Antarctic Monasticism

Feeling a bit better today. But with howling winds pushing the falling and fallen snow, I don’t think I’ll be venturing out until much later today. They already closed the church office. Did I mention this was tabbed the worst blizzard since 1996, which happened to coincide with the day before Anita and I got married?

All of our windows are iced and snowed over. I was doing a lot of cooking last night–chicken soup and apple-cinnamon pan bread. I did manage to get a half-clear shot out the back door. But the rest of the kitchen windows are frozen fogged and whited out.

Astronomy Today has a magnificent image from orbit of the remote Antarctic station Concordia. The closest human beings to the French and Italian engineers and astronomers are the Russians at Vostok base, 350 miles away. Even the International Space Station doesn’t orbit that high.

The station has a blog, which is fascinating reading. In particular, Dr Alex Salam’s reflection on the privilege of serving in Antarctica struck me deeply. There is a deep monastic opportunity, it seems to me, in this remote wilderness.

It wasn’t until the last plane of the summer season left that the feeling of living on another planet fully hit home however. Concordia is extremely busy over the summer, full of hustle and bustle with planes arriving and people coming and going. Over the course of a couple of weeks around early February numbers begin to dwindle however, until eventually one day you find yourself huddled amongst a group of just twelve of you, struggling to keep track of the last plane as it gradually disappears into the desolate distance.

And then it really hits home: you’re own your own, no matter what. This is when the adventure really begins, the challenge of living in a small group in a confined space, the sensory and social monotony that gradually builds up over several months, having to deal with medical and technical emergencies autonomously, prolonged separation from family and friends with limited telecommunications, and the inevitable darkness.

The Jesuits, about the most hardcore retreatants out there, don’t do more than thirty days. Several months strikes me as a deeply monastic opportunity. There is work to do. I imagine that for scientific minds, the routines of menial tasks needed for survival are a challenge. But that feeling of being “on my own”–I get that every time I park the car at a monastery or retreat house. There is very much the sense that I have left a lot behind, and I’m heading to an intimate encounter in a way I’m not usually attuned. When our surroundings, our usual routines do not support us, there is little else left but reliance on God:

O God, you are my God—
it is you I seek!
For you my body yearns;
for you my soul thirsts,
In a land parched, lifeless,
and without water. (Psalm 63:2)

Dr Salam lists many of the aspects of “normal” life that I would probably describe as “usual” to our modern sensibilities:

But despite all the factors that make Concordia a difficult place to live in, there is an absence of some of the stressful situations present in ‘everyday’ life such as commuting, shopping, queues, bills, excessive choice, advertising and information overload, rules and regulations and so on. And although everyone feels some of the psychological and social stressors to a certain degree, some experience the absence of “normal” life very positively.

What I see in this reflection is the innate human longing that is unsatisfied by consumption and indulgence. Living and working in a community of a dozen people with the distractions stripped away.

Indeed, with time most people who have spent a winter at Concordia (and often Antarctica in general) feel many positive effects associated with the privilege of having experienced one of the planet’s most spectacularly vast and daunting environments, such as: a profound sense of accomplishment, increased personal and professional confidence, a better tolerance and adaptation to stress, a clearer vision of one’s personal needs, limits and ambitions and a deeper appreciation of personal freedoms and the natural environment.

This list would easily fit for the goals of monastic life.

But I know what I would look forward most to seeing …

But despite the effects the darkness can have on sleep, mood and cognitive performance, there is something inherently special about the Antarctic night. The heavens present a view that many stargazers can only ever dream of. You just have to try and catch a glimpse of the stars before your eyelashes freeze together! Seeing the station from a distance with the Milky Way towering far above it never failed to make me feel both awe inspired and simultaneously insignificant.

The believer can get a flavor of this even without looking at the stars. The interior life always beckons. And while there are often inner terrors and demons to battle, the encounter with God is no less wondrous …

I think of you upon my bed,
I remember you through the watches of the night
You indeed are my savior,
and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. (Psalm 63:7-8)

 

Lectio for Lent

From the PrayTell blog, a link to Abbot John Klassen’s talk on Lectio Divina. This was filmed during my visit to St John’s last November, and the abbot had requested an “audience,” to help engage the presentation. So we retreatants were fortunate to be invited. They snipped away our questions and his answers at the end, but you get a very good and engaging introduction to this prayer form. Maybe a good idea for your Lent.

The video runs about twenty-five minutes and is well worth your attention.

 

Dispelling a Myth: The Church is not a Democracy

My wife and I are on a few mailing lists for monasteries. Places we’ve visited hold a special affection, and I read their newsletters completely when they arrive at our home. A bit of reading has piled up this summer, so as the house endures its fall cleaning, one of its inhabitants read of new leadership near the banks of the Mississippi:

May 7 is our election day, and this year, by God’s providence, it fell on Good Shepherd Sunday–a wonderful sign, we all felt! Our procedure for election has an almost liturgical character, surrounded with ritual and great care, and is held right in the abbey church. Fr Brendan presided, and two of our brothers were the witnesses. After a formal roll call each sister comes forward and takes an oath to vote for the person she believes would be the best abbess for the community. All the members of our Chapter are electors; we may elect any member not only of our Chapter, but of other communities in our Order.

One by one, in rank by date of entrance, the sisters fill out their ballots. After she has voted, each sister leaves the church, but stays nearby. The votes are counted by two sisters elected as ’scrutators’, who then summon the sisters to return. The scrutators announce either ’we have an election’ (if someone has received over half the votes), or ’we do not have an election’, and list the vote totals. The balloting continues until there is an election; if, after many ballots, there is still no election, the presider may appoint a temporary superior.

Since none of us was at all sure who would be abbess at the end of the process, it was quite exciting, as you can imagine! When M. Nettie’s election was announced, she was asked if she accepted the election. As one of the most junior members of our Chapter, she was seated near the back, and had to walk up the center aisle past all the other sisters as the reality of what had happened began to sink into her mind. Then we rang the bells to summon the sisters who had not been present at the election (novices, visitors) for M. Nettie’s installation as abbess. She made her profession of faith (the Apostles’ Creed) in the presence of all, received the abbatial cross and the keys, and then sat at the foot of the sanctuary as one by one we knelt before her and promised our obedience to her as our lawful abbess. The ritual concludes with the chanting of the Te Deum to praise God for providing us with a new shepherd. Then we had a great celebratory meal!

Putting a few monastery links on the computer is a good thing. The sisters in Iowa make a lot of delicious candy, but I value the monastic witness itself above good eats. Their daughter establishment in Norway, Tautra Mariakloster, seems to be thriving as well. Check out some nice pictures, from which I’ve extracted their new chapel over on the left. The image gallery is rather extensive and worth viewing.

I’m continually surprised at the vast numbers of Catholics who have never visited a monastery. Small numbers of believers worship regularly at nearby monasteries. If I weren’t working for a parish and I lived reasonably nearby, I’d probably opt for Sunday Mass and a good portion of the Hours in a monastery chapel instead of a parish church.

Back in the 80′s, when I grew particularly frustrated with my home parish, I found a welcome change and sense of peace at the Genesee Abbey.

 

Lovers of the Place

Rocco Palmo, as well as other writers, have reported on the death of Dom Francis Kline, abbot of Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. Dom Kline, a Trappist, will be buried tomorrow. Rocco also linked to an article in the State that contained an excerpt from Dom Kline’s book, Lovers of the Place: Monasticism Let Loose in the Church. Here is the excerpt:

In the monastery where I now live, many people who come to make retreats ask: ‘How can I share more deeply in your life without actually living here? Are a couple of retreats a year enough?’ I have developed answers to these questions in numerous interviews with people whose grace I cannot deny. The Holy Spirit speaks through them and I can no longer avoid certain affirmative answers about the sharing of the monastic charism, certainly by the baptized, and even by the married.

Then there is my beloved community of Mepkin, whose distinctive style of hospitality has shown me how involved retreatants can become with a community without affecting adversely its grace and prayer. Mepkin, not without purpose in the Spirit’s plans, I’m sure, is located in the Diocese of Charleston, whose bishop, David B Thompson, convoked a most extraordinary synod in 1990. It concluded in 1995, but only after including me and some of the community in the most challenging debates I have ever known.

For it was a question not of preaching monasticism, but of struggling with difficult contemporary Church problems and searching the monastic tradition for answers, as well as the wider and more recent tradition. As I came to appreciate the superabundant grace bestowed on the baptized during the synod, I saw the vision which must have inspired the writers of Lumen gentium and Gaudium et spes, a cloud of witnesses summoned from every walk of life in a universal call to holiness.

In the crucible of hard work done reluctantly apart from monastery concerns for the sake of the Church, I feel that the Spirit has offered to me something new for my own monastic life, which has always been refreshing and new for me.

 

When Monks Go Bad: “Second Abbots” and the Rule of St Benedict

This isn’t about some unfortunate battle at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is rather about the most dangerous person in any Benedictine Monastery. Who can this be? The young novice? The cellarer? The abbot? As Andrew Marr reminds us in a conference paper delivered at the 2006 Colloquium on Religion and Violence, if we turn to Chapter 65 of the Rule of St Benedict, we see Benedict’s harshest language deployed against the prior, the second-in-command at the monastery. As Esther de Waal has noticed about this chapter, “It is fairly bristling with tension.” It also has much to teach us about living in community.

The danger presented by the prior is that he might consider himself a “second Abbot,” and then, by usurping power, “foster scandals and cause dissensions in the community.” Benedict has already spoken of scandalorum when instructing the abbot to say the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the Morning and Evening Office, “on account of the thorns of quarreling [scandalorum] which are apt to spring up” (RB 13). These scandals are evidently akin to very bitter quarrels and dissension. They also refer us back to the biblical skandalon, or “stumbling block.” Indeed, if the Abbot and Prior “are at variance,” this will prove to be a “stumbling block” so that their “souls cannot but be endangered by this dissension; and those who are under them, currying favor with one side or the other, go to ruin.” What is going on to cause this destructive dissension is that mimetic rivalry has been introduced into the monastery.

What does this mean? We can look at the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. At Caesarea Phillippi, Jesus “began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised” (Mt 16:21). Peter then infamously rebukes him, and Jesus replies, “Get behind me, Satan, you are a skandalon to me” (Mt 16:23). René Girard interprets this frightful encounter:

The first time Jesus predicts his violent death (Matthew 16:21-23), his resignation appalls Peter, who tries to instill some worldly ambition in his master: Instead of imitating Jesus, Peter wants Jesus to imitate him. If two friends imitate each other’s desire, they both desire the same object. And if they cannot share this object, they will compete for it, each becoming simultaneously a model and an obstacle to the other. The competing desires intensify as model and obstacle reinforce each other, and an escalation of mimetic rivalry follows; admiration gives way to indignation, jealousy, envy, hatred, and, at last, violence and vengeance.

And, so, mimetic rivalry brings, as Benedict predicts, “envy, quarrels, detraction, rivalry, dissensions and disorders” into the monastery. Mimetic rivalry between the abbot and the prior, second-in-command, would be impossible to contain, for those under them must find “favor with one side or the other” and become entangled in the violence, finally going to “ruin.” Benedict also predicts that the mimetic rivalry is more likely to result “in those places where the Prior is constituted by the same Bishop or the same Abbots who constitute the Abbot himself.” From such a place, the prior and abbot can begin to desire the same object and become rivals. Both the Bible (Cain and Abel, for instance) and human legends (think Romulus and Remus) are full of stories of the conflict between brothers, who, after all, do proceed from the same source.

Benedict is so cautious about the perilous position of the prior that he even wishes that such a person would not even exist. He suggests that, “if possible,” “all the affairs of the monastery … be administered by deans according to the Abbot’s directions.” Deans, Benedict had earlier instructed, should be men of “good repute and holy life,” so that “the Abbot may with confidence share his burdens among them” (RB 21). But the very best things about deans, Benedict claims, is that “with the duties being shared by several, no one person will become proud.” We see here, as Marr says, “Benedict makes it clear that his preference for deans is driven by his conviction that a person’s moral disposition is likely to be affected by that person’s position in the monastery.”

But only a large monastery could have multiple deans. And Benedict is clear that authority should ultimately be invested in one person, the abbot. If the abbot is away on business, there really does need to be one deputy to take charge. So we might be stuck with the prior. Furthermore, there happen to be other sources for rivalry in the monastery. Even though the prior may need to be admonished four times, the cellarer might himself become so prideful that he needs to be corrected three times (RB 21). Another source of rivalry is the priesthood. A priest can place himself above the other monks and end up as a competitor to the abbot. Benedict, not a priest himself, reminds the monastic priest to “beware of self-exaltation or pride” and “not presume to do anything except what is commanded by the Abbot, knowing that he is so much the more subject to the discipline of the Rule” (RB 62). Benedict even says that “permission shall not be granted too readily” to a priest who want to be received into a monastery, chillingly quoting the words of Jesus to his betrayer, “Friend, why have you come?” (Mt 26:50) (RB 60).

The problem is not just the prior. But, as Gil Bailie writes (and as might already have been guessed), “mimetic desire is always kindled in those who social situations most closely approximate that of the one whom they envy.” It is not coincidence that Jezebel writes “the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city” to get Naboth killed (1 Kgs 21:8). Or that Saul and David become bitter rivals because their social situations made the crown graspable only to both. As it was for Abner and Joab and another high position. A novice can cause disruption, but, unlike the prior, cannot imagine himself to be a “second abbot.” And even if the prior himself is not tainted with pride, he can be drawn into conspiracies. So the prior is more likely to become a problem. And, as we have seen, when he does become a problem, it is likely to be very nasty.

This discussion of mimetic rivalry, especially Bailie’s quote, might make it clear why the abbot has such an exalted role in a Benedict monastery. Abbots aren’t automatically perfect – there have been many cases of abusive abbots. The abbot himself, we see, can fall victim to the desire to imitate others to obtain what they possess. At the end of the very harsh chapter on the prior, Benedict writes that the Abbot, for his part, “should bear in mind that he will have to render an account to God for all his judgments, lest the flame of envy or jealousy be kindled in his soul” (my emphasis). The abbot, Marr says, has such a high position so that there can be no imaginable competition between himself and others: “Nobody competes with the abbot and the abbot does not need to establish his power by competing with his monastics and beating them into submission.” This means that the abbot, freed from jealousy, can actually take care of the weak and vulnerable.

But even the abbot does not have the highest place in the monastery. In fact, the abbot must not be at the center of the community. An abbot “holds the place of Christ in the community” (RB 2). The monastery is not held together simply by the esteem of monks for the abbot’s personal qualities, however great they might be; the other monks do not see him as a rival because they do not wish to compete with the Christ whom he represents. The monastery is also not held together by the abbot’s own genius or personal immunity to rivalry; he must trust that “Christ has prepared a place for the abbot and the abbot need only take that place.” That place, not of his making, always has Satan behind it.

Even if we have never set foot in a Benedictine monastery, where, in our own communities, do we find something like this “place of Christ,” a point of stability amidst “envy, quarrels, detraction, rivalry, dissensions and disorders”?

Remember, too, to pray for Todd and his retreat, since he is in a Benedictine monastery. I’m pretty sure that he won’t begin to consider himself a “second Abbot.”

 

Called By God in Kansas City: Bishops, Religious, Clergy

One of my readers asked for a comment on Rock’s post on a Kansas City’s Nun’s Story. I knew we had other breaking local news, too, so let me commit a possible faux pas by combining this link with another for my newest parish priest colleague, and a few thoughts on religious life and vocations. And bishops, too.

The Catholic Key gives you more of the full story of the invitation of these women Benedictines. But for the life of me, I can’t imagine why this would register on the NCR’s radar at all, much less be cause for leaping from mansioned windows.

Like Rock, I think the local Church benefits from the presence and the apostolate of religious orders, especially contemplative ones. There are a lot of things a body new to church administration could learn from the leadership traditions of St Benedict (for one example).

There, we can read that the abbot is advised to “adjust and adapt himself to everyone — to one gentleness of speech, to another by reproofs, and to still another by entreaties, to each one according to his bent and understanding — that he not only suffer no loss in his flock, but may rejoice in the increase of a worthy fold.”

A fair bit afield from the SCGS* ecclesiology championed by some Catholics these days.

That said, I don’t think it’s totally accurate to attribute the phrase “predictable hatchet-piece” to the NCR’s recent reporting on Bishop Finn. If imbalanced, it was not by editorial design. I agree with Rock and many others that my bishop is a genuinely holy and sincere and idealistic man. But where one man speaking for a diocese might come off well in theory or ecclesiology, in practice it makes things seem a bit tilted to have several folks criticizing the bishop and nobody speaking in favor of him. Since I doubt the NCR is regular breakfast reading in the bishop’s kitchen, it probably doesn’t matter much. Lots of people have said favorable things about him. For all the brouhaha about whining and wining and all, I think he’s an improvement in many ways from his predecessor–and my regular readers should recall I’ve put the specifics of that in print.

Our parish is getting one of the new priests. I’m looking forward to working with Father Steven Rogers, who is nicely profiled in this week’s diocesan paper. Conversion stories have long been a fascination and a personal taste of mine. I have a rather unusual one myself. And at the risk of lurching head-first into touchy-feely-dom, I think it’s extremely valuable for Christians to be able to recall and tell their own stories of coming to the faith. Kids need to hear parents tell it. Friends need to hear it. If one can peel oneself away from the Catechism long enough, it’s even appropriate for RCIA or other faith-sharing circles.

There’s something deliciously Benedictine about Rogers’ story from about a decade ago:

During the summer of 1995, the furniture company was about to be sold, and Deacon Rogers said his job security was up in the air. He told a friend, Susan Dinges, that he was going to take a week’s vacation away from everything at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Dinges, who also wasn’t Catholic, had another idea, he recalled.

“She said, ‘I want you to go to Conception Abbey. It’s quiet up there and remote. You can read and rest,’” he said.

Deacon Rogers said he booked himself for a week-long spiritual retreat where he met one of the Benedictine monks, Father Hugh Tasch.

“We talked about anything and everything I wanted to talk about – art, architecture, the Renaissance,” Deacon Rogers said.

Never once did Father Hugh try to “convert” him. But he did tell Deacon Rogers that the future priest was a Renaissance man filled with a wide array of talent and drive. “You will be a leader,” the monk told the young man, “but first you have to get focused and organized.”

“He left it at that, and bid me farewell,” Deacon Rogers said.

God adjusts and adapts to our unique individual circumstances. As Catholics, we offer the Creator not one cookie-cutter result, but a dizzying set of variations on a single theme. The Church is far wider, more incomparably vast than any single Catholic would or could identify. The challenge for many of us is finding that focus. Hopefully it’s not an aspect that leads us to measure others by our own standards. Or that it’s not an adventure in religious narcissism: the me-and-God indulgence all too common in our American culture.

The longer I’m a Catholic, the more exposure I have to new people, new stories. It’s well worth taking some time to tell and listen to these stories.

* Small Church, Getting Smaller

 

New Monasteries

A brief Zenit piece on monastery foundation in the Third World. The tropics hold little geographical interest for me, as you might guess, but my wife and I are on the mailing and donor list for Tautra, nearing completion of their new building project on an island off the coast of central Norway.

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.

It is vain for you to rise early
and put off your rest at night,
To eat bread earned by hard toil–
all this God gives to his beloved in sleep.

Psalm 127:1-2

 

More on Trappists

Michael Downey’s book Trappist: Living in the Land of Desire has been an aid to prayer this week. All the fuss about that bishop living at Mepkin drew my attention to a spot on my bookshelf. And here it was.

I’ve been to Gethsemani, where a friend had asked me to sneak into the monastic cemetery and scoop up a few spoonfuls of dirt from Thomas Merton’s grave. That request built up a conflict in me, sort of like when one of your friends egged you on to do something when you were a kid. You really didn’t want to do it, but danged if the guy didn’t plant some snitch of a seed in your consciousness … I could do it … wouldn’t hurt anybody … you always play it safe, take a risk … would mean a lot to him.

I resolved the problem by telling the guestmaster, who rolled his eyes and said, “You wouldn’t believe the weird requests we get and the strange things people do.” He basically gave me permission to sneak off and do it, but the telling of my dilemma evaporated my inner conversation. “Get your own holy dirt!” came the conclusion.

My retreat at Gethsemani in Fall 1989 was one of the most moving and shattering of my life. The only other Trappist place I’ve been to is New Melleray. Even though I lived in Iowa for seven years, I only managed one visit there. The timing never worked for retreat. Anita and I took our daughter for Sunday Mass there shortly after she moved to our house. I was twenty when I first visited a monastery. Kids need earlier exposure than that. Brittany beat me by fifteen years.

Kids need early and frequent exposure to religious life, especially contemplative places. Of course, with non-Catholic parents, my personal situation was different. Brittany has been to Conception before, too — mainly the church, which we toured. Anita remarks that our daughter is too headstrong for religious life, but you never know.

 

Monasteries

My first monastic experiences were with the Trappists at Our Lady of the Genesee. Our campus ministry organized an annual Night Pilgrimage. We would meet at the chapel on campus at midnight to pray. About an hour later, it was carpooling to a remote location a handful of miles from the abbey. We had permission to cross through a few farm fields and some semi-wooded areas. Every twenty minutes or so, we would break our silent walk to pray. By 4AM, we would reach the abbey. One of the monks, usually Brother Anthony, the guestmaster (in those days) would speak with us. In 1980, we happened to see Henri Nouwen on his second sojourn at the abbey. (Read his Genesee Diary if you haven’t already. All of us students did.) At 5:15 we would join the monks for Lauds. The cars would pick us up afterward, and the Newman Center at SUNY Geneseo would have coffee and donuts waiting for us on the way home.

What an experience these were! I recall one year we walked the pilgrimage under a full moon. It was unearthly and sublime, and we stashed our flashlights away.

We had our annual retreats each February there. Nothing like a monastery in a snow-laden winter. Later I realized these early retreats spoiled me. I had grown accustomed to monastic silence, so when some folks rebelled against a great silence on a parish retreat (my post-college parish) I really wondered what their fuss was about. So many Catholics seem so fearful of silence. Really, there’s nothing to be a-scared of.

If you are in upstate New York or planning to be near Rochester, I would heartily recommend a trip to the Abbey of Our Lady of the Genesee. Be sure to take home a loaf of raisin bread. Tomorrow, hear how your pig-headed blog host gets his come-uppance during a bicycle pilgrimage to and from the Genesee Abbey. Stay tuned.

 

Penitentiary

Some St Blog commenters wonder about what seems to be easy treatment of a sex offender. It is important to consider that before individual confession became the Catholic rage, serious sins were publicly confessed. Only a bishop could grant sacramental absolution, which usually followed years of reform in a strict monastic setting, hence the root of the word penitentiary.

Having retreated with Cistercians and being a frequent guest here through my twenties, I know Cistercian life is demanding. It seems appropriate that a fallen bishop would go to Mepkin for healing and metanoia. Too bad the world doesn’t have more places for the thousands of offenders (priests and laity) who have damaged so many young lives.

The tone of some would suggest sex abusers deserve breaking rocks or other such satisfying punishments. I’ve known many people who were sexually abused as children, and I’ve heard of that particular hell many times from the victim’s side. But I have no desire to turn over my soul to see someone brutalized as they had brutalized others. I find monastic wisdom of discipline, peace, work, and prayer to be most appropriate in this instance. Society might be better for running prisons like monasteries — or true penitentiaries. The bishop is still fortunate for his experience — most offender priests will not have a second chance like this — but I doubt it is an easy life.