Cowley Magazine Spring 2012

Volume 38 • Number 3

Spring 2012

IN THIS ISSUE: In the sixth Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Living article, Br. James Koester shows how, in baptism, we share in the divine life.

Br. Mark Brown suggests a new promise to add to the Baptismal Covenant.

Poetry for Holy Week: Br. Geoffrey Tristram unlocks the beauty of George Herbert’s “Easter Wings,” and Br. Jonathan Maury illuminates the Easter “Exsultet.”

Br. Curtis Almquist tells the inspiring story of the Ecclesia walking pilgrimage to Emery House.

What does vocation feel like? In an interview, Br. Tom Shaw speaks of his own experience of call to SSJE. Br. Kevin Hackett treads into the depths of our lives as baptized Christians.

Letter from the Superior | 2011 Annual Fund Report | Voices of Friends Letter from the Fellowship | Recommended Reading Lists | Community News Update your address with us or offer someone a gift subscription of Cowley magazine.

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We welcome hearing your thoughts on this issue of Cowley.

Visit www.SSJE.org/cowleymagazine to share comments, ask questions, or see Cowley in color.

Cover photo: The Monastery’s Coptic cross, decked in ribbons, for the Palm Sunday procession.

©2012 by The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, North America

A Letter from the Superior Dear Members of the Fellowship of Saint John and other Friends Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE

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lessed John 23rd was asked, on the day of his installation as Pope, “This must be the greatest day of your life?”

He replied at once, “No, the greatest day of my life was my baptism!” In baptism we are made members of Christ’s Body and, in the words of the Greek fathers, we “receive the holy and unbreakable seal of rebirth.” This issue of Cowley takes up the theme of baptism and includes a reflection by Br. Mark Brown on the Baptismal Covenant, and an article by Br. James Koester on how baptism enables us to share in the divine life. We hope you enjoy thinking with us in these pages about the great event of every Christian life.

As a parish priest I always took great joy in administering the sacra-

ment of baptism to children and adults alike. Each baptism has touched me in a different way. Holding tiny babies at the font, surrounded by adoring parents and godparents; baptizing two brothers by total immersion in a local swimming pool; baptizing adults at 4 o’clock in the morning in the midst of the wonderful Easter Vigil. Among my most moving experiences was baptizing an eighty-two year old man called George. He had recently come to faith but felt shy about being baptized, thinking that he was surely just too old! I tried to reassure him and I remember reading to him the parable of the workers in the vineyard.

He grew to love this parable, in which he recognized a loving and generous God who gives the same reward to each

‘‘I love to sit in my stall in Chapel early in the morning, facing towards the East, and watch the dawn light slowly begin to shine through the beautiful blue windows . . . ”

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and every one of us, however late in life we are called. We read it at his baptism.

A year later George died, and that same parable was read at his funeral. It was a beautiful, moving, and deeply joyful occasion as we commended him to the Lord who had first called him to life and who had now called him to the fullness of eternal life.

Baptism, at whatever age and in whatever circumstances, is the gateway to new and eternal life, and our community is experiencing that new life promised us in so many different ways.

We Brothers continue to give thanks to God for the gift of our renewed Monastery and Guesthouse and we continue to give thanks for all of you who have helped make it all possible. I love to sit in my stall in Chapel early in the morning, facing towards the East, and during the chanting of the psalms, to watch the dawn light slowly begin to shine through the beautiful blue windows on either side of the high altar. It is a daily reminder, “new every morning,” of God’s faithfulness and love. We are also heartened by the presence of our guests who are enjoying the newly refurbished facilities in our Guesthouse. We would love to make our guest ministry better known, both here and at Emery House, and to welcome men and women who have never been on retreat before. Do please spread the word.

We are delighted to welcome Jim Woodrum, John Braught, and Patrick Bergquist, whom we recently received as postulants. Our Rule states, “we shall often pray to the Father for the gift of new members . . . who bring with them the promise of new life for our brotherhood.” We have already been enriched by their presence among us, and we are very encouraged by the number of new men who are actively considering our life. Please pray for new vocations.

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We continue to be blessed and supported in so many ways by the presence of our interns. Rob, Nancy, and Ruben are living at the Monastery, and Tedi and Cassandra at Emery House. We are currently interviewing men and women for the new program starting in September. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please do encourage them to check out our website.

The internet has now become firmly part of the world in which we all live, and through our website we are able to reach people throughout the world and share our ministry with them. For some years now we have put our sermons and other spiritual materials online, and they have been well received. Over the past months we have been very moved by comments received from those who subscribe to “Brother, Give Us a Word,” our online daily devotional. It is truly wonderful to know that more than 3,000 people from all over the world are praying with us every morning!

Emery House remains a stunningly beautiful place, where it is so easy to feel the presence of God. The bees and the chickens are thriving, and there are plans for developing a modest-sized kitchen garden. We are currently in conversation with expert advisors about the right way to develop the ministry of Emery House.

As we look forward to celebrating again the life-giving events of Holy Week and Easter, we are full of hope for an exciting future, trusting in God, and we feel very grateful for the loving support and encouragement that we receive every day from you, our friends and benefactors.

Faithfully,

Geoffrey Tristram SSJE Superior SSJE

The Gift of a Balanced Life Living the Baptismal Covenant Mark Brown, SSJE

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“balanced life” can sometimes seem like the unicorn of the spiritual quest: something wonderful we’ve heard about but haven’t actually seen. We may have some notion of what a well-balanced life would be like and even some desire for it. But the extent to which we achieve balance varies enormously from time to time, place to place, person to person. Most of us, I expect, would like to be more intentional about how we live, but often find ourselves caught up in the strong currents of life that give us very little discretion and few occasions to feel “balanced.”

And yet, there are seasons of life, and some do afford the opportunity to explore more intentional living, perhaps even to adopt a rule of life. (See Br. David Vryhof’s very helpful workbook “Living Intentionally,” which was an insert in the Summer 2011 Cowley and is available on our website.) A basic pattern for intentional living is also mapped out in

the Baptismal Covenant – very concise, but expansive in implications. It is in the Book of Common Prayer (p. 304-5) and can be found on page 8 of this issue.

In the Covenant, we seek God’s help in continuing in the apostles’ teaching, breaking bread and prayers, repenting, proclaiming the Gospel, seeking and serving Christ in others, loving our neighbors, striving for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being – all of which are integral to a Christian way of living. A “balanced life,” that is, a Christian balanced life, would embody all these things in some way. One way to start a more intentional way of living consonant with our Baptismal Covenant would be to try to do something each day from each of the categories. Perhaps a photocopy of the Covenant fastened to the refrigerator door or bathroom mirror could serve as a helpful reminder?

As rich as it is, I think there’s one thing missing from the Covenant. As it stands, the promises remind us of our relationship with God and responsibility toward others. It reflects much Christian teaching that is intended to counteract our natural inclination toward selfishness and self-absorption. But I wonder if that’s the only or best place to begin.

I’ve imagined a new Baptismal Covenant promise, which I’d put first in the sequence, right after the final words of the Creed, where we affirm our belief in

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resurrection and life everlasting: Celebrant Will you receive the gift of life as your most treasured possession, using and enjoying it in awe and wonder and gratitude?

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I will, with God’s help.

When we give someone we love a gift, we usually hope that the recipient will have some appreciation for it, will use it and, indeed, will enjoy it.

A growing appreciation for the gift of life, the way we live and even how we enjoy life, honors the giver of the gift. It strikes me as entirely appropriate that, before we make any other promises, we acknowledge the fact of our existence (!) and the life we’ve been given. It strikes me as appropriate that before we make any other promises, we pause in wonder at the magnificence of God’s creation and our place in it as living beings.

Acknowledging the wonder and mystery of our own existence (and existence itself) can help us claim a more balanced life. It also strikes me as a good place to stand to make a covenant – and a good place to return to, even daily. If we hadn’t been given the gift of life, we wouldn’t be aware of a God to believe in or have the occasion to make any promise at all. The Baptismal Covenant maps out how we ought to live in a moral universe – but even before there is “moral” there is “universe.” Existence itself – and our place in it – is a fact we too seldom appreciate, and never fully.

Why is there something and not nothing (as Leibniz put it)? How amazing that I am alive, that we are alive to wonder at these things! We are often far too quick to slide past the first things on our way to the last things But I think that the foundation of a “balanced life” is a sense of awe, wonder, and gratitude for the gift of life itself – both the life of eternity and 6

this present life.

Each of the Baptismal promises is stated very economically, but each has vast implications. For example, what would it actually look like to “respect the dignity of every human being”?

There is an almost overwhelming expansiveness to the ramifications of that.

And what would it be like for us to truly seek Christ in all persons?

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Receiving the gift of life as a “most treasured possession, using and enjoying it in awe and wonder and gratitude” has far-reaching implications as well. Awe and wonder at the gift of life itself can be a kind of lens through which we see the other promises of the Covenant. The more I am aware of the mystery and vastness of Christ within my own self, the more I will be able to know his presence in others. The more I am aware of my own dignity as a human being made in the image and likeness of God, the more I will be able to acknowledge the dignity of every other human being.

Starting in wonder and gratitude for the gift of our own lives has broad implications for the way we balance the various components of our lives. Whenever the subject of a “balanced life” comes up, the conversation usually turns to the topic of self-care. This is especially true for clergy, who spend enormous amounts of time and energy serving the needs of others (which is, of course, integral to the Christian way of life.) It is also true for mothers of young children, people in very demanding careers, and countless others.

But a foundation of awe and gratitude for the gift of life itself offers a bit of a

corrective and invites us to cherish our own lives, even as we seek and serve Christ in others. It invites us to explore ways of maintaining our own health and emotional well-being as worthy goals in themselves and as expressions of gratitude to the Giver of life.

Cherishing our own lives, caring for them as gifts from God, and even enjoying them does not preclude risking our lives or even laying them down for the sake of another. We may indeed be called to “the last full measure of devotion,” as Lincoln put it at Gettysburg.

And, of course, we remember that we belong to the Body of Christ, a body once crucified for the sake of the world and, in the centuries since, often martyred. But what would it mean to give up a life we did not cherish?

Although a life artfully balanced, with components finely calibrated, may be as elusive as the mythical unicorn, striving for some greater degree of balance and even delight in living is not only consistent with Christian faith and practice, but, I would maintain, integral to it. What we might call the “Christian art of living” is also a great way to say “Thank you, God!”

During the Kids4Peace visit to the Monastery, the Brothers and visitors witnessed together how song can express “awe and wonder and gratitude” at the many gifts of this life.

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The Baptismal Covenant Celebrant Do you believe in God the Father?

People I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

Celebrant Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? People I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Celebrant Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?

People I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Celebrant Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

People I will, with God’s help.

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A Letter from the Fellowship

The Great Ship Lisbeth Liles

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ne month after my Emery House internship ends, I drive up to Cambridge for the renovation celebration at the Monastery. I walk through the busyness of Harvard Square, turning behind the Charles Hotel to the shortcut I remember from my days as a graduate student – the line of parked taxis, the wooden fence separating the Monastery from the apartment buildings I once mistook it also to be, the wide sidewalk of Memorial Drive, with the Charles River sparkling in the sun and cars flying past on their Saturday morning errands.

The outer trappings look exactly as I remember, and I am curious about what will happen when I walk through the front doors of the church. Not too many weeks ago, I would have entered through the back parking lot, slipped into the pews through the vestment room, taken my seat alongside the Brothers. Today I am one of the masses come to mass.

As I approach, I remember my first impressions of the Monastery – the tall wooden fence offering tantalizing glimpses at the cloister gardens within, the filtered sunlight in the refectory when I was invited for an occasional meal, my frequent but irregular attendance at services. I preferred the sparse containment of the Friday morning Eucharist to the Tuesday evening one and, though it was often hard to convince myself to get out of bed early enough, never regretted waking slowly to the day as the Brothers’ words of prayer unfolded

around me, echoing off the hushed stone walls.

Today the Monastery is packed, just as Br. James had warned. Someone moves over to offer me a place to stand at the back, behind the organ, and from there I can glimpse all the people crowded into the seats. The renovation has done its work – this full, the church is still a comfortable place to be, even as I stand half-hidden behind the organ with my back against the rough stone walls.

With my eyes closed I can see the deep-hued stained glass windows reaching up through the walls; the saints guarding the side chapels; the marbled floors that made such an impression on those early Friday mornings now several years ago. I remember the dark tiles best, their deep green mottled with swirls of white, an image of the raging ocean upon which the breath of God sweeps in the first words of Genesis. Then the light tiles that intersect them diagonally and calmly – a theological checkerboard. A display of the coexistence of light and dark, the primordial chaos not covered but contained by a latticework of stepping stones, a bridge by which we worshippers may safely travel through the chaos of the often-stormy sea of life.

I have often thought of Episcopal churches as ships, not in the least because many I have visited were built with great wooden roofs that look for all the world like a huge boat simply turned upside down. The mother ship steers

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A Letter from the Fellowship

a course through the ocean of life; the parishioners pilot alongside as part of the fleet. Myself, I join up for a time, anchor my small dinghy in their midst, then push off again to travel, weathering the oceans as best I can until I happen across another large ship in whose shadow I may take shelter. In my transitory twenties, I am frequently envious of those who claim a more permanent arrangement. From where I stand, half behind the organ, I can see the heads of so many worshippers bobbing along in the waves.

A great fleet of souls gathered from both near and far, the little boats crowded alongside this great, renovated flagship, to pause and worship together in celebration and communion.

Then I can glimpse through the side doors where the procession has begun to gather, Br. Geoffrey in his red Presider’s robes, a handful of unfamiliar faces – the new interns, I realize, and I wonder briefly if I am jealous of them. If I, too, want to be again part of this worship from the inside, to stand on deck as one of the crew. I remember my time at Emery House: the first guest I greeted on behalf of the Brothers, the first time I took a pile of dishes through the kitchen doors marked “Brothers and Staff only,” my first responsibility in the daily services (where I promptly read the wrong passage). The organ pounds out the last few notes of the prelude, then lapses into silence. The incense drifts ever upwards.

The parishioners shift restlessly, pro10

grams rustling, and in the hush before the service begins I am glad to be one of them. I am glad to stand here beside them, unsure of which hymn is next or what prayers will come. I am glad to have a place for my own little rowboat, to have made my way here today out of the chaos of the storm, to bob along in the waves as we all come back to shelter by the great ship that guides our way.

And I am glad, profusely glad, for the too-brief time that I spent aboard it, for the towline that I only now realize has been trailing along beside me this past month as I set out alone again.

Wherever I wander, however far the waves may push me away, the length of rope forged by my internship will always provide a sure and steady means of return. It may be some time, even many years, before I may enjoy the kind of stability to sail as a member of a parish fleet. In the meantime, while I no longer live aboard SSJE’s great ship, neither do I float the ocean alone.

This day in September, my towline lies slack at the bottom of my lifeboat.

Tomorrow it will stretch taut again. I will need to return to Emery House periodically to let it rest, for repairs, perhaps even to add some lengths now and then.

For now, for the time being, it is enough to know that it is there. The organ picks up again, thundering loud from where I stand, the programs rustle, and I join the fleet in song as the procession, and celebration, begins.

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“Rejoice now!” in the Light of Christ Jonathan Maury, SSJE

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stone-struck flint flings forth a spark in a flash, igniting gnarled bits of twigs, which in turn gradually kindle dry wood into flame. Burning slowly, the dead wood is transformed into energy.

Rising upward, gathering strength, the fire begins to dispel the pre-dawn darkness of the early spring night and to illumine the faces of the faithful who await the light. The white-and-gold vested Presider prays, “Sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light.”

The towering pillar of wax is incised with the sign of the cross “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end…” and marked with symbols of God’s eternal now “…the Alpha, and the Omega. All time belongs to him, and all the ages. To him be glory and power, through every age for ever.”

Last year’s Paschal candle, marked with Alpha and Omega, and pierced with grains of incense in red waxen nails, signs of God’s sacrifice.

Grains of incense in red waxen nails, signs of God’s sacrifice, are inserted at the cross’ five points. “By his holy and glorious wounds may Christ the Lord guard us and keep us.”

Lighting the great candle from the newly kindled fire, the Presider prays, “May the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.” The Deacon takes up the Paschal Candle and carrying it before the assembly, leads them from the garden into the still-darkened church. Stopping at three points and lifting high the great light, the Deacon intones, each time at a higher pitch: “The light of Christ.” At each station, the people respond, “Thanks be to God” and, as they enter the narthex, light their handheld candles. The waxen pillar of fire, placed in its stand at the center of the choir and censed with sweet-smelling smoke by the Deacon, becomes a glowing pillar of cloud as well.

And now the Deacon sings the Exsultet, the Easter proclamation of good news. Bathed in the light of Christ’s resurrection, those gathered in the candles’ radiance are invited to “Rejoice now” with the whole company of heaven, every creature on earth, and Mother Church in all places and times – at the victory over the powers of darkness won through the King who humbled himself unto death.

All are then bidden, “Lift up your hearts.” Christ is praised as the Paschal Lamb who by his blood delivers his

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people, as the Hebrews were delivered from Egypt. The Paschal feast and sacrifice are likened to the Exodus: As the children of Israel were brought out of bondage through the Red Sea, so all who believe in Christ are delivered from sin and death and given new life through the waters of baptism. The poetic paradox that the “happy fault” of our first parents’ disobedience should bring to us “so great a Redeemer” recalls the words of Paul: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33). And so the lighted candle, “the work of the bees your creatures,” is offered, set apart, and blessed as a sacramental sign for us of Christ the Morning-Star and Sun of Righteousness which never sets.

The Exsultet, our Easter hymn of ecstatic gratitude, like the Great Thanks-

giving of the Eucharist, proclaims at once what God has done for and is doing in us. By our Paschal celebration, God’s wondrous creation of the universe, the mysteries of Christ’s incarnation, baptism, and preaching of the kingdom, his passion and death, resurrection and ascension, and the abiding gift of the Spirit’s power are all made sacramentally and really present as kairos, the eternal now, breaks into chronos, this old world’s passing away.

So we make anamnesis, remembrance, renewing the promises and vows of Holy Baptism and feeding anew on the Body and Blood of the Risen One. The Exsultet becomes the joyful angel calling us from the tomb, proclaiming our share in Christ’s glorious resurrection, and singing of the light kindled in us, which shall never be extinguished!

“Behold the Light of Christ.”

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The Exsultet

Text as used at the Great Vigil of Easter celebrated by the Brothers of SSJE Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout salvation for the victory of our mighty King.

Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth, bright with a glorious splendor, for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.

Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church, and let your holy courts in radiant light, resound with the praises of your people.

All you who stand near this marvelous and holy flame, pray with me to God the Almighty for the grace to sing the worthy praise of this great light.

V. The Lord be with you R. And also with you.

V. Lift up your hearts.

R. We lift them to the Lord.

V. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. R. It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is truly right and good, always and everywhere, with our whole heart and mind and voice, to praise you, the invisible, almighty, and eternal God, and your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who at the feast of the Passover paid for us the debt of Adam’s sin, and by his blood delivered your faithful people. Now therefore, we sacrifice our Paschal feast, in which for us the very Lamb of God is slain, by whose blood his faithful people are made holy.

This is the night, when you brought our forebears, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

How wonderful and beyond our knowing, O God, is your mercy and loving-kindness to us, that to redeem a slave, you gave a Son. O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer.

How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and we are reconciled to God. Therefore, O holy Father, accept the (evening) sacrifice of this lighted candle, which your holy Church makes before you, and offers to you by the hands of your servants, the work of the bees your creatures. May it shine continually to drive away all darkness, as we celebrate the glad solemnity of our redemption. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning, who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

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Exhaustion, Silence, and Companionship A Walking Pilgrimage to Emery House Curtis Almquist, SSJE

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ast summer our friend, the Reverend Cristina Rathbone, asked a wonderful question: Would the Emery House Brothers host a group of pilgrims?

Cristina is an Episcopal priest who works for homeless men and women in downtown Boston through both Ecclesia Ministries and the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint Paul. The plan: fifteen pilgrims would walk (walk!) forty-five miles from Boston to Emery House – hosted by three Episcopal parishes along the way – to end at what Christina calls “a holy place,” Emery House. It took Brs. James, Luke, and me just under five seconds to discuss Cristina’s question.

“Absolutely!” we said. We settled on the pilgrims arriving on November 2nd, All Souls Day. Why a pilgrimage? For Christians, going on pilgrimage is a sacramental experience: an outward sign of an inward change. Jesus is the inspiration at the beginning, the companion along the way, and the fulfillment at the journey’s end. Every pilgrim will have his or her own intentions for this bonum arduum, this steep good. Down through the centuries, people have gone on pilgrimage to purge their soul of debris, to “walk off” a past chapter of their life. For others it’s to “walk into” a new chapter of their life, to say “yes” to God’s abundant gift of life in the present and to freely walk into God’s future. It may be a mix of both.

Pilgrimage is often about losing yourself and finding yourself.

Three experiences are virtually universal for pilgrims: exhaustion, silence, 14

The Rev. Cristina Rathbone and Br. Curtis Almquist at Emery House.

and companionship. They complement one another in a gracious synergy. With exhaustion there comes a clarity about what really matters, claiming the most important things in life. With silence comes the ability to listen deeply, to hear life not just as a cacophony of noise, but as an orchestrated harmony where the pilgrim plays an important part. And with companionship comes the reminder we all need, sometimes desperately, that we are not alone. God is with us, most especially in the company of those who travel the way with us. Pilgrims often glean an inner freedom from what has been in the way, and the healing of hope – and so reported these pilgrims.

At our All Souls celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we renewed our baptismal promises to Christ and one another.

Some of those promises were particularly poignant to us pilgrims and Brothers: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” and, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

Dignity. Many people who have lost their home have also lost their dignity. Respecting the dignity of another person – their presence, their past, their gifts, their beauty, their brokenness, SSJE

their uniqueness, their sameness with us all – is in itself a dignifying experience for both parties, so we were reminded.

The liturgy ended with baptismal water sprinkled on our faces and tears of joy wetting our eyes.

There is no greater honor in life than to be trusted. With each passing day we Brothers are so moved by the people who come to us at the Monastery and Emery House, presuming they will find in our houses and in our hearts a place of sanctuary and sustenance. Life is a pilgrimage for all of us as we make our way, sometimes stumbling along, looking to find bread crumbs on the path leading us ahead. Few things are more confusing or more contusing than loss: loss of our home, loss of family members or friends, loss of our employment or vocation, loss of our health, loss of our money, loss of our innocence, loss of life’s meaning. All of us need help. We Brothers certainly know this and we seek help in many ways from many people. That we, in turn, are trusted to be helpful to others along the way is quite humbling, and it fills us with such joy and gratitude. This was certainly true in our hosting the pilgrims from Boston.

Looking back on the pilgrimage ex-

perience, Cristina wrote to us Brothers, “Your welcome, your love, and the holding power of your prayer kept us all still enough to allow God to course through us like a great ocean, without our being afraid. We expressed this through our tears and our laughter as well – 50% of one and 50% of the other. We would never have been able to open up so entirely were it not for the cushioning (both literal and metaphorical) you all provided with such seeming ease and grace. Our stay with you, from its first, cheer-filled minutes to its last hushed goodbyes, was pure grace. Pure grace.

Pure grace.”

Our Rule of Life suggests how grateful we Brothers were for the pilgrims’ presence among us: Just as we enrich our guests’ lives, so they enrich ours. We welcome men and women of every race and culture, rejoicing in the breadth and diversity of human experience that they bring to us. Their lives enlarge our vision of God’s world.

The stories of their sufferings and achievements and their experience of God stir and challenge us. If we are attentive, each guest will be a word and gift of God to us.

On Emery Lane, pilgrims Shaggy, Judy, James, Richie, and Steve.

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With Thee O Let Me Rise “Easter Wings” by George Herbert (1593 – 1633) Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE

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have always loved the poetry of try turning this page ninety degrees, half George Herbert. When I was close your eyes, and there are two birds eighteen I was given a copy of The flying upward with outstretched wings!

Metaphysical Poets, a Penguin paperback, with its fine introduction by the Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store, eminent scholar Dame Helen Gardner.

Though foolishly he lost the same, I still have the book, well thumbed and Decaying more and more, rather worse for wear, but a testimony Till he became to those faithful companions, Herbert, Most poore: Donne, Marvell, and Vaughan, who With Thee have traveled with me over the years.

O let me rise, As larks, harmoniously, But it is to my fellow Welshman, And sing this day Thy victories: George Herbert, that I return again and Then shall the fall further the flight in me. again. I well remember turning the pages of that book and there, on page My tender age in sorrow did beginne; 121, I saw “Easter Wings.” You can’t miss And still with sicknesses and shame it because of its shape. It actually looks Thou didst so punish sinne, like what the poet is trying to describe.

That I became In the early editions, the lines were Most thinne. printed vertically, to represent the shape With Thee of wings on the page. To get this effect, Let me combine, And feel this day Thy victorie; For, if I imp my wing on Thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

“Easter Wings” in the original printing of Herbert’s The Temple, printed for Thom. Buck and Roger Daniel at Cambridge University, 1633.

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The poem is a good example of a “shape” or “pattern” poem, adopted from the ancient Greeks, in which the shape mirrors the theme: and what more glorious theme than Easter! Each of the two stanzas represents first a dying or a falling, and then a rising pattern, which is the theme of the Easter story. The top half of each stanza focuses on the problem caused by human sin, and the bottom half reflects the hope made possible by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

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Herbert’s hand-corrected manuscript of the poem, owned by the Dr. Williams Trust and Library in London.

Helen Gardner wrote that “the quintessence or soul of a metaphysical poem is the vivid imagining of a moment of experience.” I wonder what “moment of experience” caused Herbert to write this personal and moving prayer to God. Herbert lived for three years as rector of the tiny village of Bemerton, just across the water meadows from Salisbury cathedral, the cathedral where I was ordained.

I like to imagine him walking out one crisp Easter morning, summoned by the bells of the cathedral, raising his eyes to that great spire reaching into the heavens, and seeing countless birds swooping and gliding and soaring in delight. With his heart filled with joy, it seems that in this poem he too longs to rise up like those birds, and take flight with the risen Christ.

The first stanza speaks of how we were created by God and given every good thing: “Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store.” But through the fall of man all these good things were lost and decayed, “‘Till he became Most poore.” The lines of the stanza mirror this loss by “decaying” in length.

But there is hope, and in the rising part of the stanza, Herbert writes lyrically

of his desire to rise with Christ: “With Thee O let me rise, As larks, harmoniously, and sing this day Thy victories.”

In the last line, the alliteration of “Then shall the fall further the flight in me” expresses the paradox that if humankind had not fallen, then we would never have had the wonderful gift of the coming of Christ to redeem us. This paradox is often called the felix culpa or the “happy fault,” words which are traditionally sung at the Exsultet on Easter morning, printed on page 13 of this Cowley.

The second stanza is even more personal and autobiographical. He remembers with sorrow and shame some of his earlier life, perhaps something of what he describes so painfully in his poem “Affliction.” It was an experience which meant, “That I became Most thinne.”

But all is redeemed in the glorious rising part of this second stanza. He prays that his earlier suffering may help him fly even higher, because of the “victorie” of Christ over sin and death at Easter. “For if I imp my wing on Thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.” To “imp” is a technical term taken from falconry, meaning to graft feathers onto a damaged wing to restore a bird’s power of flight. Herbert is asking that his damaged wing be repaired by grafting it onto Christ’s, and that together they may rise and soar up to eternal life.

There is such a sense of soaring joy here, and perhaps Herbert had in mind the passage from Isaiah 40: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

This is a poem which has delighted me for many years, with its joyful and exuberant celebration of Easter, and I shall always be grateful for the companionship of George Herbert, parish priest, poet, and in the words of his fellow writer Henry Vaughan, “a most glorious saint and seer.”

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Into the Depths Adapted from a sermon preached at the Monastery on January 8, 2012 Kevin Hackett, SSJE

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”

–Isaiah 43:2

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ater, the first great primal element, the place where we first experience life in the water of our mothers’ wombs, is both a source of life (we can’t exist very long without it) and a dangerous, deadly thing. It only takes two tablespoons of water to drown a human being. Water, rightly then, commands our respect. The ancient world understood this symbolically, believing that rivers, lakes, and oceans, were dark and fearful habitations of unknown, terrifying creatures that could rise at any time to the surface, snatch us from this world, and pull us back under to the darkness and the depths and death.

The notion that water is dangerous is preserved in the Scriptures, too. “Out of the depths,” cries the Psalmist, “Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck” (Psalm 125:1; 69:1). And in the line quoted in the epigraph above, Isaiah reassures God’s people that when – not if, when – the waters rise, they won’t be overwhelmed. He reminds us that God will be with us when – not if – we pass through the deep, which is meant to remember one of God’s great saving acts in the history of Israel, when the waters of the Red Sea were parted as Moses led the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt into the freedom of the Promised Land – albeit with a prelude of forty years of wandering in the Sinai desert before they once again crossed a body of 18

water, this time the River of Jordan, into Canaan.

If you have traveled in the Middle East, then you will know that the Jordan is not one of the great rivers of the world. It does not inspire awe, as does the majesty of the Nile; it’s not a fecund source of biodiversity, as is the Amazon; it’s not an artery of commerce, trade, and transport, like the mighty Mississippi of this country; it doesn’t have wide and pleasant banks that invite the possibility of leisure, as does the Thames or even our own beloved Charles River in Cambridge. No, the Jordan is more like a muddy country creek in southern Missouri, eeking its way through a barren rocky wilderness: not much to look at.

Traditional iconography of the scene of Jesus’ baptism – especially in icons from the Coptic Church in Egypt, like the one printed on this page – preserve this sharp, rocky, angular terrain in order to suggest that this life is going to be full of hard, sometimes painful, challenges.

It’s especially worth noting that the rocky terrain is pictured in exactly the same way on both sides of the Jordan. On one side, we see depicted John the Baptist, who is presented as a sort of wooly wild man, complete with dreadlocks. And on the other side, attending angels stand ready with fresh towels to receive the Lord from the wet waters. But there’s no SSJE

A Coptic icon of the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan River.

insurance policy here; there’s no travel insurance to say that Jesus or we will be protected or insulated from the challenges that we will face as we make our way through the wilderness of life. The visual depiction of the Jordan’s banks serves as a potent reminder to us that being a beloved child of God does not mean we will be shielded from any of the hard realities of life.

Jesus was not shielded from any of them. In fact, this icon depicts the moment when he plunges straight in and submerges himself in those harsh realities. Entering the Jordan river, Jesus willingly embraces the whole of the human condition, plunging into the muddiness and murkiness of what it means to be a man or woman made from the dust of this earth. And the fish of the Jordan are leaping for joy to see firsthand the one who will one day be known by their name, ichthus, one of the ancient codes, an acronym for “Jesus Christ Son of God” ­– remarkable in that it made its way from the catacombs of Rome to 21st century bumper stickers in Cambridge.

Crowning the icon (and the story), we see the heavens opening, “torn apart,” as Saint Mark says. And we see the Spirit descending, accompanied by an orb of rainbow light, which suggests the Father’s voice saying, “This is my beloved Son,” a claim that we will hear again when Jesus is on the lofty heights of Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, because, in this scene, we are in the depths.

I have to admit that it’s only recently that I have come to understand what this really means. While our baptism is a specific moment in time and space – and I can remember mine at age seven

The Artichoke River at Emery House.

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vividly – the story of baptism as it’s told in the Gospels and depicted so well in iconography is one that unfolds over a lifetime. The real implications of baptism have nothing to do with lace christening gowns and lunch at the club afterward. I daresay that very few of us would claim to have seen the heavens torn open when we were baptized, much less to have heard a divine approbation when we were rising up from the waters.

I know that I did not.

I can say, however, that I have known the presence of God in ways that I would never have imagined – and, frankly, wanted – when I have been in the depths, floundering and flopping around, fighting for my life. I have heard the voice of God on the waters, speaking through the chaos, through the murkiness, through the cloudiness, through the mists, saying, “Light.” “Peace.” “Be Still.” “Beloved. Beloved. Beloved.”

Honestly, I am more familiar with the voice of chaos than the voice of God

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saying, “Beloved” to me. Yet I also know that each one of us has the opportunity to reclaim that word, which God still speaks over every one of us, while we flounder and flop through the muddy, messy waters that characterize so many of our lives – sometimes of our own making, more often, not.

This Easter, after we reaffirm the covenant that God has made with us, we will be sprinkled with waters over which the spirit of God still hovers, moves, and groans with sighs too deep for words. As the waters spread throughout the congregation – your congregation at home, as in the congregation gathered here in our own Monastery Chapel – remember that you will not be overwhelmed by them.

The waters that seem to be rising up to your neck will abate and subside. That is the promise of God. And through it all, the voice of the Lord once again will be upon the waters, saying, “Beloved.” “Beloved.” “You. Yes, you. Beloved. Beloved. Beloved.”

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“This Is It” A Conversation about Vocation with Br.Tom Shaw

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: How did it all begin? How did you come to SSJE? My earliest memories are of the church.

When I was about eight, I said to my parents that I wanted to be a priest. I was something of the odd one out in my family, and the church was the one place where I felt really appreciated. My father was very influential with me. Of course, football was also important to him, but I wasn’t interested in football; and business was important to him, but I wasn’t interested in that. So, the church felt like the one place that was right for me where I could connect with my father – and that proved to be true.

As I was growing up, monks and nuns were never foreign to me. We lived about thirty miles from an Episcopal Benedictine community. My father, who worked in shoe manufacturing, used to give them all their shoes. They were guests in our house a lot, and we would go over to the Abbey. When I was a

teenager, I started to go there periodically on retreat. My mother and all my aunts on both sides of the family were educated by Episcopal nuns. So the whole language of monasticism was there throughout my childhood. It was in my DNA. Q: When did this familiarity develop into a personal feeling of call?

When I was in seminary I began to feel attracted to the religious life. I had a professor who really encouraged me to pray and, with that, I started to become intrigued. Before then, I had basically thought that monks were losers

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– probably because they make this very counter-cultural decision to reject what we are always taught to value: They don’t get married, they don’t care about making money or climbing the ladder to success. When I was a child that difference seemed off-putting, but over time it became intriguing to me.

In seminary there were several of us who became intrigued about living a common life, a simple life – not forever, but for a while. I suppose, in some ways, we also wanted to prolong seminary. So we talked a bishop into letting us share a house and salaries, and to be responsible for five churches. By the end of the final year in seminary, I was basically the only one left: Somebody had gotten a good fellowship; somebody had gotten married; and, actually, somebody had decided to become a monk. I didn’t want to do this alone, so I went off to England, where I’d heard there was a house like the one we’d intended to start. In England, I lived for two years in a clergy house, where four of us shared one and a half salaries. We were parish priests who prayed together four times a day and shared meals. We took yearly promises to live a simple life. It was really wonderful training.

Finally, I decided that it was time to come home. During the next two years, as assistant rector of a parish in the inner city in Milwaukee, I started to under22

stand that I probably had a vocation to a more traditional kind of religious life.

I started looking around. I knew all the religious communities in the United States except the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, which I knew of only from England, but I wasn’t ready to make a commitment to any of those communities. My spiritual director said to me, “You should do what people always do when they can’t decide what to do with the rest of their lives – apply to graduate school.” So I did. I went off to Catholic University that fall to do a Masters in Liturgical Theology. While I was there, I came up to Cambridge to visit the Monastery because SSJE was the one religious order that I hadn’t visited.

Q: How was that first visit to SSJE? I walked in the door and, before I’d even talked to anybody, I said to myself – “This is it.”

Later on, I had a conversation with Paul Wessinger, who was the Superior at the time. I told him, “I’m coming in the fall.” I think he was a little surprised at how forthright I was. He said, “Well we should probably get some references for you.” So I gave him some references.

And then he said, “It would probably be a good idea if you came back again for another visit.” So I came back for a week to visit. Then I came back the following fall as a novice. I’ve been here ever since.

As I look back on it now, I think I came here because I was looking for two things that were quite positive: I wanted to be able to pray more, to really learn how to pray. That desire was quite genuine, I think, and of God. And secondly, while I liked parish life well enough, I wanted a much more intense experience of community.

If those desires were positive and of God, I think there were also some that pushed me here that weren’t so great.

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Even as a little boy, when my grandfather, uncle, and father – who were all in business together – would sit together on Sunday afternoons before the family meal, having a drink and talking about business and making money, I knew that that was not a world I wanted to enter. Certain issues around money and relationships certainly influenced my curiosity about the religious life. I don’t think those issues are entirely gone, but I think they’re in the process of going on their way. And they helped to bring me here.

Q: How would you describe what happened in that moment when you walked through the door for the first time?

Grace. I’ve had a few other instances like that in my life, where it’s been clear to me – to my core – that I am supposed to do this thing. It’s grace. That’s the only way I can describe it. My experience wasn’t mediated by anything or anyone; it was just the experience of standing for the first time in that front hall and suddenly saying to myself, “Well, this is it.” I think that when you’re in the place you’re called to be, you know. Something in you just clicks.

It clicks and makes sense. Standing there in the front hall, this made sense to me.

It’s funny, because, once I got here, I didn’t really have the luxury of discerning a vocation the way some people do, because I was given so much responsibility almost from the very beginning.

I was the Novice Guardian almost immediately after I made my first vows.

And I was elected Superior the year after I made my life profession. So I didn’t have a lot of time to think about whether or not this was my vocation until after I finished being Superior. With all that was happening, I just didn’t question my vocation very much.

There were certainly times when I was unhappy, times when I wanted to leave. There may even have been times when I threatened to leave. But I don’t think I ever questioned that this is what God wants me to do, that I am where God wants me to be.

Q: What’s the most rewarding thing about accepting that call?

Self-awareness. The self-awareness that comes from a life of prayer and from living in community. It’s not about being a bishop; it’s not about being a priest; it’s not, ultimately, even about being a monk. It’s about the gift of self-awareness. I never thought my life would be this wonderful.

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Voices of Friends Baptized at the Monastery

Support SSJE The Brothers’ ministry and Cowley Magazine are made possible by the generosity of the Friends of SSJE. Please consider becoming a Friend today by supporting SSJE’s Annual Fund. Thank you for supporting the Brothers, who support so many of us in our baptized life in Christ.

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ose’s baptism at the Monastery was a practical and urgent event. At the time of Rose’s baptism our family was in great peril because of family disintegration.

Beyond the immediate horizon I knew that Rose would be facing deep suffering. Because of this, her baptism was of immense importance to me. I prayed and hoped that her baptism would offer her a memory of her holiness: a memory that would help her to remember that, no matter the external circumstances, she is beloved, that there is a part of her that remains untouched by time, pain, or confusion. I hope and pray still that this memory will always help her to choose the path of love.

I am grateful to the Brothers for making this possible for our family, for their friendship, and for their devotion to a life of love.

– José Hidalgo

Rose Hidalgo, with Br. John Mathis, a close friend to the family and Rose’s godfather.

Come and See Weekend

Ever wondered if God could be calling you?

Think you might know someone God could be calling?

We welcome men interested in learning about a vocation to SSJE to join us for a “Come and See” weekend at the Monastery. May 3-6, 2012 For more information, please visit our website at www.SSJE.org/brother.

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Voices of Friends Baptized at the Monastery he Brothers were companions to T us in so many ways in the year leading up to the birth of our twins,

Franny and Jamie. Brian and I came for the community Eucharist almost every Tuesday evening. Geoffrey helped me think about how God might be present in the remarkable experience I was having carrying twins into the world, and encouraged me to ponder more deeply Mary’s experience of pregnancy, which I hadn’t really done before. Kevin helped Brian wrap his mind and heart around his coming vocation as a father.

The Brothers truly have been our brothers in Christ: showing through their work and their commitment to helping us thrive, the love of God that the Body of Christ is called to embody. So it seemed natural for us to have our twins baptized at the Monastery, and to ask the Brothers to take on the ministry of doing the baptizing. I know that some clergy look forward to baptizing their own children, but I wanted to be fully and only a mother that day – that was plenty of ministry to offer! – and to let someone else be the priest.

Because I was able to watch Curtis doing the dunking and anointing, I have such a clear memory of it: the large blue pot filled with warm water; the abundance of flowers around it; the smiling faces of the people looking on; Curtis holding tiny, six-weekold bodies – first Franny and then Jamie – and carefully, but confidently, dipping them three times.

As the years have passed, my thankfulness for that day has only deepened. Being a parent is not easy. The world is not easy. And the Brothers have continued to live into their promise to “do all in their power to support these children in their life

in Christ.” In his sermon on that day, Br. Curtis offered these thoughts on the candles which were given to our children as a sign of the light of Christ: Some day it will likely be a great comfort for them to realize that we were thinking they would need a sign of light during a future time that is dark. And so, in this way, the candles are beacons of hope which they cannot yet appreciate but we do, their sisters and brothers. It is not easy to be alive these days. Probably never was. But it

Br. Curtis Almquist baptizing Jamie McCreath.

is possible and wonder-full with help.

I am sure that, someday, Franny and Jamie will take comfort from the fact that the Brothers were thinking of them. What I do know is that throughout the last nine years, Brian and I have taken comfort in that fact. In my work as a priest, when I prepare families for the baptism of their child, I aspire to practice the kind of thoughtfulness and constancy that has been shown to us as parents by the community of SSJE. – The Rev. Amy McCreath

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COMMUNITY NEWS

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he Brothers plan to offer a series of Saturday morning workshops over the next few years on the gifts that God gives us in the spiritual life. On January 21, Br. David Vryhof began the series with “The Gift of Gratitude,” speaking of the power of gratitude to connect us with God and to set us on the spiritual path. On March 17, Br. Kevin Hackett will offer the second in the series, “7x70: The Gift of Forgiveness,” and on April 21, Br. David Vyrhof will return to offer the third in the series, “The Gift of Intimacy with God.” These workshops are held from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

Br. Eldridge Pendleton serves as Chaplain to the Parker River Chapter of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. In Advent, he led a Quiet Morning at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Beverly, Massachusetts, for the SCHC and the parish; it was entitled “Julian of Norwich Speaks to You.” Br. Curtis Almquist led an all-day workshop for seminarians and clergy on “The Pastoral Art of Hearing Confessions” on Saturday, February 18. The workshop offered a theological explanation of the sacrament and practical guidance for those offering the Rite of Reconciliation to others.

In recent years SSJE Brothers have exercised a significant ministry with seminarians. In January, Brs. James Koester and Jonathan Maury taught a one-week intensive course called “Teaching Others to Pray” at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. Also in January, Br. 26

The renovated Guesthouse and Monastery, ready to receive the numerous groups and workshops on the calendar for the upcoming months.

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Kevin Hackett travelled to the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria to offer a one-week intensive course on “The Ministry of Spiritual Direction.”

Br. David Vryhof led a workshop on “Gratitude” for the parish of Saint Andrews in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 4th.

The community welcomes several new men who are testing their vocations with us: Jim Woodrum is a musician and music teacher from Johnson City, Tennessee, and a long-time friend of the community. John Braught is an alcohol and drug rehabilitation counselor from Pequea, Pennsylvania. He holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from Katholeike Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

Patrick Bergquist has a Master’s degree in Ministry from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and has been working as a residence director and adjunct

professor at John Brown University in Siloam, Arkansas. Brian Pearson has been managing a group home for adults with developmental and physical disabilities in Tucson, Arizona. We ask your prayers as we seek to incorporate these new men into our community.

February 16-18, Br. Geoffrey Tristram traveled to Dallas, Texas, to lead a program for the staff of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church. He led a retreat day for the parish and gave a talk on Intercessory Prayer. On the weekend of March 13-16, he will lead a retreat for the parish of Trinity-by-the-Cove Episcopal Church in Naples, Florida.

Br. Kevin Hackett has lead a weekend program and preach at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, the first weekend in Lent, February 24-26.

Please help us to spread the word about our retreat ministry: Tell someone who’s never been on retreat before.

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RECOMMENDED READING Titles the Brothers have recently enjoyed from their bookshelves Br. Geoffrey Tristram Arguably Essays by Christopher Hitchens – Best known as a prominent atheist he was also one of the greatest essayists in the English language. His topics range from Benjamin Franklin to Graham Greene, and from Harry Potter to JFK. Cerebral pyrotechnics!

Smiley’s People by John Le Carré – A wonderfully written and exciting spy story set during the Cold War. The BBC produced a famous miniseries of this book as well as “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” starring Sir Alec Guinness.

Br. Curtis Almquist Four Elements: Reflections on Nature by John O’Donohue – Author of Anam Cara, O’Donohue writes how the elements of water, stone, air, and fire reveal the innocence, creativity, power, and splendor of the world surrounding us.

The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift – About tending the soil and the soul, the book takes the form of the medieval Book of Hours, telling stories passed down over generations, a journey of self-exploration and revelation.

Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky – The book presents revelations to mystics and saints revered to be poetic channels of the divine: Rumi, Meister Eckhart, Hafiz, Mira, St. Catherine of Siena, Rabia, and more.

Br. David Allen Fully Human, Fully Divine by Michael Casey, OCSO – In this book, drawn from Cistercian Spirituality and the author’s many years as a writer of books on Christian Spirituality, a number of episodes from the life of Jesus as found in the Gospel according to Mark, are alternated with chapters reflecting on our human condition. The introduction recommends reading it slowly and carefully, and taking as much as a year to go through the twenty-five chapters.

Br. David Vryhof Salvation: Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis by Valerie Martin – Inspired by the Italian frescoes that depict the life of St. Francis of Assisi, novelist Valerie Martin describes the saint in a series of vivid “panels” that focus on crucial periods in his life.

To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim’s Journey to Santiago de Compostela by Kevin A. Codd – Fr. Codd describes his journey and shares his reflections on his 2003 pilgrimage along the “Camino de Compostela.” A rich book that gets at the essence of what it means to be a pilgrim.

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RECOMMENDED READING Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness by Andrew Weiss – Jack Kornfield describes this ten-week course as “clear, accessible, helpful, good teaching to start one on the path of mindfulness.” For beginners and those who want to begin again.

Br. Eldridge Pendleton Praying Our Days, a Guide and Companion by Frank Griswold – This excellent, pocket-size prayer book by a Catholic-minded Episcopalian, contains all one needs for a daily life of prayer. I predict it will become the prayer guide for Christians of the 21st century that the St. Augustine’s Prayer Book was for us fifty years ago.

Rembrandt’s Eyes by Simon Schama – A fascinating biography of the artist, an examination of his artistic works, and a study of the historical Dutch milieu in which Rembrandt lived and worked. Schama also offers a window into the artist’s spiritual struggle.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville – This past fall after witnessing an Irish monologist recite Herman Melville’s classic for two hours from beginning to end, I reread the novel myself. If you haven’t read it since college, you will enjoy a second read. It never ceases to amaze and entertain.

The Dooms Day Book by Connie Willis – Shortly after I led a retreat on the theology of the 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, I received a copy of The Dooms Day Book. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, this science fiction adventure explores English village life of the early 14th century, the time of Julian, though in another geographic area. The New York Times Book Review calls it a tour de force.

Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly – Another historical account I enjoyed, this book focuses on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln during the final days of the Civil War as one of the most important events in American history, and is written in such an unforgettable way that it will “hook” even the most resistant reader of history.

Br. James Koester The Book of Geese by Dave Holderread – This book, as it describes itself, is “a complete guide to raising the home flock” and is full of information on the keeping and care of geese. For someone interested in keeping geese, this is the best one I have read.

The Power of the Name by Kallistos Ware – This booklet has gone through several re-printings and is a wonderful introduction to the praying of the Jesus Prayer. I re-read it for a class I recently taught and it has inspired me to return to this ancient method of prayer.

Beginning to Pray, Living Prayer, and Courage to Pray by Anthony Bloom – Bloom was at one time the Russian Orthodox bishop in England. I first discovered these three books in the late 1970’s and they had a profound influence on me. I The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

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RECOMMENDED READING am re-reading them some 30 years later and they are still as fresh and good as they were 30 years ago. His explication of the Lord’s Prayer and the Prayer of Bartimaeus in Living Prayer are worth re-reading several times over by themselves.

Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times among the Desert Fathers by Mark Gruber OSB – Gruber spent several months living in Coptic monasteries in Egypt.

This is his recreated journal from that time. People interested in the Desert Fathers and Mothers will find this an interesting introduction to the heirs of the desert monastic tradition.

I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish – Abuelaish’s three daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli shelling that hit his house in Gaza. This is a heartbreaking but amazing story of his commitment to peace.

Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart – Urquhart is one of my favorite novelists. She has the ability to weave the past and present into a wonderful story. This book is about a woman who returns to live in her abandoned family farmhouse and how the past, both recent and distant, continues to shape her life in the present.

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott – Any book that takes place in Saskatchewan and which has a character that is an Anglican priest must be good! I first heard this book as a podcast and then read it for myself. It was just as good the second time. It is about the limits of goodness and explores our motives for being good. We know what is good, but are we prepared to do it? What motivates us to be good? Is it because it is the right thing to do, or is it because we get something out of being good? The main character, Clara Purdy, helps us to explore this, by exploring it for herself and for us.

Br. Jonathan Maury Stricken by God: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ edited by Brad Jersak and Michael Hardin – An excellent anthology of critiques of penalsubstitution theories of the Atonement by authors from a wide-range of Christian traditions (includes James Alison, Sharon Baker, Marcus Borg, Richard Rohr, Rowan Williams, N.T. Wright).

Made for Goodness and Why This Makes All the Difference by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu – A fresh guide for living contemplatively in the real world with love, freedom and joy, by our accepting and appropriating our divinely-created essence of Goodness.

The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity by Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson – A worthy successor to and expansion of Thomas J. Talley’s The Origins of the Liturgical Year, informed by newly recovered documents and reference to the most recent international and ecumenical scholarship.

Br. Kevin Hackett Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age by William Powers – From the pen of a critically-acclaimed media 30

SSJE

RECOMMENDED READING specialist, a must-read for anyone struggling to find the balance between being connected in a digital world and real-time human engagement.

Extra-Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller – Written in the spirit of Mark Kurlansky’s Cod and Salt, this entertaining “biography” of the mother of all oils is full of factoids and fun.

Marcel Breuer and a Committee of Twelve Plan a Church: A Monastic Memoir

by Hilary Thimmesh, OSB – A candid inside look at the process and people that resulted in the construction of the Monastery Church of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN, regarded by many as a masterpiece of modern architecture.

Br. Luke Ditewig Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle – Deeply moving stories of embodied grace among gang members from the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles.

The Preservationist by David Maine – A creative, thoughtful novel about Noah and his family, the ark, and God. In the Spirit of Happiness by The Monks of New Skete – A most engaging introduction to monastic wisdom and its application for anyone’s daily life.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout – A fascinating, earthy collection of shortstory profiles set in a small town with one woman woven through them all.

Br. Mark Brown Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – A best seller by a Nobel Prize winning psychologist on the way we think and make decisions. Some reviewers give it landmark status along with Freud’s works.

Delights from the Garden of Eden by Nawal Nasrallah – A cookbook and culinary history of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).

Br.Tom Shaw Caravaggio by Andrew Graham-Dixon – A brilliant biography of this troubled artist and wonderful study of his paintings which will be helpful to those who use his paintings in their meditation.

The Greater Journey by David McCullough – A wonderful history of those Americans in a host of professions who travelled to Paris in the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries and the influence on their careers.

Rome by Hugh Roberts – A somewhat outrageous history of Rome with all of the author’s insights, knowledge, and prejudices.

To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal – A poignant novel.

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

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We have been so moved by people’s responses.

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J. A., MA “I absolutely love this ministry. I read the word on my iPhone first thing each morning as I’m waiting for my tea water to boil. It’s like being on a guided retreat every day of my life. Anything longer might be wonderful in theory, but it would pile up in my inbox unused. This is inspired.

Thank you so much my friends!”

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Visit www.SSJE.org/word to subscribe and to find out how you can help get the Word out.

Start your day with a Word, which we pray will help you to deepen your life with God.

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Baptism Sharing the Divine Life Br. James Koester

MONASTIC WISDOM

for everyday living

Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Living is a continuing series of sermons, workshops and teachings from the Brothers that seeks to distill the collective wisdom of the past and offer practical timeless messages to live by in today’s world.

Br. James Koester SSJE was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He holds a B.A. in History and English literature from Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, and an M. Div. from Trinity College, Toronto, Ontario. He was ordained to the diaconate and subsequently to the priesthood in British Columbia, where he served parishes in Parksville and Salt Spring Island.

In 1989 he came to the United States to test his vocation with the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, where he was life-professed in 1995. Br. James has served in a wide range of leadership posts in the Society. During his time in the Society he has traveled widely in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, the Holy Land, and in Africa, leading retreats and workshops, preaching, teaching, and offering spiritual direction. His personal interests include genealogy, the study and writing of icons, and beekeeping.

Baptism

Sharing the Divine Life

B

efore coming to the Monastery, I served for a number of years as a parish priest in a little parish on the west coast of Canada. I’d been in the parish for about six months when a woman named Alice came out of church one Sunday and told me she had only ever heard me preach one sermon.

I knew that that wasn’t true. Alice and her husband had been in church nearly every Sunday since I had come to the parish and on the rare occasion they missed a Sunday they called the rectory ahead of time to explain why they were going to be absent! I obviously looked confused because she went on to say: “What I mean is that it doesn’t matter where you start, you always end up back in the same place: at baptism.” I began to apologize, but she cut in, “Oh no, no. No need to apologize.

I wasn’t complaining. I was agreeing with you, because baptism is so important for the life of a Christian.” Alice of course was right. Baptism is important because baptism is about nothing less than sharing in the divine life of God. “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature,” we pray in the Collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, “Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity…”1 In the Incarnation, we believe that as Christ shared in our human life, so we share in his divine life through baptism. As the Prayer Book Catechism reminds us, “Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.” 2 Thus we share in the divine life of God by being made children of God, by being made members of Christ’s body, and by becoming heirs of the kingdom of God. If we truly believe what we say, all of this happens at the font where we die to sin and rise to newness of life through the waters of baptism, just as the First Letter of Peter reminds us: “And baptism . . . now saves you – not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of 1 2

Book of Common Prayer 1979: 214.

Book of Common Prayer 1979: 858.

Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.” 3 In this way, even now and not at some future date, because of our baptism, we begin to share the reality of that divine life we speak of in the Collect, and which Christ promises to all who believe in him: “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” 4

Sharing the life of the trinity When we begin to understand that baptism does something to us now, and that that something is nothing short of incorporation into the divine life of God, then we can begin to experience the Trinity, not as some kind of mathematical puzzle – or a scientific experiment using water, ice, and steam showing that each of them is the same chemical but simply in a different form. Rather, we will know the doctrine of the Trinity as a lived reality. By our baptism we are invited not merely to understand, but to experience the Trinity. Our founder, Father Benson, speaks about how problematic is our neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity, and his comments are perhaps truer today than they were when he first said them. Father Benson goes so far as to say: I quite feel that the practical neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity has been the great cause of the decay of Christendom.

The Church – the Sacraments – Hagilogy, I had almost said Mythology – have filled the minds of devout people, partly for good partly for evil. Thyself unmoved, all motion’s source, this mystery of the circulating life of the eternal Godhead, has been almost lost to sight, spoken of as a mystery, and not felt as a power or loved as a reality. 5 1 Peter 3:21-22 John 1:12-13 5 Letters of Richard Meux Benson SSJE, A.R. Mowbray Co. Ltd., 1916: 187.

3 4

Imagine anyone claiming today that the decline of the Church is related to a decline in teaching about the doctrine of the Trinity! But think how rich our preaching about the Trinity could be if we connected it to our understanding of baptism. To turn again to Father Benson: “If we would know the Trinity, we must know ourselves taken into the Trinity.” 6 What does it mean to say that we are “taken into the Trinity?” It actually is not as complicated as it might at first sound. Chapter Four in the Rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist on “The Witness of Life in Community,” explains how every form of human community takes its cue from the Holy Trinity: “In community we bear witness to the social nature of human life as willed by our Creator. Human beings bear the image of the triune God and are not meant to be separate and isolated. All of us are called by God to belong to communities.” 7 Such a lived reality of communion and community with God and one another, rooted in baptism, brings a far different understanding to the doctrine of the Trinity than any number of mathematical conundrums by which we try to convince people that 3 = 1. As communities have broken down and families fragmented, is it any wonder that the notion of community has such appeal today? As Christians, our understanding of community is, as Father Benson would say, rooted in the very heart of God who is Community.

6 7

Cowley Evangelist, 1919: 147.

Rule of Life of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, 8.

Br. Eldridge Pendelton’s rendition of the famous icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev.

The famous icon of the Holy Trinity by Saint Andrei Rublev offers a powerful glimpse at what the communal life of God the Trinity looks like. Our Rule calls this life one of “reciprocal self-giving and love.” 8 And the icon by Rublev illustrates this, depicting three near-identical figures seated at a table. They’re involved in communication. Their heads appear to be inclined towards one another, they seem to make eye contact, and their hands are captured in a series of delicate gestures, almost as if one points to another in a circle. It is as if we 8

Ibid, 9.

have caught them mid-conversation. Look again: There are four sides to this table, but only three seats are filled. The spot closest to the viewer is left open because Rublev wants to show us that there is a place at the table for us. God is inviting us into the circle of divine communion and community.

We’re invited to participate in the Trinity not as a mathematical puzzle, an intellectual quandary to be solved, but as an experience of community to be had. As our Rule explains, “Our human vocation to live in communion and mutuality is rooted in our creation in God’s image and likeness. The very being of God is community; the Father, Son and Spirit are One in reciprocal self-giving and love. The mystery of God as Trinity is one that only those living in personal communion can understand by experience.” 9 God the Trinity is a mystery, solvable only by the experience of life in community. Whether we look to the divine community of the Trinity or the human communities in which we take part on earth, we come to know the Trinity only when we experience it as a relationship of self-giving and love. And we begin to do this in baptism. So the formula for Holy Baptism proclaims that we are brought into this relationship: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Members of Christ Sharing in the divine life of the Trinity through baptism has deep ramifications for the way we understand not just the stories in the gospels or their promises about Christ. Sharing the divine life of God has huge ramifications for how we understand ourselves as well.

To take one example, consider the Ascension of Christ. Father Benson loved the Ascension and was constantly inviting his audience to “Look to the glory of the ascended Christ.” He points repeatedly throughout his writings to Christ’s Ascension because he wants to remind us that the Ascension is not something that happened a long time ago to someone else – although it did indeed happen to Jesus. But the Ascension is not an isolated incident. If we really do believe what we say about baptism – that we are made members of Christ – then, the Ascension is about us as well. If Christ has ascended into heaven and has taken his place at the right hand of the Father in glory, then as members of Christ’s body, so too have we.

The Ascension is not simply about Christ, it is about us as well.

9

Ibid, 9.

Now, upon his Ascension, His body in them is glorified instantaneously with the glorifying of His body at the right hand of God. Like an electric flash the glory of the Spirit shines out in the fires of Pentecost. The body of Christ, however veiled in our flesh . . . nevertheless cannot but have the glory of the Spirit of holy fire burning and resting upon it. We do not, I think, dwell as we ought to dwell upon the present glorification of our nature in our own persons, as members of the glorified body of Christ. 10 In the Collect for the Feast of the Ascension, we proclaim that Christ has “ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell.” 11 Christ ascends so that we might also “thither ascend.” This is not just about Christ. It is about us as well.

Baptized into the Trinity, ascended with Christ, we share in the divine life of God. “Do you not know,” Saint Paul asks in the Letter to the Romans, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his life. Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

12 That glory is not something that will happen to us someday in the future. We are already glorified with Christ because we have been baptized into his life, death, and resurrection. In the same letter, Saint Paul goes on to urge, “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” 13

Union and Communion Baptism then is about union and communion. “We will certainly be united with him,” says Saint Paul. And we experience baptism as both a sign and a seal of that hope. First, we experience it as a sign of what God desires for us: namely, life and union with God. Second, we know that it is a seal of that promised life and union with God. God is reaching out to us with this gift of baptism, both as a sign and seal of God’s love. And, when we accept baptism, we reach forward to God claiming the promise and sharing the life. In baptism, we glimpse that mutuality and reciprocity that is at the heart of community, what the Rule calls, “reciprocal self-giving and love,” just as the figures in Rublev’s icon of the Trinity reach out to one another and to us.

Further Letters, 268-9.

Book of Common Prayer 1979, 174.

12 Romans 6:4.

13 Romans 6:5.

10 11

In this way, baptism is very much like the moment of the Eucharist when God reaches out to us as we reach out to God to receive that Sacrament in our outstretched hands. We reach out to meet the One who first reaches out to us. There is a similar kind of reciprocity and mutuality in baptism.

“Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Saviour?” the celebrant asks the person about to be baptized. We say “Yes” and we turn to God, even as we acknowledge that it is God who has first called us.

We have the opportunity to experience and to renew our baptism Sunday

by Sunday in the Eucharist. Tradition frequently calls the Eucharist the Blessed Sacrament, but Father Benson would claim that it is actually Holy Baptism. He laments how “In Western Christendom the Holy Eucharist has so entirely overshadowed Holy Baptism that the food of our life is made to be a gift greater than the life which it sustains.” 14 He means to point out how the Eucharist renews and sustains the life we were given in baptism.

Baptism is the fundamental event by which we are invited to share in the divine life. In the Eucharist, we have an opportunity to renew, reaffirm, and nourish that life. Even those of us who were baptized as infants and have no memory of the event can have an ongoing, powerful experience of our baptism – of meeting God and being embraced by God – when we are fed by God in the Eucharist. For in the Eucharist we are again brought into 14

Further Letters, 44.

communion and community with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

As we reach out for the Bread and Wine, we can remember the divine life which it sustains in us, and by which we are made members of Christ, the children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The weekly renewal of our baptism through the Eucharist aims to remind us that the life we share with God is not a life that is “yet to come.” We are not simply waiting for someday in the future when we will share in the life of God or be united with God. Baptism promises us that we are already sharing the life of God. We’re already sharing in the life of God, already joining the Trinity around the table, as in Rublev’s icon, already sharing in the glory of the life of the Ascended Christ. Baptized in the name of the Trinity, we are already sharing in the mystery of this communion.

Here and Now Our sharing in the life of God, here and now, is why the sacramental signs of baptism and the Eucharist are so powerful: water, oil, bread and wine. These concrete elements ground our experience of the divine life in the here and now. They tell us that this mystery which we proclaim – the divine life we share – is happening right now. So I love the fact that we use real bread in our Eucharist at the Monastery, because you don’t need to pretend that the Eucharist is feeding you.

You actually experience how the Eucharist is feeding you. You can actually taste the bread, you have to chew and swallow. And so too, I love the way we celebrate baptisms at the Monastery, because people actually get wet. Babies go all the way into the font: toes, knees, bellies, elbows, and heads. The water, the bread tell us that this is happening right now. You can feel it, smell it, and taste it.

We can sometimes treat baptism as if it’s cute, all dolled up with christening gowns and frilly bonnets. Baptism is not cute. It’s awful – not in the ghastly or dreadful sense of the word, but in the sense of the word that means “inspiring awe or wonder.” Baptism is awefull. Baptism should strike terror and wonder into our hearts, for by it we are made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. And this is not kids’ stuff, not child’s play, though God wants children to share in the divine life, too. While we might feel child-like wonder faced with God’s glory in baptism, we should also feel a very grown-up terror.

At their best, the visual signs we use in baptism can help us to perceive the danger we are facing as we encounter the living God. Imagine if, while baptizing you, the celebrant held your head under the water for a few seconds longer than you expected. If you were lucky, you’d come up gasping. If you were unlucky, you’d come up choking. Just as the Eucharist is about eating and drinking, chewing and gulping, baptism is about drowning and rising. It is about death and life. It is about washing and bathing. Baptism is dangerous because you could die. But it is also life-giving because, at the very moment of death, you are pulled out of the water and saved. The stark reality is that there is a danger in baptism, but there is life as well, for just as the celebrant says, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” you are plunged into the water, and then, just in time, are lifted up to breathe in the life of God – not later – right now.

Water and oil, bread and wine: these are vivid signs and seals of God’s desire for us to share in the divine life. In baptism, even as we drip with the water of life and smell the fragrance of the oil of our sealing in the Spirit, we realize that our life has been given back to us, and that it is no ordinary life, for the life we live now is the very life of God, whose divine life we share as members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.

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