November Archives
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November 28, 2011
“So – like . . . if a monk has a vision of God – does he talk to the other monks about that . . . ?” About twenty students from a local college are looking at me intently. They appear genuinely interested to hear what I am going to say. A second or two passes in silence. Now – it is clear to me, this kid is no cynical unbeliever. He didn't ask me: “Do you guys believe people can see God?” He wants to know what the monks do when they have a vision of God, something he evidently serenely accepts as a possibility. That's interesting. Where did an American kid in his late teens wearing an acid lime colored sweatshirt, glittery silver tennis shoes and dread-locks acquire the belief that people can see God? If “seeing God” were something absolutely alien to his experience, the question he just asked would have no meaning for him. I need to answer him – and I'm distracted. I'm asking myself: “Some kind of glimpse of the possibility of the vision of God was given this young man by God. I wonder how that happens for a young person today?” I really want to know and wish I could sit and talk to this guy. Twenty sets of eyes are fixed on me, and it suddenly seems odd that twenty young people are gathered in a circle around me giving me their undivided attention. “I have seen a vision of God”, I finally say. “Not too long ago, I was ruminating on a passage from a sermon of St. Bernard, walking under the cypress trees that run along side Brother Placid's garden, and I believe a vision of God was given to me. I could have talked to one of my brothers about it, but at no point felt inclined to do that. To try to describe what happened to another monk, would focus attention on the experience, but the experience is not what's important for me or anyone else. What is important is my conversion – that I be changed and become wiser, more compassionate, an evidently more gracious person for my brothers, maybe even someone they would come to when they were scared or discouraged. The change is what I want to share with them – a transformed, holier monk– not the account of some unusual experience.” The young man seems satisfied with my answer. He understands what I am talking about. He too has seen God. He too doesn't talk about it – but it changed him.
Father Raphael
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November 25, 2011
I'm standing at the lectern in church with the abbot and thirty three monks sitting in front of me rehearsing with them, the new translation of the Missal, coming in two days. I'm doing the priest parts: “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The halting, stop-and-start feeling of the first ten words is making me self-conscious. The monks, seated in their stalls, bent over the mass cards with the new words on them, listen intently. This feels different – really different. A change is coming. For monks it is especially felt. Monks celebrate mass every day and pray together seven times each day. We live in the liturgy. Now, like a big wind sweeping over a tiny farm house set in the middle of a vast prairie, something is happening to the liturgy. The monks bent over in their choir stalls, look like stalks of corn in a storm. A community of monks is bending their necks to winds of change that are only a symbol of the fluid nature of our human existence. But monks, are good at this because of our rootedness in the mystery that never changes and in our hearts there is a quiet joy. Where does the joy come from? Its source is the mystery that America celebrated yesterday. It is the mystery the whole world remembers in the celebration of the eucharist whose words we are now rehearsing. This is the mystery whose Word is the last word. Progress, contention, misunderstanding, reconciliation, prayer and wonder – it's all gift. Deep calling unto deep, this mystery is not many but one: it is thanksgiving.
Father Raphael
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November 22, 2011
For a week now, our monastic community has been conducting a “visitation”, and my nerves are a little on edge. A vistation happens every two years and involves the abbot of the monastery who founded your monastery coming and reviewing the state of affairs in your community. Maybe the nervousness is just my issue. I am generally a little anxious and excited about the very idea of a “visitation” which basically means an encounter with one who comes from another place. But maybe a visit, especially from one who comes from far away, puts butterflies in the stomach of most of us. Sometimes a visitor comes to us from another world, as when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that she would give birth to the Savior. The Feast of the Visitation, celebrates Mary's arrival at the house of her cousin Elizabeth where she announces that, when her child is born: “All nations will call me blessed!”, and “God has given the hungry everything; the rich he has sent away empty!” The arrival of a visitor awakens in the heart a profound question: “Why are you here?” The anxiety arises not primarily from the fact that you just discovered him, but that he is in the process of discovering you. This emigrant from another place looks at you searchingly. You are a new experience for him. And so, a visitation can change the direction of a conversation, or it can change your life. It can even change the world. Our “Regular Visitation” at New Melleray is being conducted by Dom Augustine of Mt. Melleray Abbey monastery in Ireland, the monastery that founded us one hundred fifty years ago. He is a kind, humble, deliberate, and thoughtful person who is clearly very earnest about being of service to our community at a critical juncture in our history. Of particular importance during a visitation are the “scrutinies”, each monk in the house meeting the visitator privately to discuss the temporal and spiritual condition of the community – and with complete honesty. This process can confirm a monastery in its direction or it can turn the monastery upside down. That's why a visitation is traditionally begun by celebrating a votive mass to the Holy Spirit who is envisioned as a gentle dove. Or as fire.
Father Raphael
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November 19, 2011
I've sensed for some time Francis wanted to talk to me, and I was quite open to talking to him. The question for me was: “How does a Trappist monk begin a conversation with an evangelical Baptist?” Francis was hired at Trappist Caskets about six months ago, a really fine young man – and a passionate born again evangelical Christian. This is something new for us at the plant. Francis is about twenty five, grew up on a farm, was raised Baptist, and just weeks ago, married a beautiful young woman: “the preacher's daughter” as he refers to her. I can only imagine how curious we monks must appear to him; the questions he must have about us. Today, at about 4:00, on my way out of the casket shop, I passed by the laser machine where he does engravings on casket lids and urns. I paused to chat with him, when he began the conversation he's been wanting to have with me for months. “How do monks minister to the world?” I realize at once his question is completely sincere. With some intensity of feeling he shares his conviction that, to be a Christian, is to be sent into the world; to minister to the suffering; engage the hearts of unbelievers; to work tirelessly to spread the gospel and establish the Kingdom of Christ. Inviting him to consider the image of Christ dying on the cross, I remind him that, at this moment, Christ was not preaching, or healing, evangelizing, administrating a school or a hospital . . . His hands and feet were fastened to a cross. He was doing nothing – saying nothing. But this was the moment our redemption was accomplished! My words aren't just describing Jesus on the cross. They describe Raphael talking to an evangelical Baptist. I have not, at this moment, suddenly become an active religious or evangelist. I am aware my words are unlikely to make much of an impression – that, in a minute, he'll go back to work on the laser machine, later return home to his wife, spend the weekend socializing and worshiping with his evangelical family, and maybe never think of our conversation again. I do not aspire to be anything but what I am: a monk – a hidden witness; hidden even as I appear to be trying to evangelize Francis. Maybe I'm going to fail . . . and maybe, just maybe, I'll fail the way Jesus did.
Father Raphael
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November 15, 2011
I am lying awake on my bed at about 2:15 in the morning – a little annoyed. A minute ago, I was asleep. Now I'm awake. Why does this happen? Why am I waking up punctually every morning a full hour before the bell for rising? This is when all sorts of random and unwelcome thoughts visit – like . . . “Am I actually 55 years old? Whoah. That's how old my grandmother was when we first got acquainted. It seems like yesterday I was a college student excited about my first car. One moment, I'm a gangly youth waiting for the plates to arrive and, a moment later, I'm older than the president of the United States. The room is dark and very quiet. A thought is forming, taking shape, and I don't have a good feeling about it. It's like watching a stranger approach on a narrow street at night. I wish I could go back to sleep. Too late – the stranger has arrived and is talking to me: “Ah, Raphael, so once again, I find you sleepless, solitary, and in a pensive mood. These early morning meditations are becoming a pattern with you. Well, I guess it's all part of the package, I mean, the lot you chose in life – eh? I mean, you decided to be a monk; to embrace as a youth this very particular solitude which grows and deepens as many winters pass. And now another winter has arrived. Is it hard sometimes? To be sure, there is something noble in such a choice made for God – at least that's what people say. And I'm not calling that into question. Is that what you thought? Raphael you know me better than that. Did you suppose I . . . ” Then he stops. I know him. I know this is a game. I know too there is danger here and it's o.k. I know what to do because, yeah, I really did choose to be a monk and I've been at it for twenty five years now, so – I've learned some things, and, you know what? It's really rather simple to vanquish a demon – easier than squishing a bug, even easier than that, it's as easy as letting your coffee get cold or letting your hair turn gray. Silencing a demon is as easy as letting him finish, (he will finish), and then listening to the silence that follows, (it will come) . . . and waiting. The promise of Christ is true. There, do you see? The little bugger's gone, and I hardly lifted a finger.
. Father Raphael
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November 12, 2011
Brother James is a novice, thirty years old; who joined New Melleray Abbey about a year ago. Very intelligent, a former English teacher and website designer, he seems excited about the New Roman Missal to be implemented in a couple weeks. The other day, after presiding at mass, he comes up to me in the sacristy: “I was looking at the “collect” for the First Sunday of Advent. Listen to this: “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming . . .” Some would say: “Yeah, the change is no sweat for him – he's new on the block. He didn't pray for forty years with the previous translation. Besides, being fairly recently initiated into the Catholic church, he's not informed about the complex history behind this controversy. It's easy for him to be enthused about the new translation. His ignorance is the type that leads to bliss. But I look at him and I think, that forty years they look back on – that's still all ahead of him. He's staking his life on this church, this monastery, this new translation. We like to think we choose our future, but if he chooses this church, this monastery – this new translation IS his future. He looks merry. The young make life look easy. The truth is he is dying, like all of us. The difference is, he is dying for Christ while still young, with his life ahead of him. He is taking a leap; trusting that abandoning himself to God and Christ in the church will, in some mysterious way, issue through death to resurrection. He hears what people are saying: that the new translation will be “a disaster”; that it will be the cause of “bitter division in the church”. He hears them, and he knows what they are talking about – is his future. He could leave. But, he stays and studies commentaries on the new translation with hope and enthusiasm. He could say: “no”. He could say: “I need more time to decide about a life time commitment to a church this . . . “complex”. He has said “yes” and I wonder if this “yes” of his is the heart of the mystery of how the church of Christ has endured two thousand years.
Father Raphael
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November 9, 2011
“He won't stick it out more than a few weeks – you wait and see. I'm right about this.” These words of the cook in the monastery guest house kitchen were spoken with reference to me in the the winter of 1983 – over twenty five years ago. I had just been accepted into the cloister as a Postulant to begin my discernment and training as a monk. I'm not sure what it was the cook saw in me that made it so “crystal clear” to him that I would never make it as a monk, but this game of “Who will make it – who won't” is still very popular in monastery guest houses. Maybe it's been played for centuries. “That one will never be a monk.” says the cleaning lady. “That one is going to be abbot of the monastery some day – you just wait and see.” says the guest house receptionist. “He's sincere enough; he wants to be a monk . . . but the manual labor will break him – he won't stay.” says the cook. The guest house staff can sometimes sound like the “choir” in a Greek tragedy, providing dramatic commentary on a newcomers' noble aspiration to give his whole life; his whole self, body and soul, in a holocaust of sweet fragrance to God. It is a dramatic moment. It doesn't need to be dramatized. So – I wonder: What motivates these folks in the guest house? Why foster this little drama on the side; this “off-track-betting” game of guessing who will “make it” and who won't. What's at stake for them? Spectators standing around the cross of Jesus played this game. “Truly this man was the son of God.” says one. And another: “If he is God's Son, why doesn't God save him?” “He is a good man.” “He is an impostor”. Actually, when you think about it, the answer to this question is the answer about themselves. I heard a nun say once: “If it turned out Jesus wasn't who he said he was – I wouldn't know who I was anymore . . .” The truth is – if the Postulant actually makes it; if that earnest young man inspired to give God everything; absolutely everything out of love for goodness and truth and the person of Jesus; if, by God's grace, he actually perseveres and dies an old monk and is buried in the cemetery behind the monastery . . . this reveals something about all of us doesn't it? His victory – it reveals something about all who share his humanity; about you, about me, all of us. Even the guest house cook.
Father Raphael
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November 6, 2011
I'm thinking about “Alyssa”, (not her real name), today who I haven't seen in about four years. Life in a cloister is like this. “Visitors” arrive in your memory from time to time in the silence and solitude. I remember, she liked to call me “father”. She was not Catholic. She was a friend of the monastery, a woman in her early twenties. Alyssa is not mentally retarded, but she is very simple and she is very sweet and good. What quietly astonished me about Alyssa from the first time I met her, was that she seemed to have no “persona”. Most of us have a public self that we develop and which we present to others, without even thinking about it. It is a defense mechanism we acquire to prevent people having too ready access to the self we really are. Alyssa didn't have a persona. She was just – there. Her responses to people and new experiences, moment to moment, were completely spontaneous, expressed without second thoughts or deliberation. On a visit, one day, observing an employee at Trappist Caskets conclude a conversation on a cell phone, she said: “Who were you talking to?” The man, knowing how simple and good she is, wasn't annoyed and simply said: “Aww . . . my ex-wife.” Alyssa, turned to him and said, astonished: “You're divorced?” He gave her a grunt and a nod.”, to which Alyssa responded with the most earnest and transparent curiosity: “Why?” Only one time did I ever see her withdraw, momentarily, behind a barrier of silence. Paying a visit to the shop one day and entering into an extended conversation, she asked me: “Father – what does sexual abuse mean?” I explained that it refers to a grown up acting out sexual desires with a child. “Is it wrong?”, she said after a moment. “Yes”, I replied. It's wrong. It is something very serious.” She changed the subject and didn't inquire further into the matter. Later, I learned from another monk that Alyssa had been abused by her brother for some time as a child. Her father who was a simple farmer had, evidently, not known what was happening or didn't have the where-with-all to intervene effectively. All this weighs on my heart as I remember her. I am thinking: Alyssa always liked to call me “father”, and suddenly I'm thinking of Jesus' words: “Call no one on earth your father . . .” And I say to Jesus: “O.k. – I understand, but I'm wondering - did Alyssa ever have anyone on earth to call her “father”?
Father Raphael
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November 3, 2011
Yesterday, at All Souls Day mass, I was asked to carry the cross in the procession to the monk's cemetery, one of my favorite things to do. Just before the final prayer, I took the processional cross and held it aloft, standing in the center of the sanctuary, facing the monks and our guests. At the conclusion of the prayer, I moved slowly toward the doors of the Chapter Room. The community and our guests followed. A long line of about fifty monks and lay faithful made our way through the Chapter room and out the rear door into the yard and toward the cemetery. This procession takes place in complete silence. The day was overcast and just a little chilly. The grass was wet with dew and the air fragrant. It's harvest time in Iowa. Arriving at the cemetery, I positioned myself beside the large stone cross and watched the procession form itself into a circle around the cross. A tree turned brilliant gold to my left distracted me as the abbot invited us to listen to Brother Ephrem read from scripture: “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who have fallen asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope . . .” Contemplating that multitude of dying leaves so brilliant gold, like a second sun brightening an overcast day, I thought: “If it's true the 'rest of men' are grieving today, I am hopeful that the fullness of peace I experience at this moment will be granted them too in time.” The unity; the sense of “alignment” a Catholic monk experiences on All Souls day, with the deceased, with one's brother monks, with our neighbors – it is indescribable, I mean, the conviction that we all belong to God and to one another as a vast family in which even the dead are alive and give praise to God on this day. I heard the abbot proclaim: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.” And with my eyes still taking in the splendor of that tree of gold, we all responded in unison: “And may perpetual light shine upon them.”
Father Raphael
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