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Dec 2007
New Year
31/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
For many people,
Christmas is over with the turkey and plum
pudding on Christmas Day itself. For Christians,
however, Christmas extends, first to the Octave
(1 January) then to Epiphany (Twelfth Night),
and only really comes to an end with the
Presentation (2 February). So, the old year
gives way to the new not just in the middle of
the Christmas festivities, but very near their
beginning. 1 January has always been linked to
the Lord's birth, through the old feasts of the
Circumcision or the Holy Name and, now again,
the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. It is
good to begin the year with a reaffirmation of
God's involvement in human history, a reminder
that his plans for us are for weal not
woe.
Holy Family
30/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
The
comparatively modern feast of the Holy Family is
difficult to celebrate liturgically — at any rate,
many of us who live in monasteries tend to be
unenthusiastic about it. The Christmas Octave
contains so much, and already we are looking forward
to the Octave Day, 1 January, Solemnity of Mary the
Mother of God (we are holding back this week's
podcast until New Year's Eve for obvious reasons).
Perhaps one difficulty stems from the fact that the
very concept of "family" has undergone so many
transitions. The Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph model isn't
much help if one simply dwells on the perfection of
its constituent members. Perhaps there is something
there about growth
in holiness which can be useful to us
who are imperfect. Hope so.
Holy Innocents
28/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
No sooner
does Christmas come than we are plunged into a round
of lesser feasts: St Stephen, St John, Holy
Innocents, St Thomas of Canterbury. Looking at them,
one is reminded that the cross is never very far from
the crib, that the road from Bethlehem leads to
Calvary. That is true of our own lives, too, of
course. The murder of Benazir Bhutto will be
commented on then slip from the headlines, but more
thoughful people will reflect on the ways in which
violence begets violence and will struggle to halt
this seemingly unending cycle of death and
destruction. Our Christmas prayer for peace and
goodwill on earth cannot be just sentimental
posturing. It has to be wrung from the heart.
Christmas Day
25/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
This is the month, and
this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring . . .
Milton's Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity conveys something of the majesty of Christ's birth (and, incidentally, contains one of the most magical lines ever penned, "While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave"); but we must look to the kitsch that adorns many of our churches and the tangle of wrapping paper and ribbon spilling out of millions of homes to understand the more human side of this tremendous mystery. God is involved in every aspect of our lives: the joys, the sorrows, the struggles and the triumphs. Since his birth at Bethlehem, He has become one with us, one might almost say, one of us. The even greater wonder is that we have become one with Him. Happy Christmas, everyone!
Christmas Eve
24/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
One of the
most beautiful parts of the Christmas Eve liturgy is
the singing of the Martyrology which situates the
birth of Christ in time and place. When we reach the
words "All the earth being at peace . . ." the music
becomes more and more intense, while finally the
Incarnation is announced on a falling cadence. When
God has uttered his Word, there is no need for
further speech, but as today's podcast reminds us,
the emphasis at Christmas is not on God's humility
but our great dignity.
O Emmanuel
23/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
O Emmanuel,
our King and Law Giver, longed for by the Nations and
their Saviour, come and save us, O Lord our God. The
prophecy of Isaiah 7.14 expressed in prayer. What do
we really mean when we say Emmanuel, God-with-us? The
idea of a God not "out there" but identified with us
in the flesh is truly mind-boggling. We can end up
sentimentalising the Incarnation almost to absurdity
in an effort to grasp the truth it contains. Perhaps
today we could just spend a minute or two thinking
about our own personal need of a Saviour and be
grateful.
(To listen to today's antiphon, go to the Prayer Box
on the Vocation page and use the drop-down menu.
Recording by courtesy of Fr Jim
Tucker and the North American College. Our Prayer
Podcast for the week will be uploaded on Christmas
Eve)
O Rex Gentium
22/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
O King of the
Nations and the One whom they desire, the
Corner-Stone who make both one, come and save man
whom you formed from the dust of the earth. Both
Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 9, from which this antiphon draws
its language and imagery, speak of the coming
Messiah's reign as one of peace. At this time of year
many people speak vaguely of the need for peace and
goodwill, almost as though they could be dispensed
with at other times. Perhaps we could all ask
ourselves how we contribute to peace in the world,
from the way in which we drive or do our shopping to
how we deal with personal criticism or decide to use
our vote. It can be an uncomfortable exercise.
O Oriens
21/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
O Dayspring,
Splendour of Eternal Light and Sun of Justice, come
and give light to those sitting in darkness and the
shadow of death. How lucky we are to live in northern
latitudes, where midwinter darkness falls early and
Isaiah 9.2 takes on an extra nuance. Perhaps today
the "sitting in darkness and the shadow of death"
strikes home in a way that it did not even a few
years ago. We have all become so much more aware of
human vulnerability and the vulnerability of the
earth on which we live. "For evil to triumph, it is
enough for the good to do nothing." That applies
whether we are talking about some of the big
challenges of life — climate change, international
terrorism, poverty, etc. — or the smaller things — an
ethical attitude to the contents of the office
stationery cupboard, for example. We all need the
Light of the World to shine on our hearts, cleanse
them of sin and make us grow in holiness. Funny how
we sometimes try to avoid the light, isn't it?
(To listen to today's antiphon, go to the Prayer Box
on the Vocation page and use the drop-down menu.
Recording by courtesy of Fr Jim
Tucker and the North American College.)
O Clavis David
20/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
O Key of David, and
Sceptre of the House of Israel, who open and no
one shuts: come and free those sitting in
darkness and the shadow of death. The O antiphon
recalls both Isaiah 22 (the key of the house of
David) and Isaiah 9 (a child is born to us, a
son is given to us, and government is upon his
shoulder) while monastic tradition associates
this day with the Gospel of the Annunciation. It
is customary for the superior to give a talk on
the Annunciation gospel, always called the
Missus Est (from the Latin
missus est angelus Gabriel a
Deo, the angel Gabriel was
sent from God). The finest of all Missus Est sermons
are by St Bernard, but today, in every Benedictine
monastery throughout the world, a monk or nun will be
trying to say something about that moment of
unequalled faith when Mary consented to be the mother
of Jesus, and in so doing became the Mother of God.
Surely there is a lesson there for us, too. God can
transform our trifling acts of love and surrender
into something that exceeds all our hopes and
imaginings, if only we let him.
(To listen to today's antiphon, go to the Prayer Box
on the Vocation page and use the drop-down menu.
Recording by courtesy of Fr Jim
Tucker and the North American
College.)
O Radix Jesse
19/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
By tradition,
the O antiphons are usually sung by the most senior
members of the community/certain officials for whom
the imagery — roots, keys, and so on — seems
peculiarly appropriate. O Radix Jesse naturally falls
to the gardener: O Root of Jesse, who stand as an
ensign for the people, before whom kings will fall
silent, and whom the Gentiles will seek, come and
deliver us — do not delay! Such a wealth of
scriptural allusion is packed into these words, from
Isaiah 11 to Revelation 5. The flower that arises
from the root of Jesse is an image that poets and
songwriters have delighted in. It conveys an idea of
the simultaneous fragility and perfection of the
birth of Christ:
A winter rose shall flower
On Jesse's ancient stem:
The word of God unfolding
Before the eyes of men.
(To listen to today's antiphon, go to the Prayer Box on the Vocation page and use the drop-down menu. Recording by courtesy of Fr Jim Tucker and the North American College.)
A winter rose shall flower
On Jesse's ancient stem:
The word of God unfolding
Before the eyes of men.
(To listen to today's antiphon, go to the Prayer Box on the Vocation page and use the drop-down menu. Recording by courtesy of Fr Jim Tucker and the North American College.)
O Adonai
18/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
If you looked
at the Roman sequence of O Antiphons yesterday, you
will have been struck by the way in which they use
the prophecy of Isaiah to proclaim different aspects
of the Messiah. Today we ask the Lord, Ruler of the
House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning
bush and gave him the Law on Sinai, to come and free
us with outstretched arm — a reference to Isaiah 11
(with righteousness he will judge the poor, etc.) and
Isaiah 33 (the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our
king, he will save us, etc.) with remembrances of the
Lord's "outstretched arm" in Exodus. So, what does
all this mean for us today? For a Christian, the
absolute holiness of God, as seen in the Burning
Bush, and the absolute primacy of God, as seen in the
giving of the Law on Sinai, challenge our comfortable
accommodations with the world in which we live. God
is God, and he alone can save; but do we really
believe that?
(To listen to today's antiphon, go to the Prayer Box
on the Vocation page and use the drop-down menu.
Recording by courtesy of Fr Jim
Tucker and the North American College.)
The "O" Antiphons
17/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
In this last
week of Advent we sing every night until Christmas
Eve a solemn Magnificat Antiphon, invoking the coming
of God under various titles and attributes. The
initial letters of these antiphons, read backwards,
give ERO CRAS, which medieval commentators delighted
to interpret as, "Tomorrow (Christmas Day) I shall be
(with you)". Tonight God is invoked under the title
of Wisdom (O Sapientia) which comes forth from the
mouth of the Most High and stretches from end to end
of the Universe, holding all things in being; and we
ask that He show us the way of prudence. Prudence may
not be the snazziest of virtues, but how essential it
is! Benedict called discretion (= prudence) the
mother of all the virtues. We underrate prudence at
our peril. Let us pray that we may open our hearts to
the coming of God as Wisdom in both the great and the
little things of life.
Gaudete
15/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Tomorrow we
reach Gaudete Sunday and are exhorted to rejoice with
great joy. Rose vestments and musical instruments
will be in use for this one day; but it is difficult
not to feel that the whole of Advent is suffused with
joyous longing and expectation. No one has written
more eloquently of this tremendous joy than St
Bernard. Watching and waiting, opening ourselves to
the Word of God and his daily coming to our souls by
grace, how could we be downcast when such great hope
is offered us?
RB 59 and RB 60
14/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
For a
monastery of nuns in the twenty-first century,
neither the chapter we read yesterday, about the
offering of children, nor today's chapter, about
priests wishing to enter the community, seems very
relevant — or are they? Benedict is surprisingly
fierce and insistent about two things in the
monastery: living a common life from which every
trace of private ownership/personal possessions is
excluded, and a personal humility which recognizes
that no individual gifts or distinctions confer any
sort of privilege or status on the monk or nun.
Everything we use in the monastery belongs to the
community as a whole; our place in community is
decided by the simplest of means, the order in which
we came through the door or the superior's decision
(for which he/she is answerable to God). In practice,
this means learning the art of contentment with
sometimes very unsatisfactory circumstances and being
ready, for the sake of the community, to exercise
talents through sacrifice. It strikes me that this is
relevant for the world beyond the cloister. Would
that those debating climate change in Bali were
prepared to recognize that voluntarily limiting some
freedoms for the good of all is far from wimpish.
Ruined Reputations?
13/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
As a
community we have not yet got down to sending
Christmas letters and cards to our friends and
well-wishers. We usually send them after Christmas
Day as Advent is such a precious time of preparation,
but we have been touched by those we have received
and the gifts that accompany them. In a village like
this, the same deliverymen call throughout the year,
usually dropping off such mundane items as candles
for the church or paper for the press. Yesterday,
however, we took delivery of a very luxurious-looking
crate (a comment on the recent redesign of the web
site?) bearing the words Fortnum & Mason on the
outside. Doubtless the news will spread quickly —
last year I was painting out a few scratches on the
car and was surprised to find that our local petrol
station, four miles away, knew about it within an
hour of my picking up the retouching kit. I just
wonder what yesterday's delivery will do to what is
left of our reputations after the Veil Ale and
Elderflower champagne-making of the summer. (The
gift, by the way, comes from some dear friends in
Canada with a wicked sense of humour.)
Belonging
12/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
We finish
chapter 58 of the Rule today. With profession the
newcomer who until then is nameless, just "noviter
veniens", receives a new identity as a member of the
community. For the first time he is called "brother"
("novicius frater"). In monastic communities,
belonging follows commitment. That is contrary to
what western society in general seems to expect. Many
people have a deep desire to "belong" to something or
someone, but the need for commitment is less readily
appreciated. Keeping one's options open is seen as a
positive good. Even in monasteries, people sometimes
want all the benefits of membership, so to say, with
none of the obligations. Well, you can't make an
omelet without breaking eggs. Flawed and fallible as
human history is, it does demonstrate that lots of
married couples, monks and nuns have discovered the
happiness that comes with commitment.
Of Nuns and Nibblers
11/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Several
people have made enquiries about joining the
community during the past year, but when one suggests
that a little more is required than simply saying "I
have a vocation", there is a remarkable sifting and
shifting. As Benedict makes clear in chapter 58,
which we begin reading today, both candidate and
community need to be open to the Holy Spirit, who
tends to whisper rather than shout. Communities have
to be ready to be changed by those who join them, but
newcomers also need to be prepared to accept some, at
least, of what they find with faith. (This is code
for saying a novitiate is not all rapture and
rejoicing!) Anyone joining a community like ours will
need to have a pioneering spirit. We cannot offer the
grand buildings and settled routines of
longer-established communities, but we are fortunate
in having a long monastic tradition to look back on
and considerable fervour and enthusiasm for what we
are about. I think one of the joys of monastic life
here at Hendred is that there are fewer institutional
compromises — probably because we have fewer
possessions to worry about. But that will not appeal
to everyone.
RB 57 Work and Prayer
10/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
If you
read
Colophon while at work, you may
find today's chapter of the Rule interesting (go to
the Prayer Box on the Vocation page.) The fundamental
disposition required for any work — art, craft or
what you will — is honesty and humility (competence
is, I think, presumed). Today, monasteries have to be
careful about not undercutting commercial competitors
rather than overpricing their goods and services, but
they still need to be sensitive about what they do
and how they do it. What interests me about this
chapter, however, is Benedict's acute psychological
perception that work can become an ego-trip or worse.
How many retired people suddenly feel life has come
to an end because they can no longer define
themselves as Joe Bloggs the Bank manager or Jill
Bloggs the Practice manager? Advent is a good time
for thinking about our own relationship with work (or
lack of it.) If we are to prepare a highway for God
in the desert of our hearts, that which takes up a
large part of every day must be part of the
structure. Work is not prayer, but it can be a
preparation for prayer, can be accompanied by prayer.
Above all, it can be transformed by prayer.
The Immaculate Conception
08/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
The Solemnity
of the Immaculate Conception is one of those feasts
that divide East and West — not because we disagree
about the privileged sinlessness of Mary but because
we disagree about Original Sin. It is, however, a
good feast to have during Advent because it is so
full of hope. To enjoy it to the full, one really has
to be in Spain, where it is celebrated with
particular splendour. Anyone lucky enough to be in
Seville ought to go to the cathedral and watch "Los
Seises": six boys, heads covered according to
sixteenth century custom, dancing with strange, slow
steps before the tabernacle and singing hymns in
honour of the Immaculate Conception. Rome has never
been very enthusiastic about liturgical dance, but I
wonder whether in Seville we have a faint memory of
David dancing before the Ark?
RB 55: Clothing and Footwear
07/December/2007 Filed in: Chapter Talks
Benedict's
instructions regarding clothing and footwear are
quite straightforward and, among nuns at least, are
usually adhered to unless someone has some special
need. So, each of us has two habits, one for summer
and one for winter, a pair of shoes and a pair of
sandals, with wellies for wet weather (Benedict did
not live in Britain) and hiking boots for stomping
the Downs. The difficulty comes with the socks and
gloves and other little items that are
"supplementary". It is dangerously easy to start
amassing things we do not really need, but without
which life would not be so comfortable. Life in a
monastery is not meant to be comfortable; but we
should be careful about how we judge the "comforts"
of others. Be tender towards your sister's need, and
realistic about your own. Better to ask for a hot
water bottle o' nights than risk hypothermia — or the
cold and unlovely pride which takes delight in its
own renunciations.
RB Chapter 54
06/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
A timely
reminder as we draw closer to Christmas! In chapter
54, as in chapter 33, Benedict makes it plain that
monks and nuns are to have absolutely nothing of
their own. Everything is to be held in common, and it
is the superior's responsibility to ensure that
excess and luxury do not creep in. But todays's
section of the Rule adds an extra nuance. The
monk/nun is not free to engage in the exchange of
trifling things as a mark of special affection
without the superior's agreement. That does not mean
that there should be no affection, quite the reverse,
Benedict wants our communities to be warm and loving;
but there should never be any attempt to bind others
to us by the use of material things. The superior is
expected to bring a little clarity, a little
objectivity into the situation. Being free for God
does not mean being less loving to friends and
family, but it does very often mean being a little
strict with oneself.
Guests
04/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
This is a
good time to be reading Benedict's chapter on Guests.
All our plans for the beginning of Advent are in
disarray. One of the community is very unwell; lots
of people, both expected and unexpected, have arrived
on our doorstep; and the pile of unanswered mail,
both electronic and paper, would give one nightmares
if one went in for that sort of thing. Situation
excellent: that is exactly what is required — not the
ample leisure of monastic myth, but the frazzled
"just in timeness" of everyday reality. Benedict
reminds us that all guests, even the unexpected,
uninvited, perhaps unwelcome guests (such as illness)
bring Christ into the monastery. They open us up in a
way that perfect conditions of our own choosing never
could. Our Advent won't be what we had hoped it would
be, what we would have chosen for ourselves. It will
be much better, because it will be what God has
chosen for us.
The Last Day . . .
01/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
. . . of the
Church's Year today. It looks like being a wet and
blustery day, with darkness falling early. That seems
very appropriate. Advent takes us into deeper and
deeper darkness until Christmas comes, with its
explosion of midwinter brilliance. And throughout, we
shall have those hauntingly beautiful chants that
express Israel's longing for the Messiah. Advent this
year is short. We must make the most of it. (Our
podcast will go up tomorrow — we have not yet solved
problems with the feed which began when we updated
some software. Oh dear.)