Firstborn of all creation

O come, let us adore him!

From our house to yours ...

Gingerbread replica of the Archabbey Church
constructed by Brs. Kolbe, Joel, and John Mark

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

O Emmanuel

The new birth of Advent

Unless Christ, by being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Father’s substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan. The Conqueror’s victory would have profited us nothing if the battle had been fought outside our human condition. But through this wonderful blending, the mystery of new birth shone upon us, so that through the same Spirit by whom Christ was conceived and brought forth, we too might be born again in a spiritual birth.

-- Pope St. Leo the Great

True thanksgiving

Beloved, how blessed and wonderful are God’s gifts! There is life everlasting, joy in righteousness, truth in freedom, faith, confidence, and self-control in holiness. And these are the gifts that we can comprehend; what of all the others that are being prepared for those who look to him? Only the Creator, the Father of the ages, the all-holy, knows their grandeur and their loveliness. And so we should strive to be found among those who wait for him so that we may share in these promised gifts. And how is this to be, beloved brothers? It will come about if by our faith our minds remain fixed on God; if we aim at what is pleasing and acceptable to him, if we accomplish what is in harmony with his faultless will and follow the path of truth, rejecting all injustice, viciousness, covetousness, quarrels, malice and deceit.

This is the path, beloved, by which we find our salvation, Jesus Christ, the high priest of our sacrifices, the defender and ally in our helplessness. It is through him that we gaze on the highest heaven, through him we can see the reflection of God’s pure and sublime countenance, through him the eyes of our hearts have been opened, through him our foolish and darkened understanding opens toward the light, and through him the Lord has willed that we should taste everlasting knowledge. He reflects God’s majesty and is as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs.

Let us then serve in his army, brothers, following his blameless commands with all our might. The great cannot exist without the small, nor the small without the great; they blend together to their mutual advantage. Take the body, for example. The head is nothing without the feet, just as the feet are nothing without the head. The smallest parts of our body are necessary and valuable to the whole. All work together and are mutually subject for the preservation of the whole body.

Our entire body, then, will be preserved in Christ Jesus, and each of us should be subject to his neighbor in accordance with the grace given to each. The stronger should care for the weak, and the weak should respect the stronger. The wealthy should give to the poor, and the poor man should thank God that he has sent him someone to supply his needs. The wise should manifest their wisdom not in words but in good deeds, and the humble should not talk about their own humility but allow others to bear witness to it.

Since, therefore, we have all this from him, we ought to thank him for it all. Glory to him for ever. Amen.

--Pope St. Clement I
(whose memorial is honored today)

All Saints and All Souls

NOTE: Homily by the late Karl Rahner, S.J., on the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, which we have celebrated the last couple days.

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All Saints day and All Souls day are the feasts of every saint and of every soul who has died and gone home into the eternal love of God.  All of them and therefore not only those already celebrated by name in the church’s feasts throughout the year but also the silent, unknown ones who have departed as if they had never even existed.  There are no legends about them; their lives are recorded neither in poetry nor in history, secular or ecclesiastical.  Only one person knows anything about these saints, and that of God.  He has inscribed their names in the book of life, which is the heart of his eternal love.

But we are supposed to celebrate these saints who are not known to us by name.  How can we do this – really do it, with life and zest – if not by lovingly remembering our dead?  They may already be forgotten by the world; perhaps their name is not even inscribed on a gravestone.  Yet they not only live on with God, but also with us, in our hearts.

Let us then prepare our hearts for these feasts of the dead who live with God.  May our hearts be mindful of the dead.  Be still, O heart, and let all whom you have loved rise from the grave of your breast.  Is there no one among All Saints and All Souls for you to celebrate?  Have you ever come in contact with love and meekness, goodness and purity and fidelity in a person?  Not even in your mother, so quiet and forgetful of herself?  Nor in your patient father?  Should you say, no, I think you would be contradicting your heart, which has its own experiences.  It is not the heart’s experience to have met throughout life only darkness and no light, only selfishness and no selfless kindness.

But if you have met faith, hope, and love, kindness and pardon, great courage and fidelity in persons who now are dead – a grain of virtue such as these is worth a mountain of selfishness and vice – then you have met men and women whom your heart may seek with God.  Up, then, and celebrate the heart-feast of All Saints, of All Souls – your saints, your beloved souls!  Sorrow and joy, grief and happiness are strangely blended into this feast.  Just as they are with the things of eternity.  Celebrate an All Saints of peace and loyalty.  Of yearning and of faith.  Celebrate your dead who are still living.

Today, then, we want to remember before God our dead, all those who once belonged to us and who have departed from us.  There are so many of them that we can by no means take them all at one glance.  If our celebration is to greet them all, we must go back in memory over our path through life.  When we go about it in this way, from our point of view it is like a procession of persons marching down the street of life.

At each moment, without bidding farewell, someone or other silently withdraws form the procession and, turning aside from the road, is lost in the darkness of the night.  This procession becomes smaller and smaller for each one of us, for the new person constantly stepping onto our path through life only seems to be marching along with us.  To be sure, many are walking the same street, but only a few walk together with each one of us.  Strictly speaking, only those who set out together with each one of us are really journeying together with us.  Only those who were with us at the very beginning of our journey to God – only those who were and still are really close to our heart.

The others are traveling companions on the same road; they are many, and they are constantly coming and going.  We greet each other, and give each other a helping hand, and then, no more.  But the real procession of each of our lives is made up of those whom we really love.  This procession is always becoming smaller and quieter, until each one of us becomes silent once and for all, turns aside from the road, and passes away without a farewell, never to return.

That is why our heart today is with those who have already departed in just such a way.  There are no replacements for them; no other human being could really fill the vacancy left by a loved one when she suddenly and unexpectedly departs and is at our side no longer.  In true love no one can replace the beloved, for true love loves the beloved in those depths where each individual is uniquely and irreplaceably herself.  That is why each one of those who have passed away has taken the heart with them, if death has trodden through our lives from beginning to end.

If someone has really loved and continues to love, then even before his own death his life is changed into a life with the dead.  Could the lover forget her dead?  If one has really loved, then her forgetting and the fact that she has ceased weeping are not signs that nothing has really changed, that she is just the same as before.  They are, rather, signs that a part of her own heart has really died with the loved one, and is now living with the dead.  That is why she can no longer mourn.  We live, then, with the dead, with those who have gone before us into the dark night of death, where no one can work anymore.

But how are we supposed to be able to live with the dead in the one reality of our mutual love; how are we to celebrate a feast of all the holy dead?  Is this possible simply because God is the God of the living and not of the dead, because his word and even the wisdom of this world tells us that these dead still live?  Because we loved the dead and still love them, we must be with them always.  But are they also with us?  Do they belong to this love and to the celebration of this love?

They have departed, they are silent.  No word from them reaches our ears; the gentle kindness of their love no longer fills our heart.  How quiet the dead are, how dead they are!  Do they want us to forget them, as we forget a casual acquaintance on a trip, with whom we exchanged a few insignificant words?  If life is not taken away from those who depart this life in God’s love, but changed into eternal, measureless, superabundant life, why then should it seem to us that they no longer exist?  Is the inaccessible light of God into which they have entered so faint that it cannot penetrate to us down here?  Does even their love (and not only their bodies) have to abandon us in order to live with God in his light?  Does their silence imitate the silence of their God, to whose home they have gone?

That is the way it is.  For God is silent just like the dead.  For us to celebrate his feasts in our hearts this silent God must certainly be with us, even though he seems so distant and so silent.  We certainly must love him, too, as we love our dead, the distant and silent dead, who have entered into the night. Does he not give to our love an intelligible answer when we call him to the feast of the heart, and ask him for a sign that his love exists for us and is present to us?  And that is why we cannot lament the silence of the dead, for their silence is only an echo of his silence.

But if we keep silent and meek, if we listen to this silence of God’s, then we begin to grasp with a comprehension that exceeds our own power to evoke or even to understand why both God and the dead are so silent.  Then it dawns on us that they are near us precisely in our feast of the holy souls.  God’s silence is the boundless sphere where alone our love can produce its act of faith in his love.

If in our earthly life his love had become so manifest to us that we would know beyond a shadow of a doubt what we really are, namely, God’s own beloved, then how could we prove to him the daring courage and fidelity of our love?  How could such a fidelity exist at all?  How could our love, in the ecstasy of faith, reach out beyond this world into his world and into his heart?  He has veiled his love in the stillness of his silence so that our love might reveal itself in faith.  He has apparently forsaken us so that we can find him.

For if his presence in our midst was obvious, in our search for him we would find only ourselves.  We must, however, go out from ourselves, if we are to find him where he is really himself.  Because his love is infinite, it can dwell openly and radiantly only in his own infinity; and because he wants to show us his infinite love, he has hidden it from us in our finiteness, whence he calls out to us.  Our faith in him is nothing but the dark road in the night between the deserted house of our life with its puny, dimly lit rooms, and the blinding light of his eternal life.  His silence in this world is nothing but the Earthly appearance of the eternal word of his love.

Our dead imitate this silence.  Thus, through silence, they speak to us clearly.  They are nearer to us than through all the audible words of love and closeness.  Because they have entered into God’s life, they remain hidden from us.  Their words of love do not reach our ears because they have blended into one with the joyous word of his boundless love.  They live with the boundlessness of God’s life and with his love, and that is why their love and their life no longer enter the narrow room of our present life.  We live a dying life.  That is why we experience nothing of the eternal life of the holy dead, the life that knows no death.  But just in this very way they also live for us and with us.  For their silence is their loudest cry, because it is the echo of God’s silence.  It is in unison with God’s word that it speaks to us.

Over against the loud cries of our drives, and over against the anxious, hasty protestations with which we mortals assure ourselves of our mutual love, God’s word enwraps us and all our noisy words in his life.  This is the way he commands us to relinquish all things in the daring act of loving faith, in order to find our eternal homeland in his life.

And it is precisely in this way that the silence of our dead also calls out to us.  They live in his life, and that is why they speak his words to us.  They speak the word of the God of the true life, the word that is far removed from our dying.  The dead are silence because they live, just as our noisy chatter is supposed to make us forget that we are dying.  Their silence is the word of their love for us, the real message that they have for us.  By this word they are really near to us, provided only that we listen to this soundless word and understand it, and do not drown it out through the noise of everyday life.

It is in this way that they are close to us whose feast we celebrate today in the silent composure of the heart.  They are near us together with the silent God, the God of the silent dead, the living god of the living.  He calls out to us through his silence, and they, by their silence, summon us into God’s life.

Let us therefore be mindful of our dead, our living.  Our love for them, our loyalty to them is the proof of our faith in him, the God of everlasting life.  Let us not ignore the silence of the dead, the silence that is the most ardent word of their love.  This, their most ardent word, accompanies us today and every day, for they have gone away from us in order that their love, having gone into God, may be all the closer to us.

Be mindful of the dead, O heart.  They live.  Your own life, the life still hidden even to you, they live unveiled in eternal light.  Our living who are with the God of life cannot forget us dead.  God has granted our living everything, for he has given them himself.  But he goes further and also grants them this favor: that their silence will become the most eloquent word of their love for us, the word that will accompany our love home to them, into their life and their light.

If we really celebrate All Saints and All Souls as the feast of faith, of love, of quiet remembering; if our life is and is always becoming more and more a life of the dead who have gone before us in the sign of faith into the dark night of death, where no one can work; then through God’s grace our life becomes, more and more, a life of faith in his light during the night of this Earthly life.  Then we who are dying live with the living who have gone before us into the bright, shining day of life, where no one has to work, because God himself is this day, the fullness of all reality, the God of the living.

When we stand by the graves, or when our heart must seek distant graves, where perhaps not even a cross stands over them any longer; when we pray, “Lord, grant them eternal rest, and may perpetual light shine upon them”; when we quietly look up toward the eternal homeland of all the saints and – from afar and yet no near – greet God’s light and his love, our eternal homeland; then all our memories and all our prayers are only the echo of the words of love that the holy living, in the silence of their eternity, softly and gently speak into our heart.

Hidden in the peace of the eternal God, filled with his own bliss, redeemed for eternity, permeated with love for us that can never cease, they, on their feast, utter the prayer of their love for us: “Lord, grant eternal rest to them whom we love – as never before – in your love.  Grant it to them who still walk the hard road of pilgrimage, which is nonetheless the road that leads to us and to your eternal light.  We, although silent, are not closer to them than ever before, closer than when we were sojourning and struggling along with them on Earth.  Grant to them, too, Lord, eternal rest, and may your perpetual light shine on them as on us.  May it shine upon them now as the light of faith, and then in eternity, as the light of blessed life.”

Be mindful of the dead, O heart.  Call them into your heart today, listen to their silence, learn from them the one thing necessary: celebrate the feast of your saints.  For then the God of all the living will be mindful of us who are dead, and he will one day be our life, too.  And there will be one, single, eternal feast of all the saints.

Be angry, but do not sin

NOTE: The conference I recently presented to Benedictine oblates of Saint Meinrad at chapters in Ohio (Dayton, Cincinnati, Lancaster/Columbus):

We live in an angry world. It’s been an angry world ever since an enraged Cain killed his innocent brother Abel—simply out of resentment and envy. The same anger that motivated Cain afflicts us all in one way or another. Though some of us deal with our anger more constructively than others (hopefully, more constructively than Cain!), not one of us is immune to the emotion itself.

An honest examination of conscience will reveal that often enough, to one degree or another, we each allow that same anger of Cain’s to produce some type of evil action in our lives—in thought, word, or deed, and in either active or passive-aggressive fashion. After all, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus specifically said that it is not enough to simply avoid murdering one another in literal fashion. There are other ways to kill, figuratively speaking. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘you shall not kill …’,” Jesus said. “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment … and whoever says, ‘you fool …’ Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:21-22; 44).

Humanity’s anger and murderous impulse seems to be getting more pronounced and increasingly vicious. It’s not difficult to recognize the rage present all around us today. Just turn on the TV or radio, or get on the Internet. Besides the obvious and pervasive instances of war or threats of war, it seems that nearly every week, we are witness to at least one school or workplace shooting, terrorist attack, or some other unspeakable act of violence. This past summer—in the state of Virginia—a 66-year-old man with a rifle opened fire at a park where Republican lawmakers were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Five people were shot, and one congressman was seriously injured. Weeks later, in a different Virginia town, a young Ohio man purposely rammed his car into a crowd of people protesting the alt-right demonstration with which he had been involved. Several were injured, and one young woman was killed.

These are the extreme cases. But animosity that falls just short of such deadly force appears to prevail more often than not these days. Gone, it seems, are civilized public discourse, peaceful protest, and the thoughtful exchange of ideas in which each participant honestly attempts to understand, and perhaps learn from, one another. Even the art of persuasion seems to have been lost. Instead, the dominant tactic has become Attack, Humiliate, and Destroy. This tactic is quite evident all over social media, talk radio, and television discussion shows that more closely resemble boxing rings. And it is a tactic that has taken to the streets, where it is not enough to simply offer a protest, say, to counter the controversial views of a scheduled speaker. The opponent and his or her supporters must be shut down, silenced, and driven out.

It is no wonder, in such a rage-fueled culture, that already mentally disturbed individuals take things one step further with a rifle, knife, or a speeding car, Society, it seems to them, has at least tacitly issued a license to express and carry out one’s angry and violent impulses. And for that, we all bear at least some responsibility.

This anger or animosity is present every day all around us, in ways that don’t routinely make the news. It’s not limited to the televised spheres of politics, world affairs, and crime logs. We’ve all been either a witness or party to it. A driver is rudely cut off by another driver on the highway. An impatient office worker’s computer suddenly freezes up on a tight deadline, which is met with a string of expletives. Someone’s cutting remark deeply wounds a loved one. An argument flares up over an ultimately trivial matter, and suddenly a whole storehouse of grievances is brought out to fuel the fire. Sometimes, a punch or shove is thrown in.

Recently, while on vacation in Ohio, I was turning right onto the main drag running along the front of a strip mall. Stopped at the intersection, perpendicular to me on the right, was a truck, whose driver was leaning out the window talking with a man in a wheelchair below him. I proceeded to turn cautiously, slowly, to my right, where I suddenly saw another wheelchair-bound person in the roadway several dozen feet ahead of me. I slowed down even more. I was not moving quickly, and did not express any kind of frustration at all with the situation. Suddenly, the guy in the truck began screaming at me: “Everybody’s in a hurry! Hurry! Hurry! HURRY!”

I was too stunned to respond, so I just continued on, quite puzzled. I honestly examined what I had been doing, and concluded that I was driving reasonably and cautiously. There was no obvious reason for the other driver to be screaming at me. The only explanation I could imagine is that, possibly, another driver who had come through just before me, less careful and in more of a rush, had irritated the man, who then took out his frustration on me. In any event, from a logical point of view, he was the one in the wrong. His vehicle was stopped at the intersection of a busy service road while he conversed with someone in a wheelchair in the middle of that road! They should have pulled off to the side, or into the parking lot. Ironically, his own action not only put a couple lives in danger, but also created the very situation that frustrated him! Instead of realizing that and taking the appropriate action, he hurled his abuse at me.

As I continued down the road, I felt myself growing angry. I had an impulse to turn around and confront the man, ask him what his problem was, point out his error, or perhaps just drive by again and yell something at him. Or, I could have let the incident rile me up until I eventually took it out on someone else—passed the anger on, in other words. But what good would any of that have done? That only would have escalated everything, made it potentially worse, or punished someone else who had nothing to do with it. That’s how human anger and rage become so sinful and dangerous. Feeling slighted, harmed, or threatened, we react without thinking and strike out to inflict our pain on another. We want to retaliate, to punish – often beyond reasonable measure.

So, I ended up praying for the man as I continued driving along. As I did, some well-known Proverbs from Scripture came to mind:

A mild answer turns away wrath,
but harsh words stir up anger. (15:1)

It is good sense to be slow to anger,
and an honor to overlook an offense. (19:11)

Fools give vent to all their anger;
but the wise, biding their time, control it. (29:11)

Believe me; I have not always handled such situations so prayerfully and peacefully. Often enough, I have been an instigator or a perpetuator when it comes to angry words or actions. It’s likely we can all say that.

And unfortunately, the Church is not immune to such affliction. Much of the same anger or animosity I just described is also at work in the Church. We see it played out every day globally, nationally, regionally, and locally. The same distorted tactic of what passes for public discourse -- Attack, Humiliate, and Destroy – often seems to dominate our discussions and disagreements even within the Church. It seems we all too often forget St. Paul’s words to us in Scripture:

There is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Is not the bread we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, many though we are, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. (Galatians 3:38, 1 Corinthians 10:16-17).

Christ is the divine instrument of human salvation in which we are all invited to share through his suffering and death on the cross. However, rather than live this reality as the Body of Christ we truly are, we the Church sometimes do violence to that Body by engaging in the same angry dissension that afflicts the rest of our world.

Surely, this is not the Church Jesus envisioned when, during the Sermon on the Mount, directly after the Beatitudes, he told his followers: “You are the light of the world … Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:14, 16). From a Christian perspective, this is the real tragedy of our time – that an angry, divided world often does not look much different than the Church. As disciples of Christ, we are called to be a light in the darkness, so that others can see the true Way to God. But why would those in darkness follow those who seem just as angry and divided as themselves?

In Scripture, Jesus is pretty straightforward about how Christians are to be the light of the world. What he tells us is difficult but not impossible, with God’s grace: “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39),  “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you … do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:27-28, 31). And if that is not enough to convince us, he backed those words up by putting them into practice [saying, while extending his arms on the cross]: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

As an innocent victim on the cross, Jesus remains compassionate and forgiving to those who are crucifying him. He does not return insult for insult. He does not strike back. He does not speak in anger. Instead, he absorbs into himself all the anger and violence directed at him, and offers his whole being to the Father in atonement. As members of this Body of Christ, the Church, we are all called to do the same. That is our mission as Christians. That is how we become a light to the world.

As followers of St. Benedict, we are encouraged further along this path. “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way,” the Rule tells us in Chapter 4, the Tools for Good Works. “The love of Christ must come before all else. You are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge … Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently. Love your enemies. If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead” (RB 4:20-23, 30-32).

Toward the end of his Rule, St. Benedict re-emphasizes this ideal behavior in Chapter 72, The Good Zeal of Monks. “Just as there is a wicked zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell,” St. Benedict writes, “so there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life” (RB 72:1-2). This “good zeal,” he says, consists of this: “each should try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another … Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ” (RB 72:3-6, 11).

Clearly, as both Christians and as Benedictines, we are called to resist the “wicked zeal of bitterness” that afflicts our world and even the Church – the anger, animosity, and aggression which are so prevalent all around us. I really don’t need tell you how bad it is. You witness it every day. Hopefully less often, you are victimized by it. And, I pray, even less often, you may occasionally be a party to it, as I surely am sometimes.

However, I don’t want to paint too bleak a picture. We must not despair. God’s goodness also is still at work in the world. For instance, amid the horror of Hurricane Harvey in southeast Texas this summer, I was edified by numerous news accounts of generosity and self-sacrifice displayed by rescuers, volunteers, and aid workers. So, let’s not allow the overall state of today’s world dim our hope as a light to the nations. God has never left us, Christ is still among us, and the Spirit blows where he wills. As St. Paul tells us: “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28).

Our mission as Christians and Benedictines is to cooperate with this movement of God’s goodness—by his grace, to transform the world little by little into the Kingdom of God. Alone, we cannot change the world. But if we each focus on allowing God to change our individual hearts, then together, as the Body of Christ, we will accomplish great things in God’s name. So, fighting the “wicked zeal of bitterness” in today’s world begins in each of our individual hearts. The point is that we cannot focus solely on what’s happening “out there” in terms of anger and animosity. Instead, we do well to examine what’s happening “in here” [pointing to heart]. If every Christian would do that, the Church’s light to the world would be too bright for anyone to ignore, and it would draw many others in. As the Letter of James puts it: “Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?” (James 4:1) To put it simply, the anger and bitterness that afflicts the world is generated from within each one of our individual hearts.

Perhaps our challenge is not so much to “conquer evil” in the world, but to harvest the goodness that God plants in each of our hearts, and then share its produce with a world that hungers for it.

OK, we’ve identified the problem. That’s not too hard to do in this case. How do we address it? That’s the real question. And it’s not an easy one.

First, let’s establish an important point: Anger, in and of itself, is not a sin. It’s easy to become confused about this. Anger is an emotion—or a passion, in the traditional spiritual vernacular—just like any other. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “In themselves, passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will” (No. 1767).

Thoughts or emotions that enter our minds and hearts are beyond our control. However, what we can control is how we respond or react to those thoughts or emotions. This is where reason and will come into play.

For example, if someone does or says something that arouses my anger, the very fact that I have become angry is neither good nor evil. I am not being sinful by being angry. The moral nature of my anger is established only by the extent that I allow it to influence my choices, and by what those choices are. If that choice is to strike someone physically because of my anger, or to perhaps spread malicious gossip in retaliation, only then I have engaged in sinful behavior. As the Desert Father Evagrius put it: “Whether our thoughts upset the soul or not is not up to us. But whether they remain or not remain, and whether they are allowed to move the passions or not is up to us” (Praktikos 6, SChr 171, 508).

Scripture makes a similar point: “Be angry but do not sin,” Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians says (4:26). “Do not let anger upset your spirit,” the Book of Ecclesiastes advises (7:9). “A sinner holds on to anger” the Book of Sirach tells us (27:30 adapted). Similarly, Trappist monk Michael Casey translates St. Benedict’s admonition against anger in the Rule as “Do not go all the way with anger”— rather than “you are not to act in anger,” the translation I used a little earlier. “Anger will arise in certain circumstances,” he explains. “But it is up to us whether we go all the way with it.” I like that interpretation. We each have the ability (and responsibility) to avoid following our anger where it can so often lead us—to the point of sin. By employing our reason and will, we can choose not to go there. We can “be angry, but not sin.”

The trouble, it seems, is that humanity has become increasingly motivated by emotion or passion—without employing the gift of reason. Too often, when angry, we act without thinking. We follow our passions, and the cycle is repeated from one person to another.

It must be stressed, though, that there is such a thing as justifiable anger that can lead to good. Seeing or hearing about an injustice done to another person or group of people, for example, should make us angry. Such anger is how many of the world’s problems get solved. Once again, however, the key is how that anger is managed, and to what extent our reason is employed along with it in choosing to act appropriately and constructively.

OK, so how do we actually deal with our own anger at a real or perceived injustice to ourselves, so that we do not “go all the way with it”? How do we employ reason and then act appropriately and constructively for the good—thus resisting the “wicked zeal of bitterness” that afflicts our world?

First of all pray! As St. Benedict says in the Prologue to his Rule, “every time you begin a good work, you must pray to [the Lord] most earnestly to bring it to perfection” (4). In this way, you are submitting yourself to God, asking for his grace to harvest the goodness he’s already planted in your heart, so you may share its produce with the world. By beginning with humble prayer, you are acknowledging that only God is able to do this, and that you are willing to cooperate with his grace. Most importantly, you are seeking a reserve of grace to draw upon before your anger is aroused by someone or something.

Keep your prayer simple and to the point. There’s no need for a long-winded speech. In fact, expressing your desire to God in silence is just as powerful a prayer. In your own thoughts or words, your prayer could go something like this: “God, sometimes I get so angry with ______. Help me to be aware of and recognize this anger, to manage it and to think before I act or say something that will only escalate things. Help me to act only from your love for the good of all.”

Second, whenever you do become angry, acknowledge your anger. Don’t tell yourself or anyone else that you’re not angry when you are. Don’t repress it. And don’t let it do a slow burn while you act out in passive-aggressive fashion, or until you eventually explode in a totally inappropriate manner—most likely inflicting your wrath on someone who had nothing to do with the original cause of your anger. These are all dangerous ways to deal with anger. Instead, be honest with yourself — “I’m getting angry”— and keep the lines of communication open, if at all possible — “When you do that, I get angry …”

Third, take a timeout. Step back from the situation, at least momentarily. Thomas Jefferson once said, “When angry, count to 10 before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” That specific tactic may not work for everyone, but the point is to reflect before responding to whatever has prompted your anger—to think before reacting. One needs to be careful here and not retreat in order to stew over everything and become even angrier. Instead, ask yourself some very simple but probing questions, such as: OK, what just happened? Why did it happen? Why does it make me angry? What might my anger reveal about my own deficiencies? Have I provoked this situation in any way? What might God be trying to teach me here? How much will this situation matter next week…next year…in view of eternity? What can I do to help resolve this and be reconciled?

Some other good questions to ask yourself: Is my anger justifiable? Or is it simply prompted by wounded pride? If it is justifiable, then how might God be calling me to act on it in order to produce some good?

The point here is not to immediately arrive at any answers or to reach a solution to the overall problem. Rather, the goal is to allow your reasoning ability to catch up with your emotion—to take the time to approach the situation reflectively rather than by instantaneous reaction.

This is where your prayer in the first step bears fruit, hopefully. It also is a good point at which to return to prayer—even if it’s something as short and simple as “God, I’m angry. Help me to deal with this in the right way, in a loving way.” And, as difficult as it may be, remember also to keep in prayer the person or circumstance which led to your becoming angry. Place yourself is his or her shoes before stepping back into the situation in order to resolve it.

Fourth, if this is a recurring situation or source of aggravation, then talk it over with someone. Don’t keep it bottled up and try to deal with it yourself. Find a trusted friend or spiritual director with whom you can share your burdens. Sometimes, simply expressing one’s frustrations to another in a safe, nonjudgmental forum can help provide some measure of relief or even reveal an insight or solution that had not been apparent previously.

Finally, reflect on your experience and be reconciled. As Fr. Keith McClellan has written (“A Spiritual Response to Anger,” Catholic Perspectives CareNote by Abbey Press), “Ask yourself: What can I learn from this? How might God be asking me to change through this (even if I am not in the wrong)? If I am the injured party, I must work toward forgiveness. If I have injured someone, let me seek forgiveness by acknowledging my fault.”

And, if reconciliation is not possible, then at least let us pray for one another.

So, be angry but do not sin.

Let’s conclude with a prayer based on the words of Scripture:

Good and gracious God, keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith (cf. Hebrews 12:2). As the innocent victim of our redemption, he forgave from the cross, drawing all to himself, and offered to you his whole being. As members of his Body, guided by the good zeal of the Holy Spirit, let us do the same and be a light to the world. Help us each to examine our hearts, be renewed in the spirt of our minds, and put on the new self, created in your righteousness and holiness of truth. Remove from us all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling, and malice, and help us instead to be kind to one another, compassionate, and to forgive one another as you have forgiven each one of us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. (cf. Ephesians 4:23-24, 31-32) 

The power of prayer

Wise words on prayer to ponder--strung together from many of this week's readings at Mass:

✠ Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

✠ "You are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing." (Luke 10:41-42)

✠ "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test." (Luke 11:2-4)

✠ "Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9)

Monte Cassino restoration

By now, you are likely aware of the recently completed renewal project involving Saint Meinrad's beloved Monte Cassino Shrine about a mile away from our main campus. A lot of much needed work was done, and the results are quite stunning. If you have ever visited the small chapel (the first sandstone structure completed by the original monks of Einsiedeln when they arrived in southern Indiana from Switzerland in the mid-19th century), then you have one more reason to stop by again. It is truly a beautiful and sacred place. Please see the video above by Catholic News Service, which was on hand to record the re-opening/blessing of the shrine a couple weeks ago. For more information on the history of the shrine, please click here.

Presence

Almighty God and Father,

You came to dwell among us

in your Son, Jesus Christ,

who died for our sins

and was raised from the dead

so we too may walk in newness of life.

In your Holy Spirit,

which he breathed on his disciples,

we were sealed at baptism;

and he promised this Advocate

will remain with us always.

We know that this is true

in the Eucharist and in all your sacraments,

as well as in Scripture,

the life and tradition of the Church,

and within disposed and prayerful hearts.

Still, we often forget all this.

We are fearful, doubtful, anxious,

and are frequently led astray.

Please forgive us,

and guide us along the right way.

One God in Three Persons,

help us to remember

that you are with us always,

and to cast out fear with love,

doubt with faith, and anxiety with hope.

You who give

life and breath and all things,

as we seek you in this valley of tears

help us to be aware

that you are always near us.

In you alone

we live and move

and have our being.

Amen.

                                                                                                -- Br. Francis

Just for fun

Easter blessings

The Tree of Life from Revelation 22 by Rebecca Jean

The earth has yielded its fruit
for God, our God, has blessed us.
May God still give us his blessing
till the end of the earth revere him.

Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!

Psalm 67

[For further reflection see: Genesis 1:12,29; Ezekiel 47:7-12;
Sirach 24:12-22; John 12:24; Revelation 22:2]

Why this Friday is Good

The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the applle tree

His beauty doth all things excel
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
His beauty doth all things excel
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
I missed of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while
I'm weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while
Under the shadow I will be
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
18^th-century poem

The bells are back!

Original clappers from two of the smaller bells. Notice the
elongation of the holes on the left due to 100 years of wear.

Well, most of them anyway.

You may recall this post of mine from a while back (click here) regarding the silencing of our church's six bells for needed repairs and maintenance -- and how odd it has been around here to not hear them!

Yesterday -- appropriately enough, the Solemnity of the Passing of Our Holy Father Benedict -- four of them were back in service, ringing across the surrounding hills to call us to prayer, and to mark each quarter hour. It was so good to hear them again early yesterday morning that several pleasantly surprised monks stopped in their tracks to listen to them, smiling broadly.

Today, in an electronic newsletter for Archabbey co-workers, Director of Physical Facilities Andy Hagedorn supplied some details, as well as the above photo. He writes:

The Verdin Bell Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, completed the rebuilding of four bells in the south bell tower on Monday. They rebuilt Bell #5 in the north bell tower yesterday [Tuesday]. The bells had been out of service since an inspection on November 22 deemed them in need of significant repair and maintenance. 

I am told that large church bells typically require major repair work and replacement parts about every 100 years. That is about how long they’ve been in service. 

All the bells are getting new clappers (the swinging internal piece that strikes the bell). They also are all getting new clapper springs. These springs soften the blow and limit contact from the clapper, protecting the bell from damage and enhancing the sound. 

We should be good to go now until approximately 2120. Bell #6, which had developed a crack, is still in repair and transport. We hope to have it back in service in the north tower sometime this summer.