+PAX

Prayers, please, for Christine, surgery for a brain tumor.

Prayers for Earl, who had a stroke.

Prayers for newborn Kenneth Alexander, prayers of thanks, he and his mother are
doing fine, prayers, too, for his parents and great uncle Richard, who asked.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is
mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 14, August 14, December 14
Chapter 60: On Priests Who May Wish to Live in the Monastery

If any ordained priest should ask to be received into the monastery,
permission shall not be granted too readily. But if he is quite
persistent in his request, let him know that he will have to observe
the whole discipline of the Rule and that nothing will be relaxed in
his favor,
that it may be as it is written: "Friend, for what have you come
(Matt. 26:50)?"

It shall be granted him, however, to stand next after the Abbot and
to give blessings and to celebrate Mass, but only by order of the
Abbot.
Without such order let him not make any exceptions for himself,
knowing that he is subject to the discipline of the Rule; but rather
let him give an example of humility to all.

If there happens to be question of an appointment or of some business
in the monastery, let him expect the rank due him according to the
date of his entrance into the monastery, and not the place granted him
out of reverence for the priesthood.

If any clerics, moved by the same desire, should wish to join the
monastery, let them be placed in a middle rank. But they too are to
be admitted only if they promise observance of the Rule and stability.

REFLECTION

The quintessential question of the Holy Rule is that of
Jesus: "Friend, for what have you come?" The only acceptable answer
to the question is: "To seek God." That might be rephrased in any of
a number of ways, but that's the main event, the only game in town,
the end all be all of Benedictine monastic life.

It is very necessary, in stating that we seek God, to admit that we
haven't altogether found Him yet, nor will we ever do so before
death. Even in the beatific vision of heaven itself, we creatures
will never, ever get to the root of our Creator, to the "ground zero"
of God. We will travel ever deeper into Him for eternity.

Another way of saying this is that we need to come to the Holy Rule
and to the Gospel and to Christ admitting how frighteningly little we
DO know, how very much we need to learn. If we think an MDiv or an MD
or a BS may have corrected that problem, even slightly, well, maybe
the degree is just about all we've gotten from the experience.

For heaven's sake, after spending so many years of my life trying to
become clever, what a tremendous relief it is to be admittedly dumb:
pluperfectly, fallibly, humanly, screamingly, shriekingly DUMB! Boy,
I love it! Ignorance truly *IS* bliss, just like they told ya!

In one sense, I heartily recommend it. It is the only position from
which one may learn anything at all. Get too smart (or think you
have!) and you will never listen, thereby failing another Benedictine
hallmark. You won't learn because all your energy will go into
composing your rejoinder or response. Such people do not learn. They
merely joust. Life is more than that, much more. Tons more.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB





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+PAX

Ardent prayers for all the dead in the Connecticut school shooting. 26 dead
included the shooter, apparently by his own hand, and 20 of the dead were
children.
Prayers for all the dead, their families and all who mourn them, and for the
traumatized children and staff who survived. Prayers for our nation, that this
sort of horror doesn't happen again. Prayers for the shooter, too. Prayers that
no one even considers doing such a thing again.

Prayers for Fr. Peter Connelly, OSB, of St. Benedict's Abbey, Still River, MA,
on his 25th jubilee of Ordination. Ad multos annos, many more.

Prayers for Br. Vincent, on his birthday, ad multos annos, many more.

Prayers for Linda C.'s Mom, she does have a recurrence of breast cancer, and for
all her family, they have been through a lot in the past few years.

Prayers for Owen, he didn't get the job from his interviews. Continued prayers
for the job God wants him to have, as this has been a long road for him and his
family.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is
mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 15, August 15, December 15
Chapter 61: How Pilgrim Monks Are To Be Received

If a pilgrim monastic coming from a distant region
wants to live as a guest of the monastery,
let her be received for as long a time as she desires,
provided she is content
with the customs of the place as she finds them
and does not disturb the monastery by superfluous demands,
but is simply content with what she finds.
If, however, she censures or points out anything reasonably
and with the humility of charity,
let the Abbess consider prudently
whether perhaps it was for that very purpose
that the Lord sent her.

If afterwards she should want to bind herself to stability,
her wish should not be denied her,
especially since there has been opportunity
during her stay as a guest
to discover her character.

REFLECTION

One of the Desert Fathers (forgive me for not recalling which one,)
said that there is nothing so careful as a monk not living in his
native land. That's very true for most of us, though part two of this
chapter makes it clear that it's not true for everyone. When we
visit, we want people to think the best of the home, the family, the
land from which we came. It is this nobility of striving, this
mindful courtesy that the Desert Father wished to praise. In fact, if
I read it correctly, the implication was that it might even be better
to be a monastic AWAY from one's native land for just those reasons.

There is something striking here. Remember how badly the gyrovagues
and Sarabaites were painted in the types of monks? Well, these were
the wandering ones, and St. Benedict knew very well that a pilgrim
monk at the door could be one of these sorts. He doesn't even mention
it.

He wants them to have a chance to do better, to be healed by
community. If they louse it up, fine, he's not going to lose a lot of
sleep over it, but he does insist they be given a chance to improve.
Given what the monastic world thought of gyrovagues and the like,
that says a LOT for St. Benedict's tolerance and clemency.

Not all of us are in cloisters, but all of us have doors to our lives. The
people
who come to those doors may be gyrovagues and Sarabaites, but they
may not, too. We have to give them a chance to prove or reveal
themselves. This is true of anyone we encounter. Snap judgments are
not wise, they cheat us out of many gifts. Being too much or too
little on the side of caution are both traps. Tread the middle way,
always the middle way.

This doesn't mean we have to dupe ourselves into perpetual
vulnerability, but it does mean we have to be open, mindful and
listening, really listening to all comers. Listen first, sift later.
Do both, always both.

We can get so used to our lives that we are blind to areas that could
be improved. We can get so used to doing things one way that anything
better is beyond us. Our routines which become sacrosanct are often
not at all that holy!

An outsider's objective view can let us see a good deal about
ourselves. Some things we may want to change, some we may realize are
fine as they are. Either way, the visitor can be a reality check of
great worth.


Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA








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+PAX

Prayers, please, for Barbara and her nephew, Will. He is in the hospital with a
serious gall bladder infection that must be cleared up before he can have needed
surgery.

Deo gratias: Emily received a scholarship in a very Providential way. Thanks and
prayers for her and her benefactor and her family.

Prayers for Jimmy, on his birthday, for his eternal rest.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL


April 16, August 16, December 16
Chapter 61: How Pilgrim Monks Are To Be Received

PLEASE NOTE:

++A note on the gender in this excerpt of the Holy Rule. I don't switch the
genders, that's the way it comes from St. John's daily reading which I cut
and paste. It is rarely problematic, but today it often gets me posts from Roman
Catholics asking me what gives...

The daily changing genders of pronouns, etc, in the Holy Rule come
from the site at St. John's, not from me. This reading raises some hackles
nearly every year, because it seems to advocate women's ordination. That,
however, is not the case. I follow RC teaching in that regard.
__________________________________________________

But if as a guest she was found exacting or prone to vice,
not only should she be denied membership in the community,
but she should even be politely requested to leave,
lest others be corrupted by her evil life.

If, however, she has not proved to be the kind
who deserves to be put out,
she should not only on her own application be received
as a member of the community,
but she should even be persuaded to stay,
that the others may be instructed by her example,
and because in every place it is the same Lord who is served,
the same King for whom the battle is fought.

Moreover, if the Abbess perceives that she is worthy,
she may put her in a somewhat higher rank.
[And not only with regard to a nun
but also with regard to those in priestly or clerical orders
previously mentioned,]*
the Abbess may establish them in a higher rank
than would be theirs by date of entrance
if she perceives that their life is deserving.

Let the Abbess take care, however,
never to receive a nun from another known monastery
as a member of her community
without the consent of her Abbess or a letter of recommendation;
for it is written,
"Do not to another what you would not want done to yourself" (Tob.
4:16).

*[Applicable only to women of some contemporary monastic communities
in the Anglican Communion.]


REFLECTION

The flip side of a visitor having a few good things to point out is
one who has very little good to say at all, carping about everything.
Just as the monastic family is to listen carefully at first to see
which brand of critic they have, here they are warned that the one
who is happy with nothing should be politely asked to leave. It is,
as always, balance. We should fall into neither extreme.

Monasteries and families are very much alike in their innate sense of
being more or less OK. Like families, they can sometimes be mistaken
about this and St. Benedict knows that. However, he also points out
that there are times when that instinctive feeling of being all right
IS right, and a visiting malcontent ought not to disrupt it.

Virtually all of us could use some improvements in our lives,
especially if we have fallen into some of the peculiar habits that
seem to thrive among those who live alone. An outside observer, one
who sees the side of our life previously hidden, can offer some real
help.

However, someone who wants to overhaul us or our lives wholesale, is
not a "suitable suitor" or friend! We must learn to live with and
adapt to others, but I'll bet that many of us who have dated have
known at least one of those who wanted to remake us from the ground
up. Not a good idea!

Religious people can actually be too passive in this respect, quite
easily. All kinds of things might enter into that judgement, but self-
emptying and self-destruction are two different things! A human
relationship is the union of two people, not the total absorption of
one.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org/
Petersham, MA



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+PAX

Prayers for Pat Ciaverella, on her birthday, and continued prayers for her happy
death.

Pryaers for Alicia, on her birthday, ad multos annos.

Prayers for the eternal rest of Fr. Luke Harris, OCSO, 91,  of Mt. St. Bernard
Abbey, UK, and for his community, family and all who mourn him.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is
mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him. Thanks so much. JL

April 17, August 17, December 17
Chapter 62: On the Priests of the Monastery

If an Abbot desire to have a priest or a deacon ordained for his
monastery, let him choose one who is worthy to exercise the priestly
office.

But let the one who is ordained beware of self-exaltation or pride;
and let him not presume to do anything except what is commanded him
by the Abbot, knowing that he is so much the more subject to the
discipline of the Rule. Nor should he by reason of his priesthood
forget
the obedience and the discipline required by the Rule, but make ever
more and more progress towards God.

Let him always keep the place which he received on entering the
monastery, except in his duties at the altar or in case the choice of
the community and the will of the Abbess should promote him for the
worthiness of his life. Yet he must understand that he is to observe
the rules laid down by deans and Priors.

Should he presume to act otherwise, let him be judged not as a priest
but as a rebel. And if he does not reform after repeated admonitions,
let even the Bishop be brought in as a witness. If then he still
fails to amend, and his offenses are notorious, let him be put out of
the monastery, but only if his contumacy is such that he refuses to
submit or to obey the Rule.

REFLECTION


This chapter applies to anyone who rises at work or at school or even
in the home. Much is required of those to whom much is given! When a
Benedictine gets a promotion, the basic willingness to do anything
necessary ought to remain firmly in place! All authority, all power
entails responsibility.

Authority, when we hold it, is not about us, it's about them, the
people over whom it is exercised. It's exercise is not about us either, it
is about the folks that authority is meant to serve. Just as a really good
priest or minister "disappears" behind vesture and rubric when serving at the
altar, so should those in authority be. We ought always to be able to
see the common good in them, not a cheap and tacky caricature of a
bad monarch.

Authority, when it is placed over us, is to be reverenced and obeyed.
When it is placed in our own hands, it is to serve, not to reign! All
of us get the opportunity to deal with authority or to administer
same. Our Benedictine hearts should make it readily evident to any
who observes us that our style in either area is decidedly different!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA



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+PAX

Prayers, please, for the eternal rest of Roger, who died suddenly, and for his
brother, Brian, and all his family and all who mourn him.

Lord, help us all as you know and will. God's will is best. All is mery and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 18, August 18, December 18
Chapter 63: On the Order of the Community

Let all keep their places in the monastery
established by the time of their entrance,
the merit of their lives and the decision of the Abbot.
Yet the Abbot must not disturb the flock committed to him,
nor by an arbitrary use of his power ordain anything unjustly;
but let him always think
of the account he will have to render to God
for all his decisions and his deeds.

Therefore in that order which he has established
or which they already had,
let the brethren approach to receive the kiss of peace and Communion,
intone the Psalms and stand in choir.
And in no place whatever should age decide the order
or be prejudicial to it;
for Samuel and Daniel as mere boys judged priests.

Except for those already mentioned, therefore,
whom the Abbot has promoted by a special decision
or demoted for definite reasons,
all the rest shall take their order
according to the time of their entrance.
Thus, for example,
he who came to the monastery at the second hour of the day,
whatever be his age or his dignity,
must know that he is junior
to one who came at the first hour of the day.
Boys, however, are to be kept under discipline
in all matters and by everyone.

REFLECTION

St. Benedict, who has stressed fairness in so many ways, even
equality, also insists on order, hence the title of this chapter. But
it is an order which is largely established by God: the time of
entrance. God calls when He chooses, whomever He chooses. When that
person responds, that, for the most part, is going to determine their
place in community.

Families, too, need order.
We are used to hearing sibling rivalry horror stories that traipse
far into adult life as psychological baggage. How many of them might
have been avoided if, as St. Benedict prescribed for his family,
order was never decided by capriciousness and affection was equal.

Children cannot understand favoritism and rightly so. But a child
could be a bit more comfortable with rewards for good behavior, or for
the merit of their siblings' lives. That might annoy them, true, but at
least it is something they, too, can work towards. Arbitrary
affectional preference is not.

Note that St. Benedict leaves the Abbot free to advance anyone for
his own reasons, but immediately tacks on a warning that the Abbot
must not disturb his flock and that he must give an account of his
stewardship. Abbots are human, not infallible. Human affection can
enter into their choices and St. Benedict warns them against that.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA





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+PAX

Prayers, please, for the spiritual, physical and temporal wlefare of the
following, for all their loved ones and all who take vcare of them:

Brian, the loss of Roger, his brother, has hit him very hard, continued prayerts
for him and all the family and for Roger's eternal rest.

Mary Jane, who has been living with cancer for a while now, and is getting weak.
She finds this very hard, since she has always been active in our parish.

Rhoda, cardiac complications and anxiety.

a young boy, Matthew, for whom we have prayed before. His emotional problems
have worsened to the point where he is suicidal. His parents, Lisa and Robb, are
taking him to an inpatient setting. Prayers, please, too for his frightened
parents, his twin Nathan, and younger brother Seth.

Brittany who is starting a process called, "Rush Immunotherapy" for her
allergies. Prayers that she does not have an allergic reaction and that the side
effects are not bad.  Also for Brittany and Orest, traveling in the mountains
with a heavy snowstorm and rain, for safe travels.

Lord, help us all as You know and will.
God's will is best. All is mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him!
Thanks so much. JL

April 19, August 19, December 19
Chapter 63: On the Order of the Community

The juniors, therefore, should honor their seniors,
and the seniors love their juniors.

In the very manner of address,
let no one call another by the mere name;
but let the seniors call their juniors Brothers,
and the juniors call their seniors Fathers,
by which is conveyed the reverence due to a father.
But the Abbot,
since he is believed to represent Christ,
shall be called Lord and Abbot,
not for any pretensions of his own
but out of honor and love for Christ.
Let the Abbot himself reflect on this,
and show himself worthy of such an honor.

And wherever the brethren meet one another
the junior shall ask the senior for his blessing.
When a senior passes by,
a junior shall rise and give him a place to sit,
nor shall the junior presume to sit with him
unless his senior bid him,
that it may be as was written,
"In honor anticipating one another."

Boys, both small and adolescent,
shall keep strictly to their rank in oratory and at table.
But outside of that, wherever they may be,
let them be under supervision and discipline,
until they come to the age of discretion.

REFLECTION

Abbot Fidelis, my late novicemaster, used to always say that
Benedictines were "gentlemen monks." At that time, the phrase annoyed
me a good bit, though I never said so. It seemed to have a ring of
faint middle-class respectability about it, not a little bourgeois,
as if we were monks who were "the right sort of people."

It would still annoy me today if, one meant by that phrase nothing
more than all those rather hollow social niceties. Not that there's
anything wrong as such with social niceties, just that I have grown
up in a country where courtesy, "civil" religion and the like often had
precious little to do with faith motives.

Living among monastics will teach one (hopefully!) by osmosis that
many of the common courtesies which have become decidedly UNcommon in
the world are the order of the day here. We get so immersed in that
that often it is hard to even think of what they are, we just do
them. The best example I can come up with right now is that there is
FAR more restraint here against interrupting another's conversation
here than in the world at large. We do it sometimes, I do it too
much, but basically we do NOT "butt in."

There are many other little things, rising when a superior enters,
not sitting until the superior does in chapter, etc. These in
themselves may seem empty at first, but when linked to the charity of
Christ and His Divine Mercy, they become very real gestures of love.
The fact that we don't think of them much after a while in no way
diminishes the Treasure that motivates them, Christ Himself.

Relationships between seniors and juniors are a two-way street. The
behavior of one feeds (or stokes the fires!) of the other. Hey, this
is true of all relationships, in every area of life. Want to be
loved? Give respect. Want to be respected? Give love. It may not work
in every instance, but it must be the first means we try and the only
means we never abandon totally.

Though the Holy Rule clearly exempts (in this passage,) the Abbess,
because she represents Christ, the express command that the Abbess
remember why she is treated as Christ is underscored. The Rule is the
Rule and monastics are human. The treatment we
give to others tends to reflect back upon as from a mirror, often not
without very good reason!

So, yes, my dear Abbot Fidelis, hopefully we ARE gentlemen monks (and
gentle monastics period!) No, we are not like some terribly proper and
equally shallow social gathering of "the right sort" of people. Our motives to
courtesy have a theological basis, not merely a social one. But we ARE gentle
and we
are so because of Him Whom we seek and have come to love.

Love and prayers,

Jerome, OSB



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+PAX

Prayers, please, for the spiritual, physical and temporal welfare of the
following, for all their loved ones and all who takke care of them:

Ben, Sarah, & Jacob traveling across country from Arizona for Christmas. Safe
travel as they are driving.

little Myla, in ICU again with serious heart problems, and for her parents,

Simon, who is critically Ill in hospital with pneumonia and broken ribs and leg
and is being fed by tubes after a very serious car accident and another friend
who broke his arm & is feeling guilty after the accident.

Mrs. Service, 50, possibly dying of cancer, and for her seminarian son who has
been called to fly home to be with her. Two other seminarians have lost theiir
mothers this month and another seminarian's father had a serious heart attack.
Prayers for them all.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much, BJL

April 20, August 20, December 20
Chapter 64: On Constituting an Abbess

In the constituting of an Abbess
let this plan always be followed,
that the office be conferred on the one who is chosen
either by the whole community unanimously in the fear of God
or else by a part of the community, however small,
if its counsel is more wholesome.

Merit of life and wisdom of doctrine
should determine the choice of the one to be constituted,
even if she be the last of the order of the community.

But if (which God forbid)
the whole community should agree to choose a person
who will acquiesce in their vices,
and if those vices somehow become known to the Bishop
to whose diocese the place belongs,
or to the Abbots, Abbesses or the faithful of the vicinity,
let them prevent the success of this conspiracy of the wicked,
and set a worthy steward over the house of God.
They may be sure
that they will receive a good reward for this action
if they do it with a pure intention and out of zeal for God;
as, on the contrary, they will sin if they fail to do it.

REFLECTION

Monasteries can forget sometimes that they are not their own, one of
the unavoidable risks of Benedictine autonomy. While it was usual, in
St. Benedict's day, for monasteries to be under their local bishop
(and still is usual in the East today,) St. Benedict says something
even more telling. The local laity should intervene if the monastery
conspires to elect a loser! Now THAT is going a long way!

Monasteries become dear to those around them, and a sense of
ownership for their local monastery arises in many hearts. St.
Benedict actually endorses that. The monk is not his own, but neither
is the whole community. We belong to the Church, we belong to our own
locale, we belong to the people in a very special way. It entitles
them to warn us that we may have gone amiss and it obliges us to
always recall that our monasteries have ripple effects!

Many of us in the workplace or school, some of us even in marriage,
are forced to deal with people who were NOT chosen for their "merit
of life and wisdom of doctrine." That can be very tough, but grace
and the Holy Rule are there to strengthen us.

The single most important thing the one governed can do to thwart bad
government is NOT to mirror the behavior which is at fault. Two
wrongs can never make a right. All too often, for whatever reason,
people push our buttons and get exactly the sick response from us
that they sickly need. Try not to let that happen. Put a control on
your buttons. Never stoop to the level that annoys you, and believe
me, that stooping is easy to do.

Hard and perennial truth, but many of the things which annoy us most
in others are our own sins, in one form or another.We might reflect those
faults in different areas, in different ways, but this can only help
us in denial. Look, look very carefully at the person who makes you
the most angry. Most of us will not have to look honestly for very
long to see why we are affected strongly.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA




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+PAX

Prayers, please, for the spiritual, physical and temporal welfare of the
following, fopr all their loved ones and all who take care iof them:

Susan, 51, for the gift of Faith and the right clergy to nurture it.

Brittany and Orest, they had an accident when a deer ran into their car and the
car is not driveable. Deo gratias and prayers of thanks that they were not hurt.
They are a long way from home and from their destination, with many logisitics
to be worked out to get everyone safely home. Prayers that all works out for
them, they are in a real bind.

Sarah, going to job interview in hopes of landing a position much more
satisfying and less stressful - a place where her wonderful God-given talents
may shine.

JS, difficult exams ahead and a number of tough career related decisions.Hope he
is open to the Holy Spirit.

special intention for Beverly,

improved health for Carrie,

special intention for Ben,


Deo gratias for past prayers answered

ardent prayers for Sister E who is under going severe pain and other trials.

Monica, extensive smalll intestine surgery and in ICU.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 21, August 21, December 21
Chapter 64: On Constituting an Abbess

Once she has been constituted,
let the Abbess always bear in mind
what a burden she has undertaken
and to whom she will have to give an account of her stewardship,
and let her know that her duty is rather to profit her sisters
than to preside over them.
She must therefore be learned in the divine law,
that she may have a treasure of knowledge
from which to bring forth new things and old.
She must be chaste, sober and merciful.
Let her exalt mercy above judgment,
that she herself may obtain mercy.
She should hate vices;
she should love the sisterhood.


In administering correction
she should act prudently and not go to excess,
lest in seeking too eagerly to scrape off the rust
she break the vessel.
Let her keep her own frailty ever before her eyes
and remember that the bruised reed must not be broken.
By this we do not mean that she should allow vices to grow;
on the contrary, as we have already said,
she should eradicate them prudently and with charity,
in the way which may seem best in each case.
Let her study rather to be loved than to be feared.


Let her not be excitable and worried,
nor exacting and headstrong,
nor jealous and over-suspicious;
for then she is never at rest.


In her commands let her be prudent and considerate;
and whether the work which she enjoins
concerns God or the world,
let her be discreet and moderate,
bearing in mind the discretion of holy Jacob, who said,
"If I cause my flocks to be overdriven,
they will all die in one day."
Taking this, then, and other examples of discretion,
the mother of virtues,
let her so temper all things
that the strong may have something to strive after,
and the weak may not fall back in dismay.


And especially let her keep this Rule in all its details,
so that after a good ministry
she may hear from the Lord what the good servant heard
who gave the fellow-servants wheat in due season:
"Indeed, I tell you, he will set that one over all his goods" (Matt.
24:27).

REFLECTION

Anyone reading this would perhaps quite rightly think: "Wow!
That's a tall order to fill!" They would, of course, be right.

Now for the clincher: this is not just a model for Abbots, but for
all of us with any authority, in fact, for all of us period. This is
the way Benedictines should treat others, seniors, juniors, all
people. This Christ-like attitude ought to pervade every parent,
teacher, boss, nurse and grocery clerk, all of us. For every one of
us the model here is exquisite. Read it over and over and etch it
into your very heart. This is St. Benedict at his best!

Pay particular attention to the deceptively short paragraph about
not being "excitable and worried," along with its other cautions. Its
warning that such things mean we shall never be at rest is a very
important one. Without such, rest, without a certain level of serenity
and peace, the spiritual journey is very, very tough going, indeed.
We badly need that restful serenity to focus on Christ and the tasks
of our souls at hand.

"Now THAT," he said in an unusually short reflection, "is a REALLY
tall order!" Sure is! You can only do it with grace, with prayer and
God's all-merciful help.

Love and prayers,

Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA








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Prayers for Fr. David, on the 60th anniversary of his ordination, ad multos
annos, many more!

Pryares for the spirirtual, physical and tempoiral welfare of the following, for
all their loved ones and all who take care of them:

Nathan Charles, a young boy with terminal cancer.

Linda, spinal cancer.

Louise, lung cancer.

Kathy, liver cancer.

Alicea, for whom we have been praying for a new job, starts New Year's Eve in
the same career field, with better benefits. Deo Gratias indeed!
Thanks to all who prayed. Alicea  requests prayer for her son, Josh, that he
begins to act with self-discipline, wisdom and circumspection, especially as he
is nearing the end of high school.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 22, August 22, December 22
Chapter 65: On the Prior of the Monastery

It happens all too often that the constituting of a Prior
gives rise to grave scandals in monasteries.
For there are some who become inflated with the evil spirit of pride
and consider themselves second Abbots.
By usurping power
they foster scandals and cause dissensions in the community.
Especially does this happen
in those places where the Prior is constituted
by the same Bishop or the same Abbots
who constitute the Abbot himself.
What an absurd procedure this is
can easily be seen;
for it gives the Prior an occasion for becoming proud
from the very time of his constitution,
by putting the thought into his mind
that he is freed from the authority of his Abbot:
"For," he will say to himself, "you were constituted
by the same persons who constitute the Abbot."
From this source are stirred up envy, quarrels, detraction,
rivalry, dissensions and disorders.
For while the Abbot and the Prior are at variance,
their souls cannot but be endangered by this dissension;
and those who are under them,
currying favor with one side or the other,
go to ruin.
The guilt for this dangerous state of affairs
rests on the heads of those
whose action brought about such disorder.

REFLECTION

When I read the line about those governed "currying favor with one
side or the other," I thought immediately of the children of divorce.
Children, however, are quite perceptive, and it is not just divorce,
but any noticeable drift between parents that they will manipulate.
That is why, in family and monastery, unity in authority is very
important.

St. Benedict tries to guarantee this by letting the Abbot choose his
own Prior, parents can do it by a struggle to overcome their own
personal differences for the good of the children. This is not to say
that the parents can necessarily get over their problems, but that
they must at least try to be consistent with the children, for the
children's sakes. As St. Benedict points out, this choosing of sides
in child or monastic, can lead to ruin.

Why does it lead to ruin? Because manipulation to some degree puts us
in charge of ourselves, something no child and very, very few
monastics are strong enough to be. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux
said: "The one who has himself for a master has a fool for a
disciple." One reason we took obedience upon ourselves was our
knowledge of our own weakness. This knowledge can fade and dim with
time, we can be convinced we know better. Our obedience is a real protection
from harm.
Benedictines not only are not in charge of themselves, but, as the
Holy Rule defines cenobitic community life, they "desire" this lack
of control. They "desire to live under a Rule and an Abbot."

One cannot expect children to be wise enough to see how good and
necessary obedience is at every turn, but it shouldn't be much of a
stretch for us adults!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA








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Deo gratias and prayers of thanks for:

Peter and Ann on their 40th wedding anniversary. Graces galore and ad multos
annos!

Andrea received an invitation to interview for her doctoral program. Continued
prayers for her through this process.

Brittany and Orest are safe at her mom's house, prayers for their long drive
back, may it be safe.

Ben, Sarah, and Jacob arrived safely last night from Arizona. They return after
New Years', prayers for the journey back.

prayers for the spiritual, physcal and temporal welfare of the following, for
all their loved ones and al who take care of them:

Elaine and Craig, showing their house for sale and hoping to get an offer.

Katie who has been diagnosed with very high blood pressure and is under much
stress due to moving to Kentucky.
Ralph, he has a second interview with GetWellNetwork tomorrow. He has been out
of work since this summer.

Kathy going in for second eye surgery, had first week of Thanksgiving, for
speedy recovery.

Sandra recovering from a foot injury.

M.A., a wonderful teenager who is experiencing some emotional issues. Prayers
for her and her family, that they may find the right counselor to help her
through this troubling time.


Update on the unborn twins we asked prayers for a little over two weeks ago -
the babies had successful surgery, Baby B is almost as big now as Baby A, mother
who has been on strict bed rest was given the OK by her doctors for 'light duty
around the house. She will go back for another ultrasound right after the first
of the year.


Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 23, August 23, December 23
Chapter 65: On the Prior of the Monastery

To us, therefore, it seems expedient
for the preservation of peace and charity
that the Abbot have in his hands
the full administration of his monastery.
And if possible let all the affairs of the monastery,
as we have already arranged,
be administered by deans according to the Abbot's directions.
Thus, with the duties being shared by several,
no one person will become proud.


But if the circumstances of the place require it,
or if the community asks for it with reason and with humility,
and the Abbot judges it to be expedient,
let the Abbot himself constitute as his Prior
whomsoever he shall choose
with the counsel of God-fearing brethren.


That Prior, however, shall perform respectfully
the duties enjoined on him by his Abbot
and do nothing against the Abbot's will or direction;
for the more he is raised above the rest,
the more carefully should he observe the precepts of the Rule.


If it should be found that the Prior has serious faults,
or that he is deceived by his exaltation and yields to pride,
or if he should be proved to be a despiser of the Holy Rule,
let him be admonished verbally up to four times.
If he fails to amend,
let the correction of regular discipline be applied to him.
But if even then he does not reform,
let him be deposed from the office of Prior
and another be appointed in his place who is worthy of it.
And if afterwards he is not quiet and obedient in the community,
let him even be expelled from the monastery.
But the Abbot, for his part, should bear in mind
that he will have to render an account to God
for all his judgments,
lest the flame of envy or jealousy be kindled in his soul.

REFLECTION

The overwhelming majority of us, myself included, are never going to
be a Prior or Prioress. Firm grasp on the obvious there!! What,
however, may we glean from this chapter? There are at least several
possibilities.

First, even if your position gives you a certain level of honor,
never be so stupid as to believe it, to become proud, to take
yourself far too seriously. Cling to a self-knowledge of your
limitations, your sins and failings, especially when being praised.

Yes, we are human, yes, it is nice to hear those things, yes,
sometimes they are even close to the truth, but praise, rank and
honor can be awful traps. Like crack cocaine, they can addict us the
first time we really give in to them. Great caution is in order here.

Second, every commitment to Christ, Baptism, Oblation or Profession,
obliges us to a higher standard of self-control. The Holy Rule,
because speaking of a superior official, uses the phrase "raised above the
rest." This is given as a reason to more carefully observe the Holy Rule.

We should read therein that ANY commitment which separates us
and sets us further apart for the service of God means that we must
more carefully observe the precepts of the Rule. Even though it can
be quite annoying to hear, how often someone will say, immediately
after a litany of transgressions the person has committed, "And she
is an OBLATE!" (Or Franciscan Third Order, or whatever.) People
expect more of us because of our religious inclinations and we should
not disappoint them.

Third, and perhaps most important of all, no one, save God alone, is
indispensable. No one. Want to see the change that your removal from
the scene will effect? Stick your forearm into a bucket of water, and
then pull it out. Same thing, folks, the waters close right in and
things go on quite nicely. The higher water level while our arm was
there was only illusion anyway. This fact can work in happy concert
with the above warning about taking ourselves too seriously. Usually,
when we THINK we're hot stuff, we aren't, and even if we truly are at
some point, it is FAR better not to know that, and a LOT easier for
the spiritual struggle.

Yes, we ARE important, we are infinitely important to God and, as a
result, to each other. But what makes us so is holiness and love and
struggling for virtue, not power. What makes us most like Him is
humility.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB




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Prayers for Sarah B., very sick, and for her parents.

Pryares for Pam, in her 40s and the mother in a beautiful faith-filled family
with 3 children (10,12, 15). She has a diagnosis of end-stage pancreatic cancer.
She began chemotherapy to have time to say farewells, but is only expected to
live a few months. "We aren't counting on a miracle," says her husband John,
"but we will gladly accept one."  Prayers for all her family, too.

Some people want to make an offer on Elaine and Craig's home, but have to sell
their condo first, prayers that all goes well and they get an offer.

Lord, help us all as
You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and grace. God is never
absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 24, August 24, December 24
Chapter 66: On the Porter of the Monastery

At the gate of the monastery
let there be placed a wise old woman,
who knows how to receive and to give a message,
and whose maturity will prevent her from straying about.
This porter should have a room near the gate,
so that those who come may always find someone at hand
to attend to their business.
And as soon as anyone knocks or a poor person hails her,
let her answer "Thanks be to God" or "A blessing!"
Then let her attend to them promptly,
with all the meekness inspired by the fear of God
and with the warmth of charity.

Should the porter need help,
let her have one of the younger sisters.

If it can be done,
the monastery should be so established
that all the necessary things,
such as water, mill, garden and various workshops,
may be within the enclosure,
so that there is no necessity
for the sisters to go about outside of it,
since that is not at all profitable for their souls.

We desire that this Rule be read often in the community,
so that none of the sisters may excuse herself
on the ground of ignorance.

REFLECTION

When a phone or doorbell rings, whether in a great Benedictine abbey
or an urban Benedictine apartment, we have the opportunity to
practice the hospitable grace that the Holy Rule requires of all.
Dorothy Day's friend and mentor, Father Hugo, used to say that we
love God as much as the one we love the least.

That would readily translate for me. I LOVE to see certain guests arrive,
look forward to it as soon as I hear they are coming. Those are not the
receptions on which I should judge my hospitality. The tough-to-love
ones are.

The point here is that we ARE Benedictines, whether our answering
style of door or phone makes that evident or not. I might not like to think
so, but the anonymity of just saying "Hello," on the phone, without my
name or title does not entitle me to be harsh or gruff or rude. All of us are
bound by something Benedictine within us to be kind and gracious to all
who call or visit.

Someone who calls a monastery for the first time can be driven
away or attracted by the way they are dealt with on the phone.
A vocation could driven away by a smartingly cold response. To
risk alienating someone because of our own moods might mean that we
cheat someone out of a spiritual respite they sorely need.

I can't tell you how many people who just called us out of nowhere in the
last 12 years have become real members of our family, greatly
beneficial to themselves and to us. Anyone of those first experiences
could have been irreparably soured by a cranky phone manner. Look at
what all of us would have lost had that happened.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http:www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA



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A Blessed Christmas to all! Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Continued prayers for Mrs. Service and her son and family, she has been
improving.

Prayers for Martin, that a serious problem with chronic vandalism to his car be
resolved. Neighbors are suspects, but nothing can be proven so far. Prayers for
their conversion, too.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 25, August 25, December 25
Chapter 67: On Brethren Who Are Sent on a Journey

Let the brethren who are sent on a journey
commend themselves
to the prayers of all the brethren and of the Abbot;
and always at the last prayer of the Work of God
let a commemoration be made of all absent brethren.

When brethren return from a journey,
at the end of each canonical Hour of the Work of God
on the day they return,
let them lie prostrate on the floor of the oratory
and beg the prayers of all
on account of any faults
that may have surprised them on the road,
through the seeing or hearing of something evil,
or through idle talk.
And let no one presume to tell another
whatever he may have seen or heard outside of the monastery,
because this causes very great harm.
But if anyone presumes to do so,
let him undergo the punishment of the Rule.
And let him be punished likewise who would presume
to leave the enclosure of the monastery
and go anywhere or do anything, however small,
without an order from the Abbot.

REFLECTION

Rare is the person who can manage to stay employed without at least a
slightly different persona at work. We are one thing there, because
we have to be, but when we clock out, much, if not all of the work
persona is shed. In fact, we usually have a whole repertoire of
different selves, being one thing with our grandmother and quite
another with a childhood friend we have known all our lives, one
thing with the promising new date and quite another with the spouse
of many years!

Secular society has enlarged upon this tendency to its own ends.
Because the tendency is so deeply rooted in us, we may fail to see
its dangers when carried to extremes. Thanks to a society often
glaringly unassisted by revelation, we have the unhappy concept of
different umbrellas, different sets of ethics to cover different
areas of life. "Hey, religion is fine if you want it, but this is
BUSINESS!" or "I may be a Christian, but this is public service. I
was elected by a constituency that expected me to leave some of that
Gospel stuff at the door." Well, folks, such notions do not
wash well. In fact, they really don't wash at all.

The message of the Holy Rule and of the Gospel is that there is one
umbrella, period. There is one persona, period. Granted, in the
latter, shades and gradations may last throughout most of our
struggling lives, but the goal is clear. All monastic, all Christian,
all the time. One heart, one umbrella, one Lord, one faith, one
baptism.

That work persona that we drop when we clock out, the totally free
and other person we are on days off or on trips away can be an OK
notion in relation to work. Wouldn't we find someone who was a
salesperson or teacher or secretary or manager ALL the time to be a
dreadful drip? The concept fails, however, when it is applied to
vocations, to any vocation at all. One does not take a vacation from
being married or a parent or ordained or a monastic.

Do I hear loud screams in cyber-space as I mention BALANCE again?
Sorry, but it is true. There is a balanced way to be under one
umbrella all the time that we must strive to achieve. Yes, I am
different with different friends, we all are, we have to be, charity
demands that. But there is a commonality between all the threads of
our behavior. We are monastics. We are freer within defined limits.
It is to the balance of those defined limits that this chapter refers.

At Petersham, we still follow this custom of prayer for one who will
be away overnight. The prayers are said in the refectory, after
grace. One is blessed leaving and returning, while kneeling in the
center of the ref. It's just a way of saying, as a community, that we
all know that maintaining that one umbrella can be tough, especially
when one is away alone. We want to support each other with our
prayers, we want our brother to know that our hearts are with him all
the way.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA






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Prayers for William, intestinal mass and treatment not yet decided on.

Prayers for Rev. Victoria and her Church. Her Church was burglarized badly just
before Christmas.

Prayers for the eternal rest of Oh Jang Kyun, who died after being in a coma for
a month folwing a car accident. None of the family has any religious faith,
apparently neither did Oh Jang.

Why not this year make a new tradition: pray for your "Christmas list", that is
all people with whom you exchanged Christmas greetings, all through
Christmastide. It is a warm and loving custom.

Prayers, please, for all who have lost someone dear over the holidays. It
can be so awful for them and then the pain can recur year after year. Prayers,
too, for all those addicts for whom this season of feasting in food and drink
can be a particularly trying time of temptation. May God bless and strengthen
them all. Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All
is mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 26, August 26, December 26
Chapter 68: If a Sister Is Commanded to Do Impossible Things

If it happens
that difficult or impossible tasks are laid on a sister,
let her nevertheless receive the order of the one in authority
with all meekness and obedience.
But if she sees that the weight of the burden
altogether exceeds the limit of her strength,
let her submit the reasons for her inability
to the one who is over her
in a quiet way and at an opportune time,
without pride, resistance, or contradiction.
And if after these representations
the Superior still persists in her decision and command,
let the subject know that this is for her good,
and let her obey out of love,
trusting in the help of God.

REFLECTION

Buried in chapters whose names may throw us off there are usually
gems, one just has to dig a bit more carefully. Granted, impossible
tasks are rarely asked of anyone these days, much less Oblates who
live outside the monastery, but there is a beautiful method given
here which has the widest of applications.

Most interpersonal conflict arises from one being or feeling wronged.
Escalation often follows when one tries to express their displeasure
to the offender. Even people who are truly wrong do not enjoy being
humiliated or treated as if they were nothing. Upset by another's
actions, it is easy to lose one's cool. When both parties blow up, a
relentless cycle of discord is born.

The method given here for approaching one's superior is a masterpiece
of crisis intervention and prevention for almost any situation in
life:

"...in a quiet way and at an opportune time, without pride,
resistance, or contradiction."

We ought to carve that on the walls of every mediation center in the
world, on the doors to every marriage counselor and above every
complaint desk (or, as they euphemize them these days, "Customer
Service," but what's in a name?)

Look at what is called for here: composure and calm, timing, respect
for the other person (Gandhi would even say love for the foe,) non-
violence and non-contentiousness. Use this approach with
disagreements and many of them will melt away. One reason Gandhi's
non-violence worked was that he employed all of these things, the
opponent was never denied her worth or dignity. When his followers
pared the list, they failed. This is the recipe for lasting results,
not for a temporary subjugation.

Jesus, of course, gives us a three step process to redress wrongs: go
to the person alone, if that doesn't work go with a witness, if even
that fails, then haul them up before the whole assembly. We can
consider ourselves absolved if we follow all those steps and may feel
justified, but if we undertake ANY of those steps, especially the
first one, without the calm prescribed by St. Benedict, our effort is
all but guaranteed to fail. We can sputter out: "I went to her and I
got NOWHERE!" Ah, yes, but HOW did you go? "He wouldn't even listen
to the whole community!" Neither would you, if made to feel that
small and worthless in public.

Very often our manner of dealing with others says a great deal about
how we esteem ourselves. A balanced dignity and self-love is shown in
the Holy Rule's approach. It will go a longer way toward ending
conflict than a "wronged prima donna" move. Sometimes prima donnas
of either gender are filled with angry self-hatred.

Watch people fight and it will be easy to see that many consider any
slight or offense against themselves to be THE original sin. Sigh...
Give people like that a lot of room. Being wrong is not a capital
offense, everybody does it at one time or another. People who
demonstrate anything else by their actions damage their own standing
in the group as well, and rightly so.

Remember that every disagreement hurts the whole group. A family at
dinner with two not speaking is a tense affair. You cannot calm a
child by saying "This is between your Father and me! It has nothing
to do with you." But it does, it really does. A community in choir
after a huge blow-up between two members is not an exquisite taste of
mystical prayer. Everybody suffers. That's why fixing these fender-
benders is so important and why St. Benedict gave us a way that is so
very likely to achieve results.

Now THAT'S creative peacemaking!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA








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Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All ismercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 27, August 27, December 27
Chapter 69: That the Monks Presume Not to Defend One Another

Care must be taken that no monk presume on any ground
to defend another monk in the monastery,
or as it were to take him under his protection,
even though they be united by some tie of blood-relationship.
Let not the monks dare to do this in any way whatsoever,
because it may give rise to most serious scandals.
But if anyone breaks this rule,
let him be severely punished.

REFLECTION

We are all supposed to bear one another's burdens. That should be
more than enough help for anyone, if we actually keep that principle.

A big problem with becoming the protector of another, self-appointed
or otherwise, is that it destroys one's peace needlessly. When I was
a novice, there was one other novice I really did not want to lose.
He was not the brightest bulb on the tree and I went out of my way to
protect him from himself. In time, he came to resent this and I was
so busy worrying about covering or preventing his foibles all the
time that I spent little time focusing on my own novitiate. Of
course, he left. He was supposed to leave. I, however, could not see
that at the time.

This isn't just about monasteries, it's about any human group. Taking
someone under our wing can result in all sorts of false assumptions.
It can fool us into thinking we can really control events more than
we can. It can lead us, a la Mother Hen, to seek to control the one
under wing in very unnecessary and unhealthy ways. Its most common
error is also one of its most dangerous ones: it leads us to think in
terms of "us-and-them." There is no "them" in a healthy monastery or
family or Christian community, only an "us".

As usual, what the Holy Rule insists we avoid is an extreme. This
chapter is NOT saying we should not look out for one another, just
that no one should presume that the job is hers alone. Good families
protect all their members, but it is a corporate activity, something
in which all participate. Destroy that balance and the others will
notice quickly. It upsets the inner peace, both of the individual and
the group.

Part of any monastic's struggle, in cloister or in the world, is the
painful facing up to ourselves, that confrontation with our own
flaws. This difficult self-knowledge is essential to the monastic
way. Trying to protect someone from this process is counter to the
very reason they came. It not only harms them, it harms us. It
keeps us so busy with another's affairs that we can avoid looking
at our own failings: a distraction we may perilously cherish!

Merton once told his junior monk students that there is an
existential place of loneliness in every monk that no one can touch,
and that this is the way it's supposed to be, that no one should try
to reach it. That's where the struggle goes on, that's where there is
only God and the self. That's the arena in which the action happens.

Every person, every employee, every spouse and child has a similar
place: it is the place of great potential learning and growth. Our deep
respect for one another must stand away from that space. Becoming
self-appointed guardians of another violates that space.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA




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Craig and Elaine got an offer on their home, but many things have to be worked
oiut and fall in place before the move can be made, so prayers all goes
smoothly.

Prayers for Rev. George McLellan, for his eternal rest and all who mourn him.

Prayers for Maddie, auditioning  for a very good Charter School in music.

Prayers, please, for all we exchanged Chrtistmas gifts or cards or greetings
with this year.

Prayers, too, for N. and N., special intentions

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 28, August 28, December 28
Chapter 70: That No One Venture to Punish at Random

Every occasion of presumption
shall be avoided in the monastery,
and we decree that no one be allowed
to excommunicate or to strike any of her sisters
unless the Abbess has given her the authority.
Those who offend in this matter
shall be rebuked in the presence of all,
that the rest may have fear.

But children up to 15 years of age
shall be carefully controlled and watched by all,
yet this too with all moderation and discretion.
All, therefore, who presume
without the Abbess' instructions
to punish those above that age
or who lose their temper with them,
shall undergo the discipline of the Rule;
for it is written,
"Do not to another what you would not want done to yourself" (Tobias
4:16).

REFLECTION

"Every occasion of presumption should be avoided in the monastery."
This is about a lot more than saying who can punish whom. This is
pointing out that, whenever there are more than one to be considered,
absolute freedom cannot exist. This is about central authority, yes,
but it is also about the total way one conducts oneself in a home or
group that others share.

Ever think about your first home away from your parents house? It was
probably different in a lot of ways, especially if you lived there
alone. Heady freedom that! I recall my own first place very well and
fondly. However, I can assure you, I could not have lived as I did
there had I been in a family, with younger siblings at home. (OK, it
was 1969, so go figure...)

Even alone, however, I was not free to play my stereo at undue
volumes at 3 AM. We live on a common planet, at some point ALL of our
lives touch others. When they do, control of some sort is necessary
if people are to live in peace.

There is a great and treacherous myth of individualism among
Americans and, to a lesser extent, I think, among all Western
European cultures. Non-western cultures often have a much more highly
developed sense of sharing and commonality. The American nonsense
of "God-bless-the-child-that's-got-his-own" does justice to neither
God nor the child!

Schweitzer pointed out that Europeans found the Africans lazy,
because they would not work to a point of exhaustion without need.
They worked all right, but when the work was done, they quit. They
had a casual and natural attitude to work, proper to their own
economic system, that drove the Europeans nuts, because the latter
had more of a 40-hours-a-week-and-then-you-rest notion. Both
Schweitzer and I tend to side with the natives on this one!

That myth of total freedom, of self-sufficiency being able to buy one
the right to any activity is totally wrong. Even at 20, in my richly
bohemian digs that I called "Shackri-la", I was not totally free. I
didn't know it well enough back then, but I wasn't. I had no right to waste
water or leave lights on all night or drive drunk. My fantasy might have
been chronologically appropriate as Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco,
but hey, even there, even then, people were not totally free. None of us are.

Every presumed domain of our control exists on a planet shared by
billions. No one of us is an island. Our complete interdependence is
not only objective fact, it is our only hope. You might never have
read this chapter as an ad for ecological consciousness, but look at
the first line again. We are ALWAYS in this with others and that
always means responsibilities to "...not do to another what one would
not have done to oneself."

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA


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+PAX

Jen and Keith. they just lodt their baby to a miscarriage, prayers for all
three.

Prayers  for the eternal rest of Jerry who died suddenly on 12-27-12 of a heart
attack. For his wife Alice and their adult children Andrea and Jeremy.

Special intentions for D,H.

Prayers for Leah, 3 ½ months that she will carry this child to full term, she
lost one earlier this year through miscarriage.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 29, August 29, December 29
Chapter 71: That the Brethren Be Obedient to One Another

Not only is the boon of obedience
to be shown by all to the Abbot,
but the brethren are also to obey one another,
knowing that by this road of obedience they are going to God.
Giving priority, therefore, to the commands of the Abbot
and of the Superior appointed by him
(to which we allow no private orders to be preferred),
for the rest
let all the juniors obey their seniors
with all charity and solicitude.
But if anyone is found contentious,
let him be corrected.

And if any brother,
for however small a cause,
is corrected in any way by the Abbot or by any of his Superiors,
or if he faintly perceives
that the mind of any Superior is angered or moved against him,
however little,
let him at once, without delay,
prostrate himself on the ground at his feet
and lie there making satisfaction
until that emotion is quieted with a blessing.
But if anyone should disdain to do this,
let him undergo corporal punishment
or, if he is stubborn, let him be expelled from the monastery.

REFLECTION

OK, now we're getting into radical. Any human group, from the
military to a kindergarten at recess expects one to obey the leader.
But each other? Give me a break! How many jobs would you have quit if
you had to obey all of your co-workers? Yet St. Benedict calls such
obedience a "boon", a wonderfully good thing.

Well, giving a break is exactly what is intended here. The Kingdom of
God, which the Holy Rule seeks to guide us to, is ruled by love.

The quickest way to soften an environment and let peace flourish is
to keep people more or less happy, and the quickest way to do that is
to give in to their legitimate wishes whenever possible. So long as the
matter at hand is morally neutral, why not give way?

Now we're getting to the heroic stuff. There are ulterior benefits to
obeying the boss, but another peer? What's the big deal there? The
big deal is love, the big deal is forgetfulness of self, the big deal
is the abdication of control issues.

It's a snap to be a pain. Anybody can pull that off with no effort at
all. Lots of folks do, all the time! The harvest, however, is
isolation and loneliness, which result in bitterness that only fuels
the vicious cycle.

In contrast, it may be a bit difficult at first to be easy, but it is
ALSO addictive when done right! One will soon be hunting for ways to
be easy, because every drop of water makes the ocean a tiny bit less
salty. The harvest, too, is far more precious: a growing warmth that
makes one ever more gentle, more open, more loving and glad to be so.
The harvest is joy and love, not the lie of possession and bitterness.
You may not change the world alone, but the change in yourself will be
awesome and dramatic. That alone will go farther still to improve the
world, to build up the Mystical Body of Christ.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB





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Prayers for Sr. Lany Jo, ASCJ, recovering from knee and torn cartilage surgery.

Prayers for the happy death of Mrs. Service, she has cancer in her lungs and
breasts and has been sent home to die. Prayers for all her family, too.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is
mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

April 30, August 30, December 30
Chapter 72: On the Good Zeal Which They Ought to Have

Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness
which separates from God and leads to hell,
so there is a good zeal
which separates from vices and leads to God
and to life everlasting.
This zeal, therefore, the sisters should practice
with the most fervent love.
Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10);
most patiently endure one another's infirmities,
whether of body or of character;
vie in paying obedience one to another --
no one following what she considers useful for herself,
but rather what benefits another;
tender the charity of sisterhood chastely;
fear God in love;
love their Abbess with a sincere and humble charity;
prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!

REFLECTION

This chapter, full of self-evident and beautiful prose should serve
as a short rule of life, a summary of all that has gone before it.
Live this one, and you're all right: the details from the other
chapters will take care of themselves. Little wonder then that its
principal points are love, obedience and humility, practiced in the
chastity of wholeness. (Chastity, it must be recalled, is proper to
every state in life. It is the well-ordered, balanced and wholesome
use of sexuality.) Even less wonder that, to call Scripture in to witness
here, "the greatest of these is love." Merton's one-line Holy Rule
summary also applies: "Love is the Rule."

The beauty here is so great that we often do not spend enough time
looking at its opposite: "the evil zeal of bitterness." What a great
turn of phrase! Like many of us, St. Benedict seems to have known
some whose bitterness turned into an energetic zeal, a way of life, a
broken power line in a windy world that could strike others or
themselves without warning.

And "zeal" is precisely the word! People can put such frighteningly
zealous levels of effort into self-loathing bitterness. It becomes a
full-time job, one which requires so much energy that it's a marvel
that they continue.

Bitter anger, self-hatred, ill-will towards many,
these are viciously involuted cycles, cancers of the soul. They turn
on the self, malignantly. They injure and alienate others to make
one's twisted world view remain correct. They never rest, the fist
is always clenched, the hand never open.

I have known two monks with this dreadful problem, both now long
dead. Thank heavens, they both persevered to the end and one hopes
that was enough, because, frankly, little else could be said for
them. They both guaranteed that their own lives were hell and pretty
much ensured smaller doses of hell for the rest of us living with
them.

When I was much younger and living with those embittered monks, it
was hard to look at them with much pity or calm. It isn't now, thank
God, and I have spent considerable time praying for both of them, as
well as for a few of their "runners-up"! While all things are
possible with God, the terrible thing is that this self-hatred never
gets fixed in some people. It can be a life sentence. Then, prayer is
the only answer.

In any situation, but perhaps worse when the sufferer is one's spouse
or parent or child, this bitterness is a terrible cross, for both the
sufferer and those around her. It might seem cold comfort to say that
it can make us all saints, but it truly is not cold comfort at
all. Being saints is the only thing, ultimately, that matters. I hope
by now some of my crosses of the past are praying for me, protecting
me, by their prayers, from what once ailed them and forgiving me for
the times I provoked them!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA


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Prayers for Tracy. She lost her electric from the snowstorm; and she and her
children were staying with in-laws. On her way there her car broke down. It is a
major problem. $2000.00 to fix. They took her home last night and her pipes have
broken. The pipes need to be fixed. She needs deliverance.

Prayers for Alan, cardiac arrest this morning, in ICU in induced coma, prognosis
not good, he was without oxygen to his brain and they can't tell yet if there is
brain damage or not. Prayers for his family, too.

Prayers for Jim, involved in a horrific car accident  in which a car jumped the
median and ran full-force into Jim's car, causing multiple serious injuries. At
present they are trying to keep him alive.

Prayers for C., experiencing anger, bitterness and resentment in her life, along
with some joy.

Mrs. Service is doing better again, having ups and downs, prayers for whatevere
God wills for her, and prayers for her family.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise HIm! Thanks so much. JL

May 1, August 31, December 31
Chapter 73: On the Fact That the Full Observance of Justice Is Not
Established in This Rule

Now we have written this Rule
in order that by its observance in monasteries
we may show that we have attained some degree of virtue
and the rudiments of the religious life.

But for those who would hasten to the perfection of that life
there are the teaching of the holy Fathers,
the observance of which leads to the height of perfection.
For what page or what utterance
of the divinely inspired books of the Old and New Testaments
is not a most unerring rule for human life?
Or what book of the holy Catholic Fathers
does not loudly proclaim
how we may come by a straight course to our Creator?
Then the Conferences and the Institutes
and the Lives of the Fathers,
as also the Rule of our holy Father Basil --
what else are they but tools of virtue
for right-living and obedient monks?
But for us who are lazy and ill-living and negligent
they are a source of shame and confusion.

Whoever you are, therefore,
who are hastening to the heavenly homeland,
fulfil with the help of Christ
this minimum Rule which we have written for beginners;
and then at length under God's protection
you will attain to the loftier heights of doctrine and virtue
which we have mentioned above.

REFLECTION

"Whoever you are, therefore, who are hastening to the heavenly
homeland..." That "whoever" is the true object all this heartfelt
tenderness of Saint Benedict , the one for whom he wrote! He only
made one qualifier, that of "hastening to the heavenly homeland." It
seems that some of our decisions about who matters and who does not
have employed a somewhat more restrictive standard than that of our
holy Father Benedict.

"Whoever you are..." I don't care who you are or how much I disagree
with you, whether I nearly hate your positions or love them blindly,
it is you I am called to love, to honor to respect, to cherish as a
fellow monastic traveler. You matter to me. You do. You have to,
because this is the Holy Rule I have embraced, that we all have.

In the United States, through much of our history, Catholics and Jews
shared a roughly equal amount of contempt. Great camaraderie could
flourish between the two and still quite often does. Having said
that, it has always amused me that many Jews I know get along MUCH
better with Catholics than they do with Jews who disagree with them!
How like ourselves!

When disagreement happens within our family, we hurt more, it is more
important to us. The differing opinion of a stranger on the subway
would hardly matter at all! Maybe the fact that we CAN get hurt and
angry is a good sign, maybe it means we are at least beginning to
love, but it is HOW we get hurt or angry that we have to examine
very, very closely.

The important thing is not opinion or observance or concepts. The
important thing is you. Whoever you are. Every time I fail that, I
have to get up, apologize and start over. Maybe not right from square
one each time, but again each time.

If I ever stop doing those things, I have stopped being a
Benedictine. Whoever you are- but it's not just me that has to
embrace that, you do, too. We all do. I am the only one I can insist
upon, however, the only one I can make change, and that might be good
to keep in mind, whoever you are.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org







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A Happy and Holy New Year to all, may 2013 be filled with graces and blessings!

Prayers for Kaitlyn, 16, a very confused girl who ran away from home before
Christmas, for her safety and safe return.

Prayers for Sadie, 7, just had a heart transplant, for her recovery, her family
and for the eternal rest of her donor and all the donor's family and those who
mourn him or her.

Prayers for Father Travis' Mom. She got dizzy, fell and broke her leg. She is in
the hospital and they are running tests.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 1, May 2, September 1

Prologue

L I S T E N carefully, my child,
to your master's precepts,
and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20).
Receive willingly and carry out effectively
your loving father's advice,
that by the labor of obedience
you may return to Him
from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,
whoever you may be,
who are renouncing your own will
to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King,
and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.

And first of all,
whatever good work you begin to do,
beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it,
that He who has now deigned to count us among His children
may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him
with the good things He has given us,
that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions,
deliver us to everlasting punishment
as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.

REFLECTION

The Prologue is the most tender and loving of beginnings. Always,
always, always keep this loving Father that writes here in mind as you
read the rest of the Holy Rule. This and the epilogue are the key to
it all, and the key to the saintly personality of our holy Father
Benedict.

The Holy Rule can seem so lofty that it sometimes turns people away.
They think: "This is for those really holy people, not for me. I'll
bet it's easy for saints like them, but I couldn't even dream of
trying." Wrong on both counts and St. Benedict makes that clear. We
return "by the labor of obedience" and if we are not one of those who
has "to do battle" against our own will, he makes it abundantly
certain that he is not talking to us.

If, in fact, there is anyone for whom the Rule is a cinch, and I
doubt that very much, then it was not written for them. It was
written for us who struggle, for us for whom it is NOT easy, to help
us in a battle that sometimes wears us out.

St. Benedict also makes his point that our distance from God is due
to our "sloth of disobedience." Yet he doesn't tell the slothful to
quit because they are worthless, he tells them they are the very ones
for whom he is writing this Rule! This is the Rule for the fallen and
beginners, this is an entry level position which can advance to great
sanctity, but it *IS* an entry level position!

This is the door and gate for all. This is most decidedly NOT a Rule
just for monks and nuns in monasteries. Were that so, no provision
for Oblates would ever have been made. No, this is a Rule for all who
wish to try to become better and because they have made that
intention, God "has deigned to count us among His children." There is
no more us-and-them here. Just by beginning, we become part of the
whole.

The Holy Rule is quite direct about stating that this time, it is not about
the perfect ones: the center of its focus is the rest of us! Now there's a
refreshingly upside down and all too rare world view!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA



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The Christmas Octave is over, but the season of Christmastide lasts till the
Baptism of the Lord, later this month, so keep on praying for those you have
exchanged greetings, cards or gifts with. Make your intentions include those of
years past, too, a nice way to include in prayer thosse dear ones no longer with
us.

Prayers, please, for vocations to St. Mary's Monastery. Please ask God to send
us some good men in 2013.

Lord, help us as You know and will. God's will is best. All is
mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 2, May 3, September 2
Prologue (continued)

Let us arise, then, at last,
for the Scripture stirs us up, saying,
"Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep" (Rom. 13:11).
Let us open our eyes to the deifying light,
let us hear with attentive ears
the warning which the divine voice cries daily to us,
"Today if you hear His voice,
harden not your hearts" (Ps. 94:8).
And again,
"Whoever has ears to hear,
hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Matt. 11-15; Apoc. 2:7).
And what does He say?
"Come, My children, listen to Me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord" (Ps. 33:12).
"Run while you have the light of life,
lest the darkness of death overtake you" (John 12:35).

REFLECTION

Check out the similarities of this section, at the beginning of the
Holy Rule, and the readings of early Lent, which stress that "now is
the acceptable time." It brings to mind St. Benedict's later chapter
which says that the monastic life ought always to have some semblance
of Lent.

That perpetual Lent chapter is the source of a lot of grumbling about
austerity from one camp and cheering about it from another. Both may
have missed a salient point. Perhaps the greatest element of
perpetual Lent has less to do with austerity- even the monastic fast
did not last all year. What IS perpetually in style is wakefulness
and self-examination.

Monastic life withers in either smugness or a rut. What St. Benedict
wants us to do is always to try and stay at that serious moment of
taking inventory that many of us feel at Lent's beginning. We need to
always be checking what needs to be cleaned up and we need to be
prepared, even a bit eager, to start working on it.

This is why a daily examination of conscience is so necessary.
Compline, the traditional liturgical place for such examens, is a
very apt place for same. As we prepare for sleep, which prefigures
death, we prepare also for death, by examining our faults and asking
forgiveness.

The Holy Rule, like Lent, is by no means the gateway to an easier
life, but to a holier one. As we actually grow in holiness much of it
will become easier, more natural to us. But until that time, it is a
struggle and, in unconquered areas, it remains something of a
struggle for all of our lives. What's hard about that struggle isn't
fasting or penance, but changing ourselves. Austere practices are
just a means to that end, not ends in themselves.

The whole idea of Lent and the Holy Rule is lasting change for the
better. Lent is a seasonal construct to get us to begin anew, the
Holy Rule says that beginning anew must be a daily thing. Lent is an
attempt to get us to do for forty days what we ought to have been
doing all year. The Holy Rule is a way to do what we ought to do all
year, every day.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA



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Prayers, please, for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the following, for
all their loved ones and all who take care of them:

Sarah who goes for a second job interview, seeking a new position to improve the
quality of life for herself and for her family.

Owen, a new job appliaction in a search which has been very long for him.

Carol, stress test on Friday. She has been having cardiac issues and may need a
pacemaker-defibrillator.

Katie, a courageous young woman who has been battling cancer from age 22 to her
present age of 29. The cancer is still there but the last treatments have made
her too weak to address it. She receives results from a PET scan this Friday.

P., life in chaos as his marriage ends, needs to sell his house and get some
balance back in his spiritual life and for his wife and their two grown kids.

Nola who is having a knee replacement on the 4th.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 3, May 4, September 3
Prologue

And the Lord, seeking his laborer
in the multitude to whom He thus cries out,
says again,
"Who is the one who will have life,
and desires to see good days" (Ps. 33:13)?
And if, hearing Him, you answer,
"I am the one,"
God says to you,
"If you will have true and everlasting life,
keep your tongue from evil
and your lips that they speak no guile.
Turn away from evil and do good;
seek after peace and pursue it" (Ps. 33:14-15).
And when you have done these things,
My eyes shall be upon you
and My ears open to your prayers;
and before you call upon Me,
I will say to you,
'Behold, here I am'" (Ps. 33:16; Is. 65:24; 58:9).

What can be sweeter to us, dear ones,
than this voice of the Lord inviting us?
Behold, in His loving kindness
the Lord shows us the way of life.

REFLECTION

This is perhaps my all-time favorite reading from the Holy Rule. Then
gentle, loving tenderness of both the Divine Merciful Christ and our
holy Father Benedict are here in abundance. One is tempted to merely
bask in the warmth, rather than write, but I will try to write!

Lest any of us (which, as the Holy Rule would say, God forbid,) tend
to pride at undertaking the monastic way, this one deflates that
balloon in a hurry. Christ seeks US. What mercy! Our very being is
nothing but an act of His love and mercy, all that we have is His
love and His mercy, yet, on top of all that, He seeks US! We're
talking God here, not some other created being. We're talking the
Alpha and Omega, end all and be all, the First Cause, you name it.
The very force of life and light and truth and love and mercy in the
cosmos, before all time, names us, knows us and calls us.

He ALREADY calls us His laborers, even before we answer. He knows
intimately and well, from personal experience, the fouled up chaotic
mess in which we live. He has lived in it, too. He tenderly calls us
to "true and everlasting life" and assures us that He knows the way.
In fact, He *IS* the Way!

I can gush a bit writing about the Prologue, so indulge me here as I
do so. Beloveds, for so you are to me, our fractured hearts and sin-
veiled eyes just cannot see the way, nor can we name the hurts nor
their cures well. God and God alone can pierce that darkness and He
offers to do so before we even ask. This is awesome grace, this is
enough for a lifetime's meditation on humility. Hard things to come
in the struggle are real, but their harshness is in some way
illusory: "Behold, in His loving-kindness, the Lord shows us the way
of life."

It is solely because of heaven and Christ for all eternity that every
suffering, every cross can be diminished into absolute nothingness by
the greatness of the reward. Yes, He shows us the way to life, but,
as a wonderfully Dominican Doctor of the Church, St. Catherine of
Siena, taught us: "All the way to Heaven *IS* Heaven, because He
said: 'I am the Way.' "

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA








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Prayers, please, for our Prioress, Mother Mary Elizabeth, on her feastday:
graces galore and many more! Prayers, too, for all celebrating St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton as their patron, and for the eternal rest of Br. Aelred Seton.

Lord, help
us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and grace. God is
never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 4, May 5, September 4
Prologue

Having our loins girded, therefore,
with faith and the performance of good works (Eph. 6:14),
let us walk in His paths
by the guidance of the Gospel,
that we may deserve to see Him
who has called us to His kingdom (1 Thess. 2:12).

For if we wish to dwell in the tent of that kingdom,
we must run to it by good deeds
or we shall never reach it.

But let us ask the Lord, with the Prophet,
"Lord, who shall dwell in Your tent,
or who shall rest upon Your holy mountain" (Ps. 14:1)?

After this question,
let us listen to the Lord
as He answers and shows us the way to that tent, saying,
"The one Who walks without stain and practices justice;
who speaks truth from his heart;
who has not used his tongue for deceit;
who has done no evil to his neighbor;
who has given no place to slander against his neighbor."

This is the one who,
under any temptation from the malicious devil,
has brought him to naught (Ps. 14:4)
by casting him and his temptation from the sight of his heart;
and who has laid hold of his thoughts
while they were still young
and dashed them against Christ (Ps. 136:9).

It is they who,
fearing the Lord (Ps. 14:4),
do not pride themselves on their good observance;
but,
convinced that the good which is in them
cannot come from themselves and must be from the Lord,
glorify the Lord's work in them (Ps. 14:4),
using the words of the Prophet,
"Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to Your name give the glory" (Ps. 113, 2nd part:1).
Thus also the Apostle Paul
attributed nothing of the success of his preaching to himself,
but said,
"By the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).
And again he says,
"He who glories, let him glory in the Lord" (2 Cor. 10:17).

REFLECTION

Ever have that funny feeling of surprise that the world and time and
life and events go resolutely on, even when you are stalled in
heartbreak? It is a strange egocentricity that allows us to feel
that. I remember clearly such a feeling when my father died. I was
not quite eleven. My world was shattered, everything had stopped or
changed or been put on hold.

Child that I was, it stunned me slightly to notice from the car
window on the way to the cemetery that it was just another sunny day
for everyone else. People were working, shopping, going to school.
The world WAS going on, nothing had changed for them. It made me feel
strangely even more alone in my pain: he wasn't as important to the
rest of the world as he was to me.

We can still have these feelings as adults, but hopefully we are at
least more used to them and less inclined to think the world really
DOES stop when we think it should. Tough though that can still be,
it is reality and reality is truth and truth, after all, is not
only humility but also what Jesus called Himself.

What does all this have to do with the Prologue? The same sort of
really unfortunate egocentricity can let us think that we are the
center of the known universe in other ways, can allow us to foolishly
think that our gifts or the tiny packets of virtues we have stashed
here and there are our own. No way, folks! It is grace, it is gift,
ALL is gift, beginning with our very existence!

Everything good, in every way is all from God, not us. We dare glory
in nothing but Him, for we would be less than nothing without His
grace acting in us. He is the Source that allows us to be good.

If a city has clean, wondrous, spring water, no one in their right
mind praises the pipes. No, one praises the purity of the Source. So
it is with us, m'dears, pipes one and all, nothing more or less. God
is the Source, God's mercy and love and grace and gift are the purest
of waters. We are His conduits and we dare not glory, except in the
Lord! "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name give the glory!"

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA





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Prayers for Amanda, 27, Aubrey, 5, and Bailey, 15, all of whom died in a house
fire, and all their family and all who mourn them, also for two others in the
hospital after the fire.

Brad and Alicia and their newborn twin girls, Ayla and Bryn, each weighing under
three pounds at birth and multiple health issues. Both losing wieght, too.

Prayers for Craig that he gets house listings and sales for his real estate. The
situation is becoming dire as he cannot pay mortgage, etc. Also prayers for
Craig whose back went into spasms last night, probably from the stress. He can
hardly move.


Prayers for Brittany and Orest flying back to BC this morning, for a safe trip
and for the insurance for the car accident they had coming for Christmas to be
worked out.


Prayers for healing for all of Elaine's family relationships as there has been
some stress and hurt feelings.


Prayers for Father Francis, discerning whether to leave the priesthood that he
is given the strength to stay a priest.

Deo gratias: Carol had a good     stress test and her daughter, Melissa, got a
tuition grant to go to school.

Prayers for Doug, in the hospital with a severe diabetic ulcer on his foot, may
need surgery, MRI pending.

Prayers, please, for Jo; really tough examinations and an even tougher job
situation.


Deo gratias for past prayers answered

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. Allis mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 5, May 6, September 5
Prologue (continued)

Hence the Lord says in the Gospel,
"Whoever listens to these words of Mine and acts upon them,
I will liken to a wise person
who built a house on rock.
The floods came,
the winds blew and beat against that house,
and it did not fall,
because it had been founded on rock" (Matt. 7:24-25).

Having given us these assurances,
the Lord is waiting every day
for us to respond by our deeds to His holy admonitions.
And the days of this life are lengthened
and a respite granted us for this very reason,
that we may amend our evil ways.
As the Apostle says,
"Do you not know that God's patience is inviting you to repent" (Rom.
2:4)?
For the merciful Lord tells us,
"I desire not the death of the sinner,
but that the sinner should be converted and live" (Ezech. 33:11).

REFLECTION

People like me are very prone to regard repentance with the same
eagerness that we ordinarily reserve for cleaning the
refrigerator: "I'll get around to that..." Truth is, I rarely do.
What happens instead is that one of our wonderful Oblates, Richard of
Springfield (who gets this daily reflection,) comes for a weekend and
cleans the icebox. Hallelujah! Saint Richard!! Thank you, Richard!
Richard cleans like a dream and our world looks a lot better whenever
he's been here!

If you are not like me, and your icebox has ALWAYS been clean, is
buffed up every week to shining glory and you carry a damp washcloth
every time you open the fridge just in case, then fine, this portion
was not written for you. However, it should be noted that even
immaculate icebox types may have to check behind the icebox or take a
look at the oven.... I mean, if you want to be REALLY perfect, you
could move the fridge and wax the floor underneath- with paste wax
and a buffer, of course!

Get my point? This is surely written for most of us. Most of us have
some sort of a grungy corner that we'll "get to tomorrow," if ever.
St. Benedict is reminding us again that "Now is the acceptable
time..." Orthodox St. Isaac of Syria said: "This life has been given to you
for repentance, do not waste it in vain pursuits."

Sadly, people like me hear in St. Isaac's words: "This life has been
given to you for icebox cleaning..." Yeah, right! Oh boy, what a thrill!
Such a gift! Just can't wait to get up each morning! And we shrug and walk
away. Why? Because the typically monastic idea of repentance is very
different from that of our modern Christianity.

We tend to look at repentance as necessary in proportion to guilt.
The early monastics saw it as necessary for everyone, period. We
would almost chuckle at the idea of a virgin martyr of twelve in the
Roman world repenting. "Of what?" we'd incredulously ask. The early
monastic would see no problem there at all. Repentance, from a
monastic and Benedictine view, is needful to for all because all are
fallen, all are incapable of living the Christian life without God
and grace. All of us, left to their own whims, would fall short of the
monastic struggle.

The repentance we speak of here is similar to that of Baptism, but
not identical. Certainly one can be saved without entering the
monastic way (or cleaning refrigerators, for that matter!) What St.
Benedict is speaking of here is the special road of the monastic
struggle. Plenty of saints, in fact most saints, were neither monks
nor Benedictines. Big news there!

What St. Benedict is saying is "OK, this is our approach. There are,
of course, others, but if you want to use ours, you this is what you have
to do." "Repent!" St. John the Baptist cried again and again in the desert,
and somewhere along the way of that preaching, Jesus, the Lamb of God,
stepped into the Jordan. Face it, folks, if He can answer the call to repent,
anyone can! He had no need at all!

What our repentance affirms is that we cannot become monastics with no
trouble: our natures make that impossible. On our monastic way to
God, many, many human things stand in our hearts and in our way.
That's what we repent and shall always have to repent. Whenever our
focus, our purity of heart is fragmented in any way, that's what we
have to repent.

Now, after writing this, you might safely assume that I am off to
clean the refrigerator, but you would be wrong. I mean, after all,
Richard IS visiting again soon and maybe he wouldn't mind starting
the painting a little bit late... LOL! (Richard really does paint,
though. Like a pro! Most of the new paint in the house is his work.)

All joking aside, great thanks are due to many of our Oblates and
guests, all of whom make ours a shared ministry of hospitality. This
great team effort results in people being a lot more comfortable here! Say
a prayer of thanks with me for all of them! All of them help us receive
Christ at our door.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org







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+PAX

At last, with the 6th on Sunday, Epiphany falls on its traditional date! A
blessed Epiphany to all, as well as the rest of Christmastide. Don't forget to
pray for those on your Christmas list, Christmas isn't over till the feast of
the Baptism of the Lord.


Prayers for the following:

Tom,  in hospice in Tampa.

For healing in a special situation.

Healing for Bob & back injury, depression.

Michael, leaving for the Navy.

Healing for Max & strength for his family.

Sister Pat, that she be blessed in her work with Union Hill School Children.

Prayers for the eternal rest of Robert, 76, a great teacher, and for all his
family and all who mourn him.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 6, May 7, September 6
Prologue

So we have asked the Lord
who is to dwell in His tent,
and we have heard His commands
to anyone who would dwell there;
it remains for us to fulfill those duties.

Therefore we must prepare our hearts and our bodies
to do battle under the holy obedience of His commands;
and let us ask God
that He be pleased to give us the help of His grace
for anything which our nature finds hardly possible.
And if we want to escape the pains of hell
and attain life everlasting,
then, while there is still time,
while we are still in the body
and are able to fulfill all these things
by the light of this life,
we must hasten to do now
what will profit us for eternity.

REFLECTION

This is a shameless re-run on the Morning Offering, one of my all-
time favorite things to write about! Everyone reading this is in
every morning offering of mine and has been for a long, long time!

The first section of the Prologue asked us to seek God's blessing
before doing any work. Today we are asked to prepare our hearts and
bodies for the struggles ahead and ask God for His help. Both of
these precepts are quite nicely filled by making the Morning
Offering. Now I know that is a Roman Catholic prayer, and I also know
we have (thanks be to God!) many Oblates of other faiths among us.
Bear with me, please. I think this has applications for everyone.

The morning offering is considered rather passe in some Roman
Catholic circles. One actually wonders why, in an age that loves
computers with tons of memory, hard drives that do all the work for
us, even more work than our own minds could dream of doing. I have
12,000 names in a data base I built on royal genealogy, a favorite
hobby. One click and a few seconds will tell me how any two of them
are related, even up to mind-boggling relationships like eighteenth
cousin three times removed. It will start at a point like that and
then list all lesser relationships, until common ancestors are all
depleted. No way I could EVER do that. The morning offering, however,
makes computer ability look like shooting fish in a barrel.

The morning offering is the perfect capstone, cornerstone and
beginning for a great life of intercessory prayer. It unites the
poverty of our own lives, prayers, works, joys and sufferings with
those of Christ, with those of His Mystical Body. It plunges the
finite smallness of our own actions into sea after sea of infinite
grace and perfection and, wrapped in that awesome completeness,
offers them to the Father in the perhaps most perfect personal gift
we could ever hope for that day, short of martyrdom itself.

Ever forget to pray during the day? The morning offering makes our
very heartbeats and breathing prayers, means of grace for ourselves
and for all. We have offered ALL our works, even the unconscious ones
of our bodies to God, and we have offered them in union with the most
perfect sacrifice of Jesus. With a gift tag like that, the Father is
quite likely to be pleased, indeed. Each time we blink, or eat,
suffer or rejoice, we link that to Christ on His Cross. None of us
have enough bytes of memory to really do that. The morning
offering is our "hard drive" it is the program that saves to disk and
runs automatically.

Our baptism into the Mystical Body gives us the right to plug into
that infinite worth. It would be a shame if we missed the
opportunity. Let me tell you, with complete sincerity, that all the
works of my entire life couldn't save a flea from drowning in a
raindrop. No way. Buried within the depths of Christ, however, their
value becomes literally infinite.

Ever feel bad that you forgot to pray for some one who asked, or only
whispered a quick: "Lord, help her."? The morning offering makes our
life and our prayer an infinite pie, one which can never be sliced
too thin. Counting huge groups and individuals, I pray every single
day for literally billions of people and not one of them is short-
changed at all. That's the marvel of uniting our lives and heart
daily to Christ. Every slice of the pie gets served on the plate of
His infinity, every single one. Cloaked in the perfect mercy and
offering of Jesus, every single act, even the keys I just struck and
the mouse I just moved are wonderful prayers for all, for everyone
throughout time. That's not shabby, folks!

Ever wish that your heart prone to largesse had all the money in the
world? How generous you would be! But, with the morning offering, you
have daily more than that. Claim your infinite share and spread it
around! Name people and groups, sure, but know that God has a memory
that never quits. You can say: for all people in all time" and it
WILL count! Heavens, I pray for all Oblates (among lots of other
groups every day. Not only could I not name them, I don't even know
them, nor is it possible for ANYONE to know them all throughout time.
But God does, and it counts!) There is no one reading this for whom I
have not prayed every single day, many by name, but it doesn't
matter if I cannot name you all. God is my hard drive!
The morning offering is a very neat method!

Look, folks, it's a Roman Catholic prayer. I'll give you a version of
it at the end of this post, but there are many others. I KNOW that
some of our Oblates from other Churches may have to amend it a bit
and that's OK, go for what God and your heart allows. I think,
however, that all Christians could agree on at least these
essentials. (Someone please correct me here, if I am wrong.) Offer
all your prayers, works, joys and sufferings in union with those of
Christ, for the intentions of Christ, for all the Church and its
leaders, for all people throughout time. Say it any way your heart
allows, but do at least this much and congratulations: you have just
thrust your own prayers and works and joys and sufferings into the
very heart of the Cosmos, into the whole of history itself. You now
stand beside Christ in HIS perfect work in every age. WOOOOF!

And, if today is your first morning offering, or your first in some
time, remember to pray for all Benedictines on Tuesdays,
St. Benedict's special day! Hey, remember to pray for us all EVERY day!
We need it.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org/
Petersham, MA

MORNING OFFERING

O my Jesus, I offer You this day my prayers, works, joys and
suffering, for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart and Divine
Mercy, in union with every sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world
and with all the prayers, works, joys and sufferings of Your Mystical
Body throughout time, in reparation for our sins and in thanksgiving
for all Your benefits. I offer them for the Pope and his intentions,
all Church leaders, and for the unity of all.

(Now you can add your own intentions- don't be stingy here, you have
infinity! I always end my own list with: for everyone and everything
throughout time, created by Your hands, I offer You my life, in
holocaust for these and for Your will for them.)

End with: Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto
Yours. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in You.

Many older Catholics may recall getting monthly leaflets for the Morning
Offering at Church, maybe some Churches still have them, but they are
nowhere near as available as they once were. This website puts the leaflets
on line, along with a simple morning offering, lives of certain
saints from the month and what the Pope's intentions for that month
really are. (I have spent most of my life not knowing... Now I try to
actually use them!)

here's the URL. Enjoy!

http://www.apostleship-prayer.org/



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+PAX

Prayers, please for the spiritual and physical heralth of the following, for all
their loved ones and all who take care of them:

Michael and Genny LoPiccolo, she is having severe panic attacks and these are
not at all good for her heart issues.

Continued prayers for Alicia and Brad and their newborn twins, Ayla and Bryn.
The girls have a lot of health issues that need prayer.

Owen, 9, suspected appendicitis. He may need to have it removed tomorrow. Please
pray for his overwhelmed family. Sadie, the 7-year-old who is recovering from
the heart transplant, is Owen's 1st cousin. She is recovering well, thanks be to
God, but her health is still a worry for them.

Doug has been scheduled for surgery at 7:30 am on Monday to remove his little
toe and the associated metatarsal due to his diabetic ulcer.

Lord, help us all as You know and
will. God's will is best. All is mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise
Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 7, May 8, September 7
Prologue (concluded)

And so we are going to establish
a school for the service of the Lord.
In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome.
But if a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity
for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity,
do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation,
whose entrance cannot but be narrow (Matt. 7:14).
For as we advance in the religious life and in faith,
our hearts expand
and we run the way of God's commandments
with unspeakable sweetness of love (Ps. 118:32).
Thus, never departing from His school,
but persevering in the monastery according to His teaching
until death,
we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13)
and deserve to have a share also in His kingdom.

REFLECTION

Sadly, a certain cynicism has been woven into my life like a
repeating plaid. Happily, it has not grown worse with age, but has
been moderated (how Benedictine!) into a faintly acceptable level of
occasional curmudgeonhood. If my cynicism is now a rather muted
tartan background, it was not always so. I can clearly recall reading
the line about expanding hearts and running with unspeakable
sweetness of love twenty some years ago and thinking: "Yeah, right!
Real likely..."

Now that passage is my all-time favorite in the Holy Rule. I thought
twice before saying that, because there are so many things in the
Rule that I deeply love, but yeah, this one is the best loved for me.
Why? Because it is linked to love and, secondarily, because it alerts
us to the necessary hope that the monastic struggle DOES get easier
in time, in certain ways, even though it is never over until death.

"Our hearts expand..." they truly do. Mine has already been
wonderfully stretched and pulled and enlarged beyond my wildest
dreams, often with me kicking and screaming every inch of the way. I
have no doubt that it will grow bigger still, capable of holding
more, but I know I could not stand that now, it would be too much.
God works slowly, according to our individual needs. Better than
anyone, He knows that doing it all at once would reduce us to
shivering panic.

The biggest factor that I can see in God's work of heart renovation
for me has been intercessory prayer. When you renovate a building,
you have to tear down some walls, a dusty, ugly, painful mess. Ah,
but the light and air and space that one finds in those new areas
where walls had stood! In praying for God's people, I learned to love
them, more prayer equaled more love and so it spiraled upward and
spirals on!

Christ is the One I encounter in praying for His members, for
His Mystical Body. It is, after all, a very powerful reminder that Christ IS
His members, that we are all cells in His awesome Body.

When a novice in my twenties, I used to look at two real saints of
St. Leo Abbey, Brothers David Gormican and Raphael Daly, both now
gone to God. I am not even sure I thought it had become easier for
them at the end of their lives, I thought, with the mindlessness so
easy for me then, that they were just so old they didn't care
anymore. Wrong!

My dear friend Ann Chatlos was a FABULOUS cook and she had been at it
for years. One day I went to see her and we sat talking in her
kitchen, she was fiddling around, nothing special. Frankly, I didn't
even notice any activity that would have produced a meal. She finally
turned around and said to me: "Stay for dinner." I asked when it
would be ready and she said, "Now." I was floored. While we spoke, a
pie, chicken and roast potatoes and something else I forget had been
going on. A full meal with nothing out of cans and a homemade
dessert, yet it appeared that she had just been chatting.

That's the nonchalance of Brother David and Brother Raphael. It
wasn't that they didn't care, it was that things of sanctity had
become so much second nature to them that many of those around them
never noticed that dinner was ready. May that nonchalance of sanctity
come to us all. Say a prayer for Brothers David and Raphael and especially for
Ann, now also gone to God.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA







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+PAX

Prayers, please, for thee spiritual and physical welfare of the following, for
all their loved ones and all who take care of them:

George, standing in great need of prayer.

All the many folks with special intention's on Fr. Ralph's list

Ann Marie, upset that she lost her cool when dealing with a neighbor and for
discernment.

A close relative of Susan, depression and away from the Church.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. ALl is mercy
and grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 8, May 9, September 8
Chapter 1: On the Kinds of Monks

It is well known that there are four kinds of monks.
The first kind are the Cenobites:
those who live in monasteries
and serve under a rule and an Abbot.

The second kind are the Anchorites or Hermits:
those who,
no longer in the first fervor of their reformation,
but after long probation in a monastery,
having learned by the help of many brethren
how to fight against the devil,
go out well armed from the ranks of the community
to the solitary combat of the desert.
They are able now,
with no help save from God,
to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh
and their own evil thoughts.

The third kind of monks, a detestable kind, are the Sarabaites.
These, not having been tested,
as gold in the furnace (Wis. 3:6),
by any rule or by the lessons of experience,
are as soft as lead.
In their works they still keep faith with the world,
so that their tonsure marks them as liars before God.
They live in twos or threes, or even singly,
without a shepherd,
in their own sheepfolds and not in the Lord's.
Their law is the desire for self-gratification:
whatever enters their mind or appeals to them,
that they call holy;
what they dislike, they regard as unlawful.

The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.
These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province,
staying as guests in different monasteries
for three or four days at a time.
Always on the move, with no stability,
they indulge their own wills
and succumb to the allurements of gluttony,
and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites.
Of the miserable conduct of all such
it is better to be silent than to speak.

Passing these over, therefore,
let us proceed, with God's help,
to lay down a rule for the strongest kind of monks,the Cenobites.

REFLECTION

What are the two major things that St. Benedict dislikes about the
bad types of monk? They have no stability and they follow their own
wills. Obedience is the essence of monastic struggle, and we will be
touching on it throughout the Holy Rule. Stability, while getting
lots of mention, deservedly takes a lesser role in the Rule, even
though it has become a vow for Benedictines, so it might pay to take
a closer look at stability right at the beginning of our reading of
the Rule.

The Desert Fathers said: "Stay in your cell and your cell will teach
you everything." Real cinch, right? Wrong! Don't picture staying in
one's cell like a personal day from work, when you sleep as late as
you like, get dressed at noon (if then!) and decide you can eat for
the day without leaving the house to go to the store or, for that
matter, without leaving the couch. That's not what this is about.

Monastics could tell you
that the cell can be paradise, but it can also be hell, a
furnace of nearly impossible heat. In fact, for many of us, it has
been both at one time or another, and maybe, just maybe, it isn't
done switching roles yet! Times of paradise are nice, they can swell
the heart with gratitude and love, but every religious knows that we
cannot stay on the mountaintop forever, like Peter, we may not pitch tents
there.

The furnace, now there's a fetching little image! But it is
essential, too. Benedictine life seeks to lead us to God. For every
single one of us, that means cleaning out a lot of imperfection. We
may start out eagerly wanting to be like "gold tried in the furnace,
seven times refined," but it's a safe bet that early on, after a time
or two in that inferno, we'll be trying to bargain for less, maybe
four or five times refined at most! It's no debutante's ball in
there!

Hate the furnace/gold imagery? Can't blame you there, especially if
you live in the North and furnaces are tricky and expensive worries!
Try a sauna. Still hard, still challenging, still sweats a LOT of
gunk out. However, make sure you jump in the cold water right after
the sauna, just so you don't think all this stuff is REALLY a spa!

The fact is, for Benedictines, stability, whether of cloister or
geography or of heart, is a major piece of the puzzle. It's the
ability to stick with it, stay in there, keep trying. It is the
fixedness, not just of place, but of heart and will. It is more than
just not moving around.

A consumerist society is fueled by desire, change and variety. Small
wonder that it encourages us to be always moving, always seeking the
novel, always distracted: it's profit base depends on that and,
whatever else may be said, consumerism is a greedy little devil.
Stability flies in the face of all these falsehoods. It tells us
that "rut" and routine are two very different things for us. The
routine, the mundane, the everyday and predictable are precisely the
arenas in which we must strive and win in the spiritual life.

Stability teaches us that. Our fleeting hells have heaven within them
and our Edens can turn into Dead Seas in a flash. Stability forces us
to stick with it, to weather those changes, to know EVERY side of
life and love and heart and place. No wonder St. Benedict loved it
so! It is the courage of which monastics are made!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA


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+PAX

Prayers for Paul, that he may endure the present challenges.

Deo gratias, Doug's toe removal surgery went well. continued prayers for his
recovery.

Prayers for Martin, having a knee replacement on Wednesday, for a smooth course
and no post-op infection, please God.

Prayers for Al, who had a massive stroke.

Prayers for Amy, regaining her health after a bout with an eating disorder.

Lord, help us all as You know and will.
God's will is best. All is mercy and grace. God is never absent, praise Him!
Thanks so much. JL

January 9, May 10, September 9
Chapter 2: What Kind of Person the Abbess Ought to Be

An Abbess who is worthy to be over a monastery
should always remember what she is called,
and live up to the name of Superior.
For she is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery,
being called by a name of His,
which is taken from the words of the Apostle:
"You have received a Spirit of adoption ...,
by virtue of which we cry, 'Abba -- Father'" (Rom. 8:15)!

Therefore the Abbess ought not to teach or ordain or command
anything which is against the Lord's precepts;
on the contrary,
her commands and her teaching
should be a leaven of divine justice
kneaded into the minds of her disciples.

REFLECTION

Folks, the abbot is a parent, so, while I am writing about abbots in
my experience, this is also true of parents, or any authority
position. Stick with me, you'll see what I mean in the end.

It will no doubt come as a great relief to other cranky types like
me to note that the leaven gently kneaded into the minds of certain
disciples often seems to have a downright under whelming effect. A
hallmark of us curmudgeonly types is impatience: we do not suffer
fools gladly, the miracle is that we endure them at all. Most of all,
we want those fools FIXED, right now, or yesterday at the latest!

The tragedy of this is that, in assuming we can recognize fools so
terribly well, we completely miss the fool at work in ourselves.

That's not the only issue, though. This leaven-in-the-dough stuff
works two ways. Throw a measure of leaven into a heap of cornmeal and
you'll wind up with a different critter than several cups of
buckwheat or flour would produce. For all I know, you could probably
throw yeast into concrete and wind up with a meringue-like patio.
Both components are essential to the change, both elements affect the
outcome.

Abbot and monastic, parent and child, boss and employer, all these
are very, very intricate duets of God's mercy and grace. Neither may
be very evident to one while in the midst of things! Time and wisdom
and hindsight bring a different view. Beyond that, all of us change:
the characters in the catalyst are always changing, no matter how
subtly. God has done some awesomely loving fine-tuning here!

God uses human means to accomplish His will, as my dear
professor, Dr. Jean Ronan, so often said. Ah, but the abbacy scores
doubly on this maxim. A very human abbot is elected by a very human
community. Sometimes, abbots are elected to counteract each other.
The human community gets tired of the very human tendency of an abbot
to stress one thing above others. Hence, tight reins are often
replaced with loose ones and vice versa.

Those human means which God uses are often quite firmly addicted to
extremes. The extremes then vex a majority to the opposite extreme.
(I know this is the Marxist dialectic and I know it is not always
true, but it does have a kernel of application. Even a stopped clock is right
twice a day.) Sometime after we are all so fatigued with polarization that we
have briefly stopped watching, perhaps a median virtue ensues!

And what about that leaven that I couldn't notice having much effect?
Well, neither I nor anyone else knows, save the person and God. Some
die, some leave before the effect is seen. Leaven works. It may work
slowly, it may work in a variety of ways, but leaven does
something sooner or later! Faith and trust in God's Divine Mercy
require that we have a LOT of patience with bread cast on waters in
tremendous hope!

A final note, much, maybe even MOST of the leavening work of grace
and sanctification in our own hearts and souls takes place unnoticed, the
silent, unsung, yet constant workings of the Divine Mercy. Usually we
don't even realize it until a long while after its completion. One
day we wake up and finally notice something is different, something is
better in us. Such secret works are all the
gratuitous gift of the Leaven of all leavens Himself! Deo gratias!!!!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA


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+PAX

Prayers, please, for P., his marriage has ended against his will and he needs to
sell his house and get back on track spiritually.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and
grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL


January 10, May 11, September 10
Chapter 2: What Kind of Person the Abbess Ought to Be

Let the Abbess always bear in mind
that at the dread Judgment of God
there will be an examination of these two matters:
her teaching and the obedience of her disciples.
And let the Abbess be sure
that any lack of profit
the master of the house may find in the sheep
will be laid to the blame of the shepherd.

On the other hand,
if the shepherd has bestowed all her pastoral diligence
on a restless, unruly flock
and tried every remedy for their unhealthy behavior,
then she will be acquitted at the Lord's Judgment
and may say to the Lord with the Prophet:
"I have not concealed Your justice within my heart;
Your truth and Your salvation I have declared" (Ps. 39:11).
"But they have despised and rejected me" (Is. 1:2; Ezech. 20:27).
And then finally let death itself, irresistible,
punish those disobedient sheep under her charge.

REFLECTION

Be of good cheer, all abbots and parents! St. Benedict wrote this
over a thousand years before the dawn of psychiatry. He was very holy
and very wise, but he was a creation of his own times. I think it is
safe to say that, in St. Benedict's time and for many centuries
afterward, there was a tendency to look at most behavior as choice,
not compulsion. Things were somewhat more black and white. Under a
system such as that given in the first half of this reading, many, if
not most parents of today would lose without a doubt.

I needed exactly the parents I got, so did my Dad, so did my Mom, so
did their parents. That's just another way of saying that we are all
victims of victims,a concept of which St. Benedict probably would
never have dreamed. But in some way each of us is a victim of
something, as are our parents and so on.

Consider the marvel of God's tailoring one abbess to 50 nuns; quite a
deal, isn't it? Now consider this. For each of us to get our perfect
victims of victims, here's a PARTIAL picture of God's fine tuning.
Obviously, the whole chain has to fit or it comes out wrong. We each
have 8,388,608 21st great-grandparents, with a total of parents and
grandparents in those 24 generations of 16,777,214.

That total is comfortably more than the combined populations of the
cities of New York, Boston, Chicago, Tampa, Washington, DC, and the
entire State of Missouri. And, for a person alive today, that would
probably only get you back to about the year 1000 AD. Begin to get
the picture of how God has thought of us (and them!) from all
eternity? There's a lot more than 50 nuns going on here, in fact,
there was a different and equal set of forbears for each of those 50
nuns AND their abbess.

By the way, St. Benedict had a lot of help from the Holy Spirit.
Hence, although he wrote the second part of today's reading, about
the acquittal of the abbess who's done her best, without the benefit
of modern psychology, it nevertheless fits right in to our current
awareness. No one can give what they don't have (or, if they do, it's
only the working of grace that makes that possible.) I can't teach
you Hebrew, I don't know it. But, if I was suddenly presented with
the fact that I'd HAVE to teach Hebrew, I'd buy a beginning text and
we'd stumble through somehow together. How very like parenting,
except that, for most of our partial crowd of sixteen million, there
were no textbooks!

Parents and abbatial types, take heart. God not only CAN use
anything, He HAS to use anything. The human standards throughout
history after Eden have made that more than certain. God knows and
loves each of us. He is more parent than we are and He is, unlike
ourselves, perfect.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA


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+PAX

Prayers, please, for the eternal rest of Alan, for whom we prayed, and for
Donna, AJ, Amanda, Barbara and Tom and all his family and all who mourn him.

Prayers for the spiritual and physical welfare of the following, for all their
loved ones and all who take care of them:

Michael, awaiting a lung transplant to replace his own that have been ravaged by
cystic fibrosis. He is now in the hospital and is not doing well. He has been
told that he will not be going home unless the transplant happens. He is
currently #4 or 5 on the transplant list but his condition is worsening.

Stephanie in her 20's, returning to the Catholic Faith and to Mass but needs the
Sacrament of Confirmation, nevering having been confirmed.

Deo gratias, Sarah got a call for the job she has been interviewing for and a
job offer is forthcoming.

Deo gratias, Page's breast cancer was early detected and able to be treated with
a lumpectomy, foloowed by radiation and chemo, prognosis is good.

Lord, help us all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy
and grace. God is never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL

January 11, May 12, September 11
Chapter 2: What Kind of Person the Abbess Ought to Be

Therefore, when anyone receives the name of Abbess,
she ought to govern her disciples with a twofold teaching.
That is to say,
she should show them all that is good and holy
by her deeds even more than by her words,
expounding the Lord's commandments in words
to the intelligent among her disciples,
but demonstrating the divine precepts by her actions
for those of harder hearts and ruder minds.
And whatever she has taught her disciples
to be contrary to God's law,
let her indicate by her example that it is not to be done,
lest, while preaching to others, she herself be found reprobate (1
Cor. 9:27),
and lest God one day say to her in her sin,
"Why do you declare My statutes
and profess My covenant with your lips,
whereas you hate discipline
and have cast My words behind you" (Ps. 49:16-17)?
And again,
"You were looking at the speck in your brother's eye,
and did not see the beam in your own" (Matt. 7:3).

REFLECTION

This isn't just for abbots and parents, this is for all of us.
Example is put forward as the primary means of teaching, even before
words. All of us must "walk the talk" and practice what we preach.
Everyone of us is obliged to somehow uncover the splendor of the City
of God in our lives, to show it to others. Mere verbal description
will be of little help in comparison to actually living out the
vision.

All of us put forward an image of who we are in words, one way or
another. As years go by, we usually get a more or less complete
picture of who we are and of the self we wish to present to the
world. This is where family, community and marriage can be so
important. The people who live with us see right through the flaws
in our verbal picture.

It is less easy for us to believe in our grand and false images of
ourselves when we are rubbing shoulders with one or more reality
checks all the time! These reality checks can point out genuine
greatness in areas we might not have expected, but they can also
underscore the pathetic comedy of our pretensions. Both are useful
for humility, both lead to truth. Just be careful not to believe it when
you are praised too much.Those pointing out our flaws are no
more infallible than we are, but they can often be a lot more
objective.

Ever watch a foreign film with the audio badly dubbed into another
language? It is jarring and annoying. What St. Benedict is saying to
all of us here is to get the picture and the sound into synchronized
form. For all Christians, all Benedictines, there should be no
disparity between video and audio! Lofty ideal that!

St. Benedict knew that loftiness would be hard for us to reach, too.
He knew there would be beams in our eyes, specks in others'. Hence, a
lot of this boils down to approach and attitude. Come on to others
from a position of "I'm OK and you are not," and see where it gets
you.

You might make a temporary dent. You might even change a few of
the really less than bright. Most wise people, however, will give you
a lot of room. They see the mask, the falsity there, and it inhibits
much else from getting through to them. It's like really competent
actors being cast in a role that does not fit them at all. One sits
through the whole movie thinking: "No way can I believe that she is
so-and-so!" "Great play, nice plot, but I didn't find the male lead
credible..."

Hopefully, at that final Awards night, there will be Tony's, Emmies
and Oscars for all of us, with maybe a Golden Globe or two thrown
into our totals!

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA




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+PAX

Mrs. Service, for whom we prayed, has died, surrounded by her family. Prayers
for her eternal rest and all her family and all who mourn her.

Prayers for the Catholics Come Home group starting in Joyce's parish, and for
similar groups elsewhere.

Lord, help us
all as You know and will. God's will is best. All is mercy and grace. God is
never absent, praise Him! Thanks so much. JL


January 12, May 13, September 12
Chapter 2: What Kind of Person the Abbess Ought to Be

Let her make no distinction of persons in the monastery.
Let her not love one more than another,
unless it be one whom she finds better
in good works or in obedience.
Let her not advance one of noble birth
ahead of one who was formerly a slave,
unless there be some other reasonable ground for it.
But if the Abbess for just reason think fit to do so,
let her advance one of any rank whatever.
Otherwise let them keep their due places;
because, whether slaves or free, we are all one in Christ (Gal. 3:28)
and bear in equal burden of service
in the army of the same Lord.
For with God there is no respect of persons (Rom. 2:11).
Only for one reason are we preferred in His sight:
if we be found better than others in good works and humility.
Therefore let the Abbess show equal love to all
and impose the same discipline on all
according to their deserts.

REFLECTION

Choosing favorites is a terribly risky business for any of us,
parent, abbot or supervisor. Our own self-image (or lack thereof,)
can get very tangled in this process. If we choose wrongly, it
empowers one and strangles the rest, to one degree or another.

Christopher Marlowe (+1593) wrote a great short poem about love at
first sight. Ah, the romantic in me LOVED that poem- at first
sight! I dog-eared the page many years ago, to more easily find it on
occasions such as this!

"It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows, let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?"
(from "Hero and Leander")

Big fan of love at first sight here.
Had I looked more closely "at first sight" to
what Marlowe was saying, even he knew that what we see "is censured
by our eyes," another way of saying that love is blind! Of course,
Marlowe lived in Elizabethan England. Such loves impervious to
reason were all the rage.

That was exactly the type of love for those under us that St.
Benedict said to avoid. We must consider that ALL our brethren
and children and associates are gold ingots, all are stripped runners,
devoid of fashion or rank. We dare not favor one over the others
on a mere whim.

St. Benedict lived and wrote over a thousand years before Marlowe,
but he knew well the human bent to love at first sight, to love
without reason or rhyme. He quite rightly points out that this is one
of the many human tendencies we have to conquer. If we don't, it will
harm us and harm those under our care, including the favored one.

Favoritism harms the one in charge, too. Since others can see all too
well what the parent or boss cannot, it diminishes their trust in the
authority figure. If she can be so glaringly wrong about this, why
not about something else? Every person is fallible, but a careless
superior can emphasize her own lack of brilliance by poor choices.
This doesn't make governing or being governed any easier for anyone.

Love and prayers,
Jerome, OSB
http://www.stmarysmonastery.org
Petersham, MA


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