Grounded in Tenacity

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.—Confucian proverb

Recently I read a reflection about how all things in creation can be our teachers. During my first weeks of monastic life, my teacher did not appear in bird song or fluttering butterflies, but in the lowly weed. “Ah,” you might think, “she needs to learn the Benedictine value of humility!” Although that is certainly true, at this particular time in my life, I believe the virtue about which the weeds have been instructing me is tenacity.

Just as you can pull a weed and two more will appear a week later, monastic life requires perseverance and a determination to flourish, whether in the clay soil of Kansas or in the aftermath of an earthquake in Norcia, Italy. The keys to Benedictine tenacity are the support of community (have you ever seen a weed, or a monastic, without at least several more nearby?) and a commitment to prayer.

Today, on the feast of St. Monica, Fr. Gabriel noted at mass that this holy woman is a saint not because of the conversion of her famous son, Augustine, but because of her perseverance in prayer. Such perseverance is important because prayer is a constant reminder that success does not come through our own efforts but by placing our lives in the hands of God.

If prayer, like weeding, can sometimes seem like a never-ending prospect, that is because it is! Pray always…weed always…learn tenacity, and you will flourish in the kingdom of God.