Fifty Years of Formation and Counting

Yesterday at the Mount we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the monastic profession of Sisters Anne Shepard, Rita Killackey, Rose Marie Stallbaumer, and Sharon Hamsa. In her homily at mass, Sister Esther Fangman noted that after 50 years as professed sisters, each of the jubilarians has prayed morning and evening prayer with the community approximately 36,500 times, for a total of 146,000 times among the four of them.

As Sister Esther noted, who we ultimately become depends in large part on how we spend our time, so after a lifetime of prayer, it is no wonder our jubilarians are faithful, insightful, compassionate, joyful women. As a novice, I am in a special period of “formation” with a focus on prayer and study, but the jubilee celebration affirmed that we continue to be formed throughout our monastic lives through times of communal prayer, private lectio, and our encounters with each other in daily life.

I don’t anticipate living long enough to celebrate 50 years in community, but 25 years might be within reach. I wonder what kind of a person I would be after praying morning and evening prayer 18,250 times?

Serendipity

“Love of Learning” was the theme of the conference I attended last weekend with women in formation from other Benedictine communities. At one point, we were asked to recall a time when we were excited about learning something new. For me, the memory that first came to mind was taking a calligraphy class with Mike O’Hare during my time at Benedictine College. My fascination with words extends to typography, so it was a pleasure to learn how to use the calligraphy tools, study the formation of letters, exercise discipline in practicing the lettering, and ultimately create something beautiful. “Huh,” I thought to myself. “Calligraphy is a meditative practice—maybe I should include it in my schedule during the novitiate.”

After I returned from the conference, Sr. Loretta McGuire asked if I could help her decorate a couple of cakes for the Dooley Center jubilee reception. She inquired as to whether I had “a good hand” and could write a couple of messages on paper doilies to place on top of the cakes. Thus, within three days after returning from the conference, I was presented with the opportunity to use my (rusty) calligraphy skills. I take this as confirmation that I should include calligraphy practice in my novitiate agenda.

Don’t you love the rare occasions when God delivers a direct message? I wonder, though, if those occasions aren’t as rare as we think. It might be that a connection exists between taking the time for contemplation/listening and our ability to pick up on what God might be suggesting to us. At any rate, it’s always a delight when God uses serendipity as a messenging tool!

Dwelling in Possibility

In a presentation on “Love of Learning: The Overlooked Monastic Practice,” Sr. Edith Bogue remarked, “When we participate with God to make new things, then we can really know God.” But how do we go about “participating with God to make new things”?

Part of the answer lies in a statement by Robert F. Kennedy that Fr. Meinrad Miller quoted at mass this morning: “There are those who look at things as they are, and ask “Why?’ I dream of things that never were, and ask, ‘Why not?’” God, I believe, lives in a constant state of “Why not?” and invites us to participate in this life of continual newness and creativity. When we do, we become co-creators with God in imagining a world with art and music and poetry that never was before, a world in which all people have access to health care and clean water, a world that is based on connection instead of separation.

At one time or another, we have all experienced inspiration—an openness to the Spirit dwelling within us who provides the spark for a new poem, a new insight, a new way to solve old problems. Often, however, we let fear—of change, of appearing foolish, of disrupting our comfortable lives—extinguish the spark. We need to do a better job of offering hospitality to this Spirit within by listening, attending, and offering breathing space so we can truly participate in the life of God by joining in the creation of new things.

Benedictine Love of Learning

This past weekend, at a conference for Benedictine women in formation and their directors, I attended a presentation on “Love of Learning: The Overlooked Monastic Practice” by Edith Bogue, OSB. Sr. Edith noted that few contemporary books on Benedictine monasticism highlight love of learning, which is surprising, because the main qualification for those who wish to become a monastic is to seek God, and seeking God and love of learning go together.

Sr. Edith pointed out that those of us who wish to know God look at (1) what God does, (2) who God keeps as company, and (3) how God built our dwelling place, which can encompass study of history, Scripture, anthropology, sociology, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology, and many other fields. However, it’s not enough just to acquire knowledge; as Br. Dietrich Reinhart has noted, “At the heart of Benedictine life there is a powerful drive to integrate what one knows into life and to do so until our life simply bursts out of all that holds it back.”

If we know one thing about God it is that God is always doing something new, which means we need to approach learning as a verb—that is, seeing, noticing, making connections, being curious, entering into the space of not knowing, and imagining how things could be. Sr. Edith observed that approaching learning as a verb requires persistence and the willingness to go to fresh, surprising, and sometimes uncomfortable places, along with effort and expectation. Finally, when our learning leads us to participate with God in making new things, then we can really know God. Thus, may our love of learning lead us to the heart of God, the Creator!

All Are Welcome In This Place

Everywhere we look, important issues are demanding our attention, such as climate change, access to health care, dysfunction in our political institutions, and poverty. In the past we looked to religious/political/community leaders and societal structures for guidance in dealing with our challenges. Now, however, I’m hearing a new message from a variety of teachers: Each of us must undergo transformation within ourselves before we can resolve anything outside ourselves. As Richard Rohr says, “We cannot change the world except insofar as we have changed ourselves.” It may seem like a painstakingly slow process, but it’s actually happening all around us: individuals everywhere are discovering that they value the earth and are connected to all other beings, and as a result they are simplifying their lives and developing creative approaches to care for our common home and give other people access to jobs, housing, health care, and education.

Perhaps, then, one of the most important services that we at Mount St. Scholastica can offer in these times is a quiet and peaceful space where people can undertake the work of inner transformation. Traditionally we have been a community of teachers, but what the world currently seems to need most from us is our gift of hospitality, which is as much a ministry of being as of doing. It’s ironic, in a way—when we begin to comprehend and accept God’s love for us individually and as a community, we discover that simply being who we are IS to provide what other people need.

Not surprisingly, for years the Spirit has been moving us in the direction of providing a space for others to do their inner work. We have a spirituality center, trained spiritual directors, inviting guest accomodations, and a gracious community devoted to prayer. It is a blessing and a privilege to offer hospitality and companionship to those in need of a quiet, prayerful place to seek after peace and pursue it. The welcome mat is out at the Mount!

Visio Divina

At an Atchison oblate meeting several months ago, Sr. Micaela Randolph led us in an exercise of “visio divina”—that is, praying with art or other images. Recently, in an issue of Spirituality and Health, I came across a photograph that is perfect for this type of prayer. The photograph was actually part of an ad for a charitable organization called “Vitamin Angels” that provides vitamins for children in developing countries.

In the photograph, a Central or South American mother is holding her toddler in her arms. She is gazing at him with pure love, delight, and pride, and he is beaming as he looks out at the world with a wide smile and with trust and confidence. The photo entranced me and I began to wonder if God gazes at each of us as this mother was gazing at her child—totally delighted and in love with us. Can we believe that? If so, we would respond as the child did in the photo—with joy and a willingness to engage in the world because of the foundation of trust and confidence that love has instilled in us.

Sometimes art provides us with less common images—such as God as a fond mother—that can lead us to healing and new insights. The key is keeping our eyes open to the art that infuses our world and letting it lead us into prayer.

An Attitude of Receptivity

The novitiate comes with the gift of a weekly “hermit day” that is set apart for prayer, journaling, meditation, and spiritual reading. However, because the gift of time is so rare in our busy world, I find myself being anxious about how to make the best use of these days. What books should I read? How should I structure these days to receive their maximum benefit? What if I come to the end of the year only to discover I have squandered these precious days? The compulsion to be productive insinuates itself even into a day of prayer!

Fortunately, before I came to the Mount, my friend Eileen gave me a beautifully illustrated quote by Teilhard de Chardin that continues to guide me. It reads in part: “We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new…. Do not try to force [your ideas] on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace, and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you could be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you; accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”

It occurs to me that I need to cultivate an attitude of receptivity during my novitiate, and especially on my hermit days. Today I set out for a meditative walk and noticed there were beans to be picked, so I picked beans. I looked in the refrigerator and found leftover salad ingredients, so I made a salad for lunch. I uncovered an issue of the LCWR Occasional Papers in a pile on my desk, so I read an interview with Krista Tippett about how we can respond to our fractured world. My brother Jeff came to mind, so we had a long overdue phone conversation. I found myself nodding off during centering prayer, so I took a nap. Is this what a hermit day is supposed to look like? I don’t know, but it’s what my day looked like, a day of just being, a day of being receptive to what God set before me, with trust that a new spirit is somehow forming within me.

Housekeeping and Hospitality

Many of the sisters at the Mount experienced the novitiate with a bevy of classmates who were charged with doing much of the heavy work of the monastery—cleaning, cooking, laundry, and care of the sick. As I am currently the only novice in the community, I’m grateful we now have lay employees to assist in these tasks! Nonetheless, I recently received a tiny taste of the old-school novitiate when Sr. Lucy Kramer instructed me in the monastic manner of cleaning rooms in Bethany, our guest quarters. It felt like something of a rite of passage to be tutored in methods of cleaning mirrors with vinegar and bathroom floors with Spic and Span® and to be reminded to fold the top sheet down over the blanket on the bed and to save slivers of soap so it can be repurposed. I’m sure my mother was looking down from heaven with bemusement, because somehow—in spite of the similar instructions she gave me in childhood—my approach to housekeeping typically has been desultory at best.

Interestingly, Bethany is also the name of the town where Jesus received hospitality from his friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and it is the name of the volunteer group I belong to that visits inmates at the state prison in Lansing. Hospitality includes both the aspects of providing a clean and comfortable environment for guests and listening to the stories of others. Both are demanding tasks, for to clean well and to listen well require energy, thoughtfulness, and attention.

My new small task of helping to clean guest rooms will provide a good opportunity to meditate on the Benedictine charism of hospitality, with its numerous challenges, gifts, and lessons.

Forming a Covenant

As a novice, I have not yet taken the vows of a professed sister at Mount St. Scholastica, but I made several vows nonetheless at the Rite of Installation of Prioress on Sunday. During the rite, as part of the Covenanting of the Community with the Prioress, Sr. Esther Fangman asked the community the following questions:

• Will you strive to support me in my leadership as prioress as together we seek God in this monastic community according to the spirit of St. Benedict?

• Will you lend your strength to my weakness and support me in times of failure and discouragement?

• Will you try to uphold one another with the greatest of patience for one another’s weakness and brokenness?

• Will you strive to be zealous for God and open and generous with the demands of community?

I was moved by Sr. Esther’s humility in asking the first two questions, and the last two questions should be inscribed and placed in a Benedictine mezuzah at the entrance to each living group space, for they speak to the heart of living in community. Sr. Esther’s installation as prioress provided an opportunity to affirm our desire to live with humility, patience, zeal, and generosity—a daunting task for a novice and for jubilarians alike, but somehow it seems possible when we are all on the path together.

The Liberation of Simplicity

When I lived in St. Louis and needed to furnish an apartment, I became a yard sale aficionado. It was fun to discover great finds, and my excur- sions helped me learn my way around St. Louis neighborhoods. Eventually, however, this pastime became something of an obsession as I spent an inordinate amount of time plotting routes that would take me to the greatest number of sales in the nicest parts of town. In addition, I was buying lots of stuff I didn’t need simply because it was such a good deal. My preoccupation with consumption left me feeling weary and hollow. Eventually I went cold turkey and gained overconsumption sobriety.

In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis notes that “Such sobriety, when lived freely and consciously, is liberating. A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment. Christian spirituality proposes a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little. It is a return to that simplicity which allows us to stop and appreciate the small things, to be grateful for the opportunities which life affords us, to be spiritually detached from what we possess, and not to succumb to sadness for what we lack.”

I have had a taste of that liberation since joining the Mount. When your funds are limited you spend a lot less time shopping and instead find enjoyment in other activities, such as playing board games, gardening, and making art or music. Pleasures such as eating ice cream are savored more when they are experienced infrequently. The rare opportunity to go to the movies generates a lot of excitement. I find that consuming less is really a more enjoyable and kinder way to live—kinder to myself, to other humans, to the planet itself, and especially to other motorists, as I am no longer braking for yard sales!  

What Is Good for the World

At the end of her presentation at the 2017 Monastic Institute, Franciscan sister Michelle L’Allier asked the participants to consider how we presently feel called to communion, conversion, and global solidarity in light of our study of the encyclical Laudato Si. This question made me think of the following observation by Wendell Berry, which was mentioned in a homily at St. John’s Abbey:

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world…. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”

Asking what would be good for the world on a regular basis and adjusting my life accordingly would certainly lead me to a greater communion with the body of Christ, deeper conversion, and a greater degree of global solidarity. It would also lead to a life of deeper integrity, because if I am truly in love with God and the world, my actions will reflect that love. Fortunately, it starts with the simplest of steps: standing in awe at the mystery and beauty of God’s creation.

Listening in the Way of St. Benedict

At St. John’s University in Collegeville, where I am attending a Monastic Institute, a striking statue depicts a young St. Benedict listening intently, quill and papers in hand, as he prepares to write his rule. In the way of statues, he is there every time I pass by, a faithful and steadfast listening presence. All Benedictines know that “Listen” is the first word of the Rule, but do we consider that Benedict wrote from experience--that he, too, had to listen for God’s voice and discern how to live a Gospel life in the midst of his chaotic culture?

Sr. Joan Chittister has noted that Benedict lived in a time of rigid rules, great poverty, and deep hardship, but instead of developing a spirituality of asceticism in keeping with the spiritual tenor of his age, he instead wrote a “little rule” about how to live a life open to God and to others. We are now living at a time with its own challenges, including a growing disparity between rich and poor, the suffering of huge numbers of refugees, the degradation of earth because of human exploitation, and changing human boundaries, relationships, and approach to life as a result of the internet and other rapidly evolving technologies. How are we called to live a Gospel life in the face of these issues?

The fruit of Pope Francis’ listening and experience of economic depressions and environmental degradation in his home country of Argentina led to his encyclical Laudato Si. In this document he points to our growing understanding that all beings are connected; consequently, we need to resume our God-given role to be stewards of earth and live simpler lives so that other beings may have access to the resources they need to be productive and healthy and live with dignity. St. Benedict’s “little rule” gives us the tools to answer this call, if we pause to prayerfully consider how humility, stability, moderation, and right relationship can guide us in our response to these challenges. We may be holding an electronic device in our hand instead of a quill, but the need to take time apart to listen intently and contemplate what we hear is as true for us as it was for St. Benedict in 500 AD.