a universal story that connects St. Helena, the Collect, and the Scripture lessons to us today.  St Helena, even if she was not aware of it at the time, was not principally interested in preserving history, although that is there.  She was seeking to encounter the sacred.  She was living out an impulse that lives in every human heart to some degree – placed there by God - to meet the divine through the physical world – whether in an object, a place, a building, or something that evokes and recalls an event in a beautiful and inviting way.  Because we are physical beings with senses of sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing, we employ all our senses in our search for God and worship of God.  The same desire that drew Helena across all those miles of travel has also inspired countless artists and architects to create icons, paintings, stained glass, statues, and buildings that seek to express the divine, to draw the human experience into contact with God.  To this day millions of Christians continue to visit holy sites, venerate relics, and use art that recalls these places and events in worship.  We are following in St Helena’s footsteps in a quest to find ways to have a point of contact with symbols that point beyond themselves.  

We glory in the mystery of our redemption best in space that enhances that intention.  In a culture which is more and more addicted to the quick, the disposable, and the shallow, sacred places like this chapel, places adorned with visual reminders of the presence of God, help us to get in touch with the transcendent and ultimate.  To be still and quiet, to listen and pray, to hear Scripture and sing – these are the acts that begin to define the Collect’s language of glorying in the mystery of our redemption.  
The art in this chapel is here for just that purpose.  All of the symbols mean something beyond themselves, point to a reality that invites our participation, our glorying in the mystery.  Icons, candles, stained glass, incense, water, an altar, bread and wine - are not decorations for worship that happens within me, they are all involved in the human response to God.  Worship is not the escape from the physical signs as if we need to enter some kind of non-material realm in order to engage God.  No, worship utilizes our senses to point our attention toward God among and within us.

On this day especially, we are drawn toward the crosses in this chapel.  The crucifix evokes the historical event of the execution of Jesus of Nazareth.  Nails, the crown of thorns, the very human flesh and bone – an artistic representation of a real man nailed to a real cross. The icon cross behind the altar, written by John Walsted in the early 1970s, is also a scene of Jesus on the cross, but inhabits a different time and space.  There is blood flowing from hands and feet, but no nails, no crown of thorns.  This Jesus is not so much fastened to the cross as suspended in front of it, echoing it – already risen and ascended.  He is very much alive, serene, gazing down on us with compassion. 

This style of icon cross is designed specifically to be hung behind an altar because of the obvious Eucharistic symbolism.  This is Christ present with us today in His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist.  And if you look closely at the scenes surrounding Christ, you will find, in the lower right, good old St Helena and the event of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  So the crosses become a kind of circle, each pointing to the other, each speaking of celebration and resolve rooted in history and living within us and among us now.  We need both crosses for the spiritual journey.  A faith grounded in revelation – in the life of Christ, in Scripture, in Creed and Council.  A faith enlivened and inspired by the glory of the mystery of Christ’s living presence among us.  We act out this journey as we move from the liturgy of the word to the liturgy of the Table – hearing the story of Christ and then encountering his living presence.

So as we have heard in prayers and scriptures and seen in the symbols of Christian art and worship, remembering and doing flow into one another.  It is in receiving Christ in history and in his Church that we are then fed and inspired to take up our cross and follow him.  Living out Christ’s life among and within us, in the shape of the cross, in the shape of continual humility and self-giving love turns us into living Collects and transforms us into signs of celebration and resolve. Amen.

Proper 17 A - Aug 31, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Proper 17 A – Sunday 31 August 2014

Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16: 21-28

"Get thee behind me, Satan"

In last week’s gospel, just a few verses before our passage of today, we heard of Peter’s confession. Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And for this he was blessed and commended by Jesus.

*****

In the gospel according to Matthew, the confession of Peter marks a transition in Jesus’ ministry. After the disciples have acknowledged him as the Messiah, Jesus spends more time teaching and preparing the disciples for his passion and his resurrection. 

From that time on, Jesus teaches the disciples what kind of Messiah he is to be. And until that is clearer to them, he doesn’t want the disciples to spread that title around for it is fraught with preconceptions that run against Jesus’ redemptive mission.

And understanding Jesus’ type of Messiah is a difficult transition for the apostles. That difficulty is amply demonstrated by Peter’s rebuke of Jesus for announcing his passion in today’s gospel passage.

You see, the Jewish people were waiting for a Messiah who would come in glory and redeem Israel from oppression. The Jewish people were under the rule of the Roman Empire and the collaborating civil and religious authorities. Oppression under a domination system was the Jews’ clear and present reality in the time of Jesus.

No wonder Peter is attached to the generally accepted view of a glorious redeemer as Messiah. Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus were to be increasingly revealed as an all-powerful vindicator who would put everything right for Israel very soon?

*****

Don’t we all, at times, wish for a God who would instantly fix all sufferings and injustices? Even Jesus might have found that a tempting alternative. Does he not say to Peter “You are a stumbling block to me.” Jesus seems to be tempted, if for a moment, by the allure of being a vindictive Messiah who puts all right by power.

But let’s remember that this is a temptation that Jesus had already rejected in his meeting with the devil after his baptism.

In Matthew, Chapter 4, we heard:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
   and serve only him.” ’

This was the last of three temptations in the desert and after this the devil left Jesus for a while. But in our gospel passage, Peter is again mirroring to Jesus the temptation of grabbing and using divine power to achieve human ends.

*****

From the time the disciples recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus will teach them to understand what God’s version of those titles is. The Messiah must suffer with humanity to the fullest before the glory of resurrection can happen. 
Even today, after his resurrection, the Messiah continues to suffer with humanity to the fullest, even now. There is no human pain or suffering that God does not understand or feel.

*****

And in calling the disciples, in calling us as disciples, Jesus calls us to not be afraid to take up our cross and follow him to his passion. This is a countercultural call today as much as it was in Jesus’ lifetime. We hear a harbinger of the apostle Paul’s call to not be conformed to this world that Shane preached about last week.

We are to be ready to deny ourselves on our path to following Jesus up to the point of being detached from what happens to our very life.

*****

Mind you, Jesus is not asking us to deliberately turn our lives into a misery. But he asks us to not hold back anything from our commitment to him as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

In a way, today’s teaching is a mirror image of the Shema prayer found in Deuteronomy (6:4-5) as applied to Jesus:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

*****

We are to hold nothing back from our love for God, not even our life. And in exchange for giving our life, Jesus promises that we will find our life. “Those who will lose their life for my sake will find it.” And while this may sound like a promise of eternal life beyond death, I also believe that it is a promise of fulfillment of life in the here and now. In giving ourselves totally to God, we are finding the fullness of whom we are meant to be.

*****

As an important aside on today’s gospel, I would like to come back to Peter’s predicament in this passage. Not long ago Jesus blessed him for his insight and named him a foundation of his church. And a few days later, the same Peter, for his traditional interpretation of who Jesus is, is called names and told to step behind Jesus.

Peter is not less in today’s gospel passage than he was in last week’s gospel passage. Peter is still a chosen servant-leader of the church. And yet, we are shown here that not even our most distinguished leaders are beyond needing to fine-tune their image of who God is.
We all need to listen to what God is saying about Godself in our lives. God can still surprise us. We need to question our long-held views of who God is. Are we instrumentalizing God in any way to achieve what our goals and hopes are? Are we willing to accept that God’s being may be different and larger than the picture we have put in God’s place?

Throughout the gospel, Peter is learning who God is, sometimes in embarrassing or painful ways. May we be willing to continue to learn who God is in any way God sees fit for us.

And may we be willing to hold nothing back to follow Jesus, no matter what detachment is required of us.

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.