May you
like the purple prairie clover and the rattlesnake master
of the prairie sow and be sown
in the God
who loves this world beyond measure and without regret.

Bless you. You are holy ground.

This blessing is given to the Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal (ECCSR) pastors after their first immersion from the people and place of Holy Wisdom Monastery.

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The biblical story familiarly known as Paul’s Damascus Road experience (Acts 9) is really less a story of his “conversion” than it is a brilliant portrayal of an archetype of a rite of passage or an initiation. As such, it has become, for me, a really meaningful meditation, both on the season of Lent and the resurrection promise of Easter.

Paul’s story begins, as initiations do, with separation. A faithful and zealous Jew, Paul was absolutely certain that Jesus of Nazareth could not possibly have been God’s messiah to Israel. Paul’s persecutions of Jesus-followers bear witness to this. And so, his encounter with the resurrected Christ separated him from his former life and ruptured his belief system, making his present moment radically discontinuous with his past life.

According to Acts (9:8-9), Paul was blind for three days, during which time he neither ate nor drank – symbolic of a death to self and also of ritual purification and preparation. While much is made of how Paul became a Christian apostle after his encounter with the resurrected Christ, I think the real heart of the story is this reference to Paul’s three days blind. Here Paul sits on a threshold, in a liminal space – no longer who he was, but not yet able to see who he will become. It is the second phase of an initiation.

This liminal space is one with which many of us might feel all too familiar, spending a good bit of our lives suspended at thresholds, between the “what was” of our lives and the “what’s next.” The pandemic has been one relentlessly long liminal time. Most life transitions – births, marriage, divorce, relocation, loss of meaningful work, aging, illness or injury, and, of course, death itself – place us in liminal spaces. We feel we have been changed, but it is not at all clear who we will become. These can be fearsome spaces – confusing, sorrowful, and disorienting. It’s challenging to live through them. It’s hard to stay confident about what waits on the other side of the threshold.  

As a liturgical season, Lent was a threshold time, a liminal space into which we are invited to imitate the pattern of Christ’s dying, death, and resurrection – and thus, at Easter, be initiated into a new way of being. Lenten seasons hold and guide us, bequeathing their wisdom so that we might be spiritually fortified for all the other liminal times in our lives and not lose hope.

Paul’s story and the story of Christ’s resurrection both give me hope and reassurance that divine love will always draw life out of all the most death-dealing of circumstances. They reveal to me how God – known in nature, in relationships, in silence, in beauty and in love – will also be known to me in brokenness – in Christ’s, in Paul’s, and in my own.

            The paradox of grace is that it longs for those who are broken to be made whole but
           also summons those who are whole to be broken.

                                                                        Belden C. Lane, in The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

I think Paul understood just this when he wrote to the Corinthians, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul saw the resurrected Christ. Yet, he writes to the Corinthians that he wants to know nothing among the people except Christ and Christ crucified – not resurrected, but crucified.  

In another letter, Paul quotes an early Christian hymn celebrating how Christ “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7). And what was this emptying but Jesus’ voluntary relinquishment of all the legitimate claims he had – because of his equality with God – to status, power, and privilege. In the midst of the torture, the humiliation, the pain, and abandonment, right up to the moment of his last breath, I imagine Jesus could have saved himself. But he didn’t. He emptied himself, voluntarily relinquishing his claims, and “was obedient unto death” (Philippians 2:8).

I think during Paul’s liminal time, he came to see that imitating Christ, having this same disposition to emptying, is what it means “to have the mind of Christ” – and to be initiated, reintegrated, restored, resurrected. During Lent we were invited to similarly empty ourselves. Now, in this Easter season, we continue to answer the summons, promised that we are on our way to a yet unknown wholeness.

We hope you enjoyed this Benedictine Reflection. Learn more about the sisters’ mission and the Year of Beauty by clicking the button below.

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opening 
the Opus Dei 

in this 
bardo 

intimate 
as ever 

was 

Five days alone in the hermitage—no phone, no internet, no reading, no writing, no music—only the Liturgy of the Hours, many hours of wordless prayer, walking, eating, sleeping and silence—suspending all the usual outer distractions of daily life in order to face all the inner ones—all the things that drop a veil between myself and God—all the false selves for which I have so many names, and the desire to let go of all those names and disappear into the true self that is hidden in God. It certainly is what the Tibetans call a bardo—an in-between place—neither this nor that—no familiar ground to stand on—no comforting handles to hold. Just each moment, arising and passing away, and the impulse to cling to it, to make it last, or the impulse to reject it, to make it go away—even while, in fact, the moment is already gone—it  can be neither clung to nor rejected—it is just succeeded by another moment, another sensation, another emotion, another thought, another bur oak shadow cast onto the snow by the waxing moon. Each moment is itself a bardo—one after the other in an endless stream—boundless and bottomless, one unknown passing into the next unknown, inviting me to disappear into it.  The breath comes in, the breath goes out. Sometimes I am breathing, and sometimes there is just the breath and no breather. 

last night of retreat 
the emptiness 
around each star 

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In 1373, reputedly around Good Friday, an Englishwoman lay stricken by what appeared to be a fatal illness, possibly related to the Black Death that had recently returned to Norwich. As it was, she did not die. Her birth name is unknown, but the name she assumed is familiar to us: Julian of Norwich, one of the greatest of the English mystics.

In her fevered haze, Julian experienced the first of a series of visions that she recorded in a book entitled, Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love[1]. The Eighth Revelation is the heart of the book, and is focused on Jesus’ pain and suffering. “Is any pain like this?” she wondered. She reflected on Jesus’ mother Mary’s suffering, and then widened the circle to include “all His disciples and all His true lovers (who) suffer pains more than their own bodily dying.” In this community of pain, forged by Jesus’ suffering, Julian gave voice to a great theological insight: “Here I saw a great ONEING betwixt Christ and us: for when He was in pain, we were in pain.” To Julian, the cross was about ONEING: the complete unity of God with us and us with God – and not only humanity, but, as she relates from the vision, the ONEING of “all creatures that suffer pain, suffer with Him … (even) the firmament, the earth failed for sorrow in the time of Christ’s dying….” This cosmic circle of grief, emanating from Jesus’ passion, reveals that Jesus suffered not only for us but he suffered with us – with all that was, is and will be.

Especially in these days of social distance, “with” is complicated. Even frightening. Good Friday plunges us headlong into “with” – into a ONEING with all who suffer in this epidemic. John shows us Jesus with his mother and his friends. We feel Jesus dying with them, with us, with all creatures, with all our earth.  Today, the world community is connected through fear and suffering. We are with Jesus on the cross, and Jesus is with us all on every frightened, broken-hearted, betrayal-laden, blood-soaked day of human history. In Jesus’ cross, we find the hope to endure, a love for others and for creation, and the power to pursue God’s dream of love and justice for the world. Today, ours is a ministry of presence. We are with Jesus. And He is with us.

[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52958/52958-h/52958-h.htm#THE_EIGHTH_REVELATION

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The monastery’s theme for 2022 is beauty. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamozov: “The world will be saved by beauty.” The first image that came to me as I pondered this was that of Vedran Smajlovic playing Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor in the bombed streets of Sarajevo in 1992. He played each day for 22 days to mark the death of the 22 people killed standing in line for bread during the siege of the city. Hear the story from BBC news.   

Beauty can keep the human heart and spirit alive in the midst of suffering. The PBS Newshour on March 7, 2022, reported on ways this is happening in Ukraine in the midst of the bombing. A young girl sings “Let It Go,” the theme song from Frozen, for her shelter mates. Outside the Lviv train station, a piano is set up, and a young woman plays “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong as people fleeing their homes wait in line to buy tickets.  

In a basement bomb shelter in Kharkiv, the violinist, Vera Lytochenko, plays for the eleven others in the shelter. Lytochenko, called the “cellar violinist” has posted her concerts on social media where thousands of people in Ukraine watch. “Many people text me now saying that my videos give them such support and hope. They can see that someone stays here [in Kharkiv]. Someone is alive and someone keeps hope and is optimistic.” 

In speaking about the Way of Beauty (Via Pulcritudinus) initiative by Pope Benedict XVI, Elizabeth Lev, professor of art history at Duquesne University, said Pope Benedict noted that “beauty wounds.” It creates a little opening where the Holy Spirit can get in.

I have experienced that wounding of beauty, that opening, as a moment of awe, of mercy and grace. For me, that wounding of beauty often comes with tears. The first time I entered the empty assembly room after the monastery building was completed, I was touched by the beauty of its simplicity. It felt like a sacred space, and I was moved to tears. I felt embraced by the Holy. Perhaps you who are parents have experienced this at the birth of a child. We might experience this in nature or in witnessing courage in the midst of suffering. 

It is said that wherever there is Truth, Beauty and Goodness, there is God. These days, people are experiencing quite a bit of despair, hopelessness, fear, hatred, meaninglessness. Beauty can save us. The beauty of the Olympic athletes captivated our attention even in the midst of political tension. The beauty of the murals on the plywood boarding up the windows on State Street in Madison, WI showed the hope of the human spirit for an equitable world after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis in May 2020.  

Lia Howard writes: “It is brave to create beauty where there is fear and it may just save someone else” (11/2/2020 blog). This Lent, I invite you to include in your prayer one beautiful thing or encounter that catches your attention. Spend time with it; let it touch your heart and create a little opening in you. Stay with that moment. How does the Spirit move in you? How might you share it with others? 

If you like, share your story by responding here. 

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Putting a pebble in your shoe can still be found under Ten Simple Penance Ideas for Lent at CatholicLiving.net. By now, most pebbles have probably gone metaphorical. Still, what if your shoes are already too full of metaphorical pebbles to add any more?

Maybe some pebbles already in our shoes can become our offerings. In my case, pebbles of anxiety and sadness about current events are becoming a focus to sit with more consciously in prayer—which means fasting from at least some efforts to numb those feelings. And as for almsgiving…

Do you interact regularly with someone who pushes your buttons? Once my buttons are pushed (say, with putdowns of my beliefs), I’m in verbal battle posture, and the button-pusher is now an adversary instead of a person. Verbal counterattacks swarm through my mind. If I manage to stifle them, my brain freezes up and won’t show me any better way to speak my truth. Afterward, I addictively continue the conversation in my head and resent all the energy it’s costing me. What if I treated that time and energy, though, as alms to give willingly? Why should it matter if the recipient is not a stranger and doesn’t fit my stereotype of a seeker of alms? Could the button-pushing be a form of begging for attention?

I imagine a fourth desert temptation for Jesus. Displaying a preview of all the people who will try to push Jesus’ buttons with mockery, harassment and criticism, Satan offers a way to humiliate them spectacularly once and for all. Jesus turns down the offer with a scriptural saying – maybe that we owe compassion to people under duress (like biblical widows and orphans). After all, who knows what duress our critics may be under? Judgment belongs to God alone, another saying he could use. Many more sayings to counter this sort of temptation come from Jesus himself: turning the other cheek, taking the beam out of our own eye, checking our track record before casting a stone, leaving our gift at the altar to go be reconciled.

Jesus’ responses to his challengers were miracles of ingenious, nonviolent teaching. How did he resist the lure of battle posture and find the mental space to think of such creative stories and questions?

Maybe he learned to respond to each provocation by remembering, before anything else, that he was beloved of God. He might have practiced this in the desert – calling, every time he was tempted, on the memory of the Holy Spirit’s descent at his baptism.

Would a habit like this truly open up the mental space I’m missing when my buttons are pushed? The system of Nonviolent or Conscious Communication, which many people find effective, instills the habit of offering oneself empathy before responding to triggers. In Buddhist benefactor practice, a person or place associated with comfort and safety is invoked before sitting with unwanted feelings. The support of this benefactor makes it possible to meet difficult feelings with acceptance – and thus to respond more freely to the people and circumstances that trigger them.

A misplaced asceticism in me thinks it’s cheating to accept support from the Divine Benefactor. I suspect that this drive to make my offerings unaided is really about trying to buy God’s approval. However, the Lenten desert serves the opposite purpose: training ourselves to depend, whenever we are tested, on the love of God.

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“The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent.” So begins Benedict’s brief chapter on the observation of Lent. We should always be preparing for the appearance of the risen Christ. We should always be seeking to rid ourselves of bad habits, practicing self-denial, realizing our faults and living each moment in gratitude for God’s abundant love that pours down on us just as we are.  

Since few, however, have the strength for this, we urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times.”                                                (Rule of Benedict, chapter 49) 

The season of Lent is limited in time and at the end come death and resurrection. Likewise, human life is limited in time. At the end come death and, we hope, resurrection. In Benedict’s worldview, we do not have to wait until death to experience the reign of God. As we progress on the spiritual path we get a taste of heaven here on earth. But we must progress! Much of the year, I act as though I’m going to live forever, as if I have endless days to practice the ‘tools of good works’ that will curb my appetite for comfort and nurture a fondness for self-denial. Benedict instructs us to ‘keep death daily before our eyes,’ to live every moment with an awareness that our time here on earth is limited. One day we will be no more. This is a mindset that must be intentionally developed; death is a reality we routinely ignore. Though we are beings limited in time and space, by nature we imagine ourselves invincible and immortal – like God. Lent is an opportunity to cultivate humility, to remember that every day, every minute, every breath is a gift freely given and without notice may be taken away. It is not to be squandered or taken for granted.  

When I imagine the moment of my death I wonder, Will I be able to willingly surrender and embrace the mystery to come? Or will I experience ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth,’ raging in vain for more time even as the end draws near? 

Lent reminds me of my mortality and of my desire for God. And vice versa. My desire for God motivates me to practice abstinence. By nature I’m a weak-willed, undisciplined person. So it’s only with proper motivation that I can restrain my self-gratifying, distraction-seeking behavior. Lent provides me with the proper motivation.   

The practice of abstinence, of denying myself the satisfaction of my desires and compulsions, is a choice to live with discomfort. Saying ‘no’ to a full stomach, ‘no’ to lolling in bed, or ‘no’ to scrolling through the headlines on my phone helps me say ‘no’ to reacting to an ill-timed comment. It trains me to ‘bear injuries patiently.’ It teaches me to endure the discomfort of learning our country’s shameful racial history. During the season of Lent, I remember that the choices I make have cosmic consequences. 

As Christians, we are here to build up the body of Christ and to grow in love for the sake of the world. To love as Jesus did is to surrender a sense of entitlement to a long, comfortable life. Lent is a time to live with a sense of urgency. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Life is finite. Now is the time to set limits on the ego’s rapacious desires. Now is the time to forgo satisfactions. Now is the time to put God first, for the sake of Love. 

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Songbirds have been on my mind lately. I don’t know what to think about them. They are an incredible gift to the senses. I find myself savoring the day when I hear them. Can you imagine what life would be like without them? Do you think the creator wanted to wake us up to the beauty around us by giving us songbirds? Life does not always seem like such a gift. We all get into ruts from time to time, ruts in our behavior (we call them habits) and ruts in our thinking (we call them attitudes). Then a sunny spring day arrives, the fresh green color jumps out at us as though it is our first time seeing it, the warm air caresses our skin, and the songbirds remind us that there is more to life than the little universe of our habits and attitudes. It is then that we are invited to look about us at our family members, our neighbors, the people we see in passing at church or at the grocery store and realize that they are all a gift to us as well, just as surely as that beautiful spring day is a gift. Oh sure, I could try to tinker with all these gifts and improve on them somewhat. But I could, instead, just accept them all and savor them as gifts.

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As we choose spiritual practices for Lent, we might consider the practice of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture. (See part 1) This slow reflective reading may be done alone or within a group.

The method of lectio divina is often referred to as fourfold: lectio (reading the text), meditatio (reflecting and meditating on the text), oratio (praying from the text) and contemplatio (deep contemplation of the text).

“Reading as it were, puts food whole into the mouth, meditation chews it and breaks it up, prayer extracts its flavor, contemplation is the sweetness itself which gladdens and refreshes.” (Guigo II, Twelfth century monk)

Lectio—Reading

This kind of reading is slow and reflective, focused on absorbing the word itself in a reflective manner. St. Ambrose writes that calm, slow reading enkindles the ardor of prayer.

When doing lectio with a group, it is good to read through a short passage slowly several times, then allow time for silence. Then people in the group say one word or one phrase that struck them. An atmosphere of quiet, calm and peace is important.

Meditatio—Meditation, Reflection

The purpose of meditation is to assimilate the word of God, to allow it to become more and more a part of our hearts. The Jewish theologian and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “To meditate is to know how to stand still and to dwell upon a word!” In reading the word of God there can be one word or phrase that moves our heart. At the visit of the shepherds at Bethlehem, “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)

Whatever speaks to the heart moves us to wonder, think and pray.

Oratio—Prayer

“Prayer is best understood as a dialogue or conversation between God and a person. The ancient practice of lectio takes for granted that we begin by first listening to God speak to us, then after we hear God speak, we respond; sometimes with a word of thanking and blessing God for divine goodness to us…other times with an acknowledgement of our weakness.” (Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB)

Abbot Gregory continues: “What has the sacred word said to me about growing deeper into the life of Christ? What has it said about a more authentic love of my neighbor? Of what has it accused me and called me to personal conversion?”

God’s word begins to call forth from us a reply.

Contemplatio—Contemplation

“Be still before the Lord and wait in patience.” (Psalm 37:7) Reflection on God’s word will lead us to a posture of peace before God. “Contemplation is a movement from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from doubt to belief, from uncertainty to hope.” (Abbot Gregory)

Reading a passage from Scripture in a slow reflective manner can be a practice for encountering the mystery of God in the Scriptures.

I close with a favorite prayer, Psalm 23; perhaps you would like to use it for lectio.

The Lord is my shepherd;
There is nothing I shall want.
Fresh and green are the pastures
Where he gives me repose.
Near restful waters he leads me,
To revive my drooping spirit.

He guides me along the right path;
He is true to his name.
If I should walk in the valley of darkness
No evil would I fear.
You are there with your crook and your staff;
With these you give me comfort.

You have prepared a banquet for me
In the sight of my foes.
My head you have anointed with oil,
My cup is overflowing.
Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me
all the days of my life.
In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell
For ever and ever.

Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB is a retired abbot of New Subiaco Abbey, Subiaco, AR

Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB is Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Order and resides in Rome

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During Lent it may help to have a prayer in your pocket. One that you can pull out on a moment’s notice. 

A prayer I keep close at hand, and “at heart” is Psalm 23, “A Prayer of David,” commonly called “The Good Shepherd Psalm.” This psalm can become a spiritual resource especially if it arises from the practice of lectio divina. 

Lectio divina literally means divine or holy reading. This is a way of putting on the mind of God. By absorbing the Word of God we let the divine scripture penetrate deeply so that we may be transformed by divine grace…(Abbott Jerome Kodell, OSB) One can ponder the Christian meaning of this psalm from the perspective of John’s Gospel: the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep. (John 10) 

Lectio divina is associated with those who follow The Rule of St. Benedict. However, this practice of reading and praying the Word of God has begun to find a place in the spirituality of many people desirous of reading the Scripture in a reflective and prayerful way. Entire books are now written on the topic along with many articles in periodicals. 

The practice of lectio divina is best done in an environment of silence. (It helps to turn off communication media.) The writings of the major religious traditions emphasize the necessity of silence for coming into communion with God, with the sacred and with oneself. 

The desert was perhaps the earliest place of lectio divina. One can imagine St. Benedict in his cave with the sacred scriptures as his lectio. Today the monk’s cell could be the place. We need a space to listen attentively to the voice of God speaking to us through the divine word. 

The first word of The Rule of St. Benedict is the command to listen. St. Benedict specifies and denotes times during the day for the practice of holy reading and the practice of listening to the Word of God.  This reading and listening to the divine word has the formative effect of awakening in the heart the divine presence which can speak to a person at any moment and in any situation. (Abbot J Polan, OSB)  After reflecting on a passage from scripture it is common for a person to have that portion or word of scripture return to the mind and heart during the day. 

Part two of this article explains the “method” for lectio divina, along with my favorite translation of Psalm 23 the Good Shephard Psalm. Click here to read part two.

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