| Dear Friends of the Monastery,
Blessings to you! We have had some wonderful days of sunshine and warmth, even though it has cooled off again. The ground shows traces of growth already in those areas that are exposed to the sun during the day and don’t get too cold at night. We cannot expect spring this early, but spring is coming and with it a sense of new life.
At present we have three postulants and three observers living in the community. We also have one novice, two simply professed and one religious from another community who is considering monastic life. That is a huge group for us in formation and there are still more who hope to come this year. Those of us who have been around for a long time in the community here, recognize that not every will stay and not everyone should stay. But because always have men inquiring about our vocation and coming to try our vocation, we continue to be a growing community. That is a gift to us and a challenge for us, because we seem always to be a formation community.
Father Christian will be going to Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Albuquerque (5415 Fortuna Road) this weekend. He will be presenting a Morning of Monastic Reflection at 8:45 am on Saturday and then preaching at all of the Masses that weekend. Everyone is invited!
I will be heading to Chicago for the weekend to preside at the solemn vows of our Brother Augustine Jusas and the simple vows of our Brother Ezekiel Brennan. This will be a great day for our community at the Monastery of the Holy Cross (31st and Aberdeen). Although these trips keep me out of the Monastery on a regular basis, they are also a symbol of the growth of our communities. Just as Holy Cross will have a simple and a solemn profession this year, so will our community at La Soledad in Mexico and we here at Christ in the Desert as well. Our Monastery of Santa Maria y Todos los Santos will have a simple profession this year. Thien Tam, our latest house, is not yet established as a formal foundation, but has one man formally entering the postulancy very soon and two others already there.
Here at home we also have two diocesan priests who live with us and add to our community. They are not joining us but are included in our community in many ways.
Commitment is a difficult reality today. When I entered the seminary at age fourteen, that was quite normal. When I entered the Monastery at Mount Angel Abbey, at the age of twenty, that also was normal. Today there are practically no high school seminaries left in the United States, although a new one opened only a couple of years ago. When I was young (now I sound like an old man!), we were sort of expected to know what we wanted to do in life and to be pursuing it by the time we entered college at the age of nineteen. Today when a nineteen year is interested in our monastic life, we would encourage him to stay in contact with us but to continue his education outside or perhaps to attend a college seminary.
Today, it seems, a normal time for commitment is the late 20s and the early 30s. There are still men younger than that who do make commitments, but the majority seem to wait. Are men less mature than in the past? I am not sure that is a correct analysis. The culture in which we live does not expect young commitment—although that could be changing again. Just as seminaries became empty and many closed in the period of the 1960s to the 1990s, now seminaries seem to be stabilizing again and many are growing in numbers.
What makes a commitment? If commitment is defined as a trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose in a person, perhaps we can understand better that different people are ready at different times to make a commitment. Today it is not unknown that a monk will make a life commitment to the monastic community and then leave shortly afterwards. This is a real puzzle. There is something lacking in the sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose. The same thing can happen in a marriage commitment.
The word sincere comes from the Latin and means without wax. The image is of a beautiful marble sculpture that, upon examination, has lots of defects that don’t show because they are filled with wax that looks like the marble. To be sincere is to be the real thing, authentic, oneself, etc. Steadfast means to have a firm resolution, to be unshakable, to have a strong resolve to do something, etc. So we should be able to visualize a committed person as a person who is authentic and who is able to promise something and then carry it through.
In my own life, I made commitments early but really began to be completely faithful to them at a later point. Someone asked me the other day if I knew what I was doing when I made my solemn vows at the age of twenty-four. At one level, that of intellectual understanding, I did know what I was doing and I meant to do it. At another level, I did not understand entirely what this commitment would mean. I had to grow into the commitment. At the age of twenty-four, I still had lots of struggles with understanding the Catholic Church and accepting it, lots of struggles with learning how to integrate the aspects of my personality, and struggles also with accepting all that had happened in my life when I was younger. Probably every human being goes through this challenge of moving from intellection or even emotional commitment to a more mature and strongly lived commitment that can carry one through all the difficulties.
In the history of Christ in the Desert, we have had men make commitments and leave. On the other hand, some have made commitments and stayed against what looked like almost impossible odds against them. How do we explain that? --Probably as the grace of God in a particular life. Part of the task of forming a monk is to help him grow in commitment, so that when difficulties arise, he does not just flee. Another part of the task of formation is helping the monk discern if this is really a life that he can live for the rest of his life. Formation is never about a kind of brainwashing so that those who enter have no other choice except to stay. Rather, true formation leads a man to a deep interior freedom where he can encounter the living God and make a good decision—either to stay or to leave. It is just as important that the man who leaves monastic life has made a good decision before God so that he can get on with his life outside of the monastic community.
Good decisions were less common in the period from the 1960s almost to the end of the century. Now men seem more able to make a decision and to live it out. Thanks be to God. May all of us grow in our maturity and in our capacity for true commitment.
As always I shall celebrate Holy Mass once this week for the intentions of all who read this letter. Please also continue to pray for our communities and for me.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip Lawrence, OSB
Monastery of Christ in the Desert
P.O. Box 270
Abiquiu, NM 87510
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip, OSB |
