Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Benedict

First Sunday of Advent

by Leave a Comment

Advent is all about waiting.  But it’s not waiting for our turn because God’s line is busy.  Is it wonderful that we do not have to take turns – we don’t have to wait to be in touch!  Waiting is at the heart of Advent, active waiting.  Even when we don’t know that we are waiting, we’re waiting.  Even when we can’t find words to express what we are waiting for, we’re waiting.

For many people, Advent is an opportunity that is little understood, under-appreciated and commonly ignored.  Advent is about learning to wait.  It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow.  Advent teaches us the difference between expectation, anticipation and waiting; suspense, eagerness and “twiddling your thumbs to pass the time”.

We are waiting not just during Advent, but at all times for the advent of light; that ultimate light that is redemptive and terrifying at the same time.  It is redemptive because it puts an end to the darkness.  That is also why it is terrifying because the light reveals all that was hidden in the darkness.  For so long, actually for most of our lives, the darkness has been home.  We’ve become comfortable in our incompleteness.  Now to leave home is downright scary!  Change my ways of interacting with God and God’s people?  Whew!  Allow my rough edges to be smoothed?  That sounds irritating (no pun intended).  We are gifted with Advent time to do personal “Isaiah work” of filling in every valley; leveling every mountain so the hills will become a plain, and the rough country will be made smooth.  As the familiar banner asks:  If not now, when?

One of the ancient Advent prayers supplies us with a sentiment that Benedict echoes: “Give us grace that we may cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”  Many Advent hymns express the same theme.  For example: “When the darkness closes in, courage fails and hopes grow dim, clear the shadows from our sight, set our troubled world aright, fill our eyes with radiant light.  Come Lord Jesus, come!”

The final line of this Sunday’s selection from Matthew’s Gospel reminds us: “You must be prepared for, at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”  That does not refer only to the hour of our death.  You may remember the valuable lesson an Abbot shared with his Rabbi friend: “The messiah is among the ranks of your community”.  We are challenged to be Messiah to each other, to treat each other with gentleness, respect, and courtesy for each one is the Messiah among us.

Our conversations can turn to stories and concerns focused outward, on the other rather than the self.  There is a rare sprinkling of “I” and “my” and “mine”.”  Attention is directed away from the self to shine our light on others.  We radiate the blessings of life, not the gloom of sadness, sickness, tiredness, or woe.  We become more fully human, full of compassion and full of consciousness.  Our community Advent practices help hone the attitude of prayerfulness, almsgiving and compassion.

So, we pray: “May the God of Israel increase our longing for Jesus our Savior and give each and all of us the strength to grow in love, that the dawn of Jesus’ coming may find us rejoicing in his presence and welcoming the light of Truth.”

 

~by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

First Reading  Isaiah 2:1-5                        
Second Reading Romans 13:11-14  
Gospel Reading  Matthew 24:37-44
Continue Reading

The Master

by Leave a Comment

Rejoice!

One day, when the man of God, Benedict, was doing Lectio and pondering how to incorporate his set of values into his manuscript directed to his followers, St. Luke entered his reverie.  What an inspiration!  Luke and Benedict chatted with each other for a spell.  Look Ben, (said Luke) you’ve consulted the writings of the one you call the Master.  May I suggest you look at my record of the sayings of THE Master.  Check out the 10th chapter of my Gospel.  I think you’ll find a very fine touch stone.

Sure enough!  Very many of our special Benedictine values are put forth by THE Master Jesus.  Look at verses 1-20 as a “for instance”.

+ A SPIRIT of POVERTY: take nothing with you (is how Jesus puts it): no money bags, no suitcase, no canvas bag or pretty tote and no sandals.  Or as you say it in your Rule: “No one may presume to give, receive or retain anything as her own, nothing at all, in short not a single item … no one shall presume ownership of anything. “

+ A SENSE of STABILITY: Jesus advises his followers: into whatever house you enter, stay in the same house; don’t be moving from one house to another.   Benedict, you describe the first kind of monastics called cenobites.  From what you say, I sense this may be your preferred type of members.  “those who belong to a particular monastery, where they serve under the rule of a superior.”

+ Further, Benedict, you expect these cenobites to follow Jesus’ way of life, personally and communally, practicing a SPIRIT of SIMPLICITY and ACCEPTANCE of WHATEVER IS AVAILABLE:  in your words:  eating and drinking whatever is offered to you; whatever is set before you.

You have an obvious understanding of human nature, Benedict. Could we attribute it to your twin sister’s influence?  She took her turn as cook for her group of women whom she loved as ardently as you looked after the rough and tough gang of men that lived with you. It’s evident in your words: taking turns serving one another, using an unvoiced system of gestures when anything is required.  And (yes, PLEASE God) it will save you a heap of trouble if you designate a weekly reader to proclaim the Holy Word throughout the meal.

In studying your Rule, Benedict, it seems to go without saying that there will likely be no harmony in the group unless each and every member strive to AVOID EVIL and CLING to PEACE.   I (that is Luke) remind my readers: Remember what Jesus said (It’s right there in verse 9). “If peace is not present in the house where you find yourself, go out into the streets and shake the dust from your feet and leave that town.”  When you feel evil arising in you, get in touch with the cause – shame the devil – leave the occasion of sin.

In this weekend’s second reading, St. Paul reminds us that we bear in us the marks of Jesus in our body.  Jesus conquered evil so that we, too, might be part of the new creation.  We rejoice with the disciples, reveling as they did in first fervor.  We rejoice because our names are written in heaven.  Sing with Isaiah in the First Reading: we rely on the gentle care God has for us: we shall be carried in God’s arms, comforted as a mother comforts her child and fondles the child in her lap and delights in nursing the babe.  That’s the joy that can erupt in the words of tomorrow’s responsorial psalm: LET ALL THE EARTH CRY OUT TO GOD WITH JOY.

~Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

First Reading:  Isaiah 66:10-4          Second Reading:  Galatians 6:14-18
Gospel:  Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
Continue Reading

Two Lines

by Leave a Comment

Two Lines

 

Two lines jump out at me in this reading:

  1. What Jesus said to the young man – “You are lacking one thing.”
  2. The question the disciples ask Jesus – “Who can be saved?”

Jesus has already told them in this reading, four things they should NOT do: don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t defraud.  I smile when I read how He sums up His list, it’s what my dad would say: “Do what your mother tells you.”  The only time I remember him raising his voice to me was one day when my mother asked, “Do you want to do some ironing now?”  I had said, “No, not now.”  Wrong answer!  Jesus offered the same directive to the wine servers at the wedding where he and his mother were guests – “Do whatever she tells you.”  And when dying on the Cross, what did he say to John (and all of us) – “Behold your mother.”

Jesus told the young man, “You are lacking one thing.”  That’s his challenge to us this week, figure out what’s the one thing we are lacking.  Benedict’s Tools of Good Works (RB 4) is a good examination of conscience or you might use Joan Chittister’s listing of Benedict’s counsels:

            • Don’t pamper yourself
            • Be transparent
            • Be gentle with each other
            • Don’t expect too much or consume too much
            • Live in the moment of God’s grace
            • Be willing to be formed
            • Have a holy attitude toward persons and all of creation, and
            • Remember the tools of the spiritual life are the work of a lifetime. …

Jesus said, “Do what your parents tell you.”  Benedict says the same thing in several places in the Rule, do what the superior tells you.  He gives a little wiggle room when he speaks of impossible tasks but in the end, he says obedience will save us.  I’ve saved my mother’s message to me when I wrote to tell her that we now had the option of using our baptismal names and were shortening our skirts.  In her own way she said, “I’ve tried to teach you the value of obedience.  Do what your superiors are telling you.”   RB 7 places tremendous responsibility on each of us to give good example when our founder says, “The eighth degree in humility is that a monk do nothing but what the common rule of the monastery and the example of the seniors suggest.”

Like many people, the young man in the Gospel knew something was missing in his life. There’s some of the young man in all of us … we know something is lacking. We are surrounded with media that tries to convince us what that the one thing is that will bring us joy and well-being.  Although we know full well that wealth is not a guarantee for happiness in this life, that spirit can slip through the walls, even through convent walls.  We can sense it when we doubt that the common goods available are not sufficient for us.  We can act like children who don’t want the crayons put into a pile in the middle of the table.  We each want our own box of crayons because we don’t like the broken ones or the ones that have the paper peeled off or the ones you can tell have touched another color or are just not the brand we prefer.  Like the young man we want our own possessions and we want them NOW, today.  And, we find it hard to part with any of them graciously even when we hear Benedict say (in RB 54) that the members should not presume to accept gifts sent by parents or friends without previously telling the superior who has the power to give the gift to whomever and the one for whom it was originally given will not be distressed.

Maybe instead of asking “What am I lacking?” we need to ask ourselves, “What do I have too much of?”  Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, no one who has given up house, brother, sisters or mother and father or children or lands for the sake of the Gospel will not receive 100 times more in the age to come.”  We may tick off all the items on that list one by one but the challenge keeps coming back to haunt us, “One thing is lacking.”

Jesus counsels us: “How hard it is, it’s easier to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the needle gate.”  It’s hard, he says but not impossible, “For with God, all things are possible.”

Just don’t get caught in Peter’s trap – quickly retorting, “I’ve given up EVERYTHING, Lord!”  You’ll hear the echo, “One thing is lacking.  Go, give what you have to the poor, and THEN come follow Me.”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

First Reading:   Wisdom 7:7-11            Second Reading:  Hebrews 4:12-13
Gospel:   Mark 10:17-30 (shorter form Mark 10:17-27)
Continue Reading

Trinity Sunday

by Leave a Comment

Pray over this Memorial Day weekend for prudence and safety for all those celebrating the holiday in the company of large crowds. 

Remember and pray for the our deceased military service personnel and military families coping with their loss and often with lingering mental health and other conditions that plague retirees and their loved ones. 

  God bless you each with good health, much happiness and abundant peace.    

 

Start Where You Are

I ask you the same question Moses asked the people in Sunday’s first reading: “I ask now, did anything so great ever happen before?  Was it ever heard of?  Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking as you did?”  “This” Moses says: “is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.  I enjoin this upon you today that you and your children after you may prosper, and you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever.”

Is there any greater reason, and motivation, found in Scripture than these words to prompt us to take stock of what we have and where we are going?  If you need another nudge, just read the Gospel passage for this weekend.  “The disciples gathered with Jesus and worshiped him, BUT they doubted!”  Jesus stepped closer to them and reminded them: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  Then, in so many words, Jesus told them to put their own hands on the plow and get on with the job.  “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded YOU.”  Then, he reassures them and he guarantees us …“Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the ages.”

That’s a tall directive!  But Jesus is serious!  “Therefore, GO!”  Or as Father Henry said earlier today: “Jesus is saying: No excuses!”  So, where do we begin?  This much I know: we have to start where we are.  Awaken our hearts to recognize and embrace the truth of who we were and who’ve we become; who we are. In the message of a song performed by EMBRACE, an English band: “I’ve been running for oh so long; there’s a light that guides us, I don’t see.  Catch the light, reflect it down on me; show me where I went wrong.  The lies are bad; the truth is worse.  One day there’ll come a time when our questions have all dried up and chance can come back into your life.  Til then you’ll know that it’s all a waste.  Invite the chance back into your life; it’s time to invite all the chance back into your life.”

You’ve probably heard the principle that if a person doesn’t treat inanimate objects with respect, we can predict she/he will have no respect for living things.  Benedict knew this, didn’t he?  In RB 31 he cautions the members, not solely the person given charge of the inventory, “To take care of everything; to regard all utensils and goods of the monastery (that includes the persons) as sacred vessels of the altar, aware that nothing is to be neglected.”  It could not be clearer that as Benedictines we are charged to care of ALL creation.  To practice good stewardship, sound environmental practices, reverence for all persons.  To operate machinery and tech tools; close a door, set a table and push in chairs with the same gentleness we cradle a chalice.  This attitude of devotion and sensitivity starts with our own person and extends to all persons.  It is reflected in our demeanor and decorum; our respect for an atmosphere of monastic quiet.  We move with a touch of gentleness for the environment in which we find ourselves.  It shows in our manner of walking, speaking, acting and interacting.

You’ve heard of the “butterfly effect” – EVERY thing we do or say sends seemingly unending ripples into the environment – affecting and effecting and infecting a circle of influence beyond our imagination.  When we acknowledge this our response must be one prayer for forgiveness any negativity we’ve spewed into the world.  May I suggest we offer a prayer inspired by Servite Sister Joyce Rupp and adapted for this community:

 

A PRAYER FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TOO MUCH

To our brothers and sisters in developing areas of our country and around the world:
  • While I was deciding which of seven cereals to eat this morning, you were searching in dumpsters for leftover scraps.
  • While I was working out in the exercise room or walking the paved track, you were working in the wealthy landowner’s fields under a scorching sun or in teeming rain.
  • When I choose between soda or juice, your parched lips are yearning for the touch of water. When I choose between brands of bottled water, you search in the landfill for something you could exchange for pennies to buy food for your children.
  • While I complain about the poor service in the local restaurant or turn up my nose at the food on our buffet table, I think of you who gratefully accept a bag or box of government commodities from Daystar.
  • When a sudden noise startles me, a shout for a winning team or the ice machine motor interrupts conversation, I think of you who live in fearful threat of unpredictable noise and violence and the frequent eruption of gunfire day and night.
  • When I complain about a lack of connecting speed on my shining laptop, I remember 1000s of children who are losing a year of education because they have no WiFi connection, no Internet service or probably not a computer to use.
  • While I poured my “all-in-one” detergent into the washing machine, you stand in the river with your small bundle of clothes.
  • While I watch the evening news on our wide-screen TV, you are among those I witnessed being terrorized by the dictatorship government.
  • While I scanned the ads for a bargain price on a new shirt, you woke up and put on the same shirt and pants that you have worn for many months, thankful for others’ cast-offs.
  • While I grumbled over the need for more storage space, your family of l0 found shelter in a one-room packing-box hut you call home.
  • When I went to chapel and felt slightly bothered at the length of the prayer service or the silence or a boring homily, you looked out upon the earth and those around you and felt gratitude to God just for being alive for one more day.

++++++++++++

(So, we pray)  My brothers and sisters, forgive me for my arrogance and my indifference.  Forgive me for my greed of always wanting newer, bigger and better things.  Forgive me for not doing my part to change the unjust systems that keep you suffering and impoverished.  I offer you my promise to become more aware of your situation and to change my lifestyles as I work for transformation of our world.

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

Deuteronomy 4:32-34; 39-40              Romans 8:14-17       Matthew 28:16-20
Continue Reading

Lent – God’s Call

by Leave a Comment

In the liturgical cycle of readings, this Gospel from Mark was originally only two verses – later the church added two more – but it is still one of the shortest Sunday readings.  It tells us only that, immediately after His baptism, Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, for 40 days.  You’ll notice that Mark, unlike Luke and Matthew, does not outline for us the three temptations of Jesus.  He simply lets us know that the conflict between Jesus and Satan only begins in the desert.  The ultimate test will be in Jesus’ final hours on the cross.

We are now four days into our Lenten journey of 40 days.  We are reminded of Elijah who journeyed in a desert 40 days and nights, making his way to Mount Horeb as well as the Israelites who wandered in a desert for 40 years.  Benedict knew that deserts are an unavoidable part of life.  We have to pass through them – not get stuck in them. In the desert, we soon find out we are too weak to go it alone.  According to St. John Chrysostom: “The Spirit drags Jesus into the desert, since he wanted to draw the devil there – and Jesus gave occasion to him not only on account of his hunger but also on account of the place: for then most especially does the devil attack when he sees people isolated and by themselves.”  No wonder Benedict urges us not to be isolated in our Lenten journey: “the entire community during these days of Lent (together strives) to keep the manner of life most pure.”

We’ve heard the expression “practice makes perfect” so often that the meaning may have lost its impact on us.  Each year at the beginning of Lent we may feel like that skater or a musician who’s been laid up for a year without practice.  As Benedict says in Chapter 49 of the Rule, during Lent we are called to be the kind of person we should be every day.  Lent gives us a jump-start of courage to pick up the practices that will support the values we profess and hold dear.  The biggest temptation most of us have to face it to “give up” because we stumble.  What would you think if you dialed a wrong number and got this recording: I’m not available right now, but I do thank you for caring enough to call me.”  (How sweet!)  But, it continues: “I am making some changes in my life.  Please leave a message after the beep.  If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes.”

Thomas à Kempis, in the IMITATION OF CHRIST, says, “Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are.  Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when it knocks…. A person, indeed, is not worthy of the sublime contemplation of God who has not been tried by some tribulation for the sake of God.  For temptation is usually the sign preceding the consolation that is to follow.”

Lent is God’s call to us to make God and Godly values the center of our life.  It is a time for honesty and stability.  A time for us to be close to God.  The desert of life, of Lent – like any desert – can be a vast expanse of sand and rock, punctuated by ragged hills, blistered by a relentless sun, a barren land in which little grows.  But, depending on our outlook, the space can be filled with mysterious unexpected experiences.  It can be a place not only of testing but of beauty where faith can grow.  Mirages give us false hope.  A welcome pool of water or a dripping cactus can reveal to us, in the blink of an eye, a reflection of what we really look like.  During Lent we are simply being asked to dare to be convinced that this is a wonderful opportunity to rediscover our true self-worth and the wonder of being the child of a loving God.  We are challenged not to focus on the storm clouds of COVID restrictions, chronic health conditions, what we DON’T have.  We do well to focus on all that we DO have: our faithful supporters, the friends who DO make contact, the companions who DO treat us gently, our God who, even with all the concerns and pleas that are raised for attention, remembers ME and loves ME with unfailing love.

Personal deserts are unavoidable, they’re part of life.  We need Christ and we need the ministry of others.  If for nothing else than to teach lessons of dependence.  We’ll never be as strong or wise as we’d like.  We need the grace of God in Christ.  We need the ministry of each other and all of God’s people to strengthen us by their prayerful support and good example that we, too, might take up our crosses and follow Jesus.  We pray that like that voice message said (I mentioned earlier), we do take the opportunity of Lent to make changes on our lives.  But unlike that voice message, may we never hear God’s voice and choose not to return the call.

Next Sunday we will be commemorating the 132nd anniversary of the founding of Holy Name Convent from Pittsburgh, PA.  You can look for a snippet of our history as the reflection.  God bless our founding Sisters!  Their first home was “on loan”  space in a family home in San Antonio which is the township adjacent to Saint Leo, home of the current monastery.  The weather bureau archives reveal that it was 80 degrees in San Antonio, FL on the day of their arrive, February 28, 1889.  Stay tuned for the “rest of the story” next week.  

~Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

Genesis 9:8-15   1 Peter 3:18-22   Mark 1:12-15

 

 

Continue Reading

Holy Family Sunday 2020

by Leave a Comment

This coming year Pope Francis has designated the “Year of St. Joseph” marking the 150th anniversary of Pius IX’s declaration of St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church.  Francis describes Joseph as “a beloved father, tender and loving, obedient and accepting; a father who is creatively courageous, a working father, a father in the shadows.”

This weekend the Church turns our focus to Jesus’ earthly family with the feast of the Holy Family.  It’s natural when we celebrate the birth of the child Jesus that we would reflect on His family.  Do you realize that for every one year of his public life, Jesus spent ten years in family life?  That helps us understand the importance and priority He gave to family life.

What might that mean to (and for) us as monastics who we live in an intentional family we call community.  As Benedictines our lives are guided by the simple, yet profound, guidelines designed over 1500 years ago by the man Benedict.  His Rule gives us a picture of a man of great wisdom, compassion and much common sense. (I believe, we can agree, his guidelines were influenced to a great degree by his twin sister Scholastica.)

It is the spirit of the Rule that has survived.  Benedict had a knack for tempering discipline with compassion that makes the Rule come alive for so many.  His prudence shines through when, in so many words, he says: this is what works for us now – if the arrangement of the psalmody, the daily schedule and other daily living details don’t fit your need, change it.

If we only know the first word of the Rule “LISTEN” what an impact it could make on our own happiness and harmony between peoples.  To truly listen requires an attentive spirit … not a scramble to respond with advice, a witty remark or a “I’ve got a better one” or “I know exactly how you feel.”  When we truly listen to another we can identify their feeling, let it resonant within and know that very often all the person wants is a signal that we care.

Benedict’s Rule is not intended to be a great and lofty treatise on prayer or spirituality.  It’s just plain “down to earth” advice.  He says let this rule be read 3 times, cover to cover, to the potential member so she understands exactly what she is getting herself into.  The Rule is filled with practical guidance for ordinary people to live together peacefully. Benedict expected his followers to work hard, study hard and pray hard.  He recognized much of the study and work is an interior process – a true “self-study” steeped in a quiet atmosphere that is broken only by the sounds of nature, farm machinery, a printing press or sewing machine or the scratch of a calligraphy pen.  This kind of soul work begins in private prayer enriched in communal prayer.

I think Benedict must have valued the idea of cross-training.  Given the rotation of duties and positions in community, all members do well to take to heart the advice and warnings given to the various community officials: the prioress, the guest mistress and the porter; the cellarer, the artisans and the sub-prioress.  We all need to be aware of the final judgment – be strong, and at the same time, never be ashamed to have a tender heart.

From that first word in his Rule: LISTEN… to his advice to begin every good work with prayer … to keeping a lamp burning at night … and don’t loiter outside chapel if you are late … it is evident that Benedict saw God at work within the ordinary events of everyday life with all its joys and sorrows, struggles and high points, funerals and jubilees, comings and goings.  In Psalm 27, and often as an antiphon, we pray: “One thing I seek: to dwell in your presence, O God, all the days of my life.”  And, that presence does not refer only to our final day on earth or future eternal life in heaven.  It is not found only in the Eucharistic presence in the chapel – it is EVERYWHERE – in the Voice of the Spirit working in our personal lives and in the voices of each other and the sounds of daily living.

So, LISTEN – to the Voice of your God within – and listen with your heart to your comrades’ hungers and longings.  Just LISTEN – with your ears certainly but also with your eyes and heart and feelings.  The quality of our life in community, is shaped by each of us.

~ Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB
First Reading  Genesis 15:1-6; 21:1-3    Second Reading  Colossians 3:12-21)
Gospel  Luke 2:22-40
Continue Reading