75 Years of Fidelity

                                    

On Sunday, June 30, we will celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Sisters Mary Ethel Burley, Gertrude Nagel, and Cyprian Vondras. Taken together, that’s 225 years of monastic life! Think of it—collectively these women spent 225 years at liturgy of the hours and at mass in the chapel, at the common table in the dining room, and teaching in the classroom. Consider the number of books they read, meetings they attended, weeds they pulled, meals they helped cook, and birthdays and name days they celebrated. Their faithfulness is an inspiration and cause for rejoicing.

Recently, as I read a parenting manifesto that Brené Brown wrote in her book Daring Greatly, it occurred to me that many of the guidelines she identified also can be applied to the monastic life. Think about the following excerpts in terms of communal life:

• We will practice courage in our family [monastery] by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both.

• We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family [monastic] values, as well as family [monastic] practices.

• When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.

• We will laugh and sing and dance and create. We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. No matter what, you will always belong here.

Sisters Mary Ethel, Gertrude, and Cyprian: After 75 years of fidelity to the monastic way of life by showing up, working hard, persevering, laughing, singing, praying, and creating, we are grateful that you are who you are and that we all belong here together. Thank you for answering the call to enter the monastery and for being faithful companions on our shared journey to God!

Contemplation with a Coneflower

Recently my older brother, Greg, posted a photo on Facebook that led me into Visio Divina—contemplation through images.

The photo is of a white coneflower with a spectacular burst of orange at its center. An insect (a grasshopper?) with large eyes is perched on one of the petals, facing outward.

This image led me to ask these questions:

• How often do I not notice what is beautiful within because I’m so busy looking outward?

• Am I so concerned about guarding a treasure that I’m not able to enjoy it myself?

• Am I so comfortable where I’m perched that I don’t notice the beauty to be found in other places?

• Am I thankful for the gift of vision, and do I use it wisely?

• What opportunities am I missing to practice awe?

God speaks to us in many ways—even through a coneflower and a grasshopper. May what you see with the marvel of your eyes lead you into contemplation today!

Our Call From Birth

Two years ago today, on the feast of the birth of John the Baptist, I entered the novitiate year of my monastic formation. On the surface, it would not appear that John the Baptist and I have much in common. Many extraordinary events surrounded his birth, whereas the only somewhat extraordinary thing connected with my birth was that I arrived on my due date (which occurs in only 5% of births!). Still, God called forth each of us from our mother’s womb, and we each witness to the presence of God among us, although in very different ways.

John the Baptist heard the singular call to prepare the people of his time for the coming of Emmanuel in the person of Jesus. We who live after the death of Jesus are called to witness to the presence of God with us in the form of the risen Christ and the Spirit. Although we share this call, the way we respond to it is still singular through our choices and our unique gifts and talents.

The birth of John the Baptist reminds us that it is a sacred and awesome calling to proclaim God’s presence through our lives. No matter how our response to that call unfolds, we can attempt to live it out with the good zeal, faithfulness, and humility that John exhibited.

Creation's Lessons in Generosity

One of the contradictions of life is expressed in Proverbs 11:24: “One person is lavish yet grows still richer; another is too sparing, yet is the poorer.” How can it be that when we give to others, instead of being depleted, we find that even more abundant blessings come to us?

Thomas Merton said, “…true hope is trusting that what we have, where we are, and who we are is more than enough for us as creatures of God.” If what we have is more than enough for us, then when we give to others, we will still have enough. As Merton went on to say, “That’s the meaning of hope…to trust in the ultimate goodness of creation.” We can give without fear that there won’t be enough left for our own needs.

Nature provides us with countless examples of abundance—of how to give freely without counting the cost. At the Mount our most recent example of this generosity came in the form of buckets of cherries—more than 10 gallons from a single tree! If our cherry tree could sing, it would likely warble, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” We have been doing just that, in the form of cherry cookie bars, cherry jam, and cherry cobbler. Amen!

An Avenue to Gentleness

The other day a phrase from a Scripture reading caught my ear, though I don’t remember the citation: “gentle are those who fear the Lord.” As I learned in Sr. Mary Irene’s scripture classes, fear of the Lord is translated as being in awe of the Lord. So what is it about being in awe of God that leads to gentleness?

When we are in awe of God, we have a heightened awareness that we ourselves are not God, which relieves us of a big burden. We don’t have to know everything or maintain a façade of perfection, which in itself gentles the soul. Being in awe of God makes us inclined to entrust our lives to God, which leads to a peaceful spirit.

Appreciating the power and scope of God’s works is humbling because we were formed to be a part of such magnificence, despite our limited understanding of God’s ways. Yet God treats us with gentleness and patience, inspiring us to be gentle and patient with ourselves and with others.

We live in the midst of a violent world, but we don’t have to let that spirit of anger, greed, and disregard for the sanctity of life infect us. Awe of God’s ways and God’s works offers us an avenue to gentleness, which is a gift both to us and to our restless, agitated world.

A Lifetime of Good Zeal

Sister Mary Joyce Meyers, who died on June 11, 2019, embodied one of my favorite interpretations of the Benedictine value of good zeal: zest for life. She was 95 when she died, and it’s hard to imagine her being able to cram anything else into her years of enthusiastic pursuit of the good life.

Sr. Mary Joyce embraced  conversatio—openness to change—as she seamlessly transitioned from being a high school math, science, and English teacher to a high school principal to a PhD candidate to a marriage and family counselor at Catholic Charities to having her own psychology practice to volunteering at Keeler Women’s Center to working in the Mount business office. Along the way, she found time for water skiing, downhill skiing, hunting, and fishing—all while being faithful to the monastic way of life.

The last time I saw Sr. Mary Joyce, two days before she died, she was enjoying a dish of ice cream, with the book Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World in her lap. Sr. Mary Joyce herself certainly changed the world of her students, clients, colleagues, friends, and monastic family through her optimism, determination, service, and good zeal. When I interviewed her last year after she was named an exceptional elder by the advocacy organization LeadingAge, she said, “I’ve had a great life; I got to do everything I wanted to do, and I had a great time doing it.” I think God would be absolutely delighted if we could all say the same thing at the end of our life.

Blessings from God the Father

This coming Sunday is the feast of the Holy Trinity, and it is also Father’s Day. Jesus referred to God as his father; it is one of the essential relationships we humans seem to need to lead well grounded and healthy lives.

I recently saw the movie Rocket Man about the life of the musician Elton John. His father was often absent, and when he was around he treated his son with harshness and disdain. As a result, Elton spent a good 25 years of his life in a haze of addiction to alcohol, cocaine, prescription drugs, food, and sex as he tried to numb his pain over his lack of foundational love.

We are fortunate if we have earthly fathers who reflect at least some of the qualities of God the Father that Jesus told us about—love, forgiveness, patience, protection, availability, strength, guidance, and wisdom. Even if we don’t, Jesus told us that he will share his Father with us—that we are welcome to be part of their relationship of mutual love and self-giving. A song we sometimes sing at the Mount includes the line “Strong the love embracing us.” On Father’s Day, we give thanks for the strength and tenderness of God the Father’s love for all of His children.

The ABCs of a Prayerful Life

This week, the Mount community will say a final farewell to Sr. Mary Owen Leutloff, who died on June 6 at the age of 100. The community had grown accustomed to saying farewell to her at the end of every summer for more than 40 years as she went out on mission to teach in parish elementary schools in Defiance, Ia.; Atkinson, Neb.; and in Kansas at Westphalia, Valley Falls, Horton, Topeka, Wamego, Seneca, Marysville, and Kansas City. Now she is done packing her bags as she has arrived at her eternal home.

During the past year or so I noticed that Sr. Mary Owen had a unique mantra, the “ABC song,” which she sang as she patiently waited for her medications or for meals. It made me think of the following story:

A poor man found himself in a forest as night fell, and he had no prayer book to say his evening prayers. So he said, “God who knows all things, I have no prayer book and I do not know any prayers by heart. But you know all the prayers. You are God. So this is what I am going to do.  I am going to say the alphabet, and I will let you put the words together.”

Sr. Mary Owen displayed wisdom to the end of her days. When Sr. Marie Ballman congratulated her on her 100th birthday and said, “That’s quite a milestone!” Sr. Mary Owen replied, “What’s more important is how you get there!” At her 100th birthday party, she murmured continuously, “Thank you, thank you, thank you”—an important clue to how she got there. We follow her example by offering gratitude for her life of faith and service.

Stewards of God's Varied Grace

As alumni of Mount St. Scholastica College and Benedictine College join us for mass this weekend, and as I contemplate the death of Sr. Mary Owen Leutloff at the age of 100 years, I’m aware of our responsibility to be good caretakers of our Benedictine heritage. The members of the Mount who preceded us made a lot of sacrifices to build this community; our stewardship honors their work and dreams by safeguarding the legacy they left us.

It is interesting that Peter writes to the early church, “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” The giftedness of each person is especially noticeable in a monastic community as everyone serves in her own indispensable way, whether it is in the garden, the kitchen, the business office, or in our ministries.

In general, the people who are happiest seem to be those who are content with their own particular blessings and make good use of them rather than focusing on their limitations. We may not have a choice in how we are gifted, but we can always choose to be good stewards of the grace that has been bestowed on us by serving one another. We also can seek to be faithful in living out the values that St. Benedict delineated in his rule: listening, mutual obedience, stability, daily prayer, seeing Christ in others, humility, moderation, and care of children, the sick, and elders. Doing so is a great gift to the world and an ideal way of being a good steward of God’s varied grace.

Preparing for Pentecost

Last week at our Catholic Callout at the prison a guest speaker didn’t show up, so I had to come up with something off the top of my head to fill half an hour after mass. I ended up inviting the men to prepare for Pentecost by asking them to consider and discuss what particular gift they hoped to receive from the Holy Spirit.

Frankly, it had never before occurred to me before to “prepare” for Pentecost. It always seemed like the Holy Spirit just magically appeared, whether on the breath of the risen Christ when he visited the disciples or on the tongues of flame that descended on them in Jerusalem. However, upon reflection it seems that we do have the responsibility to set the stage or prepare the ground for the Spirit’s arrival. We do this by readying our hearts and summoning the courage to receive the gifts the Spirit chooses to bestow by gathering together in community and through prayer.

Timothy, an early church leader, suggests that we also have the responsibility “to stir into flame the gift of God that you have received” (2 Timothy 1:6). It is one thing to be given a gift; it is another to have the good zeal to make use of it. Are we willing to invest the time and energy to help God make all things new, or are we too invested (or stuck) in our current viewpoints and patterns? Perhaps one of our prayers to prepare for Pentecost can be a line from the song God, Whose Purpose Is to Kindle by David E. Trueblood: “Lift the smallness of our vision / By your own abundant life.”

One man who had greatness of vision and the desire to share God’s abundant life, Robert F. Kennedy, famously said, “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” As Pentecost approaches, let us prepare ourselves to share in the Spirit’s dream of creating a world where we say “Why not?” to overcoming division, celebrating diversity, and recognizing the divine presence in each other and in all of creation.

The Kiss of Peace

Many young people are embarrassed when they see their parents exhibiting what they term “PDA”—public displays of affection. However, I believe that secretly they are pleased at this demonstration of love, because it provides a sense of security. My own parents didn’t display much overt affection, but I do remember that when my dad came home from work every night at 6 pm, the first thing he did was stop in the kitchen, put down his coffee thermos, and kiss my mom. I never had any doubt about my parents’ love for each other; a divorce would have been outside the realm of possibility and was not something I ever had to worry about.

Good marriages and other loving relationships echo the way Jesus and his Father relate to each other. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading (Jn 16:29-33), “I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.” We are able to rest in the love generated between the three persons of the Trinity, which gives us a peace that the world cannot take away. Furthermore, we not merely witnesses to that love but are invited to share in it, giving us a sense of belonging and joy.

Jesus himself said, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This love was demonstrated by the early Christian community, as noted by the writer Tertullian, who quoted a pagan official as saying, “Look at how much they love each other!” Thus we who rest in the love of Creator, Christ, and Spirit are all challenged to engage in PDAs—the affection that leads us to nourish and support each other, stand up for persons who are mistreated, and provide the healing presence that we experience in the Trinity to others who need it.