First Tuesday of Advent – A Christmas Commercial

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on November 29, 2016
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

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We’re a funny breed of people, we humans. We play a dirge, and we want others to mourn; we dance a jig, and we want them to clap time, but we don’t want to pay the piper, and we certainly do not want to dance to someone else’s tune.

 

 

At Christmas, we would like for others to be just about as much in the mood for the event as we. More tinsel, more lights! Less extravagance! Fewer commercials …more selection on the shelves! More Hallmark movies … less Hallmark movies! Whatever became of the Christmas parade? Why are all these people blocking the street? Perhaps you know some who go “all out” at Christmas and others who barely acknowledge the event. I have two friends, very close friends … one of whom has a tree in every room, and the other has been known to put hers up on Christmas Eve and take it down the afternoon of Christmas Day! People are different!

 

 

We regret and sometimes resent the commercialization of this holy season, but this is just about the last time of year that we want to spend fasting or carving out extra time to spend with the Lord. We want Christmas to be quieter and simpler, but we don’t want to do without those time-consuming Christmas cookies that Aunt Nellie makes and decorates so painstakingly, and we certainly don’t want to pare very much away from Christmas “as we like it.”

 

 

Help!

 

 

Here’s food for thought: What would it take to make this season merry and bright for the Lord our God? Well, it would take a miracle, because He is full of life and light and joy whether we maintain ours or not! But … how can we make Him smile as He watches us tear around trying to have a merry Christmas?

 

 

Today’s Advent Scripture is so very not Jingle Bells or Chestnuts Roasting … but it is as close to the Lord’s heart as it can be, considering how many times and in how many ways He gave us this commandment while He walked among us. Take a look; perhaps you would hardly expect these words:

 

 

            Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.  It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

 

            “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.  What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:33-37, NIV)

 

 

Can it be done? Can we turn our Christmas festivities into a watch party, a true season of hope? If we are to rejoice in all things and to be watchful always (and we are,) then we can be vigilant and with oil in our lamps during the twelfth month of the year. Watchful, prayerful, sober … and still overflowing with joy.

 

 

How? How? How?

 

 

Here in Cor Unum, we have a default method, and it works every time. We start with gratitude, and we go on from there. It seems to be no accident that Thanksgiving is the launch for the Christmas season! If our prayers do fall a little short during this month … and we will look together in hope that they won’t … but if they should, a month of Advent gratitude will keep us on track and fill us with a better joy than Aunt Nellie’s cookies can produce.

 

 

Let us make an Advent vow … you know, the kind the Lord likes, when we make no long promises but just say “Yes” to His Word … that we will give thanks, heartfelt thanks in all things during this season, but …

 

Hold a moment, my dear friends. We’ve done that before. Many of us have more good intentions than Aunt Nellie’s cookies have sprinkles. Advent is about making sure, and that’s why we so love it here in Cor Unum. We are all about making sure, and we feel sure that that is what we are supposed to do.

 

Come back tomorrow, and we will explore a few Advent ideas for making the season delightful, and not to ourselves alone. More than pennies in an old man’s hat, more than taking turkeys and canned goods to a Food Bank – and not to exclude those at all – we want to bring Christmas joy to the Christ we love.

 

That’s the Advent we’re after!

 

Jell-O Ad, circa 1954

 

First, Riches! (The Hope Candle – First Monday)

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on November 28, 2016
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tesoro_de_villena

 

 

There is in our little town a parish priest who is adamant about Advent. He does not like to sanction Christmas parties or Christmas teas or Christmas bake sales during Advent. I’ve seen parishioners shake their heads and smile (“That’s just Father. He’s Benedictine, you know …”), but I’ve grown to appreciate his fervor for the simplicity and sanctity of a season of preparation for the carols and the bells and the glad tidings and gift giving of Christmas.

Advent, when first I participated in it, was so very different from what I had imagined. The Nativity comes into play, absolutely, but Advent is about being as ready and watchful for Jesus in our hearts and in our future as it is about the fullness of time and the gift of God’s Son.

It has been said that the Lenten season is about repentance and purity, that Easter is about restoration and peace, but Advent speaks of renewal and purpose, and part of God’s purpose is to make us rich beyond imagination.  If our bills and our debts tell us otherwise, we begin with the truth and adjust accordingly.

We will read many Scriptures about watching and waiting, and about the fulness that is ours in Christ Jesus.  Today’s Advent Scripture tells us that we have been made rich in this life … we have been enriched in every way … not lacking any spiritual gift! … and we will be sustained to the end, guiltless in Christ. That is a lot of promise, if we will live by that light. That’s better than a new coffee-maker!

Four weeks of this progression, from wishing to hoping (from rags to riches in a very real sense), ardently appreciated and applied, will be the very best gift we could ever receive, and it could go a long way in helping us to take proper action in the days ahead. There isn’t much we can do about the commercialization of Christmas, except in our own hearts.

How do we apply it? One of the very best ways is to PRAY THE SCRIPTURES that we will read. Together we will answer when God speaks through His Word, such as in today’s reading. Look at verse 7, which is highlighted in the passage. The reading doesn’t seem very “Christmas-y” at first glance, but see what Paul says – we are waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ! We give God thanks as we read, for His Son is being revealed. First in us, in the Church, and in countless ways all over the world, souls are warmed to the Gospel with each passing day. Even as the darkness increases, the Light of the World shines brighter and brighter, and we mustn’t forget that.

“Thank You, Father!” we pray, “Thank you for the riches that are ours in Your Son.  We have a testimony of Your faithfulness, and we will have stories to tell of the ways in which You have enriched and sustained us to the end.  Let Christ Jesus our Lord be revealed, increasingly, in us!”

So this evening, as we light for the second time our first Advent Candle, let us remember that it is called the Candle of Hope, and what a lively hope this is! Let us receive the blessing of the Apostle Paul as it comes down to us through the ages in Scripture, and let us give thanks this day that the Son of God will be revealed in our lives during this and every season. That is a Christmas miracle and a Christmas glory! That, I believe, is what Father Michael is praying for all his little flock during this Advent season. Amen.

 

Scripture reading, first Monday of Advent:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge—

even as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you—

so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, 7) as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ;

who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

photo by permission

Tesoro de Villena, Wikipedia 

  – 

Attention to Detail

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on February 17, 2016
Posted in: devotional life, monasticism, personal devotion, the image of Christ, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

 

Jack_dempsey_ring_loc_50497v

 

 

 

The Olympic trials were run last weekend for the top three spots on both the men’s and women’s U.S. marathon teams. I heard a report that both of the top two men shared a common vision and practice: attention to detail.

 

I would imagine that most of us would have a hard time comprehending how anyone who can run a mile in close to four minutes, and run 26 miles in just over two hours, would need to devote himself to the tyranny of details. Fast is fast, and that is fast. The winning time for the men was just over two hours and eleven minutes, and the top women were not far behind.

 

We have talked about this before here in Cor Unum Abbey, and to women of devotion, to runners of this race of faith, to those who practice a monastic discipline and look for the joys to be found in it, if there is real help for us, we will have it.

 

We spoke a few years ago about Michael Phelps, the much-decorated swimmer, and how his coach would plan and put in place traps and detours in Michael’s training, like goggles that were rigged to leak in the pool, so that he would not ever be up against anything in a race that would deter him. He scheduled smaller meets and didn’t allow time for any food beforehand. We talked about how the man or woman who has been trained in the proper and most efficient reach for the edge is the one who most often wins by one or two hundredths of a second.

 

How is it possible that men and women who train in all four corners of the globe, in all climates and altitudes, with completely different trainers and styles of training, with vastly different physiques and diets, can come in one-two-three-four in their heat or their race, all within a split second of one another?

 

The first answer must be: every one of them knows the time to beat, so whatever their training, it is geared to shave even one-tenth of a second off that time. So we make this application:

 

It is critical that we keep the goal in mind. What is the goal for us here in this Abbey? It is CHRISTLIKENESS … Christ’s likeness … and ever shall be.

 

What then, knowing the goal and keeping it in our sights, what will help us cross the finish line and receive the crown? All run, but may it not be said that the one who wears the crown is the one who pays attention to detail? Champion runners find a step, a drill, a breathing technique that wins races. Champion swimmers practice their turn and push from the wall thousands and thousands of times over, becoming faster, more efficient, stronger with every passing week. Champion boxers train with deliberation and cannot win big until they learn that they must do much more than throw heavy punches.

 

Boxing is such a great teacher … when the face is bloodied and eyes blood-blinded, the legs are as gelatin, the breath is faint, the mind is blurred, the will crumpled, they all say the same thing, that they rely upon their training and discipline to see them through. So here is another application for us: First they gain victory over defeat, and then they gain victory over their opponents.  It’s all in the details.

 

 

Jack Dempsey in the ring

from the George Grantham Gain collection,

no known copyright, on Wikipedia

 

This Year’s Lenten Fast – Starts Today!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on February 10, 2016
Posted in: devotional life, monasteries, monasticism, personal devotion, the image of Christ, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

womenatwesternwall

 

He made the basin of bronze and its stand of bronze, from the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered in the entrance of the tent of meeting.  (Exodus 38:8, ESV)

 

From 5:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon until the same hour on Wednesday, my husband gave me three days alone in the house. He kissed me goodbye, and I opened the door to our guest room and disappeared inside.  It happensd about eight years ago, an experiment, an in-house visit to the Tent of Meeting, and it was one of the most memorable things I’ve ever done.

 

We met occasionally in the hall, if I came out to get soup at meal times or to brush my teeth, but we didn’t speak. He completely honored those 72 hours, alone with the Lord. I suppose he was having his own at-home sabbatical in a sense, but I can only write of my own.

 

That’s where Moses used to meet with the Lord, in that tent set up outside and away from camp, where he could go and be alone with God. Joshua used to go, too, and just stay close by, waiting.  They called it the Tent of Meeting.

 

Today is the first day of Lent for this year, and this is what I want to do for my Lenten fast, go back into that Tent of Meeting, as best I can. I share it with you because it was so precious and so worthwhile.

 

We will come back to the logistics in a moment, but first I want to share this with you: at the end of those three days alone in a bedroom in our house, alone with the Lord, my husband and son graciously managing everything without me, I came out as one walking on air. I was so over-brimming with contentment that I didn’t want to speak; perhaps it would be better to say, I had nothing to say. I was so full of the nearness of the Lord that I couldn’t, that I didn’t want to, speak of it. There was nothing to talk about. Absolutely nothing I could have said would have measured up to all that I was … just alive in the pleasure of the Lord. Can you tell that it is difficult even now to explain what I felt? I wasn’t giddy, but my heart was plump with joy. It wasn’t that I was afraid the bubble would burst, it was just that I was still inside and there was nothing that could be added or subtracted.

 

I want that again. I want it for you. Can it be had? Some of you have more that you must do on any given day than I have to do in a week. None of us can do more than we can. All of us can do what we can. I’m only here to say, what you can do will be worth more than I can explain.  Your best effort might be no trolling the internet and no daytime television, no recreational shopping and no casual phone calls for the next weeks until Easter … doing all that can reasonably be done that we can be alone with the Lord every chance we get, as many hours as we can have.

 

We were on our way to a Bible study that night, and Frank seemed instinctively to know that quiet smiles were much more the perfection of the moment than conversation would have been. All evening long, people talked and laughed, prayed and expounded, and I, I who always had something to say or contribute, I was silent and happy. Silent and happy, but inside, invisibly, my heart was shimmering with love for those who were there in that room. I didn’t tell anyone where I’d been, in that Tent, I didn’t mention it, and I don’t remember that I spoke at all except just to listen to what people were saying and make a proper response. Best of all, it wasn’t even that I was trying not to talk, it was being so replete with peace and pleasure that I had nothing to say and found myself only interested in what others said.

 

Most especially, no one there had any faults that night. There was nothing in them that I would have fixed or changed by my efforts. I was delighted with them, one and all. They were loved, and God was their Father and mine, and I had been praying for them, for others and for my family in the Presence of God, and it was enough.

 

So … Lent, 2016. I’ve gone back to that experience a few times, only for a day or two. What I wish to do this year is to see how closely I can replicate it for forty days. Not having Frank to run interference and answer the phone and the door, I will have some limitations. I have some appointments already on the books, and I had best not hide from those in need if a need arises and God calls me to it, but what I can do is to eliminate every extraneous thing.

 

At the core, this is the heart of monasticism. This is what we strive for every day in Cor Unum Abbey, but there are so many diversions, so many responsibilities, so many opportunities … and we have so many interests, devices, entertainments, cares, concerns, and anxieties.

 

This Abbess knows she has tremendously more time than most people do, and still I waste dozens of hours every week. Oh dear! What help is there for other women? I can only say and remember what it was like to emerge from those three days, and I do want it for you. I want it for me.

 

This is Cor Unum Abbey. No one here is under any obligation but to the relationship she has been given with Christ Jesus, Savior, King, and Lord.

 

There is one thing important to clarify …

 

What did I DO those three days? Nothing special. I took my Bible with me and a songbook, and I used them both. I had a notebook at hand in case the Lord said anything that I would need to remember. I can do that for forty days, make use of those items. I even took two books with me, one to use as a devotional and one that was edifying and sweet, just in case, and I did read a few chapters in it. I took my thanksgiving beads, and I used them many times. I ate healthy and light so that I wouldn’t get “overcharged with surfeiting” (SUCH a great expression!) inside that Tent. I did some stretching morning and night … I’ll need more than that for forty days, some brisk walks at the least.  I’ll try to walk hand in hand with Jesus Christ.  There was prayer and intercession, plenty of it, but the goal and the focus was to do everything in and with the Lord, to see if I could not let Him out of my sight for those hours.

 

This time, instead of 72 hours, it will be an epoch of 47 days. (As you may know, the Lenten season isn’t a perfect 40-day span, for Sundays are more indulgent “free days” for some in their fast, and this year includes the Leap Year day.) I’m feeling my way a bit, but even here in the Abbey there are times of a more intense seeking after God.   The television can stay dark and silent (my first fast of the year.) I want to see how many hours, not by count but by eliminating everything else, I can spend in that Tent of Meeting, that place in my home and in my heart where the Lord dwells in glory.

 

I’ll check back in every few days, as the Lord leads. I hope you can find at least a few days or a few hours each day, to run away to Him in a responsible way!  For goodness sake, don’t neglect your husbands if you have them!  Instead, take away from stolen pleasures, the kind that rob us more than we know until we forsake them.  I would love to hear, after Easter Sunday, that you didn’t see any of these messages because you didn’t get online!

 

Happy Lent … great happiness to you on the other side.

 

 

Women praying in Israel and the site believed to be that of the Tent of Meeting

by permission, Creative Commons

 

 

 

“Why This Waste?”

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on February 8, 2016
Posted in: devotional life, monasteries, monasticism, personal devotion, the image of Christ. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Alabaster_kohl_pot_HARGM3666

Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.  

(Matthew 26:8-10, NASB)

            If you have a heart for the monastic way of life, get ready to contend with this question inside and out.

 

In this place where spare time is given to watching and praying, and innocent earthly pleasures are redeemed in hours of worship and warfare, we are foolish to think that what we do won’t be misunderstood. We keep most of what we do quiet, we don’t advertise, we go about our lives, pay our bills, buy our groceries just as we’ve always done and just as others to, but when those groceries are put away, it’s time for Vespers – not General Hospital.

 

What’s more, the barrage will come from both directions. When we do, if we do, settle down to watch a movie at home, the enemy of souls will tell us we’re failing and letting Jesus down. We are learning that there is one way to know that cannot be true … when the Lord invites us to watch television with Him! Don’t think for a moment that can never happen! If by His leading you choose to watch television or read a book or go bowling, that is your Recreation and God bless it. We aren’t under the law, we are under grace, the grace of a monastic life. What’s more we have an answer for each and every contention.

 

   This is a freewill offering! The day that the Lord has made is given to us for our rejoicing. We simply number ourselves among those who wish to find their rejoicing in Nearness of Christ and in the will of the Father. We will learn, and it is as precious as the anointment Mary poured upon the feet of Jesus, we will learn to hear when the Father says, “Take a few minutes and sit outside with your book,” and when He says, “You haven’t yet prayed for the person you’re fasting for today.”

 

Some of us will cancel our satellite service; let it be by the prompting of the Spirit of God so that we will never regret our decision. Our televisions bring us beautiful footage of miraculous events taking place in the world around us, of Muslim men and women coming to faith in huge numbers and of the underground Church in China, of acts of Christian service and sacrifice, of political events that could be attributed only to the power of God.

 

Some of the nuns in Cor Unum find nuggets of spiritual wisdom in the books they read, powerful parables that strengthen their souls, and all of us have seen movies that were life-changing in their effect.

 

We are known in the heavenlies among those who choose worship over worry, prayer over play, stillness over excitements, but we do know, too, how to have a good time in company and alone with the Lord. To us, we aren’t anything special, except to the Lord, but as special as we are to Him, it is our lives we don’t want to waste.  We enjoy every minute and morsel of God’s favor and fullness. Sometimes the restrictions we embrace will offend and often they will confound others, but for us, this waste has made us rich, and richer still with every passing day, here in the Abbey of the heart.

 

 

 

Alabaster Jar, courtesy of Harrogate Museums and Arts,

by permission, Wikipedia

My D.L.F.s

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on February 3, 2016
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Trumpkin

 

 

I just discovered the intent for this year’s Lenten fast. For me. I was reading in Matthew, chapter 20, when the two blind men began to cry out to Jesus that their eyes might be opened. Verse 34 says that Jesus, “moved with compassion,” touched their eyes and they regained their sight and followed Him. That was for me one of those, “close the book” moments. Not that I won’t return at the Sixth Hour (Sext) to open it again, but it was to me a world of truth and hope and promise and direction, all in one.

 

To each her own. May you find your purpose in every season here in this Abbey, but I have just been lamenting a certain amount of blindness before the Lord. I just spoke about it three days ago, the difficulties that some of those I love best have with blind spots and blindness to the Gospel and to the goodness and power of the Lord.  As I have had.

 

I call them my “D.L.F.s”, and those of you who have read C. S. Lewis will know to whom the moniker refers. It was the dwarf, Trumpkin, who had won both the esteem and the affection of the Pevensie children, despite his curmedgeonly temperment. Trumpkin was for the dwarfs! … but also for valor and uprightness of heart and loyalty to those whom Aslan loved. The children called him their “D.L.F.”, their Dear Little Friend, and meaning not any disrespect at all, whatsoever. He was to them a boon companion, loved and trusted.

 

I too, a smidge less curmudgeonly, taller, younger than Trumpkin, but I hope with a spot of valor in my heart (I want valor to be found there,) will defend those whom Aslan loves. They are my D.L.F.s … my very Dear Little Friends and my Dear Little Family. In all my own blindness I do see this, that there are times in all of our lives when we do not see as clearly as we might, when we may be or may have been blinded by jealousy, fear, despair, passions, and most particularly, by wounds that have not healed.

 

Jesus told us that it was of surpassing importance that the light within us should not be darkness. What?? What could He have meant? It took me years to discover the truth, but I came to know that if the way we see the Father is wrong, distorted, twisted, fear-ridden, without joy, without faith, expecting grief, refusing hope, unacquainted with the Covenant of Good that He has made and will keep, then we are in terrible danger. The only light that can ever illuminate a soul for eternity is the light of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. When we see God as merciless, fickle, ineffective, unreliable, aloof, quick to anger, and eager to destroy, how great is that darkness.

 

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6, NASB)

 

So … I want to spend this Lenten season moved with compassion for those I’ve been given to love, those for whom I carry a weapon (I couldn’t handle the ax Trumpkin was able to wield, but those dwarves were able to forge sharp, beautifully-designed two-edged swords, and one has been crafted for me.) I sharpen my sword on this whetstone, that when the Father is seen in the light of the gift and the sacrifice of His Son for the sake of the world, everything begins to come into focus, and, moved with compassion, I want our eyes to be opened!

 

 

Peter Dinklage as Trumpkin, The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian

Fair use, Wikipedia  –  see the movie!

Boxing, Dancing, Running,Warring …

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on January 29, 2016
Posted in: devotional life, monasticism, personal devotion, the image of Christ, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

1024px-Chenxin_Liu_-_Don_Quichotte,_Kitri_-_Prix_de_Lausanne_2010-7_edit

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

1 Corinthians 9:25

 

Perhaps, if we were to distill all that we are about here in Cor Unum Abbey, it would be that this is our training ground. That concept, more than anything, might be the allure that keeps us here, that keeps you reading these passages, that keeps the nuns of Cor Unum on point.

 

En pointe.   In another language, in another sense, that is the goal of every little girl (and some young men) who try on their first ballet slippers. Tendu, plié, battement, bras bas, rond de jambe … a serious five-year-old-student knows these terms and can produce the effect.

 

I was able to enjoy the Moscow Ballet in performance last Tuesday night, and as ever, one cannot help but ponder how many hours, how much effort – how many calories! – may have gone into every perfect pirouette and relevé, not to mention each jeté or tour en l’air.

 

            I particularly love that last expression. Sometimes the dancers, particularly the male dancers, do seem to float on air, as if they are taking a tour of the air space between them and the floor, spinning like ice skaters, but on no foundation at all, gaining lift sometimes for a moment while airborne, in a breath of time, with nothing but muscle to elevate them.

 

That degree of skill and artistry does not come, not even to the most talented, overnight. What’s more, it has to be accomplished, on the beat, on the mark, night after night.

 

If only … that’s a terrible beginning … but if only we could set our sights on a career in monasticism (prayer, worship, listening, gratitude, perfect fasting, hope, and joy in the Presence of the Lord) and pursue it with the fervor and passion of the dancer … the warrior … the athlete. Just as Paul said, in the hope of the crown of the work. For a crown that fades, withers, and crumbles away, those devoted to their craft will work and suffer and fairly give up the rest of their lives toward their vision.

 

My dear Sisters, I cannot say it better than this. I cannot do better than to take these words to heart. This is the pulse of this monastery, while life goes on around us.  May God grant each of us today to keep to our training schedule, to be sure that those who run to receive a crown will not be disappointed in this race, for it is monastic, and  those who would leap and soar on wings as eagles, they will look down from the heights and rejoice to dance with God.

 

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

1 Corinthians 9:25

 

 Le grande jete’

Fanny Schertzer, Wikipedia, by permission

Through the Doors …

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on January 27, 2016
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1280px-Drill_instructor_at_the_Officer_Candidate_School

“Through these portals pass prospects for America’s finest fighting force –

the United States Marines”

 

            That is the message emblazoned above the famous “Silver Doors” which stand between civilian life and the hope of a military career for Marine recruits. Few if any pass through them without anticipation of a grueling test of stamina and courage, and that’s what they get at the Recruit Depot at Parris Island.

 

Those who leave wearing their first rank have been broken down and built back up again. They have realized fears they didn’t know they had and observed their own strengths dissolving and evaporating in the glare of life under command.

 

That should sound familiar to us here in the Abbey. It’s much the same through the doors of a convent, even and especially one that we could leave with just “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest …”. That is a verse from Proverbs 24. The next stanza, verse, 34, says then poverty will come on you like a robber, and scarcity like an armed man. Yikes! We know good and well that there are other poverties than lack of funds, poverty of soul and strength among them.

 

The true monastic learns to avoid spiritual malaise as certainly as fighting men and women learn to keep themselves watchful, fit, ready, trained, disciplined. We too will have to pass through many tests and stay the course.

 

I’ve mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but I live near a military facility, and it is something to see how trim and battle-ready our soldiers appear in uniform, and airmen and Air Force Officers always professional and nearly GQ in their blue pants and shirts, but the Marines … you could slice bread on the creases of their pants. Do they ever sit??? What I would give to be able to keep a blouse or a dress as perfectly wrinkle-free as are their shirts and pants, with those tidy ties tucked into their blouse fronts! Their shoes shine like mirrors! I know it shouldn’t matter a jot, but any twenty-year-old man or woman who can shop for bread and milk looking like that … I would trust them to do as they had been trained to do.

 

Clearly, they don’t get to be lazy, shiftless, or “chill” without permission. They get to be “steadfast, immovable.” They get to be watchful, diligent, always on guard. Before those Class A and B and C, dress and utility uniforms are seen in public, what was once a recruit has become a Soldier, Marine, Airman, Guardsman, or Sailor. They have seen one another fearful, emotional, triumphant, failing, falling, rising, giving up, beginning again. The more elite the command, the more certain it is that breaking points will be discovered. It isn’t enough to want to leave home or find adventure or prove oneself.  Devotion and determination, however, are completely useful. Above all, the refusal to quit separates the men from the boys, gender neutral.

 

There are a few of us who might sign up, if the Corps would accept us. We would slow them down, but, instead … let’s just stop and consider that if we are where we’re supposed to be spiritually, they couldn’t keep up with us, most of them. Let’s move on …

 

 

 

photo by John Kennicutt, by permission, Wikipedia

Drill Instructor, U.S. Marine Corps, Quanico, VA

 

Boot Camp

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on January 25, 2016
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

MCRD_Parris_Island_entrance

 

 

If you are a nun here in Cor Unum Abbey, you know what it is to wake up before you might otherwise choose, to spend time in worship and prayer that might have been given to movies and books and leisure time delights, and to maintain goals of spiritual and internal change … “Conversatio” … that might be given to more glittering successes outside these walls.

 

You also know what it is to keep your peace in time of trial and terror, to hope against hope, to love when jealousy and hatred demand attention. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal here, but they are mighty, even to the pulling down of strongholds … even to the destruction of those snares that have kept us locked up and lonely.

 

Snares. Strongholds. Traps. All of us have taken refuge in dangerous corners. We have hidden behind pride at times. For some, it is a boasting in strength, and for others boasting in lack and inability works just as well. We have been known to hide even behind fear, which seems to work, even seems sensible, for a while until we hear the firm, quiet, inexorable voice of God telling us, “Fear not … I am with you.” We have hidden behind busy-ness and boredom, behind wounds and words that should not have been spoken. Since Adam and Eve, we hide, but if only we knew, we cower in plain sight. Others can see our deceptions more often than we know, and the better we hide, the greater the danger to our souls.

 

We battle powers and principalities, just as the Scripture says in Ephesians 6, but here in Cor Unum Abbey, and for our own safety, we first take on the strong man, the one who stomps around in our hearts, hands on hips, feet spread, scowling, telling us that we cannot change, and that it would be foolish to try. “He” is a dragon man, guarding his treasure, breathing fire, and his riches are our sins and faults and fears. How he loves them! How he dotes over them! It hardly seems an enviable pile of loot, but oh! – what POWER he claims as long as every little chain stays fastened. What are diamonds and rubies compared with power and lust over the souls of men?

 

So, our warfare will ever be to relieve him of his armor and to distribute his plunder. More on that in the days ahead, but it will take place. Honesty and humility of heart will sustain us, repentance and rest upon the Word of God will save us. Joyfully, even as we bring the strong man down, others are shifting in their cages, testing the locks and rattling the bars, and before we depart to be with the Lord, many will be free and equipped to carry on their own combat maneuvers, to fight and to win, to triumph just as we are meant to do.

 

. . . thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.

2 Corinthians 2:14

 

New recruits prepare to step through the silver doors of the receiving building, an action which symbolizes the transition from civilians to recruits and the beginning of their transformation into United States Marines.  Credit: United States Marine Corps photo,  public domain, by permission

 

Cor Unum Barracks

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on January 22, 2016
Posted in: devotional life, monasteries, monasticism, personal devotion, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

1280px-The_New_Barracks_(18thC),_Edinburgh_Castle

 

 

As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. (1 John 2:27,28, nasb)

 

 

We have spent a few years investigating the divine peculiarities of a modern, monastic lifestyle, and some of us have been practicing those holy oddments, patching together what parts of a monastic mantle we have been able to reclaim in our workaday world. Faithful in thanksgiving, devoted to prayer and ever deepening intercession, delighting in worship and the manifest Nearness of God, we are not cloistered nuns, outwardly, but we are enclosed in Christ. We are learning to abide in Him as He abides in us, the true abbatial life. We are bona fide monastics, taking to heart the ancient meaning of the word, that every born again man and woman stands monolithically before God, each with a holy vocation that cannot be perfectly filled by any other.

 

We have come to trust that our piecework might be, to the Lord, a beautiful labor of love, for our hearts have found great delight in this glorious Opus Dei. For some of us, the world is beginning to have to fit into our Divine Office, more than it once was, the other way around.

 

This year we are seeking to make our devotional lives as mighty and effectual as they have been majestic . . . the full monastic monty, I was about to write, but being a conscientious Abbess, I Googled The Full Monty and learned something I didn’t know. It was a movie about six men, unemployed steel workers, who decide to form a strip act to out-distance all others, and perhaps you can imagine how they plan to make that happen. Nothing, in fact, was to be left to the imagination.

 

Well, thought I, better choose a different expression – but wait! First of all, the Urban Dictionary defines “the full monty” as “the whole thing” or “going the whole way,” and that is completely apt for us. What’s more, it will require a nakedness of soul before God to see this project through. We are never crude, but here is a colorful adaptation we won’t soon forget! Don’t rent the movie, just be prepared to part with those fig leaves that haven’t covered as well as we thought. “Too busy, too weak, too old, too young, too wounded, too many failures.”

 

As to lives “mighty and effectual” inside these cyber walls, consider the scores of Scriptural admonitions toward preparedness and power: “Watch and pray!” “Be steadfast, immovable!” “Continue in prayer!” “Taking captive every thought to the obedience of Christ!” (I love this one …) “Casting down … every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God!” “Put on the full armor of God … we wrestle against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness … !” “… understand this, if the owner of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch … !” “Be ready!” “Pray without ceasing!” “Rejoice always!”

 

… and these are but a few.

 

We are in this Abbey, and we are glad. Now let it become a barracks for those who are not at liberty to go on liberty! We are not on parade duty, splendid as that may be to spectators. This is a covert operation to bring out many souls into the protection of the Gospel of Christ now, in what time remains, actually behaving in accordance with the shortness of time. If we live into our eighties or nineties, it is hardly time enough to spend in this rescue attempt. Of the millions around us that are lost in darkness, dozens and hundreds are to us a special assignment. Of those that have come to faith in Christ but remain prisoners of war, trapped and crouching in spiritual huts with no more room to maneuver than their fears afford, many await the marshalling of our faith in compassion and intercession, that they may once again see the light of day.

 

This disciplined life, the choices that we make that have kept us enclosed and enabled us to be given to worship and prayer, is its own reward in great measure, but we are numbered among those who bear the burdens of others and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2) It has never been enough to enjoy the stained glass windows and the marble statuary, and even our own Heart’s Desire leads us forth to battle. We are as militant as we are monastic.

 

If these words are, if this ideal is to you a battle cry, two steps forward. We will all have to count upon the Spirit of Counsel and Might to get us where we need to go, to clothe us from on high, to teach our hands to war, to set before us a table in the presence of our enemies. This we know, He won’t fail to equip us for the conflict, perhaps the last great conflict of the ages, and certainly the one for which we were born and brought forth in Christ Jesus. He stands even now at the head of an army of warriors, brave and true … and triumphant.

 

photo by Kim Trainer, Wikipedia, by permission

Hanoverian barrack block from the reign of George III, built 1796-99 to accommodate an infantry battalion of 600 officers and men during the war with Revolutionary France.