12/2006 Via Vitae

Benedictine Oblate Newsletter - No. 6 - Christmas 2006

Via Vitae A Way of Life

The Benedictine Oblate Community of The World Community for Christian Meditation

POVERTY and SIMPLICITY The Piazza dell’Independenza in Asuncion, capital of Paraguay, stands out strikingly from most of the city as a well-manicured beauty spot. Tourism always presents the most orderly face of a country and then cosmeticises its flaws and self-contradictions with interesting facts and statistics. It is like the Epcot world in Florida where the pavilion on the Environment never mentions global pollution and the national exhibits reproduce their countries with safe platonic forms – like the English pub that is so like an English pub it could never exist in England.

The national cultural museum in the Piazza illustrates the country’s indigenous population with varied artefacts and neatly organised fact-sheets on the different Indian tribes and languages. It was not from an official guide, however, that I discovered that the eight students, who brought the government down with them, were killed in an anti-government demonstration in 1998 directly in front of the museum. Spilling up from the slopes of the hill on which the Piazza commands a view of the astonishingly wide Paraguay River, an embarrassing slum also tells an unpalatable truth that tourist agencies prefer to forget. Despite every offered bribe and threat from the authorities the inhabitants of the favella have refused to move. Whatever it looks like to us, it is their home. Staying there they know they cannot be forgotten - and they also enjoy a rich man’s view. After sharing it with them I then became the beneficiary of low-level corruption - in fact simple Latin kindness over-riding regulations - when after a well-placed phone call the museum of religious art stayed open late for us.

Paraguay is not a model republic: the second poorest country in South America and one of the most politically corrupt, a conduit of the drug trade and source of most media piracy in the region. Yet it has a curious redemptive honesty about it. It is a very Catholic kind of virtue-invice, a truth-in-deception, a lack of hypocrisy (or a form of hypocrisy that knows it can’t fool you) that is lacking in the Puritanism of North America. There the corruption runs deeper and is usually better hidden. All the bad news that the tourist brochures avoided came to me from my hosts and it was driven by their passionate idealism.

Honesty seems to suffer as soon as ideals are lost. Their well-run religious and educational institutions, however, serve a vision of a new world that refuses to succumb to its worst betrayals. That vision is as old as the phrase itself. ‘Novo orbo’ was first used in the late 15th century and it can still evoke in a traveller from the old world an intoxicating hope for a better and purer society. It may often seem like a hopeless hope. But in the eyes of the choir of favella children sponsored by the parish of the Resurrection in Rio at the launching their new CD, or in a corporate official refusing to get drawn into a corruption scam, you can see it can’t die.

My South American trip also took me to Chile and Argentina and Brazil but it was oddly enough in Paraguay that I remembered the great metaphor Keats used to describe his discovery of Chapman’s Homer: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

The oppression and injustice and corruption of Latin America is not romantic. But the vision and hope the new continent awakened in the western mind six hundred years ago is

Articles in this Issue Come and See

2

Editorial

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Benedict and the Future of Europe Archbishop Rowan Williams

4

Beginning Again.

Benedictine Wisdom for Living

9

Purity of Heart The Wisdom of the Desert

12

Book Corner

14

Hesed Community

15

International Oblate 15 Retreat Details Contacts

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inextinguishable. In North America it often feels as if it has been completely tarmaced over, stifled in sterile litigiousness, choked in the anxieties of affluence and superpowerdom. In the South there is vitality and joyousness and a kind of freedom of spirit, absent in the North, even amid the poverty and corruption. Northern tourists come to bathe in the sun and music and celebratory spirit of life while fearing the threat it represents to their way of life.

Yet the salvation of North America – and hence of the imperial culture it controls - may come from the South where the new world still feels new. The unstoppable Hispanic labour force seeping across the border is a sign of this hope. The Great Wall of the South West that is being built to keep the brown menace out is a sign, if ever there was one, of the repression of the powers of the unconscious. I once walked across the Californian border into Mexico and was surprised how easy it was to cross a frontier. My next surprise was the sense of having cut through with a magic knife into a parallel universe.

Everything was suddenly so different. Returning to the Northern new world was another matter. I stood in the US immigration line for three and a half hours with patient Latino workers and still drunken white Californian students waiting to be documented, photographed, finger-printed and approved or rejected.

Nowhere is this contrast between the two halves of the new world better expressed than in their characteristic forms of Christianity. The multiplying mega churches of the North represent an advanced stage of what Ivan Illich called the ‘corruption of Christianity’. Exposed by many black Christians and prophetic voices like Richard Rohr and Jim Wallis for their dereliction of social conscience and for their ‘gospel of wealth’ and self-fixation, these religious malls offer far more than prayer: a whole Christian shopping experience. Gyms, called with typical Northern marketing genius ‘Firm Believers’, food courts to regain what was lost in the gym, bookstores selling approved Christian titles and Christian hairdressers. The word Christian has been horribly mutated here. Many of these churches are nondenominational or part of the Southern Baptist movement but they are often shy about advertising their affiliation in case they ‘alienate’ worshipping customers. Worship itself tends to be formal but untraditional.

In the city of Jacerei, an hour from Sao Paulo, I was to give a talk on meditation after the evening mass. When I went to concelebrate I thought it must be at least a Sunday if not the patronal feast or the Cardinal was visiting. But it was an ordinary evening mass. Every pew was full and people were not just there. They were present. The liturgy was traditional but relaxed, warmly communal. There was no pitch but a good sermon on the readings. The singing was passionate as the people liked it, the readings read intelligently and the feeling of unity itself was a sacrament. The parish priest asked me to give communion and as I stood for a long time at this privileged role I felt moved, rooted in the living

Christ and honoured to be in such a community of simple and fervent faith. And they were interested in prayer not shopping. The church was full too for the talk on meditation, despite the tedium of translation. It was as still as a cloister during the meditation itself and the questions flowed with a serious curiosity about the new contemplative dimension of their tradition.

With much love Laurence (This is the full text of the abbreviated article printed in The Tablet Dec 6, 2006)

+ ++

COME AND SEE While on a visit to Australia in October I had accepted an invitation to attend the Sydney oblate cell meeting one Sunday afternoon.

Guide me in the path of your commands; for there is my delight.

These words, from Psalm 119:35, touched me as we prayed Sext and stayed with me for Lectio Divina. They summed up what I was to experience that afternoon and I experienced many delights – 1. The joy of being warmly welcomed by oblates in a distant part of the world made the name World Community very real for me.

2. The blessings of Lectio Divina (the practice of listening to the Word of God with the ear of the heart), during which I felt encouraged and strengthened while pondering such an ancient text spoke to me deeply at that time.

3. Witnessing the commitment of the group on the way to deepen their spiritual lives, also their sincere desire to share the tradition with others - thus realising the vision of St Benedict and John Main to promote a Community of Love.

As I recalled my concerns that could have prevented me taking this trip and missing out on the above experience, I was reminded of an ancient monastic story - "A certain hermit had chained himself to the side of his solitary cave near Montecassino. When he heard this St Benedict sent him a message: If you are indeed a servant of God do not chain yourself with chains of iron. But rather, let Christ be the chain that binds you.

Back in London it is good to know that the custom in that lovely room in Sydney is to surround the candle with the names of people representing oblates throughout the world and remember them in the silence.

You are all welcome to come and meet oblates at the Retreat Centre in Cockfosters, London.

DO COME AND SEE

Rita McKenna – U.K. Oblate Coordinator akarita1@hotmail.com

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posting or perhaps we may be able to offer a small financial contribution as part of our participation in this community work. One of the distinctive qualities of our oblate community in Fr. John’s vision is that we are fully participative and this is applied on different levels and in many different and practical ways. And in relation to the Rule of Benedict perhaps we might read Chapter 35: 1-6 “Kitchen Servers of the Week” in the context of the work of the coordinator and allow verses 1-6 to speak afresh, especially – v.4. and let everyone receive help as the size of the community or local conditions warrant.

From the Editor At the JMS2006 in Malaysia we had an opportunity for a brief oblate meeting with Fr. Laurence. Throughout different countries whenever there is a community event it is an opportunity for oblates to meet. These times always deepen our sense of community and strengthen our commitment to this path.

We are grateful for having been given permission to include the full text of the talk “Benedict and the Future of Europe” by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams. In 2001 Rowan Williams presented the John Main Seminar “Spirit in the Desert” in Sydney, Australia.

The international oblate database has previously been centralised in London and updated by Shirani Santiapillai for many years. Shirani is now no longer able to continue monitoring the database so I have accepted this role. In doing so, I thank Shirani for her attentiveness to this work over many years, on our behalf. To make it easier for all concerned I would be most appreciative if regional coordinators and those who organise oblate ceremonies could now send all new information directly to me. As you are aware any database is only as good as the information sent to keep it up to date. Recently it has come to the attention of Fr. Laurence that in some countries not all those in the oblate community have received Via Vitae and other information. This is why we need to have a current database.

Sending every oblate in our community a hard copy of Via Vitae is a huge task for the oblate coordinators especially in countries where there are a large number of oblates over vast distances and in countries where Via Vitae needs to be translated before printing. The time and effort as well as the printing and postage costs need to be taken into account. It would be a little act of kindness to consider how each of us might be able to assist our coordinator with this ‘ministry’. We might be able to offer our time and energy in organising the printing and ‘enveloping’ of Via Vitae for

One reason why it is important to receive a hard copy of Via Vitae is for its ready availability. This may not necessarily happen if we receive it by email. Our approach to reading is “different from the world’s way” and not as consumers with a quick dismissive look then pass it by but as contemplatives who ‘gaze’. Someone once remarked to Fr. John how boring it must be to be looking out of the same window of his room day after day, year after year. He responded that no, it wasn’t, and went on to say that it was amazing how much more he saw each time he looked. This is how we approach our reading. It can and may even be our Lectio at any given time. This way of reading nurtures us and is also respectful and reverential not only of the written word, but of the prayer, time and energy that the author has committed to the writing.

While all the world, Lord God, lay wrapped in deepest silence, and night had reached its midpoint, your all-powerful Word came down.

As year by year the beauty of this night returns, growing old with the aged and renewed in the wonder of children, so may we, grown old in sin but reborn to grace, proclaim with our lives what we chant with our lips: Glory to you, our God, in the highest heaven, peace on earth and in the depth of every human heart.

Concluding prayer First Vespers (and Vigils) “The Nativity of Our Lord” in Benedictine Daily Prayer a Short Breviary p.1370,71.

May you be filled with the love, joy and peace of the Christmas season throughout the New Year.

Trish.

+++ Monte Oliveto SILENT RETREAT MONTE OLIVETO SIENA, ITALY - 2007 Led by Laurence Freeman, osb THEME: Losing and Finding DATES: Saturday 21st July – Saturday 28th July 2007.

For a brochure and registration form email mail@wccm.org or tel: +44 20 7278 20970; fax: +44 20 7713 6346 Mail to: WCCM Monte Oliveto, St. Mark’s, Myddleton Square, London EC1R 1XX. U.K.

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Benedict and the Future of Europe - Archbishop Rowan Williams [Lecture given by Archbishop Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, given at St Anselmo Church and Religious Community, Rome on 21st November 2006] We are used to speaking of St Benedict as one of the patrons of Europe. This is partly in acknowledgement of how Benedictine houses helped to preserve something of the coherence of a religiously focused culture in the uncertain and often chaotic period after the fall of Rome, as the new Germanic kingdoms emerged in the west. But is there a sense in which we can speak of Benedict and his rule as offering an orientation for Europe's future? In the halfsecularised, morally confused and culturally diverse continent we now inhabit, does the Holy Rule still provide a beacon for common life? I want to argue that it does: the Rule, after all, is not an archaeological document but something that is continually being reinterpreted in the life of the communities that are based upon it - like the Scriptures themselves. And it has long been recognised that what the Rule proposes for the common life of monks and nuns is a structure that can be adapted to the needs of Christian community more widely - as is shown in the extraordinary number of people who still seek to live as oblates or who regularly refresh their vision by sharing the life of Benedictine houses. In the United Kingdom, the television series about Benedictine life based on Worth Abbey proved unexpectedly popular; the five men who shared the community's life for some months while the programme was being made all emerged with deeper understanding of the very character of community itself. So it is worth asking how all this can be applied to the life of modern European nations as well as modern European individuals. If there is a civilisation to be saved, what are the dimensions of the Rule that point us towards the essentials that have to be preserved and nourished? Or, in slightly different terms, what are the political virtues that the Rule generates, and how are these capable of translation into the context of contemporary geopolitics, especially as regards our own continent? It may be that we can arrive at a fuller grasp of what it is now to see Benedict as patron of our troubled and changing continent.

I shall outline three aspects of the Rule which are of cardinal importance in understanding the crisis of modern Europe and which suggest the areas where we should be most active in challenging some aspects of our present cultural consensus for the sake of the future of some kind of spiritually credible civilisation, especially in our continent. These are (i) what the Rule has to say about the use and the meaning of time, (ii)what the Rule has to say about obedience, and (iii) what the Rule has to say about participation.

First, time. The Rule of St Benedict describes a carefully structured day, a rhythm incorporating labour, study and prayer. The community has to have a productive life otherwise it would cease to exist. Like Teresa of Avila

many centuries later, Benedict has no expectation that the monastery will be dependent on anything other than the work of its members, and - as we shall see later on - he takes it for granted that all will be involved in sustaining the common life. But labour is not everything; the monastery is an environment in which human beings may grow mentally and spiritually, and so where they need time for reflection.

And because it is a Christian environment, it is one where the whole ethos and direction of the common life has to return continually to the praise of God, the most central and significant aspect of this life together.

Labour is serious and necessary, but it is not everything. Everyone needs to work, as ch.48 of the Rule implies; but the superior has to determine what sort of work is appropriate for different conditions and capacities. It is not as if the monastery is some sort of Victorian factory in which everyone is engaged full-time in a single process of production; there are various skills and crafts that have a place here, as well as the necessary work for survival (with all that this demands in terms of flexibility and not being ashamed to put your hand to some basic things like harvesting). The monastic life is emphatically not one of subsidised leisure, not one in which there is endless time for self-observation. The self that is brought into the light in study and prayer is a self that lives in a material world where crises and limitations call for response. Yet the identity of the monk is not exclusively or even primarily that of a producer, a pair of hands. The mind and heart have to be both self-aware and turned away from self towards a God who is to be praised. So labour exists in order for there to be a growing conscious self, expanding into the awareness of joy in God's presence, 'our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love' (Prol.).

The balance of the day's rhythm is directed towards that state of being aware of advancing towards God in everything.

In modern Europe - and the North Atlantic world - we live in a climate where both work and leisure seem to be pervasively misunderstood, where both appear regularly in inhuman and obsessive forms. Time is an undifferentiated continuum in which we either work or consume. Work follows no daily or even weekly rhythms but is a twentyfour hour business, sporadically interrupted by what is often a very hectic form of play. It seems we are either producing or being entertained by a vast industry that purports to guess our wants before we ask and leaves us in so many ways passive. At least, that is the message regularly given by advertising and popular fictions. The strain on the life of the family, as well as the life of the soul, that all this generates is well-documented and the object of vague but powerful anxiety in the culture at large.

If, then, we want to ask some awkward questions as Catholic Christians about the future of civilisation in Europe, we may well direct them on the basis of a

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Benedictine understanding of time and its uses. Authentic culture needs rhythms of activity and retrieval, recovery of the self; the great British Dominican theologian Cornelius Ernst liked to say that the creation of a meaningful culture was the whole process by which the world to which humanity belonged became the world that belonged to humanity (see the posthumous collection of his papers, Multiple Echo, London, DLT, 1979, especially pp.556). Culture has to be more than the round of producing and being entertained. It must be the context in which humanity is allowed to grow - that is, a context in which memory, intelligence and love are allowed to grow. I don't mean to sound like an Augustinian fundamentalist, but the great doctor's analysis of human capacity is as good a vehicle as any for grasping what is distinctive about human mental and spiritual life.

So when we think about the processes of production, about the whole pattern of an economy, we should be asking in what sense it is intelligent production - work directed towards the maintenance of a recognisably human environment. That recognisably human environment is, for the Christian believer, one in which the habits of selfexamination and the possibilities of self-knowledge are being nourished - one in which the imagination as well as the intellect is matured. Remember, when Benedict speaks about Lectio, the goal he presumes is that of selfknowledge, humility and growth in holiness: the dimension of study in the monastic life is not about developing intellectual skills for their own sake, but a way of advancing in understanding of oneself as made in God's image, as mortal and fragile, subject to temptation and struggle, and as capable by grace of maturing in service. Just as work is there in order to sustain a life in which study may be properly carried out, so study is an activity sustaining a particular kind of human maturity and self-awareness before God. And in turn this is the context in which prayer and praise emerge as the natural crown of the whole pattern of the life of the Rule. The self-aware, intelligent and imaginative disciple who is formed by labour and study knows that the purpose of his or her life is now turning outwards to acknowledge God: proper self-awareness delivers us from self-absorption, since it shows us what kind of beings we are, what we are made for - which is the enjoyment of God. A civilised life structured around the vision of the Rule is one in which economics is not allowed to set itself up as a set of activities whose goals and norms have no connection with anything other than production and exchange. We have to ask what it is that economics sustains - its own business or an environment of human development, intelligence and awareness? This poses questions about Europe's use of its economic influence in the wider world; about the way in which the incorporation into the European community of less economically developed nations offers a model of collaboration between wealthier and poorer states; about the degree to which European states are willing to use

their internal resources for humane education, resisting the creeping functionalisation of education and research; and, not least, about the fate of our literal material environment in the processes of production.. The environmental question, with all its current urgency, is not just one of survival; it is about our capacity to understand the world in which we live as more than a storehouse of useful raw material for us. It is about how we learn to see the world that does indeed - remembering Cornelius Ernst's phrase in some sense 'belong to us' through our intelligence and labour as being also something to be contemplated with delight, not only utilised for our convenience. It is a question about our own humanity and its need for space, for contemplative wonder, and for receiving what we had not planned or asked.

And the Benedictine structuring of time stands as a potent reminder of the balances we risk losing in a culture obsessed with production and reluctant to locate that production in a broader picture of human activity and growth. The pressing issue is how we sustain a civilisation capable of asking itself questions about its purpose and its integrity; only a civilisation that can do this will generate people - citizens who can turn away from individual instinct and selfprotection, whether in adoration of God or in compassion for the needy, because they know what sort of beings they are, mortal, interdependent, created out of love and for love.

I have just mentioned interdependence, and this leads me to my second Benedictine category for cultural interrogation obedience. As the Rule insists, especially in its fifth chapter, obedience for the monk is the practice of constantly being ready to suspend a purely individual will or perception for the sake of discovering God's will in the common life of the community. It is not quite the same as the submission of disciple to teacher in the desert monastic tradition because the Rule is so much more concerned with the pragmatic issues of organised common life and with the particular requirements this places upon the abbot. The abbot has to discern the needs and the common calling of the community; and when the individual monk obeys the abbot it is a submission to the outcome of a remarkably complex and nuanced process on the part of the abbot and the community as a whole. One of the most striking aspects of the Rule for someone discovering it for the first time is what we might call the 'mirror effect' in regard to obedience: the abbot has to listen and attend with intense concentration to the specific requirements and gifts of the individual members of the community (chapter 2.312). The one to whom obedience is due is one who is called to exemplary obedience to the Rule itself (65) but also to a sort of 'obedience' to every brother. If obedience is the silencing of the purely individual will, the abbot must above all be a model of this silencing, someone who will not pursue an individual agenda but seek the immense, elusive goal of a common life in which each can recognise their good and their flourishing in the life they share and their

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mutual dependence. It is worth looking at the candid discussion in chapters 21 and 65 of the way in which the administration of the monastery has to be structured so as to avoid giving any hint of solitary authority for the enforcing of individual goals. And the well-known injunction (chapter 3) to remember that 'the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger' adds a surprising and important perspective to this picture of mutual obedience, in counterpoint rather than contradiction with the simple recommendation in chapter 71 of routine obedience from junior to senior in the community.

The community envisaged by the Rule is therefore not in any way a unit dominated by individual will, however strongly the injunctions may be phrased about surrendering to authority. That authority attempts to be, not representative in the modern sense, but at least systematically attentive to the diversity of character and experience within the community. Most significantly, perhaps, the community's discipline does not assume that there is a 'natural' order of precedence established by the world outside which dictates the degree to which you are taken seriously in the community. Seniority is a matter determined within the monastery (chapter 63), primarily related to the date of entry, except as the abbot may determine. It is, we could say, the scope of your involvement in the community's life that defines your standing, not any external criterion such as wealth or social status or education, or even chronological age. Put the other way around, no-one's voice in the community is automatically dismissed or minimised because of the lack of wealth, status and so on. The community is one in which the 'currency' of exchange is not restricted by social or historic accident; commitment to the community is the ground upon which the right to be heard is based.

Once again, how does all this relate to the questions we might want to put to our continent and its culture at the present time? The first point is obviously about the valuation of diversity in the Rule. It is not anything remotely resembling the rather passive pluralism which seems to be the default position of many kinds of post modernity. There is a clear and unambiguous assumption that there is such a thing as a common good and that therefore each distinct diverse perspective is open to challenge; Benedictine obedience is to do with this, not with some generalised submission of one person's will to the power of another. But there is an equally unambiguous refusal of any sort of competitive struggle for the dominance of one individual or group, and a set of checks and balances to offset any risk attaching to the strong emphasis on the abbot's authority. Authority is the negotiating of a variety of gifts in order to sustain a society in which all are at work for the sake of each other's flourishing and (in the monastic context) holiness.

In the macropolitical scene, this implies a serious valuation of cultural diversity - of local language and custom - and a

suspicion of those trends that associate authority either with an isolated professional class or with an economically dominant partner in the community of states. The bureaucratic urge to homogenise is one which Christians have every reason to resist; and the characteristic style of international planning and debate needs to allow the less materially advantaged partners a free voice. One of the more positive factors of some of the language of European politics in recent decades has been the emphasis on regional autonomy - a recognition that the solid and inflexible concepts of national sovereignty that have prevailed in the modern period cannot do full justice to actual cultural diversity and the need for appropriate local freedoms.

A European community (in the strict sense, and in the looser sense of the general geographical ensemble of European countries) that reflected something of the Benedictine vision would be one in which smaller nations and minorities within nations would be assured of a voice. And, to pick up a point that is especially pertinent in our present situation, it would be one that did not panic about migrants. The migrant group that is prepared to work within the civic framework of a host society, that aspires simply to citizenship, is one whose voice in the community overall is of significance alongside those who have a longer history and a political or economic advantage.

Once within the relationships of purposeful common life, the facts of coming from ethnically or religiously different backgrounds should not disenfranchise them. The basic importance of 'obedience', in the full sense give by the Rule to that word, requires governing authorities to listen to diversity and to ask how the overall balance of nation or transnational grouping needs to be adjusted so as to incorporate both the gifts and the needs of the incoming stranger who is seeking not simply hospitality (the Rule's priorities are clear about what to do in such a case) but shared belonging.

How this is achievable when we confront groups whose basic assumptions about civic identity appear to be different from our own historic ideals is of course a major challenge. While it is a facile and dangerous fiction to think of Islamic civic ideals and Christian or Western ones as so different that they cannot be sensibly compared, there is undoubtedly a spectrum of understanding from the ideologically secular liberal through to the most inflexible Muslim primitivist (the kind who elects to ignore most of Islamic history and jurisprudence in favour of a supposed adherence to the bare data of initial revelation). But once we have stopped thinking of this as inevitably a standoff between rational pluralism and simple theocracy - once we have actually begun to think about how to conduct debates over civic identity across some of these frontiers - the way is open to a properly 'Benedictine' questioning as to how we shape a common civic purpose out of these new diversities rather than assuming that this is now a level of diversity with which we can't cope.

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There are, so to speak, no 'abbots' in this macropolitical European scene. But it would be a mistake to suppose that this was necessarily a point at which every parallel with the Rule broke down unless we could create (God forbid) some unitary hierarchy across the European community. The abbot in the Rule is the authority who commands trust because of his own exemplary living out of the basic values of the community and because of its capacity to involve and respect the diverse concerns and needs of all who belong. What we should say, therefore, is simply that whatever the institutions are that seek the coherence and mutual intelligibility of the political communities of Europe, they should be marked by 'abbatial' virtues - by the way that authority itself reflects or embodies the careful listening that it itself demands; so that what is in view is always and only a corporate identity that can be owned and trusted by those for whom it acts. And this means also, it hardly needs saying, that such authority has to be self-critical and transparent, in just the ways expected of a superior in the Rule; it is not merely a way of keeping an uneasy peace between factions and interests but a creative search for what lies beyond any existing account of a group's interest and agenda. Borrowing a Hegelian insight refined by the late Gillian Rose in her political philosophy, we must say that every initial self-description of a person's or a community's interest is necessarily involved in error to the extent that it has not yet fully engaged with what is other to it, with the stranger whose presence may first be felt as a threat or a problem. Good governance and government is always about an engagement with the other, a developing relation that is neither static confrontation nor competition, but an interaction producing some sort of common language and vision, a common vision that could not have been defined in advance of the encounter.

And this leads on to a brief consideration of my third contribution from the Rule, which I have called in a rather shorthand way participation. As we have seen, one of the abbot's tasks is to find the sort of labour appropriate to the capacity of each; but this takes it for granted that each member of the community needs to be active in the common work of the community, even if they are unwell or not particularly competent (chapter 48). Similarly, 'no-one will be excused from kitchen service unless he is sick or engaged in some important business of the monastery' (chapter 35). The monastery both demands from each a positive and distinctive share in sustaining its life, and gives to each the dignity of responsibility for that life, in every prosaic detail. This cannot be a community in which some live at the expense of others, or in which some are regarded as having nothing to offer and are mere pensioners or objects of charity. The apportioning of work is a sign of just that 'listening' to the need of each member to be taken seriously that is at the heart of Benedict's understanding of authority. If , as was suggested earlier, work is the sustaining of a properly human and intelligent corporate ecology, it is not only in creating the material

conditions for this but in the very fact of work being understood as a matter of shared dignity or creativity.

In this perspective, then, a community of states and societies needs to be one in which there is clear commitment to setting free the specific contribution of each partner. This is partly about the diffusion of economic resources, but, as already indicated, it is also something to do with the preservation of minority culture and language. To pursue the metaphor of an ecology for a moment, we are speaking of commitment to human and cultural 'biodiversity'. But this is not a matter of some benevolent central power 'licensing' minorities in what you could call an Indian reservation model; it must involve the kinds of active cultural exchange that help to provide resources for challenging the centralising and impersonal pull of bureaucracy. And it must also be a ground on which there may grow a global commitment to the same principles. If within Europe it is not enough to hand out subsidies to the disadvantaged, it must be recognised that the same applies worldwide. The aim is not to avoid disaster by 'ambulance' provision but to equip and regenerate.

In the era of global marketing, one of the consistently pressing moral questions is how to avoid creating perpetually dependent and powerless enclaves, reservoirs of cheap labour or raw materials in which there is no scope for exercising real economic liberty, for individuals or societies. The Rule presupposes that a viable working community does not permanently split into active and passive members. So its question to our current global politics and economics is to do with how far our global systems have the effect for some societies of reducing instead of enhancing full economic freedom for all their citizens, the freedom which defenders of the global market rightly see as the goal to which we should move and the potential which the global economy opens up. Enforced passivity is bad for the soul, says Benedict; in terms of our present situation, it is hard to deny that economic powerlessness of the kind that rapidly and insensitively enforced globalisation breeds may be fertile ground for destructive behaviour - for the self-destructive spirals of collapsing or failing societies, brutalised and deprived of civil dignity, as well as for the frustration that feeds terrorism. These are not automatic processes, of course, and the role of plain political despotism and corruption in disadvantaged economies cannot be ignored. But when there is intense pressure to open up struggling markets and remove subsidies prematurely or pressure to comply with requirements by international financial bodies that strike at the availability of essential goods, this has its part in the crippling of emergent societies and can undermine advances towards accountable and just government. Gradually, many of our economic institutions a swell as the governments of developed countries have become more aware of these risks; moves towards cancellation of unpayable debt represent an important step away from some of the patterns

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that have prevailed.

If no-one is exempt from the labour both of sustaining and of serving the whole community, no-one should be without the expectation of support and what we now call advocacy. Participation in the common life is also assurance that you will not suffer alone or ignored. European states may argue about social provision, but the fact is that part of the European vision in recent decades has been a conviction of the importance of civil dignities underpinned by publicly resourced care, sometimes direct state provision, sometimes through partnership between state and voluntary agencies. If this diminishes or disappears in the face of economic pressure, we have to ask what the cost is in relation to the trust that a state can command or expect, and to the sense of a guaranteed dignity for all.

I spoke at the beginning of this lecture about the challenge of building a 'spiritually credible' civilisation. Some may say that the focus of what has been said here is unduly political or material. But at the back of my mind in all these reflections has been the question of what material and practical priorities assure and underpin the spiritual liberty which ultimately grounds all other liberties. The Benedictine Rule did not set out to 'save civilisation'; what it did was to define in itself the components of a certain kind of civilisation. You may recall Thomas Merton's exclamation on his first visit to the abbey of Gethsemani, that he had discovered the only real city in America. The way in which the Benedictine contribution to Europe has sometimes been discussed is in terms of a kind of withdrawal into enclaves where the memory of civilisation was preserved, not always fully understood - a sort of archive of cultural treasures. But, while this is not completely wrong, it misses out the positive contribution of Benedictinism as a model of active Christian life in itself; Benedict's monks were creators of community before they were librarians, and the vision of human possibility and dignity contained in Benedictine witness was at least as important as the conservation of classical letters - or rather, it gave to the heritage of classical letters a clear and practical application, animated by faith. If the Rule is to be one of the sources for the conservation and renewal of European civilisation in the centuries to come - granted that these centuries may be every bit as brutally anti-humanist as the so-called Dark Ages - it will be because of this sketch of political virtue, not because of any merely conservatory role.

Of course, the politics of the Rule is not something invented by St. Benedict. It could rightly be said that it is simply a concrete example of the politics of the Body of Christ. The centrality of mutual service, of attention to the distinctive gift of each to all, and above all of the conviction that we are made for contemplative joy - all this is fundamental New Testament anthropology. For the Christian, the vision of the Rule is not an ideal created by some individual political genius, but a reflection of what is

revealed in Jesus and the fellowship of Jesus about the essential character of human beings. What the Rule distinctively does is (at least) two things. It asks what the rhythm of life is that will best set human beings free to advance towards the joy for which they are made, how the priority of praise may be embodied in a responsible adult common life that is fully located in the material world. And it asks what the style of authority is that will enable 'faith beyond resentment', to borrow the title of a recent book by one of the most creative of English-language theologians, James Alison: how does authority operate to set us free from fear of each other, of our own weaknesses and limitations, of our inability to satisfy what we fantasise to be the demands of a distant God? And in balancing inner and outer work, in looking for self-awareness and expansion of the heart, the Rule refuses to make obligation to God and obligation to the common life competitors for the limited number of hours in the day, and refuses to privilege the gifted and articulate, the 'professional'. Living out the politics of the body of Christ will always require us to think hard about authority, about the claims of production and the claims of contemplation. Benedict offers direct and practical help with just these things.

We cannot take it for granted that any political order, European or otherwise, will regard it as a priority to make possible a life of contemplative delight in God the Father. But what we can reasonably ask, in the light of the Rule, is that political order should recognise that it cannot survive without space for some exploration of what human identity is. A modern or postmodern society is unlikely, for good or ill, to be overtly committed to a single ideology; but this does not mean that it will not covertly promote this or that picture of human distinctiveness by the way it arranges its business and governance. A laisser-faire reduction to market principles is not neutral in regard to human selfunderstanding. And a programmatic insistence that religious conviction be relegated to the private sphere reduces the exploration of human identity and awareness to the level of a faintly embarrassing leisure pursuit best kept out of sight as far as possible. The challenge that the politics of the Rule poses is how the public sphere might be able to give space to those practices and institutions that witness to the possibilities of the transcendent; how the 'rumour' is kept alive that there are levels of selfunderstanding and self-giving in service or adoration which keep the world of labour and production in perspective, and expose the world of passive entertainment as a narrowing and trivialising affair. The Rule declares that human communities may exist in which production, reflection and delight can interpenetrate. And it also declares that legitimate authority can be understood as an authority that only requires obedience in the light of practicing it obedience to the law that all hold in common and obedience in the wider sense of attention to the particularities of persons and situations.

We shan't find in the Rule the ingredients of a constitution

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for any state or federation; but we shall find a set of perspectives on political virtue in the presence of God which will give some edge to the questions that Christians should be putting to the prevailing systems of power in our world today and tomorrow. Patron saints are not there to be benign mascots; they are given so that nations and groups and individuals may have identifiable friends in the company of heaven who will give a particular direction and sharpness to the challenges of the gospel. We need to recover Benedict as that kind of patron for our presently confused continent; there is still much to do to spell out further the ways in which, both confronting and affirming, his Rule may open some windows in a rather airless political room and create a true workshop for the spirit (chapter 4). (c) Rowan Williams 2006 For distribution to Benedictine Oblates of the World Community of Christian Meditation [WCCM], and to Oblates of St. Mark’s Anglican Benedictine Abbey, Camperdown Victoria with permission of the Anglican Communion News Service, Canon J M Rosenthal, Secretary.

Oblates from New Zealand

Beginning Again.

Benedictine Wisdom for Living with Illness.

By Mary C. Earle.

A book Review and Reflection.

How I got hold of this book is a bit of a story. I was on my way to visit my friend Desley Deike, who was the UK coordinator before she was diagnosed with cancer, and I stopped off at St Paul’s bookshop by Westminster Cathedral where I run a lunchtime meditation group. After the group I stumbled upon this book and bought two copies, one for me and one for Desley. Since Desley illness has kept her housebound (when she is not hospital bound) I have been visiting her and we have shared about what it means to be a Benedictine Oblate and our common love for WCCM. We have also shared the different ways we have had to face living with illness. Desley has myloma, a cancer of the bones, which has eaten away the vertebrae in her back. Over the last year she has had two Chemotherapy treatments, the last one kept her in hospital for a month.

My own illness is mild by comparison; I have a hiatus hernia so I get a lot of heartburn and generally poor digestion, weight loss and exhaustion. The difficulty with living with my own illness gives me a feel for those who, like Desley, have much worse have to go through. Over the last two months we have been reading this book by Mary Earle and reflecting on it, from our own experience.

Mary Earle is an American Episcopalian priest. Ten years ago her active life was completely altered by having to live with a severe form of pancreatitis. In this book she draws on the wisdom of St Benedict’s rule for learning how to live with chronic illness. In her parish she started up a sharing group for those whose health suffers in various ways: “Illness is illness”, she says, “whatever form it takes we can learn from others”. That has certainly been my experience in my meetings with Desley. Mary Earle’s book encourages the reader to look at their ‘rule of life’. Everyone has a ‘rule of life’; it is how they manage their day/week. Normally, when we are healthy this ‘rule’ revolves around our various activities, interests and responsibilities. When we get ill we have to reassess that ‘rule’. We have to ‘begin again’: “As you begin again”, she writes, “try to know your life as your life with, rather than against or in spite of, your illness”. Taking account of a weakened physical condition we have to make adaptations and learn new behaviours. From her own experience she writes about her new rule: “This was a rule that began with the restrictions caused by the illness. This was a rule whose parameters were determined by a life lived within new limitations, limitations that made me want to rebel, to cry, to give up.

Surprisingly, those same limitations became the

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raw material from which a rule could emerge, once I was guided to see them from a different perspective. I started to apply some creativity and prayer to the enterprise of shaping my new life… As I did this I realised that the illness itself provided the grounding for the new rule. My body, now foreign territory to me in its thoroughly depleted condition, offered the place from which the new rule could grow. Very slowly, I began to see that the rest that the doctor recommended could be one piece of the new rule. The highly restricted diet could be another. Regular ingestion of prescribed medications – something that was tremendously difficult for me in the beginning – became a kind of prayer of the hours.”

How do we arrive at this balance? Mary Earle says that this is through “showing up” by paying attention and becoming more aware of the shape of one’s life with illness. This is like learning a new language. In fact for those in chronic states it is live an intensive language course as we are thrown into the deep end of the unfamiliar territory that is our body. In her group she gets people to list the “givens” that each of them have to live with. It is these “givens” that come from living with illness that become the building blocks for a rule of life. “Begin where you are, not where you are not”. A ‘rule of life’ for healthy people often involves time managing so that one can do more things, be more productive. A ‘rule of life’ that comes from illness often involves subtracting things, letting go of what is too much for us, not filling the day but making space, empty time where we can rest and recover. This may be imposed on us because of the extremity of the illness and its treatment, as has been Desley’s experience. Or, as in my case, it has to be chosen. Desley has been forced to let go of activity, I have had to learn it: If I go to dinner parties every night, if I do the manual work I used to, I get ill. I need what I call ‘space time’. In both Desley’s and my experience we have to admit we are defeated by our bodies. Will power doesn’t work, and they wont be ignored either, our bodies have to be lived with and listened to. It is not easy to listen to a body that is in pain – we either want to command it to shut up, or we want to run away, but we can’t.

Mary Earle says that the physical limitations forced on us by chronic illness often feel like a kind of dying. But if we are attentive we can also discern in our newly curtailed life patterns of resurrection. First of all our new ‘rule of life’ invites us to notice what we need to let go of. Sometimes this can be difficult but also a liberation. As we listen we may uncover real anger over the loss. Perhaps we will discover residual bitterness or resentment but then also we come to “unknow” ourselves as being the sole authors of our existence. This unknowing delivers us from our assumptions, our arrogance, our silly notions that we are in control of our lives, of our selves, of our bodies. Living with

illness, Mary Earle says, often takes us into a dark night of the soul, but when spring comes we are often surprised.

The end of the book is worth quoting at length because it is so well written: “The practice of allowing the illness itself to be the ground for the rule is one of accepting the altered state of your life. To begin again, you must first recognize your life as it is presently configured. That recognition, that seeing, is the first step toward accepting. That accepting allows you to befriend your present circumstances and to dwell in the present moment, even when that is difficult. There, in that present moment, God awaits you. God journeys with you in the shadow of death – death of old life, death of old identity, death of dreams. God delights in you and in your new beginning. You will find the divine presence in ways and places you never expected. You will discover in choosing to begin again that the possibilities for being made new come even at the lip of the grave. Even in the shadow of death, joy remains an incongruous possibility.

Even in the shadow of death God is with us.

Beginning again is the still point in the pattern of dying and rising. A holy pause exists before the dying turns to rising, a moment of choosing, perhaps as short as a breath, perhaps as long as a life. It is a moment of saying “yes”, a moment of deciding that a life lived with God at the center might indeed be a life that is centred. It is a moment of knowing that though the particulars of your life are important, that they are not ultimate in importance. Choosing to begin again, to allow the illness to teach you how to shape a new rule for living in a Godward direction, means opening to something new, something alive, something eternal.

Whatever your illness, whatever the daily realities with which you live, in those details, in those difficulties and triumphs, the rule begins, and you begin again.”

Over the last months, inspired by our common reading of this book, Desley has been sharing with me how she has had to let go simply because she has been too ill to manage things. Even when it comes to her treatment she has had no control over the decisions but has had to trust herself to her doctors. Myloma is incurable and she has had to accept that.

Five of the vertebrae in her back have disintegrated she has had to come to terms with her loss of mobility. With the pummelling of chemotherapy and its resulting sickness she has had to face a loss of clarity of mind. The chemo should help to extend her life three to five years, maybe more but even here the doctors have no final control. Things she wants to do, like helping to run the retreat centre that she set up at Cockfosters, are no longer possible. “It is like

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having your baby taken away at birth” she says sadly. And it is not just the reward of her work she has had to let go (by enforced detachment), she has found it hard to pray as well.

“The spirit is willing”, she says laughing, “but the flesh is weak… All I can do is say the mantra... it is there all the time”. I cannot help feeling that in her physical frailty she has been hollowed out to a purity of heart, and poverty of spirit, that Jesus would call blessed.

“Why am I ill? It is a gift. It has enabled me to savour what is important, my family… and I am grateful for the depth of prayer, the community and the love that is the WCCM.” Stefan Reynolds stefanreynolds@yahoo.co.uk

In fact Desley does consider herself blessed because of the illness: “ I am full of joy because I am blessed, and so thankful for the community, the love I have been shown. I feel so supported”. Part of accepting her condition has been a new joy in the present moment. “I have begun to appreciate the little things… to go slowly… to love nature… to stop and listen”. Desley has always been a people’s person, loving company, but her immobility has meant she has to spend a lot of time on her own now. “I have learnt to appreciate solitude as well now, in fact”, she says smiling, “I’m less lonely now than I was as a healthy person… this is part of the letting go, allowing myself to be in others hands, receiving the care and love, acknowledging it… In the end I am realising that perfection in what one does is not important, relationships are.” Activity, Desley says, is often a way of avoidance, a way of not noticing. If we give space in our lives then we learn to listen.

The first step in the process of transcendence and towards union with God happens when we turn at depth to prayer. This is a moment of truth. It is a moment when we are confronted with the fact of our existence and are challenged to accept the gift of it with generous simplicity. It is a moment of silence – what is there to say or think? – and a moment of love. In this moment of decision, we turn aside from everything with faith.

This is the abandonment, the letting go of prayer. It is casting out into the depth of God as the ground of being and allowing ourselves to fall back into our source. It may seem – because of the language we have to use to describe it – like a retrogressive movement. We call it a ‘going back’, a ‘returning’. And in a sense it is. It is the returning home of the prodigal child who understood that his reality was to be found at home and not in the restless pursuit of illusion abroad. The early Christian monks used to describe it as a wandering in a land of ‘unlikeness’ and a return to our real likeness as images of God. This aspect of prayer as a restoration, a returning or homecoming, is profoundly important to us. It emphasizes the humanity of the journey we are all called to make. It suggests some of the tenderest and most intimate reasons that God is known to us, and described by Jesus to us as ‘Father’.

I recommend Mary Earle’s book to Oblates who have to live with illness. It is a book from the heart but also a practical book. I wasn’t able to get into some of the more ‘imaginative’ ways of prayer she encourages, as a Meditator I am too long grounded in the apophatic approach. However it has made me read the rule of Benedict again realising that one of the key themes is balance, a balance where we find our place with others and the space to be ourselves.

‘Beginning Again’ is also a good book for sharing: Sharing our vulnerability, the thorns in our flesh, the frailty of our body which keeps us down to earth and humble, as the ladder of our body and soul is lifted up to God. Living with illness is also one of the best ways of fulfilling Benedict’s advice to keep death always before our eyes thereby getting the right perspective on what is important in life.

During our time together, in our little Oblate cell, Desley and I have shared something of our experience of living with illness. The difference is in the degree of letting go demanded of us. Desley has had to accept space; I’ve had to make it. Desley has been forced to let go of nearly all activity; I’ve had to learn to let go of some. I have a choice to get well; she, in her radical detachment, has had even that choice removed, accepting what comes. “However”, she says, “it’s the same process of listening, paying attention, it is just a question of how much surrender is demanded… and it is the same end; an ongoing conversion and the arriving at stability, stabilising our lives… in the end what we are accepting in our lives is love”. When I ask her if she has no regrets and whether she suffers from self-blame (as I often do - believing that I make myself ill) she says no:

Monastery without Walls: The Spiritual Letters of John Main, edited by Laurence Freeman osb. p. 80,81

Heavenly Father, open our hearts to the silent presence of the spirit of your Son. Lead us into that mysterious silence where your love is revealed to all who call.

Maranatha.... Come, Lord Jesus.

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PURITY OF HEART THE WISDOM OF THE DESERT Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything Abba Moses After Christianity became established within the Roman Empire, some of its zeal disappeared and by the fourth century A.D. the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia had become home to large groups of Christian monks and nuns who had renounced the family and city life to search for a more authentic relationship with God in the austerity of the desert.

At this point I think it is important to realize that these desert Christians of the 4th.C saw the spiritual journey very much in terms of a fairly violent struggle between good and evil, God and the Devil. It was a dualism that saw the body in opposition to the soul. Perhaps we understand this now as a more gentle movement from darkness, an acknowledgement of ‘the shadow side’, into the light. As St. John says, ‘God is light in whom there is no darkness at all’.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers modelled themselves on the founder of desert monasticism, St. Anthony, and following his example lived in solitary cells during the week, performed manual work and prayed alone. On Sundays they came together to celebrate the Eucharist and discuss their thoughts and internal struggles with the ‘abba’ or spiritual father, or in the case of women, with their spiritual mother or ‘amma’. By the end of the fourth century, it is estimated there were 5000 monks and nuns in the Egyptian center of Nitria alone and another 600 in remoter Cells.

In the fourth century, Evagrius Ponticus, one of the best known of the Desert Fathers said If you want to know God, learn to know yourself first. The search for God begins from below, from within us - rather than from outside by searching the heavens above. Evagrius was a teacher of John Cassian whose writings became available to St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism. It was the work of John Cassian which later inspired John Main in his teaching on Christian meditation and which has now become part of our practice as meditators.

This striving for authenticity and sincerity is perhaps a goal we as meditators share with the Desert Fathers and Mothers as we seek through our discipline, to become more open to the Spirit of Christ within us. Like them, we also withdraw in silence into our ‘virtual’ cell for parts of each day.

Abba Poemon said, Vigilance, self-knowledge and discernment; these are the guides of the soul. And in this quest for radical selfhonesty he said, Teach your mouth to say that which you have in your heart. This great search takes place largely within the solitude of the cell as Abba Moses said - Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.

These men and women of the desert can be seen as the psychologists of their day. Certainly many people travelled great distances to seek their advise. The short, pithy sayings that have come down to us, challenge our spirituality rather than giving pat answers to life’s dilemmas. There is a call to solitude and to face our shadow side in the attempt to know ourselves more intimately.

The search begins from below, within us, by asking ‘Who am I?’ as a way to discovering the God within. Jesus tells us the Kingdom of God is within you - but discovering it requires great humility. It can make us vulnerable by stripping away many of the ego’s defenses and also by being more open to the unexpected ways in which God’s grace can affect our lives. The wisdom of the desert tells us that as long as we seek to escape the truth of our own existence by erecting barriers around our weaknesses, we will never taste God’s love at the core of our being.

There are many sayings about the cell. A brother questioned Abba Hierax saying Give me a word. How can I be saved? The old man said to him, Sit in your cell, and if you are hungry, eat, if you are thirsty, drink; only do not speak evil of anyone, and you will be saved. The Abba tells us three simple things: be connected to place (sit in your cell), be connected to the body (eat and drink according to need), and be connected to your neighbour (do not speak ill of anyone).

The simplicity of this spirituality speaks powerfully to us today. Abba Hierax reminds us of three things: * The need to find stability in life - not to flee when the going gets tough but to persevere through the hard times. * To practise moderation in all things – to be able to distinguish between genuine ‘needs’ and superficial ‘wants’ – to respect what the Benedictine nun Joan Chittester calls ‘enoughness’ in life – not to indulge in excess. * To remember Christ’s injunction to let those without sin caste the first stone – not to judge our neighbour but to show compassion to all.

Desert spirituality leads us into the mystery of God and the mystery of being human. It is not the moralizing theology we often find in Church today. It doesn’t try to solve the problems of our existence and our relationship with God by prescribing a list of do’s and don’ts and setting unattainable, idealistic goals. It seeks transformation of self rather than conformity to a set of rules. It emphasizes simplicity and practise rather than theology and theory. As John Main and Laurence Freeman constantly remind us as meditators – it is the ‘practise’ that teaches us. Sit in your ‘cell’, sit in the silence and say the mantra faithfully.

The wisdom of the Desert Fathers is a ‘spirituality from below’ that believes the way to God is through selfknowledge, being grounded in ‘the earth’, the ‘humus’ which gives us the word ‘humility’. It acknowledges that though made in the image of God, we are fallible beings constantly beset by confusion and temptations – all the obstacles our human nature presents us with in our search for God. It is a spirituality firmly rooted in our humanity.

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In Fr. Laurence’s words, this wisdom teaches rather than preaches. ‘Spirituality from below’ points out that we come to God through careful self-observation and sincere selfknowledge. We don’t find out what God wants from us in the high ideals we set for ourselves. Often these merely express our ambition – our ego. This striving may only be the desire to make ourselves look better in the eyes of others and of God. ‘Spirituality from below’ – the spirituality of the cell, believes we discover God’s will for us only if we have the courage to descend into our own reality and deal honestly with our passions, our drives, our needs and desires. This is a way of humility, of stripping away the false images and masks we carefully put in place to protect the ego, and points towards true ‘poverty of spirit’. This fearless search may open us to the gift of God’s grace. This is an ancient search but as modern as today.

Amma Syncletica tells us:

There is a labour and great struggle for the impious who are converted to God, but after that comes inexpressible joy. A man who wants to light a fire first is plagued by the smoke, and the smoke drives him to tears, yet finally he gets the fire he wants. So also it is written: Our God is a consuming fire. Hence we ought to light the divine fire in ourselves with labour and with tears.

And Abba Pastor said that Abba John the Dwarf had prayed to the Lord and the Lord had taken away all his passions, so he became passionless. “And in this condition he went to one of the elders and said: You see before you a man who is completely at rest and has no more temptations. The elder said: Go and pray to the Lord to command some struggle be stirred up in you, for the soul is matured only in battles. And when the temptations started up again he did not pray that the struggle be taken away from him, but only said: Lord, give me the strength to get through the fight.”

But perhaps amidst the struggle, this acknowledgement of the shadow side – the journey into greater self-awareness that takes place within the cell, the most important thing to remember is that we are never alone. In concluding I offer the following three quotes – the first from Thomas Merton, the second from the Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict and the third from the Gospel of John.

Thomas Merton refers to God’s seeking us out in the poverty of the cell. He acknowledges the painfulness which may accompany this quest for the revelation of God’s love but also points towards the great joy that awaits the seeker.

I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is My shortcut to your soul.

And St. Benedict’s great words of encouragement to us Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as

we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. (Prologue 48-49) In John’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples he must leave them but offers comfort in their distress with the promise of the Holy Spirit.

If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you for-ever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with and will be in you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you. (John 14: 14,16,17,27) References: Gruen, A. (1994) ‘Heaven Begins Within You’. The Crossroad Publishing Company, NY Keller, D. (2005) ‘Oasis of Wisdom. The worlds of the Desert Fathers and Mothers’. Liturgical Press Collegeville, Minnesota Kelly, M ‘The Challenge of the Interior: Monasticism and the Desert in an Australian Context.’ www.benedictine.org.au Mayers, G. (1996) ‘Listen to the Desert’.Triunph Books. Liguori, Missouri Merton, T.(1961/75) ‘The Wisdom of the Desert’. Sheldon Press, London Williams, R.(2003) ‘Silence and Honey Cakes” Medio Media, Lion Publishing, Oxford, England

Ann Bergman – Sydney, Australia anniebergman@hotmail.com “Those who follow the Rule of St. Benedict and the spirit of the Rule are those who humbly search for the way to realize their potentiality in God. It seems to me that the supreme importance of the monastic life both for the Church and for the world is that it is a sign of the reality of God’s presence in our midst.

The message that the monk has to give to the world arises not in the first place from his words but from his life itself. His life has its priorities arranged very simply. And in the first place is his whole-hearted search for God. The effectiveness of the message that he has to give arises from the depth of the personal commitment with which this search is pursued.

And that is the power of the Rule of St. Benedict for all of us whether we are in the monastic order or whether we associate ourselves with the monastic order. The message that those who follow St. Benedict’s vision have is the message Lift up your hearts.

Open your eyes to what is eternally real, the new creation and seek the purity of heart that will open your eyes. What the Benedictine vision has to say above all is know from your own heart, from your own experience that you were created for infinite expansion of spirit.”

John Main Community of Love, p.42

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BOOK CORNER BENEDICTINE DAILY PRAYER: A Short Breviary

Compiled and Edited by Maxwell E. Johnson, Oblate of Saint John’s Abbey and the Monks of Saint John’s Abbey.

Collegeville, Minnesota. Liturgical Press, 2005. “…..As a book of prayer with the word Benedictine in its title this volume is, obviously not an edition of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours anyway but is an office or prayer book intended for those with some form of association with or attraction to Benedictine monasticism. As such, it is intended in a special way for Benedictine oblates and countless others who wish to pray a form of the Liturgy of the Hours with objectively solid and traditional prayer patterns which have roots specifically in the fifteenhundred-plus years of liturgical prayer within the Benedictine monastic tradition of preferring nothing to the Opus Dei, the Divine Office (Rule of St. Benedict, 43).”

From the Introduction p.vi

are gathered around a number of themes relating to the practice of Christian meditation as well as being a rich spiritual treasury for meditation. This is a wonderful resource for anyone looking for profound and beautiful spiritual quotations.

Published by Canterbury Press and available soon.

+ + +

WORD INTO SILENCE, John Main

This book offers a twelve step programme in learning meditative prayer, but as Fr. John says, it is not so much about mastering a set of techniques, or escaping from life’s challenges and difficulties, or cultivating a selfconscious piety. Its purpose is to teach us how to be at peace with ourselves in order that we might let the presence of Christ flood our whole lives and our relationships.

This book has been re-published by Canterbury Press and will be available soon.

+ + +

Medio Media has this book in stock and is highly recommended.

+ + + MONASTERY without WALLS: The Spiritual Letters of JOHN MAIN.

edited by Laurence Freeman osb Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2006

“This collection of John Main’s letters, revised and edited

by Laurence Freeman, was first published as two volumes: Letters from the Heart (Crossroad 1982) and The Present Christ (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985). The present edition has been edited to better represent John Main’s thought for contemporary readers in gender inclusive language.”

Editor’s note: I have used quotes from this book in this newsletter to give a taste of the riches contained in these Spiritual Letters of Fr. John.

+ + + DOOR TO SILENCE

This is a collection of short quotes, aphorisms and words of wisdom from John Main. The quotes, which are intended as springboards for contemplation, are drawn from his talks, letters, journals and other unpublished sources. They

A Benedictine community in the understanding of St. Benedict’s Rule is simply a gathering together in faith by those who journey together with the light of Christ as their guide. It knows that this light is love. So, by their love for one another they let the light of their guide burn more brightly. They know the light as an emanation of their Master’s Word constantly spoken in their midst, one to another daily. They try to listen to it all the time and to respond with ever deeper attentiveness. The wonder of such a community is that, despite its faults, it shares in its Master’s transcendence of all that blocks or refracts his light. It is because the light passes freely through an obediential community that it can share itself and its journey with others. Even those whose outward circumstances of life are very different from life in the monastery can share directly in its experience. This is what makes the oblate community possible.

Monastery without Walls: The Spiritual Letters of John Main, edited by Laurence Freeman osb, p.105

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Benedictine Oblate Newsletter - No. 6 - Christmas 2006

HESED COMMUNITY Hesed Community is a community within The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM).

“Hesed” is Hebrew for God’s Loving Kindness. The community was established in 1981 and this year we celebrated our 25th Anniversary.

The community is based on Benedictine spirituality and our mission is the teaching and practice of Christian meditation as taught by John Main, OSB, and to nurture the contemplative life. Our ‘Centre’ is located in a residential neighborhood in Oakland, California. The director and only resident, is Barbara Hazzard, OSB. Currently, there are approximately 75 members of Hesed: oblates, family brothers and sisters, and the extended community.

Currently there are 28 Oblates and 4 Oblate-novices.

When a person becomes an oblate of Hesed, he/she simultaneously becomes an oblate of The WCCM. In order to begin the oblate process a person must have been participating in the Community for at least one year. Since new oblate-novices are received at the community celebrations in December and May, the first step is to be recognized as an “anticipant.” This allows the person to attend the monthly oblate meetings held on a Saturday morning from 10:00 - 12:00.

The second step is to be received as an oblate-novice. A person is an oblate-novice for two to three years. During that time, he/she continues to meditate twice daily, reads a portion of the Rule of Benedict daily, attends the oblate meetings and participates in other scheduled community prayer times as appropriate. We meet for Lectio every Monday evening at 7:30 and this is very well attended.

Oblates and oblate-novices are also encouraged to have a spiritual director. For those who live at a distance, the minimum requirement to be an active Oblate of Hesed is attendance at the monthly Oblate meeting and regular interaction with the Director.

After two years, or three years as appropriate, the oblatenovice discerns, along with the director whether or not this will be a lifetime path. If so, the permanent oblation is made at the Community celebration.

For additional information about “Hesed” visit the website at - www.hesedcommunity.org Barbara Hazzard OSB – hesedone@aol.com

INTERNATIONAL OBLATE RETREAT - PILGRIMAGE ITALY 2008 In response to requests from oblates over the years for an ‘oblate’ retreat Fr. Laurence has kindly offered to lead a retreat-pilgrimage in 2008. An early notice was sent out via the international coordinators and we have received some

expressions of interest. The maximum number that we can accommodate is 53. Preference will be give to those in the oblate community.

The silent retreat will commence at the Monastery Rosa Mistica in Torrazzetta, North of Milan that the Italian Meditation Community has recently agreed to develop as a retreat centre. From there we will travel to Monte Oliveto then on to Rome. The silence will be held when the retreat commences at Torrazzetta, and at Monte Oliveto. At other times our conversation will enable ‘community’ to become a reality for us as we live in community and share in the Rule, meditation and prayer that draws us together in this way of life.

Torrazzetta: 3 nights full board Arrive Monday 31st March – depart Thursday 3rd April Coach - Torrazzetta to Monte Oliveto – 5 to 6 hours.

Monte Oliveto: 2 nights full board Arrive Thursday 3rd April – depart Saturday 5th April Coach – Monte Oliveto to Rome – approx 3 to 4 hours Rome: 3 nights room and breakfast Arrive Saturday 5th April - depart Tuesday 8th April ** Sunday 6th April –coach to Subiaco for the day.

Monday 7th April – Morning visit by coach to San Anselmo, if possible. We will conclude in the afternoon/evening with a shared meal as we bid our farewells and depart on the 8th April or later.

Cost per person: Double/Shared - Euro 600; Single - Euro 660 Note: Meals not included in the above - traveling Torrazzetta > Monte Oliveto; the day at Subiaco and while in Rome, midday and evening.

Rome --- accommodation will be at: Oasi Casa Tra Noi, Via Monte del Gallo, 113, 00165 – Roma Tel: 06/3938 7355 – 06/3938 7446 This is 800 meters from the Vatican in a quiet zone. Rooms are air conditioned and have phones. **If you prefer to stay longer in Rome at this place you may book and make the payment directly with Casa Tra Noi. To register a serious expression of interest please send the following information to Trish Panton. (see contact details on page 16).

Name, postal address (including country), Telephone Accommodation preferred: double / single / shared.

Email address. If no email, the name and email of a person who will accept emails for you, if at all possible.

I am most grateful to Catherine Charriere from the Italian community, who is continuing to liaise with the various contacts in Italy and Clem Sauvé who is assisting with the finances. There will be other members of our community who will be helping along the way and in anticipation I also offer them our ‘thank you’.

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Benedictine Oblate Newsletter - No. 6 - Christmas 2006

OBLATE COORDINATORS U.S.A.: Greg Ryan Email: gjryan@optonline.net U.K.: Rita McKenna Email: akarita1@hotmail.com NEW ZEALAND: Stan Martin Email: stanman@xtra.co.nz ITALY: Devis Maccarelli Email: macdev@tiscali.it IRELAND: Cork: Sr Margaret Collier Email: mgtcollier@yahoo.co.uk Dublin: Eilish Tennent Email: eilishtennent@yahoo.co.uk CANADA: Don Myrick Email: tdmyrick@magma.ca BRAZIL: Carlos Siqueira Email : wccm@uol.com.br AUSTRALIA: Trish Panton Email: pantonamdg@ozemail.com.au

DECEMBER 2006 EDITOR: Trish Panton P.O. Box 555 Pennant Hills, NSW Australia 1715 Tel and Fax: 61 2 9489 1780 Mobile: 0409 941 605 Email: pantonamdg@ozemail.com.au

AUSTRALIAN DESIGN: Leon Milroy PO Box 246 Uralla NSW 2358 Email: leon@urallamulti-media.com.au Visit the Community’s Website at: http://www.wccm.org Be sure to visit the Oblate pages recently updated by Greg Ryan.

Australia’s Website is on http://www.christianmeditationaustralia.org

Please notify the 0blate coordinator in your country if you have changed your address.

“All of us falter, all of us easily lose heart. The purpose of a Benedictine community is, as St. Benedict tells us, that we should encourage one another – and encourage one another gently. It takes all of us a long time to come to the perfection of obedience, to the perfection of chastity, to the perfection of poverty. But we do come to that perfection by the power of the love of that little Child whose feast we now prepare for. The monastic life and the vision of St. Benedict is only possible because we believe that that Child is the Son of God. That Child comes to infuse each one of us with light and life. We would like to be able to share our monastic vision with the whole world but not everybody can understand it. It is a wonderful thing …. That you, as oblates, can understand it.”

Community of Love, John Main osb p.69

San Anselmo the Benedictine Monastery University in Rome