AMDG - Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam - "to the greater glory of God"
I am a Franciscan, so I am always on the side of losers, i.e., the losing side. Therefore I will always be defended by God...and X
T
In response to:
"I was just passing by and heard an argument... who is losing so I can start kicking the other side?" X
Monday, October 06, 2008
Open Letter to X [10.6.08]
IOGD - In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus - "In all things may God be glorified"
I am preaching to the choir, but as Catholics we understand that any matter can be discussed and be discussed well--even baseball---if he has a Catholic mind, i.e. the mind of Christ [1 Cor. 2:16] or even common sense. Even, in the worst case scenario, as Chesterton says, "anything worth doing is worth doing badly." So X, not that you necessarily need my encouragement, TALK ABOUT BASEBALL--do it well or badly, I don't care; just don't be insecure over the topic.
So let us smoke, drink, and argue about baseball! We give evidence that we are Christian when we pray, do good works and discuss the Faith, we prove we are Catholic when articulate the Faith in a conversation about something as stupid and wonderful as baseball; of course, while smoking and drinking. As XX (at least) would agree, it is anti-clericalism in practice.
T
I am preaching to the choir, but as Catholics we understand that any matter can be discussed and be discussed well--even baseball---if he has a Catholic mind, i.e. the mind of Christ [1 Cor. 2:16] or even common sense. Even, in the worst case scenario, as Chesterton says, "anything worth doing is worth doing badly." So X, not that you necessarily need my encouragement, TALK ABOUT BASEBALL--do it well or badly, I don't care; just don't be insecure over the topic.
So let us smoke, drink, and argue about baseball! We give evidence that we are Christian when we pray, do good works and discuss the Faith, we prove we are Catholic when articulate the Faith in a conversation about something as stupid and wonderful as baseball; of course, while smoking and drinking. As XX (at least) would agree, it is anti-clericalism in practice.
T
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Open Letter to X [10.5.08]
IOGD - In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus - "In all things may God be glorified"
So, X, now you are the "wise fool". No? This is the kind of fool we must all be, the kind of fool that can remain a child of God in order to become a Saint. The other kind of "fool" says in his heart "there is no God" [Ps. 14:1]. He is a devil already.
It sounds like in your lesser years (according to your own stories), though you had the Faith and were "wise," you were essentially a fool, i.e., wise according to your own understanding. Yes? Many (too many) of us, even in Our Lord's name, have corrupted the truth of God's wisdom by acting like fools--using God's wisdom only to expose the blindness of others even without acknowledging our own, using it to overpower others as a projection of our own insecurity, and using it to inflict harm on others out of the pain from our own heart. How we crucify Christ over and over again...
But now you - we - can be wise according to God's wisdom which (we know) is foolishness to the world. Fools, like Francis, for Christ, right? Beware: as a follower of Francis, which is to be a follower of Christ, you will grow to love what you once hated, and will grow to hate what you once loved. This sounds like what you are experiencing. This is God's divine "trick" but it is no illusion. It is real. It is reality. For now we are seeing with God's eyes, we are working in the power of God through weakness, and we are being healed by His wounds so that we may give sight, strength, and healing to others.
You are very talented, X. I think you know that. God has given you much, and much is required from you. As you can't misuse God's gifts, like you (we both) did in the past, you cannot now keep them to yourself. You only have to be willing and accessible. God makes us able. In fact, this is how I define the itinerant life--accessibility. That's why we can't just stay in our own little worlds (cells) or "holy huddles" no matter how bad (we think) the world is. Even if we do not have a plan, we must be accessible--to God and to others.
It's like the end of the Divine Liturgy. "Ite, missa est," i.e., "Go. The mass is ended." It's as if Our Lord says, "GO! Prayer time is over. Communion is over. Class is dismissed. Now you must find Me in the world like you found Me here. If you will not find Me outside the church, the liturgy, I will withdraw My presence from you and your churches and liturgies in order to draw you out. For I feed you so that you may go and feed others, but (NO) you only keep it to yourself or give it to those who (like you) already possess it, while leaving others to starve. Don't you know that I have mercy on those who are poor, and those who have but do not give, their sins cry our for vengeance from heaven? So, GO!!! GO!!!!! or I will take the little you have and give to he who has more because he is willing to be nothing and give it all away."
It is sounds like are doing just this: you are simply going--going to wherever there is need. Regarding the coffeeshop / bookstore / chapel: If it is the will of God, you should do it. You are able, God has placed the desire in your heart, and there is a need for it. I only ask that you pray where God wants you to do it. Maybe you will move here, maybe I will move there, maybe we will both move elsewhere, or stay where we are. Like Francis prayed, "My God, my all."
Peace.
T
So, X, now you are the "wise fool". No? This is the kind of fool we must all be, the kind of fool that can remain a child of God in order to become a Saint. The other kind of "fool" says in his heart "there is no God" [Ps. 14:1]. He is a devil already.
It sounds like in your lesser years (according to your own stories), though you had the Faith and were "wise," you were essentially a fool, i.e., wise according to your own understanding. Yes? Many (too many) of us, even in Our Lord's name, have corrupted the truth of God's wisdom by acting like fools--using God's wisdom only to expose the blindness of others even without acknowledging our own, using it to overpower others as a projection of our own insecurity, and using it to inflict harm on others out of the pain from our own heart. How we crucify Christ over and over again...
But now you - we - can be wise according to God's wisdom which (we know) is foolishness to the world. Fools, like Francis, for Christ, right? Beware: as a follower of Francis, which is to be a follower of Christ, you will grow to love what you once hated, and will grow to hate what you once loved. This sounds like what you are experiencing. This is God's divine "trick" but it is no illusion. It is real. It is reality. For now we are seeing with God's eyes, we are working in the power of God through weakness, and we are being healed by His wounds so that we may give sight, strength, and healing to others.
You are very talented, X. I think you know that. God has given you much, and much is required from you. As you can't misuse God's gifts, like you (we both) did in the past, you cannot now keep them to yourself. You only have to be willing and accessible. God makes us able. In fact, this is how I define the itinerant life--accessibility. That's why we can't just stay in our own little worlds (cells) or "holy huddles" no matter how bad (we think) the world is. Even if we do not have a plan, we must be accessible--to God and to others.
It's like the end of the Divine Liturgy. "Ite, missa est," i.e., "Go. The mass is ended." It's as if Our Lord says, "GO! Prayer time is over. Communion is over. Class is dismissed. Now you must find Me in the world like you found Me here. If you will not find Me outside the church, the liturgy, I will withdraw My presence from you and your churches and liturgies in order to draw you out. For I feed you so that you may go and feed others, but (NO) you only keep it to yourself or give it to those who (like you) already possess it, while leaving others to starve. Don't you know that I have mercy on those who are poor, and those who have but do not give, their sins cry our for vengeance from heaven? So, GO!!! GO!!!!! or I will take the little you have and give to he who has more because he is willing to be nothing and give it all away."
It is sounds like are doing just this: you are simply going--going to wherever there is need. Regarding the coffeeshop / bookstore / chapel: If it is the will of God, you should do it. You are able, God has placed the desire in your heart, and there is a need for it. I only ask that you pray where God wants you to do it. Maybe you will move here, maybe I will move there, maybe we will both move elsewhere, or stay where we are. Like Francis prayed, "My God, my all."
Peace.
T
Friday, September 26, 2008
Open Letter to X [09.26.08]
IOGD - In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus - "In all things may God be glorified"
I guess if I am not going to “strike chords” on a guitar, I should do it with words. Yet "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees." Amos 7:14
Yes, step one is the vision (the "direction"). Once we "see" where we are going, now we discern how we are to act. So if you see what I see, then we need to combine our resources and efforts to see what we can DO.
My wife, Sunshine, said she has been experiencing a new conversion of sorts. I have recently⎯right before this season of intense difficulty⎯had reached a new best. These are hard times in many ways but there seems to be something on the horizon that we both sense. But who knows what it is and when it will truly make itself known. We are both very open of what it will require from us.
I sense it to be a greater visible manifestation of the vision we have tried (inconsistently) to implement over our 10 years together. Yet, I am not anxious. I have learned patience over my past (very long) 16 years of trying to "write down the vision". I hope it's time to DO more. Though I get to do a lot when I am on the road, I know am called to do much more than what I am doing.
It's funny I should be thinking of doing when I love very much the “seeing” and the writing down of what I “see”⎯the contemplative side of myself (I guess). I am asked so often by those who read or hear my vision, "So what to we DO?" I always think to myself, "What do we NOT do? Isn’t it all there?"
But I have learned that my many words and pages do make for a step-by-step plan. Of course, I cannot construct one for everyone, but I could always offer suggestions. I do know what I want to do, but I know I cannot do it alone and with only what I possess or can acquire myself. My whole life is proof of this. Yes, I can accomplish a lot but I never possess what I need to put it truly into action on the level it is meant to be. Therefore, the Lord of the harvest must send me laborers. I think the time has come. We will see.
Yet, with all that said, from the very beginning of this vision (and even before) I have known I am only a forerunner⎯a voice in the wilderness (desert). Like Moses, I do not think I will enter the promised land⎯I will not see the fulfillment of this vision I am writing down.
I am seeing the beginning of a rebuilding of the Church (what we used to call the “revival”) and I am seeing tiny glimpses of the potential for (what we called) the “renaissance” (the transformation of culture), but I most definitely do not think I will live to see (what we called) the “revolution” (the great harvest of souls). In fact, what I do see here and now is most likely the reflection from what I can see from afar. Yet, it matters not what I will live to see and do⎯it is all in the hands of Divine Providence, and it has little to do with me.
One day, St. Francis was sweeping the floor with a broom, and someone asked him, "Francis, what would you do if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow?" Francis replied, "I would keep sweeping." We just need to keep sweeping.
T
I guess if I am not going to “strike chords” on a guitar, I should do it with words. Yet "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees." Amos 7:14
Yes, step one is the vision (the "direction"). Once we "see" where we are going, now we discern how we are to act. So if you see what I see, then we need to combine our resources and efforts to see what we can DO.
My wife, Sunshine, said she has been experiencing a new conversion of sorts. I have recently⎯right before this season of intense difficulty⎯had reached a new best. These are hard times in many ways but there seems to be something on the horizon that we both sense. But who knows what it is and when it will truly make itself known. We are both very open of what it will require from us.
I sense it to be a greater visible manifestation of the vision we have tried (inconsistently) to implement over our 10 years together. Yet, I am not anxious. I have learned patience over my past (very long) 16 years of trying to "write down the vision". I hope it's time to DO more. Though I get to do a lot when I am on the road, I know am called to do much more than what I am doing.
It's funny I should be thinking of doing when I love very much the “seeing” and the writing down of what I “see”⎯the contemplative side of myself (I guess). I am asked so often by those who read or hear my vision, "So what to we DO?" I always think to myself, "What do we NOT do? Isn’t it all there?"
But I have learned that my many words and pages do make for a step-by-step plan. Of course, I cannot construct one for everyone, but I could always offer suggestions. I do know what I want to do, but I know I cannot do it alone and with only what I possess or can acquire myself. My whole life is proof of this. Yes, I can accomplish a lot but I never possess what I need to put it truly into action on the level it is meant to be. Therefore, the Lord of the harvest must send me laborers. I think the time has come. We will see.
Yet, with all that said, from the very beginning of this vision (and even before) I have known I am only a forerunner⎯a voice in the wilderness (desert). Like Moses, I do not think I will enter the promised land⎯I will not see the fulfillment of this vision I am writing down.
I am seeing the beginning of a rebuilding of the Church (what we used to call the “revival”) and I am seeing tiny glimpses of the potential for (what we called) the “renaissance” (the transformation of culture), but I most definitely do not think I will live to see (what we called) the “revolution” (the great harvest of souls). In fact, what I do see here and now is most likely the reflection from what I can see from afar. Yet, it matters not what I will live to see and do⎯it is all in the hands of Divine Providence, and it has little to do with me.
One day, St. Francis was sweeping the floor with a broom, and someone asked him, "Francis, what would you do if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow?" Francis replied, "I would keep sweeping." We just need to keep sweeping.
T
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Open Letter to X [09.25.08]
AJPM - Ad Jesu Per Mariam - "to Jesus through Mary"
Yes. It is very down-to-earth. It's humble in that it asks more questions than it provides answers; not that I appreciate that coming from just anybody, but from an Abbot, it demonstrates the disposition one should have even if he would possesses the truth.
I think we, as the Laity, must take some of the blame for the decrease in monastic life, consecrated religious life, and priestly vocations. Obviously, where celibacy is vowed, vocations are not perpetuated naturally but supernaturally. We must always keep in mind that the first monastery, convent, and seminary are the family and the home.
Do we, as laity, live in such a way that properly prepares the future monastics, religious, and priests of the Church? That is not to say there is only one way to do so. There are many good ways as there are many good models of the family. Yet, there are as many or more ways to form them badly as there are ways to form them well. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. [1 Corinthians 10:12]
For it is to the measure that we have forsaken all things for Christ that Our Lord in return takes care of us. Not that we have everything we want but that we have everything we need (when we need it); obviously this is not only in regards to material things. Now, it often seems that those who are most taken care of in this world are the ones who have forsaken Christ for all other things. Yes, they are "taken care of", but it is they who take care of themselves⎯not Christ. And though they have they want for the here-and-now on earth, they do not have what they need for eternity in heaven.
It is also the case that those who are least taken care of in this world are they who simply have no choice⎯the poor and the poorest of the poor (materially and spiritually). This is the Christ, after we have forsaken all other things, we can serve. There are many "Christs" in the world (not just the poor), and there are many ways to serve Him. Regardless of which “Christ” we serve, if we are not serving Him, then we are most likely serving ourselves. This will not produce good vocations of any kind. We have been reading this from St. Augustine's sermon On Pastors in the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office) [complete four-volume set] regarding bad shepherds (bishops) who forsake the sheep only to serve themselves.
As lay monastics, like consecrated and cloistered religious, we should have what we need to fulfill our calling and apostolate though not necessarily what we want for ourselves. We ask neither for poverty nor riches [Prov. 30:5-9] but only that which will enable us to fulfill the will of God. We should be (in the proper sense of the term) "self-sufficient" but never self-serving. The common problem (at least in the First World) is that we have confused the two and even blurred selfishness and service. For even when we do give, there is usually a selfish motive, and we often only want to give when there is something to gain for ourselves. This makes for bad monastics, bad priests, bad Christians and simply bad people. This is why the world is so violent. This is why the Church is so divided.
We should lament not so much that there is a shortage of consecrated religious and priests as much as we should the shortage of good ones. For the work of God does not require many but only a few good "chosen" ones, i.e., those who have been properly formed and they who will say "yes" to the call. Likewise, we should lament, most of all, over the lack of good laity⎯those who initially were responsible for the formation of all of these bad religious and priests. If we think it is exclusively or primarily the clergy and consecrated religious who are responsible for the bad and the good within the Church, we are sadly deceived and we have fallen into the sin that won’t go away⎯clericalism.
In a certain sense, clericalism is blasphemy. For if Our Lord called everyone to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and we say it is only possible for a spiritual elite, we have called God a liar, and we have rejected His call. ALL are called to holiness, and as (I quote often) St. John Chrysostom says, "ALL are called to live the life of monks." As it is with the clergy and consecrated religious, so it is with the laity⎯monastic or not⎯it only takes a few good ones (a few "fools").
As it is often said, "It begins at home." Yes, but it does not end there. The Church is missionary, and therefore all Christians are called to be apostles and to evangelize. For they bear the responsibilities given to them through Baptism⎯an actual and active participation in the prophetical, priestly and kingly office of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we are called to the desert or hermitage (Poustinia)⎯at least spiritually⎯as Our Lord was lead by the Spirit at the end of hidden life as a carpenter and the beginning of His public ministry. [Luke 4:1-2]
We are called from our self-made, self-serving "kingdoms" at home, within cliques of friends, or even in ideological or liturgical factions within the Church. [1 Corinthians 10:10-13; Jeremiah 7:1-34; 1 Corinthians 11:18-30] Yet, we are told, "everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life." [Matthew 19:29]
Did not Our Lord say that unless we hate our father, mother, wife, children, sister, and brother we cannot be His disciple? [Luke 14:25-26] Did not Our Lord⎯Who brought not peace, but a sword⎯say that our enemies will be within our own household? [Matthew 10:35-36] Our Lord also told us, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house." [Mark 6:4] These are not so much statements of fact as they are a warning and an exhortation not to seek honor in anyone but God alone. Yet, once we have chosen Christ over everyone and everything else, or better said that we have responded to Our Lord choosing of us, we will be hated by those who have chosen otherwise. [John 15:16-19]
Our true home is in heaven, which subsists in the Church on earth, and our truly family and friends are found in the communion of Saints who are in union with God. We enter this communion through Baptism and we maintain and grow in deep communion through the other Sacraments and sources of life within the Church. This will, at times, place us at odds with our natural family, our friends, colleagues, and (sometimes) even with our brothers and sisters within the Church. Of course, the Devil is always willing and able to validate a false spirituality, messiah complex and martyrdom through (perceived or real) "persecution" or a false love or unity through compromise. So, we must be careful of false prophets and angels of light. [2 Corinthians 11:13-14]
Yet, if we remain in communion with the Church⎯Her Faith, Liturgy, Sacraments, and Bishops (even Her "bad ones")⎯we can be confident we are in union with Christ. "'For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church." [Ephesians 5:31-32] "Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate." [Matthew 19:6] We will most definitely be tested and tempted to unknowingly (or even knowingly) excommunicate ourselves from the communion of God and the Saints, preferring to make ourselves at home elsewhere, where we can "have our cake and eat it too,"⎯to have Christ without the Cross or the Church, or for some, to have the Church without the Cross.
This is all a foreshadowing of the separation of the sheep and the goats [Matthew 25:31-46] and Divine Providence pushing us out our false comforts and securities into the desert or wilderness of spiritual warfare to do battle with ourselves for the sake of our purification and preparation for God’s promises and works of ministry. I am convinced this is at the underlying mystery of the so-called crisis of the "post-Conciliar" era of the Church. The desert experience is to strip us of all our selfishness and self-centeredness and our attachments to our "home", i.e., the world we build around ourselves with those who help us build it, live in it, and sustain it.
For example, many Catholics (clergy, religious, and laity) have made a golden calf out of marriage and the family as much as others have forsaken it to serve other gods. Both are corruptions of Holy Matrimony through conforming the Sacrament in their own image and likeness, and both are causes of great scandal and offense to God. Many Catholics are using the Sacrament and the "sanctity" of Holy Matrimony (objectively speaking) as a mask to justify self-centered self-serving living under the pretense of "pietism", "wholesomeness", "providing for my family", or all other tired sophistries. Instead of measuring ourselves to the Holy Family, we pat ourselves on the back for not being as sinful as those who do not know what they do. [Luke 23:34] All of this can be said regarding the "diabolical disorientation" over the liturgy.
THIS is our captivity, our slavery and exile⎯our "Babylon". This is our own tower of “Babel”. It is not the world built by the enemies of the Church, but the world WE (the People of God) create for ourselves. We must understand that WE are our own worst enemies⎯not the world and not even the Devil⎯and this is what the desert teaches us. Yet, we must not see the desert only as an act of God's justice, but an act of His divine mercy. God does not lead us into the desert to punish us and to leave us there, but to free us so that we can enter the Promised Land.
Yet we must pass through the desert (the "dark night" of the soul) get to there. It is easy to complain to God for keeping us in the desert, it is tempting to go back from where we came, and it is even more common to make ourselves "home" (even) in the desert⎯proving ourselves to be set in our sinful ways, blind to our own hypocrisies, and determined to serve ourselves and validate our own sinfulness. O, how we need the mercy of God! O, how we need the desert! O, how need the grace to get out of the desert so we may possess the promises of God! How?
It is to the measure that we have detached ourselves from making ourselves at home in this world (and the world we create for ourselves) that we can be confident we will make ourselves (and others) holy for heaven. Yes, we do not want to be so heavenly minded we are of no earthly good. Yet, if we are truly heavenly minded, we will never be of no earthly good. For it is in the proper measure (and manner) that we value eternal things that we can rightly value, care for, utilize, and enjoy the things of this world⎯all of which help us make the transition to heaven that less awkward. 1
This is, in a nutshell, what the Second Vatican Council was calling us to recognize⎯that there must be a holy revolution within man’s heart before there can be a holy revolution in the world. This will only come about one way⎯the Cross (the desert, the wilderness, the Poustinia, the "dark night"). And yes, it begins at home [1 Peter 4:17]. In fact, we must reform our hearts and our lives before we can reform the family (the domestic church and social cell), the liturgy, and so on. But it does not end there (the home, the liturgy, or the Church). We must rebuild the Church not simply for the betterment and enjoyment of the ourselves, but so we may be equipped and empowered for a new evangelization⎯the spreading of the culture of life and the building of the civilization (new order) of God’s love and Christ’s kingship, where the supreme law is the salvation of souls and the greatest good is the glory of God!
T
--- Footnotes
1 "‘Son,’ he said, ‘ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless he brought no message back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective.
Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.
Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Yes. It is very down-to-earth. It's humble in that it asks more questions than it provides answers; not that I appreciate that coming from just anybody, but from an Abbot, it demonstrates the disposition one should have even if he would possesses the truth.
I think we, as the Laity, must take some of the blame for the decrease in monastic life, consecrated religious life, and priestly vocations. Obviously, where celibacy is vowed, vocations are not perpetuated naturally but supernaturally. We must always keep in mind that the first monastery, convent, and seminary are the family and the home.
Do we, as laity, live in such a way that properly prepares the future monastics, religious, and priests of the Church? That is not to say there is only one way to do so. There are many good ways as there are many good models of the family. Yet, there are as many or more ways to form them badly as there are ways to form them well. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. [1 Corinthians 10:12]
For it is to the measure that we have forsaken all things for Christ that Our Lord in return takes care of us. Not that we have everything we want but that we have everything we need (when we need it); obviously this is not only in regards to material things. Now, it often seems that those who are most taken care of in this world are the ones who have forsaken Christ for all other things. Yes, they are "taken care of", but it is they who take care of themselves⎯not Christ. And though they have they want for the here-and-now on earth, they do not have what they need for eternity in heaven.
It is also the case that those who are least taken care of in this world are they who simply have no choice⎯the poor and the poorest of the poor (materially and spiritually). This is the Christ, after we have forsaken all other things, we can serve. There are many "Christs" in the world (not just the poor), and there are many ways to serve Him. Regardless of which “Christ” we serve, if we are not serving Him, then we are most likely serving ourselves. This will not produce good vocations of any kind. We have been reading this from St. Augustine's sermon On Pastors in the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office) [complete four-volume set] regarding bad shepherds (bishops) who forsake the sheep only to serve themselves.
As lay monastics, like consecrated and cloistered religious, we should have what we need to fulfill our calling and apostolate though not necessarily what we want for ourselves. We ask neither for poverty nor riches [Prov. 30:5-9] but only that which will enable us to fulfill the will of God. We should be (in the proper sense of the term) "self-sufficient" but never self-serving. The common problem (at least in the First World) is that we have confused the two and even blurred selfishness and service. For even when we do give, there is usually a selfish motive, and we often only want to give when there is something to gain for ourselves. This makes for bad monastics, bad priests, bad Christians and simply bad people. This is why the world is so violent. This is why the Church is so divided.
We should lament not so much that there is a shortage of consecrated religious and priests as much as we should the shortage of good ones. For the work of God does not require many but only a few good "chosen" ones, i.e., those who have been properly formed and they who will say "yes" to the call. Likewise, we should lament, most of all, over the lack of good laity⎯those who initially were responsible for the formation of all of these bad religious and priests. If we think it is exclusively or primarily the clergy and consecrated religious who are responsible for the bad and the good within the Church, we are sadly deceived and we have fallen into the sin that won’t go away⎯clericalism.
In a certain sense, clericalism is blasphemy. For if Our Lord called everyone to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and we say it is only possible for a spiritual elite, we have called God a liar, and we have rejected His call. ALL are called to holiness, and as (I quote often) St. John Chrysostom says, "ALL are called to live the life of monks." As it is with the clergy and consecrated religious, so it is with the laity⎯monastic or not⎯it only takes a few good ones (a few "fools").
As it is often said, "It begins at home." Yes, but it does not end there. The Church is missionary, and therefore all Christians are called to be apostles and to evangelize. For they bear the responsibilities given to them through Baptism⎯an actual and active participation in the prophetical, priestly and kingly office of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we are called to the desert or hermitage (Poustinia)⎯at least spiritually⎯as Our Lord was lead by the Spirit at the end of hidden life as a carpenter and the beginning of His public ministry. [Luke 4:1-2]
We are called from our self-made, self-serving "kingdoms" at home, within cliques of friends, or even in ideological or liturgical factions within the Church. [1 Corinthians 10:10-13; Jeremiah 7:1-34; 1 Corinthians 11:18-30] Yet, we are told, "everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life." [Matthew 19:29]
Did not Our Lord say that unless we hate our father, mother, wife, children, sister, and brother we cannot be His disciple? [Luke 14:25-26] Did not Our Lord⎯Who brought not peace, but a sword⎯say that our enemies will be within our own household? [Matthew 10:35-36] Our Lord also told us, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house." [Mark 6:4] These are not so much statements of fact as they are a warning and an exhortation not to seek honor in anyone but God alone. Yet, once we have chosen Christ over everyone and everything else, or better said that we have responded to Our Lord choosing of us, we will be hated by those who have chosen otherwise. [John 15:16-19]
Our true home is in heaven, which subsists in the Church on earth, and our truly family and friends are found in the communion of Saints who are in union with God. We enter this communion through Baptism and we maintain and grow in deep communion through the other Sacraments and sources of life within the Church. This will, at times, place us at odds with our natural family, our friends, colleagues, and (sometimes) even with our brothers and sisters within the Church. Of course, the Devil is always willing and able to validate a false spirituality, messiah complex and martyrdom through (perceived or real) "persecution" or a false love or unity through compromise. So, we must be careful of false prophets and angels of light. [2 Corinthians 11:13-14]
Yet, if we remain in communion with the Church⎯Her Faith, Liturgy, Sacraments, and Bishops (even Her "bad ones")⎯we can be confident we are in union with Christ. "'For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church." [Ephesians 5:31-32] "Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate." [Matthew 19:6] We will most definitely be tested and tempted to unknowingly (or even knowingly) excommunicate ourselves from the communion of God and the Saints, preferring to make ourselves at home elsewhere, where we can "have our cake and eat it too,"⎯to have Christ without the Cross or the Church, or for some, to have the Church without the Cross.
This is all a foreshadowing of the separation of the sheep and the goats [Matthew 25:31-46] and Divine Providence pushing us out our false comforts and securities into the desert or wilderness of spiritual warfare to do battle with ourselves for the sake of our purification and preparation for God’s promises and works of ministry. I am convinced this is at the underlying mystery of the so-called crisis of the "post-Conciliar" era of the Church. The desert experience is to strip us of all our selfishness and self-centeredness and our attachments to our "home", i.e., the world we build around ourselves with those who help us build it, live in it, and sustain it.
For example, many Catholics (clergy, religious, and laity) have made a golden calf out of marriage and the family as much as others have forsaken it to serve other gods. Both are corruptions of Holy Matrimony through conforming the Sacrament in their own image and likeness, and both are causes of great scandal and offense to God. Many Catholics are using the Sacrament and the "sanctity" of Holy Matrimony (objectively speaking) as a mask to justify self-centered self-serving living under the pretense of "pietism", "wholesomeness", "providing for my family", or all other tired sophistries. Instead of measuring ourselves to the Holy Family, we pat ourselves on the back for not being as sinful as those who do not know what they do. [Luke 23:34] All of this can be said regarding the "diabolical disorientation" over the liturgy.
THIS is our captivity, our slavery and exile⎯our "Babylon". This is our own tower of “Babel”. It is not the world built by the enemies of the Church, but the world WE (the People of God) create for ourselves. We must understand that WE are our own worst enemies⎯not the world and not even the Devil⎯and this is what the desert teaches us. Yet, we must not see the desert only as an act of God's justice, but an act of His divine mercy. God does not lead us into the desert to punish us and to leave us there, but to free us so that we can enter the Promised Land.
Yet we must pass through the desert (the "dark night" of the soul) get to there. It is easy to complain to God for keeping us in the desert, it is tempting to go back from where we came, and it is even more common to make ourselves "home" (even) in the desert⎯proving ourselves to be set in our sinful ways, blind to our own hypocrisies, and determined to serve ourselves and validate our own sinfulness. O, how we need the mercy of God! O, how we need the desert! O, how need the grace to get out of the desert so we may possess the promises of God! How?
It is to the measure that we have detached ourselves from making ourselves at home in this world (and the world we create for ourselves) that we can be confident we will make ourselves (and others) holy for heaven. Yes, we do not want to be so heavenly minded we are of no earthly good. Yet, if we are truly heavenly minded, we will never be of no earthly good. For it is in the proper measure (and manner) that we value eternal things that we can rightly value, care for, utilize, and enjoy the things of this world⎯all of which help us make the transition to heaven that less awkward. 1
This is, in a nutshell, what the Second Vatican Council was calling us to recognize⎯that there must be a holy revolution within man’s heart before there can be a holy revolution in the world. This will only come about one way⎯the Cross (the desert, the wilderness, the Poustinia, the "dark night"). And yes, it begins at home [1 Peter 4:17]. In fact, we must reform our hearts and our lives before we can reform the family (the domestic church and social cell), the liturgy, and so on. But it does not end there (the home, the liturgy, or the Church). We must rebuild the Church not simply for the betterment and enjoyment of the ourselves, but so we may be equipped and empowered for a new evangelization⎯the spreading of the culture of life and the building of the civilization (new order) of God’s love and Christ’s kingship, where the supreme law is the salvation of souls and the greatest good is the glory of God!
T
--- Footnotes
1 "‘Son,’ he said, ‘ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless he brought no message back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective.
Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.
Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Open Letter to XX [09.25.08]
IOGD - In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus - "In all things may God be glorified"
That's good. You have high hopes. I have high hopes. If we fall, we fall together. Don't pack a parachute. "Take nothing on your journey.." (right?) We are either fools for Christ or wise according to our own understanding. It's that simple. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." [1 Cor.3:19]
And it's all or nothing. (right?) "My God, my ALL." [St. Francis of Assisi] "God ALONE." [St. Louis de Montfort] Is this not the call of monks / monastics? God alone, alone with God, and everything and everyone else lived and loved through God alone?
As St. Therese "the Little Flower" says, "You can't be half a Saint." So we can't be half a "fool" for Christ. That is to be an idiot. We can't--well I guess we can, but shouldn't--be half a monastic either. It's an all-consuming fire like the love of God that burns away everything that is not of Him, leaving us--not scarred, wounded and empty--but perfected, healed and holy (whole).
"Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, neither of the princes of this world that come to nought; But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him. But to us God hath revealed them, by this Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." [First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 6-10]
T
That's good. You have high hopes. I have high hopes. If we fall, we fall together. Don't pack a parachute. "Take nothing on your journey.." (right?) We are either fools for Christ or wise according to our own understanding. It's that simple. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." [1 Cor.3:19]
And it's all or nothing. (right?) "My God, my ALL." [St. Francis of Assisi] "God ALONE." [St. Louis de Montfort] Is this not the call of monks / monastics? God alone, alone with God, and everything and everyone else lived and loved through God alone?
As St. Therese "the Little Flower" says, "You can't be half a Saint." So we can't be half a "fool" for Christ. That is to be an idiot. We can't--well I guess we can, but shouldn't--be half a monastic either. It's an all-consuming fire like the love of God that burns away everything that is not of Him, leaving us--not scarred, wounded and empty--but perfected, healed and holy (whole).
"Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, neither of the princes of this world that come to nought; But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him. But to us God hath revealed them, by this Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." [First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 6-10]
T
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
"What’s Wrong With the World?" "I am."
AJPM - Ad Jesu Per Mariam - "to Jesus through Mary"
* In response to a comment posted on the TRANSITUS Facebook group wall:
About 100 years ago, a British paper invited many writers to answer the same question, "What’s Wrong With the World?" They extended the invitation to G. K. Chesterton who wrote back, "Dear Sirs; I am. Sincerely, G.K. Chesterton." I echo the same answer given by the Apostle of Common Sense, as should we all.
Yes, the world is on the brink of destruction due to its many horrific sins committed in broad daylight without shame for the whole world to see. Yet before all else, we should accuse first ourselves for even the slightest secret sins we commit in the dark corners of our heart⎯sins we may not even see or choose to overlook, but ones surely known by God. For it is only then that we can rightfully and effectively pray for others if it is truly love that motivates us and if it is truly the salvation of souls that we want.
When we do pray, we must remember that we are praying for God's mercy upon sinners, not judgment. Yes, Divine correction is justified and possibly needed in this world, but we must first plead for God's mercy and grace like the Patriarchs, Prophets, Saints and Our Lord himself did in such circumstances. If, from the cross, Our Lord prayed for those who crucified Him, "Father forgive them, for they know now what they do," who are we to pray otherwise, even on behalf of Our Lord and His Mystical Body - the Church.
Yes, there is more suffering ahead for us all. So let us accept our suffering and offer it in union with Our Lord's Sacrifice of Redemption and⎯as "co-redeemers"⎯make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ so that He may more easily and effectively incorporate us into His plan of Redemption, and thus reconcile all things to Himself. Let us share in the sufferings of others, and even more, offer our own suffering to God on their behalf.
Let us make of ourselves living sacrifices and martyrs of spirit (and maybe even, if given the chance, of blood)⎯through Acts of Oblation to Divine Merciful Love in reparation for the many sins that wound Our Lord's Sacred and Merciful Heart and Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart⎯for our own salvation and the salvation of others.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, St. Cyprian, and Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, pray for us!
T
* In response to a comment posted on the TRANSITUS Facebook group wall:
About 100 years ago, a British paper invited many writers to answer the same question, "What’s Wrong With the World?" They extended the invitation to G. K. Chesterton who wrote back, "Dear Sirs; I am. Sincerely, G.K. Chesterton." I echo the same answer given by the Apostle of Common Sense, as should we all.
Yes, the world is on the brink of destruction due to its many horrific sins committed in broad daylight without shame for the whole world to see. Yet before all else, we should accuse first ourselves for even the slightest secret sins we commit in the dark corners of our heart⎯sins we may not even see or choose to overlook, but ones surely known by God. For it is only then that we can rightfully and effectively pray for others if it is truly love that motivates us and if it is truly the salvation of souls that we want.
When we do pray, we must remember that we are praying for God's mercy upon sinners, not judgment. Yes, Divine correction is justified and possibly needed in this world, but we must first plead for God's mercy and grace like the Patriarchs, Prophets, Saints and Our Lord himself did in such circumstances. If, from the cross, Our Lord prayed for those who crucified Him, "Father forgive them, for they know now what they do," who are we to pray otherwise, even on behalf of Our Lord and His Mystical Body - the Church.
Yes, there is more suffering ahead for us all. So let us accept our suffering and offer it in union with Our Lord's Sacrifice of Redemption and⎯as "co-redeemers"⎯make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ so that He may more easily and effectively incorporate us into His plan of Redemption, and thus reconcile all things to Himself. Let us share in the sufferings of others, and even more, offer our own suffering to God on their behalf.
Let us make of ourselves living sacrifices and martyrs of spirit (and maybe even, if given the chance, of blood)⎯through Acts of Oblation to Divine Merciful Love in reparation for the many sins that wound Our Lord's Sacred and Merciful Heart and Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart⎯for our own salvation and the salvation of others.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, St. Cyprian, and Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, pray for us!
T
Sunday, September 07, 2008
NEWS & SUPPORT LETTER 09.03.08
AJPM - Ad Jesu Per Mariam - "to Jesus through Mary"
"God give you peace"
I worked with my own hands and I am still determined to work; and with all my heart I want all the other friars to be busy with some kind of work that can be carried on without scandal. Those who do not know how to work should learn, not because they want to get something for their efforts, but to give good example and to avoid idleness. When we receive no recompense for our work, we can turn to God's table and beg alms from door to door. God revealed a form of greeting to me, telling me that we should say, "God give you peace." – Testament of St. Francis of Assisi
Dear Family, Friends, & Fellow MonkRockers,
God give you peace. Thank you for your business and for supporting our humble apostolate. Please keep us in your prayers and consider being more than a customer, but a regular benefactor and co-worker. It is more humiliating to ask for help than it is annoying to be asked, but I thank you for your grace in advance.
It is to the Blessed Trinity and the Saints that we ultimately look for help but we know how Our Lord seeks to incorporate us all into His work of redemption. From the countless e-mails and words of encouragement on the road and at home in praise of God working through our apostolate, and even those who simply purchase our products, it is possible that many of you assume we are self-sufficient. Therefore, it would be foolish not to approach “God’s table” and petition you, our very supporters, in times of need.
As the apostolate matures and takes a more visible form––for example, when the lay monastic association is officially established, when more conventional systems are utilized (like fundraising, PR, and advertising), when our literature is published and distributed with more widespread circulation (as I currently have publishing offers), or if in the future there is a store, café, or retreat center, etc.––we are confident that God will more easily provide for this work and ourselves, not only through sales, but through stipends, endowments, monthly dues, and regular donations.
In fact, it has only been by God's grace of provision that we have been able to make it these six years of devoting ourselves to this work, and most especially this past year of our family of five living (almost) exclusively from MONKROCK sales (with a little government assistance and help from family and friends). I can only assume that Our Lord has required us to solicit help from others as a testimony of our trust in Him and His desire for this apostolate to be funded and staffed with people other than just ourselves.
So, if you are able to contribute, the apostolate is in need of assistance. You can mail a check, made payable to MONKROCK and sent to the address at the end of this letter, or there is a donation page at MONKROCK.COM. There is a link on the home page, and it is in the drop down menu under “MONKROCK” in the top (and left) navigation⎯called “Donations”. You can simply type in the amount of your choice. At this time, $100-$500 donations (or even more) will be most helpful to us but we are grateful for any gift amount. You may give a one-time donation or schedule a recurring offering.
The primary need is to pay for inventory already purchased, new inventory, costs for upcoming events, vehicle maintenance, a new web site [due to outdated software], and other invoices. Also, with the necessary increase in time spent studying and writing, of time spent overseeing TRANSITUS and assisting its members, and the anticipation of traveling more for speaking and other apostolic work, the more easily the business side can function, the greater our works of mercy can flourish without being over-burdened with unnecessary details and stresses; yet all crosses are accepted with abandonment to Divine Providence. In the future your gifts will be tax-deductible, once TRANSITUS receives its non-profit status. If you have any questions or if there other ways you would like to contribute to this apostolate, please let us know.
"The Holy Scriptures do not know any distinctions.
They enjoin that all lead the life of monks." – St. John Chrysostom
MONKROCK and TRANSITUS, as well as my own writing and speaking, together serve the common end of helping ordinary Christians live the extraordinary "life of monks." Even with the little we have, we serve over 100,000 souls each year just at our on-the-road events, and countless more online. This work requires the devotion of all our attention, while keeping up with family responsibilities, as this is a more-than-full-time job––but truly a labor of love.
So far this year [January–August 2008], we have traveled 10,350 miles, and we have distributed approximately $25,000 worth of books [theologically orthodox, culturally relevant, and faithful to the Church’s Teachings, i.e., Tradition] as well as sacred music CDs and videos, about $10,000 worth of sacramentals ("catholica") [crucifixes, rosaries, medals, scapulars, chapel veils, etc.], and also sizeable quantities of Catholic apparel and our own more-than-fair-trade coffee––items they most likely would not have found otherwise––for there is not another apostolate that really does what we do.
More importantly, we have been able to share the good news of Christ and His Church with everyone we meet while connecting with the new ever-growing number of those interested in the Catholic Faith and lay monasticism, many with whom we have stayed in regular contact and even have become close friends. A highlight for me this year was the opportunity to daily teach upon and lead in the praying of the Rosary at a week-long festival attended primarily by non-Catholics. The more-than-positive response is a testament to both parties and to the moving of the Holy Spirit Who is working in the lives of those with open minds and pure hearts, who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, and who frequently return to their knees.
There are priests and religious of fraternities and orders from all over the country (and some beyond the border) who have blessed our work, have assured us of their prayers (even offered at the Eucharistic Altar), and have committed their ongoing service to those we know and serve. Among them are members of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, the Daughters of St. Paul, S.O.L.T., the National Shrine of the Infant of Prague, the Archdiocese of St. Louis, as well as other like-minded lay apostolates.
We have an ever-growing list of inquirers interested in becoming "oblates" (members) of our lay monastic association TRANSITUS. The process of initiation will officially begin this October 3rd (the liturgical feast of the Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi) with the first edition of the Rule and official application for admission. Oblates will make their profession the following October 3rd in 2009, the year of the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan Order. You can find more information and resources at TheLastMartyrdom.com [though still a work-in-progress].
Rome & the "Rome of the West"
It is truly exciting to see the great things that God is doing in His Church, as there is truly a "reform of the reform" in our midst, or in the words of Our Lord to St. Francis, "a rebuilding of the Church." This is the greater work of God to which our apostolate contributes, promotes, and serves. There is a lot to be thankful for to God due to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI––not only for Catholics, but for all Christians and people of good will. So long as we are in or cling to the barque of St. Peter, even amidst the storms of this world and a few enemies enemies in the boat with us, we are safe and secure.
Here in St. Louis, we are sad to see our priest and rector of St. Francis de Sales Oratory, Fr. Lenhardt, be transferred to the Institute of Christ the King’s seminary in Italy, as well as to see as our beloved Archbishop Burke leave for his appointment to Rome. Yet, we are happy for Father’s new role as spiritual director of the seminarians and Sisters, and his Grace as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. We look forward to seeing Archbishop Burke’s influence in the Universal Church as we have experienced it here in the "Rome of the West".
We prayerfully await our new bishop and welcome what Divine Providence has in store for us. As our late great Pope John Paul II told us [as is the motto of Archbishop Burke], "Be not afraid!" With the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, we can invoke a new Pentecost and inspire a new evangelization that will overcome the culture of atheism, selfishness, and death with the culture of faith, solidarity, and life.
The Universal Call to Holiness
& The "School of Perfection"
All Christians, as the Gospel teaches us, are called to holiness, i.e., “to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” [Mt. 5:48] and all share in the mission and ministry of the Church for the building up of the Body of Christ and the salvation of souls. The Laity have the unique vocation and apostolate to infuse the spirit of Christ into the world through their ordinary duties of life and activities in the world by living them according to God's Will among men. As was stated in the Epistle of Methetes to Diognetus [200 AD], “What the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world.”
However, our acts of charity are only as meritorious and effective as they are rooted in the Truth and Love of God which are acquired most easily in and through the Liturgical and Sacramental life of the Church, which is the source, center, and summit of the Christian life and the pillars of the TRANSITUS “school of perfection”. When we allow the the Liturgical Year of Grace––where we live the life of Christ and His Saints––to order our days and activities, though often we stumble, waver, and fall short, we will always be on time, i.e., in God's time where we can remain in constant union with Him and at peace with ourselves and others.
Our interior life––the spiritual life of the soul with God––is cultivated through this balance of prayer, study, work, and service. When planted in the soil of humility and watered with daily offerings and sacrifices, our cultivation of the world within us reaps a harvest of good works that are holy and pleasing to God, and that can effectively transform the world outside us. For as the soul is to the body and Christians are to the world, the interior life––when rooted in humility and manifested in love––is the "soul" of our lay apostolate.
The Universal Call to be “Monks”
– The New Monasticism
Monasticism, throughout history, has been considered the barometer of the spiritual life of the Church. The influence of this inspired movement––which, in a sense, perpetuates the purity and vitality of the early Church––has been so great that its quality of life and measure of stature have been equated with those of the Church as a whole; in the state which monastics existed, so existed the Church.
Monasticism, as a way of Gospel life, can be lived––not only in monasteries, hermitages, and churches by religious and clerics––but in our homes, schools, workplaces, coffee houses, sports bars, and everywhere in between by laymen who have interiorized the life of monks within the "sanctuary" and "cell" of their soul.
As lay monastics, we retain our secular character as laymen where the world, in a sense, is our monastery, yet as monastics, our souls reside in the cloistered or hidden life of monks––hidden with Mary in Christ, and with Christ in God [Col. 3:3] as strangers and peacemakers in the world. For lay monasticism does more than simply invite laymen to make retreats at monasteries, and does something very different than taking the monk out of the monastery; it brings the monastery to the world.
Through lay monasticism––which is nothing more than a truly devout Christian lifestyle––we clothe ourselves with Christ, and thus acquire the habit of the monk and the rhythm of the monastery amidst the ever-changing trends and distractions of this earthly pilgrimage. For this so-called new monasticism happens through Christians being more monastic, i.e. more Christian, and living their monastic spirituality (their Christian life)––not as elites away from the society (or local parish) of the common man, abandoning the common good to replicate and emulate the trappings of a past epoch or perceived golden age––but as a society in society amongst everyday people and amidst ordinary life––yes, in the world and for the world, but not of it.
We must remember that when we fulfill our duties of work and serve those in need, we have not ceased praying but have continued our conversation with God, and only then rightfully completed and fulfilled our prayers. Through our poverty and self-martyrdom we have conquered our fear and need for defenses, and as pilgrims and oblates, we possess a new openness to share God's life and love with others––more than a hospitality of service or home, but one of the heart. Thus, we receive this divine life and love back in greater abundance through those we serve––seeing only the image (icon) of Christ in them––because we are no longer attached to or in need of anything they themselves can offer us since we have held on to nothing and seek nothing but God alone.
The life of monks may not be easy, but it is simple, because it is solitary, i.e., undivided. For this is what the word “monk” (monos) means––one. The life of monks can be lived by anyone, anywhere, and at all times whether we are single or married with children, no matter how poor or rich, young or old, gifted or broken we may be. For there is only one thing necessary for the Christian life––to remain at the foot of Our Lord Jesus, to hear the Word of God, and to do His Will. If we, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Francis, and all the Monks, Mystics, Martyrs, and Saints who have walked the Royal Way of the Cross and climbed Jacob’s Ladder of Divine Ascent before us, will choose this one thing––the best part––it will not be taken from us.
O, how we need a monastic revival, renaissance, and revolution today [!] where the People of God actively participate in this contemplative and apostolic mission and way; for as (previously quoted) "The Holy Scriptures do not know any distinctions. They enjoin that all lead the life of monks." [St. John Chrysostom] We will no longer be like children playing imaginary games of shallow pietism or (even worse) empty activism, but will aspire to the sober, vigilant, tested, and proven maturity of the Saints, properly disposed to attain the fullness of the knowledge of Christ and unity of faith in His Universal Church, one Flock and one Shepherd.
Thus we, as members of a chosen People––a truly universal (catholic), united, and missional community that transcends nationality, gender, and culture––will truly incarnate and perpetuate the three-fold prophetical, priestly and kingly office of Our Lord Jesus, assisting Christ at the Eucharistic Altar and serving Him in the poor. Yet, this is only to the degree that we continually make of ourselves penitents, victims, and servants––in a word: monastics, as we even see their three-fold correlation to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Though lay monasticism is not bound to any particular spirituality or milieu, this was the Franciscan ideal, the original vision of St. Francis for his Seraphic Order, a vision that is not only about to celebrate the 800th anniversary of its founding, but one that is still alive, relevant, and needed today. This is, in simplicity and essence, our “Rule” of life, which is nothing more and nothing less than the call of the Gospel and the Great Commission as divinely revealed and sealed in the Deposit of Faith as it has faithfully been transmitted through Tradition from Genesis to Revelation, from the First Council of Nicea to Vatican II––going from Gospel to life, and life to Gospel.
Thank you for taking the time to read our report and synopsis of the work of God to which we have devotedly committed ourselves with nothing short of our very lives. Thank you for your consideration of assisting us financially, thus becoming one of our needed benefactors, and possibly, through your contribution of skill, resource or time, a co-laborer in this work. Most especially, thank you for your prayers, which empower and sustain our humble apostolate. “For unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the LORD guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch” [Psalm 127:1]
May Our Lord Jesus Christ––Eternal and Sovereign High Priest and King be with you, and may our patron "the Little Poor Man" (Il Poverello) St. Francis of Assisi, with “the Little Flower” St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, St. Michael the Archangel, and Our Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us!
Kevin Francis Bernadette Clay, Owner / Superior General T
September 3, 2008
Feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great [New]
Feast of Pope St. Pius X [Trad.]
MONKROCK / TRANSITUS
9051 Watson Rd., Suite 165 • St. Louis, MO 63126 USA
+1 314 256 9021 (Office) • +1 314 495 4398 (Cell)
+1 314 584 2079 (Fax) • E-mail: monk@monkrock.com
Web: www.monkrock.com • Web: www.thelastmartyrdom.com
"You Don't Have To Be A Monk To Live Like One."
"God give you peace"
I worked with my own hands and I am still determined to work; and with all my heart I want all the other friars to be busy with some kind of work that can be carried on without scandal. Those who do not know how to work should learn, not because they want to get something for their efforts, but to give good example and to avoid idleness. When we receive no recompense for our work, we can turn to God's table and beg alms from door to door. God revealed a form of greeting to me, telling me that we should say, "God give you peace." – Testament of St. Francis of Assisi
Dear Family, Friends, & Fellow MonkRockers,
God give you peace. Thank you for your business and for supporting our humble apostolate. Please keep us in your prayers and consider being more than a customer, but a regular benefactor and co-worker. It is more humiliating to ask for help than it is annoying to be asked, but I thank you for your grace in advance.
It is to the Blessed Trinity and the Saints that we ultimately look for help but we know how Our Lord seeks to incorporate us all into His work of redemption. From the countless e-mails and words of encouragement on the road and at home in praise of God working through our apostolate, and even those who simply purchase our products, it is possible that many of you assume we are self-sufficient. Therefore, it would be foolish not to approach “God’s table” and petition you, our very supporters, in times of need.
As the apostolate matures and takes a more visible form––for example, when the lay monastic association is officially established, when more conventional systems are utilized (like fundraising, PR, and advertising), when our literature is published and distributed with more widespread circulation (as I currently have publishing offers), or if in the future there is a store, café, or retreat center, etc.––we are confident that God will more easily provide for this work and ourselves, not only through sales, but through stipends, endowments, monthly dues, and regular donations.
In fact, it has only been by God's grace of provision that we have been able to make it these six years of devoting ourselves to this work, and most especially this past year of our family of five living (almost) exclusively from MONKROCK sales (with a little government assistance and help from family and friends). I can only assume that Our Lord has required us to solicit help from others as a testimony of our trust in Him and His desire for this apostolate to be funded and staffed with people other than just ourselves.
So, if you are able to contribute, the apostolate is in need of assistance. You can mail a check, made payable to MONKROCK and sent to the address at the end of this letter, or there is a donation page at MONKROCK.COM. There is a link on the home page, and it is in the drop down menu under “MONKROCK” in the top (and left) navigation⎯called “Donations”. You can simply type in the amount of your choice. At this time, $100-$500 donations (or even more) will be most helpful to us but we are grateful for any gift amount. You may give a one-time donation or schedule a recurring offering.
The primary need is to pay for inventory already purchased, new inventory, costs for upcoming events, vehicle maintenance, a new web site [due to outdated software], and other invoices. Also, with the necessary increase in time spent studying and writing, of time spent overseeing TRANSITUS and assisting its members, and the anticipation of traveling more for speaking and other apostolic work, the more easily the business side can function, the greater our works of mercy can flourish without being over-burdened with unnecessary details and stresses; yet all crosses are accepted with abandonment to Divine Providence. In the future your gifts will be tax-deductible, once TRANSITUS receives its non-profit status. If you have any questions or if there other ways you would like to contribute to this apostolate, please let us know.
"The Holy Scriptures do not know any distinctions.
They enjoin that all lead the life of monks." – St. John Chrysostom
MONKROCK and TRANSITUS, as well as my own writing and speaking, together serve the common end of helping ordinary Christians live the extraordinary "life of monks." Even with the little we have, we serve over 100,000 souls each year just at our on-the-road events, and countless more online. This work requires the devotion of all our attention, while keeping up with family responsibilities, as this is a more-than-full-time job––but truly a labor of love.
So far this year [January–August 2008], we have traveled 10,350 miles, and we have distributed approximately $25,000 worth of books [theologically orthodox, culturally relevant, and faithful to the Church’s Teachings, i.e., Tradition] as well as sacred music CDs and videos, about $10,000 worth of sacramentals ("catholica") [crucifixes, rosaries, medals, scapulars, chapel veils, etc.], and also sizeable quantities of Catholic apparel and our own more-than-fair-trade coffee––items they most likely would not have found otherwise––for there is not another apostolate that really does what we do.
More importantly, we have been able to share the good news of Christ and His Church with everyone we meet while connecting with the new ever-growing number of those interested in the Catholic Faith and lay monasticism, many with whom we have stayed in regular contact and even have become close friends. A highlight for me this year was the opportunity to daily teach upon and lead in the praying of the Rosary at a week-long festival attended primarily by non-Catholics. The more-than-positive response is a testament to both parties and to the moving of the Holy Spirit Who is working in the lives of those with open minds and pure hearts, who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, and who frequently return to their knees.
There are priests and religious of fraternities and orders from all over the country (and some beyond the border) who have blessed our work, have assured us of their prayers (even offered at the Eucharistic Altar), and have committed their ongoing service to those we know and serve. Among them are members of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, the Daughters of St. Paul, S.O.L.T., the National Shrine of the Infant of Prague, the Archdiocese of St. Louis, as well as other like-minded lay apostolates.
We have an ever-growing list of inquirers interested in becoming "oblates" (members) of our lay monastic association TRANSITUS. The process of initiation will officially begin this October 3rd (the liturgical feast of the Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi) with the first edition of the Rule and official application for admission. Oblates will make their profession the following October 3rd in 2009, the year of the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan Order. You can find more information and resources at TheLastMartyrdom.com [though still a work-in-progress].
Rome & the "Rome of the West"
It is truly exciting to see the great things that God is doing in His Church, as there is truly a "reform of the reform" in our midst, or in the words of Our Lord to St. Francis, "a rebuilding of the Church." This is the greater work of God to which our apostolate contributes, promotes, and serves. There is a lot to be thankful for to God due to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI––not only for Catholics, but for all Christians and people of good will. So long as we are in or cling to the barque of St. Peter, even amidst the storms of this world and a few enemies enemies in the boat with us, we are safe and secure.
Here in St. Louis, we are sad to see our priest and rector of St. Francis de Sales Oratory, Fr. Lenhardt, be transferred to the Institute of Christ the King’s seminary in Italy, as well as to see as our beloved Archbishop Burke leave for his appointment to Rome. Yet, we are happy for Father’s new role as spiritual director of the seminarians and Sisters, and his Grace as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. We look forward to seeing Archbishop Burke’s influence in the Universal Church as we have experienced it here in the "Rome of the West".
We prayerfully await our new bishop and welcome what Divine Providence has in store for us. As our late great Pope John Paul II told us [as is the motto of Archbishop Burke], "Be not afraid!" With the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, we can invoke a new Pentecost and inspire a new evangelization that will overcome the culture of atheism, selfishness, and death with the culture of faith, solidarity, and life.
The Universal Call to Holiness
& The "School of Perfection"
All Christians, as the Gospel teaches us, are called to holiness, i.e., “to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” [Mt. 5:48] and all share in the mission and ministry of the Church for the building up of the Body of Christ and the salvation of souls. The Laity have the unique vocation and apostolate to infuse the spirit of Christ into the world through their ordinary duties of life and activities in the world by living them according to God's Will among men. As was stated in the Epistle of Methetes to Diognetus [200 AD], “What the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world.”
However, our acts of charity are only as meritorious and effective as they are rooted in the Truth and Love of God which are acquired most easily in and through the Liturgical and Sacramental life of the Church, which is the source, center, and summit of the Christian life and the pillars of the TRANSITUS “school of perfection”. When we allow the the Liturgical Year of Grace––where we live the life of Christ and His Saints––to order our days and activities, though often we stumble, waver, and fall short, we will always be on time, i.e., in God's time where we can remain in constant union with Him and at peace with ourselves and others.
Our interior life––the spiritual life of the soul with God––is cultivated through this balance of prayer, study, work, and service. When planted in the soil of humility and watered with daily offerings and sacrifices, our cultivation of the world within us reaps a harvest of good works that are holy and pleasing to God, and that can effectively transform the world outside us. For as the soul is to the body and Christians are to the world, the interior life––when rooted in humility and manifested in love––is the "soul" of our lay apostolate.
The Universal Call to be “Monks”
– The New Monasticism
Monasticism, throughout history, has been considered the barometer of the spiritual life of the Church. The influence of this inspired movement––which, in a sense, perpetuates the purity and vitality of the early Church––has been so great that its quality of life and measure of stature have been equated with those of the Church as a whole; in the state which monastics existed, so existed the Church.
Monasticism, as a way of Gospel life, can be lived––not only in monasteries, hermitages, and churches by religious and clerics––but in our homes, schools, workplaces, coffee houses, sports bars, and everywhere in between by laymen who have interiorized the life of monks within the "sanctuary" and "cell" of their soul.
As lay monastics, we retain our secular character as laymen where the world, in a sense, is our monastery, yet as monastics, our souls reside in the cloistered or hidden life of monks––hidden with Mary in Christ, and with Christ in God [Col. 3:3] as strangers and peacemakers in the world. For lay monasticism does more than simply invite laymen to make retreats at monasteries, and does something very different than taking the monk out of the monastery; it brings the monastery to the world.
Through lay monasticism––which is nothing more than a truly devout Christian lifestyle––we clothe ourselves with Christ, and thus acquire the habit of the monk and the rhythm of the monastery amidst the ever-changing trends and distractions of this earthly pilgrimage. For this so-called new monasticism happens through Christians being more monastic, i.e. more Christian, and living their monastic spirituality (their Christian life)––not as elites away from the society (or local parish) of the common man, abandoning the common good to replicate and emulate the trappings of a past epoch or perceived golden age––but as a society in society amongst everyday people and amidst ordinary life––yes, in the world and for the world, but not of it.
We must remember that when we fulfill our duties of work and serve those in need, we have not ceased praying but have continued our conversation with God, and only then rightfully completed and fulfilled our prayers. Through our poverty and self-martyrdom we have conquered our fear and need for defenses, and as pilgrims and oblates, we possess a new openness to share God's life and love with others––more than a hospitality of service or home, but one of the heart. Thus, we receive this divine life and love back in greater abundance through those we serve––seeing only the image (icon) of Christ in them––because we are no longer attached to or in need of anything they themselves can offer us since we have held on to nothing and seek nothing but God alone.
The life of monks may not be easy, but it is simple, because it is solitary, i.e., undivided. For this is what the word “monk” (monos) means––one. The life of monks can be lived by anyone, anywhere, and at all times whether we are single or married with children, no matter how poor or rich, young or old, gifted or broken we may be. For there is only one thing necessary for the Christian life––to remain at the foot of Our Lord Jesus, to hear the Word of God, and to do His Will. If we, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Francis, and all the Monks, Mystics, Martyrs, and Saints who have walked the Royal Way of the Cross and climbed Jacob’s Ladder of Divine Ascent before us, will choose this one thing––the best part––it will not be taken from us.
O, how we need a monastic revival, renaissance, and revolution today [!] where the People of God actively participate in this contemplative and apostolic mission and way; for as (previously quoted) "The Holy Scriptures do not know any distinctions. They enjoin that all lead the life of monks." [St. John Chrysostom] We will no longer be like children playing imaginary games of shallow pietism or (even worse) empty activism, but will aspire to the sober, vigilant, tested, and proven maturity of the Saints, properly disposed to attain the fullness of the knowledge of Christ and unity of faith in His Universal Church, one Flock and one Shepherd.
Thus we, as members of a chosen People––a truly universal (catholic), united, and missional community that transcends nationality, gender, and culture––will truly incarnate and perpetuate the three-fold prophetical, priestly and kingly office of Our Lord Jesus, assisting Christ at the Eucharistic Altar and serving Him in the poor. Yet, this is only to the degree that we continually make of ourselves penitents, victims, and servants––in a word: monastics, as we even see their three-fold correlation to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Though lay monasticism is not bound to any particular spirituality or milieu, this was the Franciscan ideal, the original vision of St. Francis for his Seraphic Order, a vision that is not only about to celebrate the 800th anniversary of its founding, but one that is still alive, relevant, and needed today. This is, in simplicity and essence, our “Rule” of life, which is nothing more and nothing less than the call of the Gospel and the Great Commission as divinely revealed and sealed in the Deposit of Faith as it has faithfully been transmitted through Tradition from Genesis to Revelation, from the First Council of Nicea to Vatican II––going from Gospel to life, and life to Gospel.
Thank you for taking the time to read our report and synopsis of the work of God to which we have devotedly committed ourselves with nothing short of our very lives. Thank you for your consideration of assisting us financially, thus becoming one of our needed benefactors, and possibly, through your contribution of skill, resource or time, a co-laborer in this work. Most especially, thank you for your prayers, which empower and sustain our humble apostolate. “For unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the LORD guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch” [Psalm 127:1]
May Our Lord Jesus Christ––Eternal and Sovereign High Priest and King be with you, and may our patron "the Little Poor Man" (Il Poverello) St. Francis of Assisi, with “the Little Flower” St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, St. Michael the Archangel, and Our Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us!
Kevin Francis Bernadette Clay, Owner / Superior General T
September 3, 2008
Feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great [New]
Feast of Pope St. Pius X [Trad.]
MONKROCK / TRANSITUS
9051 Watson Rd., Suite 165 • St. Louis, MO 63126 USA
+1 314 256 9021 (Office) • +1 314 495 4398 (Cell)
+1 314 584 2079 (Fax) • E-mail: monk@monkrock.com
Web: www.monkrock.com • Web: www.thelastmartyrdom.com
"You Don't Have To Be A Monk To Live Like One."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
For by these very words I denounce myself
AMDG - Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam - "to the greater glory of God"
Today in the Liturgical Year, according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, is the Feast of St. Gregory the Great.
St. Gregory was born at Rome in 540. He was successively senator and prefect of Rome before the age of 30. After five years he abandoned this position to become a monk, transforming his own house into a Benedictine monastery, and from his own wealth founded six others, meanwhile while serving as papal legate at Constantinople. At the age of 50 he was elected pope, serving from 590 to 604.
In 14 years Gregory worked unceasingly, instituting liturgical reforms and organizing much missionary work. England owes her conversion to him. At the same time he watched equally over the holiness of the clergy and the maintenance of Church discipline, the temporal interests of his people of Rome, and the spiritual interests of all Christendom.
of the most privileged souls
I consider my unworthy to even find consolation in these words of such a great monk, pope, and saint, much less to draw the slightest comparison of St. Gregory to myself. Yet, did not St. Paul say, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."? [1 Corinthians 11:1] Are we not to imitate the Saints? If we are called to imitate the sanctity of the Saints, why should it be forbidden to identity with their weaknesses? St. Bernadette said she wished the Lives of the Saints spoke more of the saints' shortcomings and not primarily of their accomplishments. Well, today is the day of salvation.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face had to find a "little way" to heaven, for the path most traveled by the Saints––as she first perceived it––was too great. She wrote in her autobiography Story of a Soul:
I am what I am
To be brief in speaking of myself, I, like the prophet Ezekiel, Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Bernadette, and St. Therese the Little Flower, feel overwhelmed.
I am a husband and father of (currently) three children. I am the owner and primary worker for MONKROCK that is 5-10 person job. I am the founder and Superior General of TRANSITUS––the equivalence of a religious order. I am a writer composing a 100+ page monastic Rule [which requires much studying], multiple books, (now) this blog, and whatever else Our Lord wills. I am, even against my own will, writing and producing music and seeking to run (something resembling) a record company [MONKOFONIC] while forming an "Art as Prayer, Catechesis, and Evangelization" model for Christian discernment and dialogue about popular art and its relationship to Faith and Culture.
I have been consistently working 14-16-(sometimes)20-hour days 6 and sometimes 7 days a week [when conferences fall on Sundays] year after year with only death to stop me. There is not enough money––living, not only month-to-month, but day-to-day––and no guarantee of income, and there is only so much time and energy in a 24-hour day and a worn-out body one can maximize and expend. I am not afraid to ask for help but I lack the conventional means to solicit the help I need so that others may give without hesitation and receive the blessings from cheerful giving.
Some people respect this while many resent it, but it matters not what people think [I am learning]. Some would advise I am trying to do too much. I have taken that advice, and even my own advice at times, only to bring greater burdens upon myself and others, which only leads me back to the will of God and where I find myself now. I have tested this, and I myself have been tested as through fire, and I bear the many scars from burns.
For it is not the work load that is the most difficult to bear––for I love this work, and if I could do anything at anytime, it would be to work. It is not even the fear of failure––for I am over that. It is the weight of responsibility and desire to see God's Will done. Like Our Lord said, it is my food, and I am never full. It is not only the feeling but the reality of being unworthy, inadequate, unqualified, and ill-equipped to do such things.
I am not under any illusions. I am no saint. I am no monk. I am not a great husband or father, son or brother, or friend. I have difficulty even following my own lay monastic rule, keeping up with the Liturgical Year, and living the most basic tenets of the Gospel. I work when I should pray. I work longer and harder when I should increase my seeking and trust in God. I speak when I should listen, and when I speak, I criticize and complain. I judge and do not pray for my brothers and sisters. I go when I should wait, and I get tired or distracted when it is time to go. I impose my will in situations and upon others when I should trust in Divine Providence and the intercessions from heaven. Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...
Who I am to write on and speak of the Faith with no formal education? Who am I organize apostolates, train leaders, and lead others with no formal training? Who am I to write on and speak of monasticism when I am a layman spending most of my hours sitting in a desk chair in the basement of a rental house in a Midwest suburb? Who am I to criticize the Traditionalist movement when I have received so much from it––clarity of the true Faith and Morals, a Liturgy worthy of the Sacrifice, and even the validity of my Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Matrimony? Who am I to praise and promote the pastoral initiatives of the Second Vatican Council when they has been manipulated to validate and perpetuate a crisis unprecedented in the history of the Church? Who am I to write or even speak? Who am I? I am nothing. And I know if Our Lord could have found one more unworthy of me for this job, he would have chosen them.
Like the prophet Ezekiel, I fear the consequences of being faithful to God––of what men will do with me at the hearing of my words and the seeing of my works––but [thank the Lord] no more than I fear the consequences of my unfaithfulness, silence, idleness, or compromise. Like St. Gregory, I think I would be more of a saint, a monastic, a writer, a Catholic, and even a better person if I did not have all these things to do and I had a more favorable environment and schedule to do less. I know better than this. It is never easy, and it should not be easy. The cross and crucifixion is not easy, and I want nothing in this world that does not come in the form of a cross.
I am a Christian, for Christ's sake, my sake, and the sake of sinners, a Catholic, a wanna-be monastic follower of St. Francis of Assisi, a "workaholic" like Pope John II [see the movies Karol and Karol II], and a "hypocrite" like St. Gregory the Great. Like St. Bernadette spoke of herself, I am simply a broom with which Our Lord and Our Lady sweeps the floor and then places, without thought, back behind the door. I am, like Therese, too little, too hidden, and too weak to be a great saint and accomplish big things to the acknowledgment of men. In short, like St. Paul––in this his Year––I simply am what I am, and what will be will be, and what is good, true, efficacious, and worthy of praise is of God and by grace, and all else is mine.
I pray these words may be a source of consolation for little souls who fall short like I do. Like St. Gregory's confession was to me, I pray mine inspires you to be humble enough that God may exalt you to "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." May this disclosure, above else, solicit the prayers of those who are strong. I need your intercession. For I know by these very words I denounce myself.
"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me." 1 Corinthians 15:10
T
Today in the Liturgical Year, according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, is the Feast of St. Gregory the Great.
St. Gregory was born at Rome in 540. He was successively senator and prefect of Rome before the age of 30. After five years he abandoned this position to become a monk, transforming his own house into a Benedictine monastery, and from his own wealth founded six others, meanwhile while serving as papal legate at Constantinople. At the age of 50 he was elected pope, serving from 590 to 604.
In 14 years Gregory worked unceasingly, instituting liturgical reforms and organizing much missionary work. England owes her conversion to him. At the same time he watched equally over the holiness of the clergy and the maintenance of Church discipline, the temporal interests of his people of Rome, and the spiritual interests of all Christendom.
As a result of Gregory's liturgical reforms, the Divine Liturgy still contains several of his most beautiful prayers. In fact, the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite [the Traditional Latin Mass] is now also referred to as the "Gregorian Rite". The name "Gregorian chant" recalls this great Pope's work in the development of the Church's music. His commentaries on Holy Scripture exercised a considerable influence on Christian thought, particularly in the Middle Ages.
Together with St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and St. Jerome, he is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. St. Gregory died on March 12, 604. His body lies at St. Peter's in Rome.
"I have made you a watchman."In the Office of Readings within the Four-Volume Edition of the Liturgy of the Hours [the Divine Office], there is a homily on Ezekiel 33 by St. Gregory the Great. [Lib 1, 11, 4-6: CCL 142, 170-172]
Saint Gregory identifies with the prophet Ezekiel and reflects on how his duty to be a "watchman"––a "seer" and preacher––applies to himself as the Pope, and confesses his inadequacy for the great and numerous responsibilities that have been entrusted to him, and even his failures in heading his own words.Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel." Note that a man whom the Lord sends forth as a preacher is called a watchman. A watchman always stands on a height so that he can see from afar what is coming. Anyone appointed to be a watchman for the people must stand on a height for all his life to help them by his foresight.I will not tell you to aim at the seraphic holiness
How hard it is for me to say this, for by these very words I denounce myself. I cannot preach with any competence, and yet insofar as I do succeed, still I myself do not live my life according to my own preaching.
I do not deny my responsibility; I recognize that I am slothful and negligent, but perhaps the acknowledgment of my fault will win me pardon from my just judge. Indeed when I was in the monastery I could curb by idle talk and usually be absorbed in my prayers. Since I assumed the burden of pastoral care, my mind can no longer be collected; it is concerned with so many matters.
I am forced to consider the affairs of the Church and of the monasteries. I must weigh the lives and acts of individuals. I am responsible for the concerns of our citizens. I must worry about the invasions of roving bands of barbarians, and beware of the wolves who lie in wait for my flock. I must become an administrator lest the religious go in want. I must put up with certain robbers without losing patience and at times I must deal with them in all charity.
With my mind divided and torn to pieces by so many problems, how can I meditate or preach wholeheartedly without neglecting the ministry of proclaiming the Gospel? Moreover, in my position I must often communicate with worldly men. At times I let my tongue run, for if I am always severe in my judgments, the worldly will avoid me, and I can never attack them as I would. As a result I often listen patiently to chatter. And because I too am weak, I find myself drawn little by little into idle conversation, and I begin to talk freely about matters which once I would have avoided. What once I found tedious I now enjoy.
So who am I to be a watchman, for I do not stand on the mountain of action but lie down in the valley of weakness? Truly the all-powerful Creator and Redeemer of mankind can give me in spite of my weaknesses a higher life and effective speech; because I love him, I do not spare myself in speaking of him.
of the most privileged souls
I consider my unworthy to even find consolation in these words of such a great monk, pope, and saint, much less to draw the slightest comparison of St. Gregory to myself. Yet, did not St. Paul say, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."? [1 Corinthians 11:1] Are we not to imitate the Saints? If we are called to imitate the sanctity of the Saints, why should it be forbidden to identity with their weaknesses? St. Bernadette said she wished the Lives of the Saints spoke more of the saints' shortcomings and not primarily of their accomplishments. Well, today is the day of salvation.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face had to find a "little way" to heaven, for the path most traveled by the Saints––as she first perceived it––was too great. She wrote in her autobiography Story of a Soul:
"I have always wanted to become a saint. Unfortunately when I have compared myself with the saints, I have always found that there is the same difference between the saints and me as there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passers-by. Instead of being discouraged, I told myself: God would not make me wish for something impossible and so, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at being a saint. It is impossible for me to grow bigger, so I put up with myself as I am, with all my countless faults. But I will look for some means of going to heaven by a little way which is very short and very straight, a little way that is quite new.Therese once wrote to her sister Celine, "You wish to become a Saint, and you ask me if this is not attempting too much. I will not tell you to aim at the seraphic holiness of the most privileged souls, but rather to “be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” [Mt.5:48] and see that your dream––that our dreams and our desires––are not fancies, since Jesus Himself has laid their realization upon us as a commandment." [Emphasis mine]
"We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb laboriously up flights of stairs; in well-to-do houses there are lifts. And I was determined to find a lift to carry me to Jesus, for I was far too small to climb the steep stairs of perfection. So I sought in holy Scripture some idea of what this life I wanted would be, and I read these words: "Whosoever is a little one, come to me." It is your arms, Jesus, that are the lift to carry me to heaven. And so there is no need for me to grow up: I must stay little and become less and less."
I am what I am
To be brief in speaking of myself, I, like the prophet Ezekiel, Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Bernadette, and St. Therese the Little Flower, feel overwhelmed.
I am a husband and father of (currently) three children. I am the owner and primary worker for MONKROCK that is 5-10 person job. I am the founder and Superior General of TRANSITUS––the equivalence of a religious order. I am a writer composing a 100+ page monastic Rule [which requires much studying], multiple books, (now) this blog, and whatever else Our Lord wills. I am, even against my own will, writing and producing music and seeking to run (something resembling) a record company [MONKOFONIC] while forming an "Art as Prayer, Catechesis, and Evangelization" model for Christian discernment and dialogue about popular art and its relationship to Faith and Culture.
I have been consistently working 14-16-(sometimes)20-hour days 6 and sometimes 7 days a week [when conferences fall on Sundays] year after year with only death to stop me. There is not enough money––living, not only month-to-month, but day-to-day––and no guarantee of income, and there is only so much time and energy in a 24-hour day and a worn-out body one can maximize and expend. I am not afraid to ask for help but I lack the conventional means to solicit the help I need so that others may give without hesitation and receive the blessings from cheerful giving.
Some people respect this while many resent it, but it matters not what people think [I am learning]. Some would advise I am trying to do too much. I have taken that advice, and even my own advice at times, only to bring greater burdens upon myself and others, which only leads me back to the will of God and where I find myself now. I have tested this, and I myself have been tested as through fire, and I bear the many scars from burns.
For it is not the work load that is the most difficult to bear––for I love this work, and if I could do anything at anytime, it would be to work. It is not even the fear of failure––for I am over that. It is the weight of responsibility and desire to see God's Will done. Like Our Lord said, it is my food, and I am never full. It is not only the feeling but the reality of being unworthy, inadequate, unqualified, and ill-equipped to do such things.
I am not under any illusions. I am no saint. I am no monk. I am not a great husband or father, son or brother, or friend. I have difficulty even following my own lay monastic rule, keeping up with the Liturgical Year, and living the most basic tenets of the Gospel. I work when I should pray. I work longer and harder when I should increase my seeking and trust in God. I speak when I should listen, and when I speak, I criticize and complain. I judge and do not pray for my brothers and sisters. I go when I should wait, and I get tired or distracted when it is time to go. I impose my will in situations and upon others when I should trust in Divine Providence and the intercessions from heaven. Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...
Who I am to write on and speak of the Faith with no formal education? Who am I organize apostolates, train leaders, and lead others with no formal training? Who am I to write on and speak of monasticism when I am a layman spending most of my hours sitting in a desk chair in the basement of a rental house in a Midwest suburb? Who am I to criticize the Traditionalist movement when I have received so much from it––clarity of the true Faith and Morals, a Liturgy worthy of the Sacrifice, and even the validity of my Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Matrimony? Who am I to praise and promote the pastoral initiatives of the Second Vatican Council when they has been manipulated to validate and perpetuate a crisis unprecedented in the history of the Church? Who am I to write or even speak? Who am I? I am nothing. And I know if Our Lord could have found one more unworthy of me for this job, he would have chosen them.
Like the prophet Ezekiel, I fear the consequences of being faithful to God––of what men will do with me at the hearing of my words and the seeing of my works––but [thank the Lord] no more than I fear the consequences of my unfaithfulness, silence, idleness, or compromise. Like St. Gregory, I think I would be more of a saint, a monastic, a writer, a Catholic, and even a better person if I did not have all these things to do and I had a more favorable environment and schedule to do less. I know better than this. It is never easy, and it should not be easy. The cross and crucifixion is not easy, and I want nothing in this world that does not come in the form of a cross.
I am a Christian, for Christ's sake, my sake, and the sake of sinners, a Catholic, a wanna-be monastic follower of St. Francis of Assisi, a "workaholic" like Pope John II [see the movies Karol and Karol II], and a "hypocrite" like St. Gregory the Great. Like St. Bernadette spoke of herself, I am simply a broom with which Our Lord and Our Lady sweeps the floor and then places, without thought, back behind the door. I am, like Therese, too little, too hidden, and too weak to be a great saint and accomplish big things to the acknowledgment of men. In short, like St. Paul––in this his Year––I simply am what I am, and what will be will be, and what is good, true, efficacious, and worthy of praise is of God and by grace, and all else is mine.
I pray these words may be a source of consolation for little souls who fall short like I do. Like St. Gregory's confession was to me, I pray mine inspires you to be humble enough that God may exalt you to "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." May this disclosure, above else, solicit the prayers of those who are strong. I need your intercession. For I know by these very words I denounce myself.
"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me." 1 Corinthians 15:10
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