The Communities of New Skete

Scripture Reading: Luke 1:26-38

Reflections from a Nun

We think we have been given “free will”, that we can choose, make decisions for ourselves, but at some of the most critical junctures of our lives, it sometimes seems that this is not the case. Consider these messages, that people receive all the time:

“The company is downsizing, and we’re going to have to let you go.”

“It’s cancer.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“We did everything we could, but his injuries were too great. I’m sorry, he’s gone.”

When we are handed news like this, we know it will be life-changing. We don’t have a choice about that. We do have a choice, though, about how the news changes our lives, and that choice is about attitude.

I recently read about a study that had been made on the development of children who were the result of wanted versus unwanted pregnancies. Two groups of children were followed over an extended period of time. The children were alike in all respects (socio-economic status, and so on), with the only difference being that one group was “wanted” by their mothers, the other “unwanted”. The unwanted group fared worse on an overwhelming scale. Not only did they do more poorly in school from an early age (despite performing equally well on intelligence tests), but they also consistently had difficulties in interpersonal relationships: less popularity with their peers in school, and later at work; difficulties with parents and teachers, and later with supervisors; disappointments in their love lives, and greater mental health problems as adults.

I found this study fascinating. Of course, you can argue that women who bear children against their wishes are going to make worse mothers – especially if the negative attitude continues – but it seems as if the disadvantages in the unwanted group were so overwhelming, and the other differences between the groups of mothers so slight, that there was something going on beyond good or bad parenting. It had something to do with the initial attitude of the mothers toward giving birth, and it continued throughout the lives of their children.

Mary’s acceptance of her motherhood sets in motion an outcome that has similarly far-reaching consequences – in this case not only for herself and her family, but for all humankind. It is sometimes said that Mary chose to take on the role of mother of God. I don’t think so, really. It doesn’t sound to me as if she had much choice in that matter. The angel says pretty clearly what is going to happen, regardless of Mary’s wishes. Her initial reaction, quite understandably, is one of incredulous amazement. After this, though, comes her response: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Willing acceptance of what is going to happen.

If we continue on in our reading of Luke’s gospel at this point, what follows is stunning. Mary goes to visit her relative, Elizabeth, who has recently become pregnant with John the Baptist, and we have the remarkable account of the baby “leaping for joy” in Elizabeth’s womb at Mary’s greeting; and then Mary’s further response of the “Magnificat”, beginning with “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” and going on to praise God for fulfilling his promise to Abraham and his descendents. It is as if the children in these two wombs are communicating with their mothers, prophesying to them.

Suddenly we have a miracle that goes beyond God’s simply sending a messiah to humankind; there is a further miracle in the way this happens. It happens through a confluence of divine will and human acceptance that opens up a dialogue between the divine and human participants – a dialogue that begins with Mary’s initial response. Heaven and earth are collaborating to bring about an outcome that turns the universe upside-down and inside-out – that allows the uncontainable to be contained in the young girl’s womb, to come forth in fully human form, and to lead the way for all of us to move toward the divine.

The news that Mary accepted, and the dialogue that she opened, made a difference for the entire human race. Few of us will ever be in such a position. But we can, perhaps, change the outcome for ourselves and those around us, through the attitude with which we accept messages such as some of those I mentioned at the beginning. Easier said than done, of course. When the perfectly human reaction is to recoil from the words in horror, how do we move beyond this to respond, as Mary did, with an attitude of acceptance? Perhaps the best first step is simply in realizing that an accepting attitude is what we need, and praying for help in reaching it. We can begin the dialogue with prayer.

I recently got back in touch by email with an old friend whom I had not seen or spoken with for decades, and I was telling her about the deepening spirituality that had led me here to New Skete. She had lost her husband, a physician, just a year or so ago (she’s about 15 years older than I), and she responded, somewhat wistfully, “Steve would have liked a more spiritual life before he passed away last May, but he had too much engineering and medical training to be able to take a step like that.” I thought “how sad”. But how can a person will himself to believe, to have faith? How can we will ourselves to approach what is thrown at us with the attitude that all will be well – the attitude that will make it all come out well? In Steve’s case, I think, the answer lay in letting go of what he thought he knew, through his science and engineering, about how the world works. Those disciplines can take us so far, but to go beyond that requires letting go of the idea that we can know everything. And, perhaps, his very wish for the spiritual was a first step in getting there, a silent prayer that he might begin a dialogue with the divine. Those of us who already have a habit of faith are one step ahead of the game, in having greater access to prayer. I’d like to suggest this prayer for all of us: Let it be with us as it was with Mary; let us be filled with an attitude of acceptance.

Scripture Reading: Js 3:13-18; Ep 4:22-32; Mt 6:5-15

Reflections from a Monk

This is Forgiveness Sunday. As we look around the world, forgiveness doesn’t seem to the preoccupation of many nations or peoples. Payback, revenge, settling scores, retaliation: these are all too often the hallmarks of international relations. Actions triggered by these motives are reactions to grievances, grievances that remain unresolved by peaceful means. This can all be very disheartening, especially when we have sons and daughters and friends caught in the middle of these conflicts far from home. But lack of forgiveness isn’t just manifested in other regions or societies. If we look around our country we see that forgiveness can be absent from private life and public discourse here too. In this election season don’t expect any candidate to forgive the other during the heat of electoral battle. Everything is framed in black and white, I’m right, they’re wrong, I’m honest, they’re not, I’m qualified they’re not, they attacked me unfairly so I’ll attack them unfairly. All of this can engender a feeling of hopelessness around glaring inequities that we seem helpless to change. It can lead us to raise our voices to heaven and cry out to God asking why these conflicts persist. The answer is closer to home.

Rather than despair about the great issues that we seem powerless to affect, what about examining those unsettled issues in our daily lives? In families “Cold Wars” break out: silences around hurt feelings can persist for months, even years. Cold shoulders in the work place can become walls of enmity. Taking an approach to life that is always critical of others: “constantly finding fault, forever nursing our anger” as the Psalmist laments, puts us in the same place as the world around us. None of this is new, it is very human and part of the human condition from the beginning of time to the present. The Great Lent gives each of us an annual opportunity to look into our own hearts to see what unforgiving attitudes and emotions are lurking there and to take this to prayer and even apply some ascetical practices to begin to break down some of these walls of enmity that prevent the growth and deepening of healthy relationships. To pass through the Door of Repentance requires forgiveness and that is why we begin the Lenten Season with a liturgical celebration that focuses on forgiveness.

Forgiveness is about relationships, but so is hate, they are just opposite sides of the relationship coin. We are free to choose either, but Jesus Christ gave us a prayer to show us a way to bring about change in the place where it must always begin, in each individual heart and soul. A few weeks ago I was reading a meditation in French on a paraphrase of the Lord’s prayer: “forgive us as we forgive others.” The meditation began by asking: what does the text mean by “as”. Is this some kind of quid pro quo? God will forgive me if I forgive others? Can I buy God’s forgiveness by forgiving others? Not at all. The phrase is showing us the example of God’s forgiveness so that we might adopt the same approach ourselves. The French meditation on forgiveness described God as a pardonnant chronique, as one who constantly (or chronically if you will) forgives. The Gospels speak of forgiving 70 times 7 or in other words, forgiveness without end.

What does forgiveness really achieve? The benefits of forgiveness are not always immediately apparent. This is because we do not often think of forgiveness as the foundation stone of relationships. Yet, it is the very foundation of God’s relationship with us. The strongest bonds are between people who know each other most deeply, who challenge each other to grow, who forgive each others offenses and who never give up on one another. This is God at work in us. This is the kind of relationship forgiveness forges. This is the relationship St James writes about. When personal relationships are right then wisdom from on high, which is pure, peaceable, considerate, willing to yield, full of mercy and of good fruits, undivided of mind, without hypocrisy, can break through into our lives and make a difference.

St Paul tells us not to hesitate to act; not to let the sun set on our wrath. He’s warning us that the longer we postpone mending a quarrel the less likely we are ever to mend it. So what we have to work on is the inner tendency to let the passion around an issue blind us to the need to forgive and mend the relationship. But it is so easy to fall back into old habits, even around seemingly small things:

Someone gave me feedback I didn’t want to hear:
Unforgivable!
Power company made a mistake on my bill:
Unforgivable!
I asked her to pick up something for me but she forgot:
Unforgivable!

If we don’t forgive, punishment follows. The punishment is the world we see around us where strife destroys live. It is punishment we visit upon ourselves by our own failure to build relationships as God has showed us how to do. It is the punishment we inflict on ourselves when we cannot forgive ourselves. And forgiving ourselves may be the hardest type of forgiveness of all.

One’s relationship with God is initiated by God’s unending forgiveness of us, but that forgiveness cannot bear the necessary fruit if we withhold forgiveness from others. Just like the parable of the servant who owed a great debt to his master which the master forgave only to have that servant fail to forgive a much smaller debt owned to him. He was deemed a “scoundrel’ and banished into outer darkness, that darkness where we live if we cannot forgive. This Lenten Season, every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer may we strive to ever more fully put into practice its call to forgive.

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Scripture Reading: Job 2:1-11; 31:16-23, 29-37, Col 3:5-17, Mt 25:31-46

Reflections from a Monk

Recently, against the wishes of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, a follower of hers published her private diaries. There she admits to God how desolate and empty she has felt for years, while serving the despairing and dying people in the darkest holes of Calcutta.

Today in the Old Testament reading, during Job’s trials and his crisis of suffering, he argues that his life speaks for itself. He has not just said “Lord, Lord!” during prayers and worship done at the proper times. He showed his true nature when he acted with kindly consideration and right conduct toward every sort of person—he gave his assistance and protection to those who were in any kind of need—and they were his witnesses before God and against those who were testing him.

When I first read today’s readings, I found I had to read them again, one phrase at a time. It soon dawned on me that these selections contain a key road map to right living, joyfulness, and yes, even enlightenment and peace. It’s here in a nutshell—something very much needed today. It’s sought after by believers and many non-believers alike. I felt how truly inspired by the Holy Spirit these authors were!

So now there is no excuse! The readings make it pretty clear what our life’s work is and God’s challenge to us since our baptism. It is also an ancient call, of course. In fact, it is the true vocation and the fulfillment of every human being.

In the Gospel of the Final Judgment, the message is clear and dramatic: we all know about the goats and the sheep, to the left and to the right, each group confronted with and surprised at its own possession or lack of moral insight. This is the teaching: Our actions show our humanity or lack of it. We display our blindness when we separate love of neighbor from the love of God.

Christ lived on earth not only 2000 years ago. Christ becomes our living teacher when we ask “What can I learn from this person or this circumstance, especially when the individual or event makes me uncomfortable or pushes my buttons?”

We know this in our deepest hearts and souls at the twinge we feel when we hurt someone or ignore or forget someone. But when we do step up to the plate, even grudgingly, and take a chance on a good impulse, it is because we trust that little voice within us! Excuses don’t cut it. This is the crisis and the judgment! Just do it!

Recently I visited Fr. James at his Georgia parish in their newly consecrated church. Since several members are now in Iraq, the parish has made it a practice to send each of them a package every week.

I can only imagine the great effort it is to collect all this stuff. One young girl regularly brings in bags full of lollypops, those small ones with lots of colors and flavors. When asked where she gets them, she said the banks have jars full of lollipops to hand out to kids and customers, so she was going around to the area banks and reciting to the tellers what she needed and why, and they would grab large handfuls for her to bring back.

“A little child will lead them!” says Isaiah. Jesus says “Unless you become as a little child!”

Finally, the epistle gives us that precise step-by-step plan of life for fulfilling our human vocation, the same path monks and nuns and other Christians, those who are awake and searching, have followed since the beginning.

St. Paul says, put aside your anger and shame, your guilt and revenge, your fear and cravings, your hardness of heart toward others and even toward yourself. Though we are no longer guilty of the extreme vices he mentions before this, our own harmful thoughts still rule us and lead us to dead ends and betray our own judgmental attitudes.

Instead, he says, stand upright as icons of Christ: immediately replace these thoughts and their destructive emotions with gentleness, patience, kindness, and compassion, by over-looking insults and faults and hurts, and by treating others as we would to be treated.

The next steps of our journey are clear now! This is the asceticism of Lent and the Christian life. Keep an eye on our self, but care for one another, with generous give and take.—I remember Brother Elias saying to me, when I was complaining, to allow room for someone to grow. This is dying to our ego-centered self while we are alive. This makes room for the healing and the love of Christ.

Not that it’s easy! But it is a proven way! Be thankful for every step we can take, and that we are not traveling alone. Just as when we sing together in church, we can always encourage each other in harmony and unity. Every time we succeed or even try, we have something new to celebrate, to live for, and to die for in so many small ways.

For Christ is in our midst.