'O' Week of Coughing

Suddenly the temperature rose to almost spring like levels, and my body, accustomed to the cold, went into full rebellion. But that's something I'm used to. The problem was that I coughed so much that mass at the Abbey was out of the question. Instead I went to St. Joseph's here in Bardstown, and it was pleasant.

One advantage of going to mass here in town is you can leave later, save gas, and sleep a little later. All those are convenient, yet the moment I can sit for an hour without coughing myself silly and disrupting mass, I'll be right back at the monastery. At St. Joseph's, everyone else was coughing too, including the priest. Tis the season!

The paper I'm working on, an examination of the Constitutions and Statutes, is coming along. This is exciting work because it helps me to solidify in my own mind exactly what the parts of the Cistercian charism really are. What I am finding is that lay people can live out the majority of things the Constitutions require. There are obvious differences, yet we are called to talk about it in a new language, according to Dom Bernardo Olivera.

So here it is, almost Christmas, and I'm feeling spiritually awake, and trying to love as God would have me do.

Happy Christmas!

O Wisdom

O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High and, reaching from beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly. Come, and teach us the way of prudence.

The 'O' Antiphons of Advent.

I remember the first time I heard of the 'O' Antiphons, they struck me as something that had to be truly sacred. Anything referred to as 'O' must be something special. So when I actually read them it was something of a let down. They don't seem to say anything new, and they're not exactly striking poetry. But, I am dogged when confronted with something that resists my understanding, so I pushed on.

First came the obvious reference to John's Gospel. It calls to mind the Logos. "You came forth from the mouth of the Most High."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1.1

It was the "reaching from beginning to end," that caught my attention. This is the action of God from eternity, for eternity. We cannot reach outside of time, God can. We cannot "order all things mightily" either. God can.

Advent is the time for us to beg the Incarnate Word to be born into our hearts. To come and save us from ourselves, and come to make us truly ourselves.

Advent

Christmas is coming. Shopping malls and stores of every kind are filled with people rushing about, spending money, and accumulating stress. Funny how stress goes hand in hand with the holidays. Even the monks and nuns have stress this time of year because of the rush on their food products. Lots of commentators tell us that we should relax, not take the gift buying so seriously, to step back from ourselves and enter into the meaning of the holiday. Yet, isn't Advent a stressful time in a religious sense as well?

At the time of Jesus birth the entire known world was stressed by revolutions, lunatics sitting on thrones, ill health, and the general misery of the people. The people of Israel were under Roman rule, a statue had been put into the Temple, Herod was ruler, and things must have looked like they were going to hell in a hand basket. No doubt there were plenty of people wishing for the "good old days," whatever that is supposed to be.

The advent readings offer hope, but not much in the way of immediate relief from the stress of the time. For the entire world from creation until Jesus was born was one very long Advent. We only have to put up with four weeks of Advent before the great glory is revealed in the birth of Jesus.

Somehow then it seems appropriate that we go through stress during Advent. I'm not defending the modern world's values, or our consumer culture, but I do say that the hurry and shopping and cooking and arguing that we all do during the season, is nothing more than a small sample of what the world went through for the thousands of years before Jesus was born. Maybe we should remember that, and how blessed we are to only have to wait a few weeks for the Incarnation of him, who we know as Christ.

Monday

I had a flu shot back in mid November. What's odd today is how I feel like I've got the flu; the achey joints, exhausted feeling, etc., yet not a bit of fever. Nothing! Also, my head isn't stopped up. Yet, the rest of my body is saying "you've got the flu."

It was the first time for a flu shot so this is all new to me.

Thomas Merton was remembered yesterday by the OCSO. It's funny, the Lesser Feasts and Fasts, a litgurgical book of the Episcopal Church, has a set feast for Merton, yet the Catholic Bishops do not even have him on the list of Holy People. How strange is that? What is this prejudice the higher ups in the church have against Merton?

It will take greater minds than mine to figure it out. I am rereading The Inner Experience because I think it is the most powerful of all his books. The patina of ultra-catholicity present in his early works, is missing in The Inner Experience. That must put me in the minority because most of the people I've talked to about it don't seem as excited by it as I am. Again, who knows.

Today's mass readings. And the saint of the day.

Immaculate Conception

Well, here it is another of the big Marian Feasts. To be honest, I love these feasts. This one seems to be all about "conceived without stain of original sin." Okay, that sounds just ever so scared of the fact that human beings are born as a direct result of sexual contact between man and woman.

Moving on. For me it is enough to see this feast as one celebrating that Mary was conceived, and with her conception came the possibility of her cooperation with the Holy Spirit when the choice was presented to her. Fiat. Perhaps Jesus was born at that particular time in history because it was when the "one" soul that would say yes, was alive? It's interesting to think that the coming of the Messiah was tied to the birth of the correct woman.

In the end, though, it is all unknown. When the vision told Bernadette that her name was the Immaculate Conception, Abbot Damien said, then it gave heaven's approval to the dogma. I can't say much about that, because I am so reluctant to give the weight of "dogma" to words of a vision. Since this all falls in what I call the category of unknowns, I am content to say Amen, Praise God, and go forward on faith.

The way I see it is similar to the Rabbi in Acts who said, "if it is from God, nothing can stop it." I am Protestant born and raised. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception frightens me a bit. Still, I am more than willing to say that what I don't know about Mary, could fill the earth. What I do know about Mary is that she did and does exist.

Good mothers are loved. Mary must have been a good mother, because while dying on the cross Jesus said, "Behold your mother."

Jesus had to take flesh, bone, DNA, etc., from some human. Mary gave hers to Jesus for his own. And, since Marian Feasts make me feel lyrical:

Hail holy queen, mother of mercy,
Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To you do we cry poor banished children of Eve,
To you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping
in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate
your eyes of mercy toward us.
And after this, our exile,
Show us the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

Thursday, First Week of Advent

I wasn't able to get to mass on Tuesday afternoon because my mother had to go to the doctor at the last minute. She's fine, but didn't get home until 4.15pm, and that is not enough time to get to the Abbey from here.

Today's Gospel was the wise man who built his house on a rock. Today is also the memorial of St. Ambrose, whom St. Stephen Harding admired so much that he wished to limit all Cistercian hymnody to Ambrosian hymns. How unspeakably dull that would have become! Thankfully, he didn't get his wish. The development of Cistercian hymnody is rather interesting, and Fr. Chrysogonus Waddell, OCSO, has written a great deal about it.

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, so mass will be at 10:30 instead of 6:15. In a way that's very nice because it is full daylight by then, and the mass is performed with double solemnity. In another way, it puts the mass right in the middle of the day when it's harder to get away from occupation. Still, I will go.

Peace

Mass for Healing

At 4:30 this afternoon, Gethsemani will have mass and healing for the sick. I can only hope that the church will be packed with people. Anytime healing is offered in the context of liturgy, we should run to it immediately, begging God to heal us. In a way that view seems almost like wishing for magic. Yet, are not the sacraments the very power of God at work in the Church?

I got up at 5:00 this morning, anyway, because breaking the habit isn't worth the risk. Break it once, and a precedent is set for the next time that it's more convenient to stay in bed, instead of getting up to seek God. That precedent was set by me long ago, so now I have to be on guard.

I wonder if there could be lay Cistercian houses? A place to provide enclosure where people could live. Ownership of the houses would require serious discernment, with the input of the community at Gethsemani. This is a dream, but what a beautiful dream. It would not attempt to recreate the actual monastic practices, or try to be monks, but a place with a specific set of rules for living out our calling in the secular world.

Perhaps more important would be the opportunity to provide Lay Cistercians with places where they go for retreat without waiting months for a room in the guesthouse. Like I said, it's just a dream.

Can You Believe It's Advent

Yes, Advent is upon us. That can only mean that Christmas is not far away. The weather certainly gives a certain crispness to what is often described as the busiest season of the year. For most people Advent means a lot of Christmas shopping. Personally, I hate Christmas shopping. I love Christmas, and presents, etc., but the harried shoppers crowding every square inch of floor space in stores is more than I can tolerate. The allure of online shopping is never so great as at Christmas time.

Yesterday I gave Fr. James my paper. That was so hard to do, because I do not often share what I write. This blog, while fun to do, is probably the longest writing I've done since college. At least for other people to read. After I gave him the paper I felt extremely vulnerable and exposed. One of accusations people have thrown at me is how I often hide my gifts. I'm not convinced that I have a gift for writing, in the first place. However, being a Lay Cistercian is requiring that I step outside my comfort zone, take a chance, and let my thoughts be shared.
After finishing the paper I realized that there are four more papers that need to be written.

Tomorrow the LCG meets at Gethsemani, and I am delighted. It's always nice to get together with them, and tomorrow we'll extend our time together by taking lunch after mass. Yea!