Tag Archives: Benedictine

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St. Benedict & the New Evangelization

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The Benedictines have always been in the forefront of evangelization, most notably in Europe where “with the cross, the book and the plow,” they carried Christianity to scattered people (Pope Paul VI).  When the Holy Father declared Saint Benedict the Patron of Europe, he called him the man who “dispelled the darkness by the light of Christian civilization and radiated Christian peace.”

There are shining examples as to the rebirth of Benedictine life. Just look at the growing community at the birthplace of St. Benedict in Nursia, Italy, founded by an American. Then there are the Benedictines of Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma, and the Benedictines of Mary in Gower, MO.

There is also a group of Anglican nuns in England who have crossed the Tiber. Their community, the Community of St. Mary the Virgin in Wantage, Oxfordshire, was founded in 1848 and has always been “at the heart of the Church of England’s religious life” since it was founded.

The current community comprises 40 or so members, of which 10 have left to join the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, organized to allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while retaining their beloved forms of liturgy and prayers. They sisters plan to follow the Rule of St. Benedict.

One of those joining the Church is the Mother Superior while another sister was a “priest” in the Anglican Church. They will be leaving their monastery, fellow sisters and all means of support behind. Three of the sisters are in their 80’s. They are courageous women. Mother Winsome says, “We are doing this because we truly believe this is God’s call. The Bible is full of people called to step out in faith not knowing where they were going or how they will be provided for and that truly is the situation we are following.”

Mother Winsome adds: “We believe that the Holy Father’s offer is a prophetic gesture which brings to a happy conclusion the prayers of generations of Anglicans and Catholics who have sought a way forward for Christian unity.”

May Saint Benedict’s intercession bring more monastic communities under the Vicar of Christ.

See the full story in the Catholic Herald.co.uk.

Men's communities, News

The Contemplative Life Today

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In an article in Religious Life magazine, Very Rev. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B. was asked about the resurgence of men entering contemplative Benedictine life. What is drawing them, specifically, to his monastery San Benedetto? It is, he said, the experience of a radical faith in God lived out among like-minded brothers.

Father Cassian views monastic life as the perfect instrument for the New Evangelization. It is the best medicine for the God-lessness that pervades society for it is a life imbued with God at every turn, a life filled with His presence and beauty.

Over and over again, people have come into San Benedetto “by chance” and have emerged changed by their experience of the liturgy, reverently celebrated. The Benedictine’s witness of prayer and awe-inspiring liturgy is the contribution the monks can make to the New Evangelization.

Father also mentions the eight vices that are part of the pre-Benedictine tradition: gluttony, lust, avarice, acedia, vainglory, anger, pride and sadness. It is interesting that sadness is mentioned because there is a lot of sadness and aimlessness in the world today. It seems to me that this is the age-old sadness with the age-old answer: Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

 

Cloistered life, Men's communities

The Power of Truth

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Fourteen years ago, Benedictine monks from the French Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontgombault (a member of the Solesmes Congregation) arrived in Oklahoma to start the new foundation of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek Abbey. In 1998, Most Rev. Edward Slattery welcomed the 13 monks  who began a new chapter of Benedictine life in the United States. It was a long journey home for some of them who had actually left America years before in search of “the purely contemplative form of Benedictine monastic life that seemed to be missing in their homeland.”

It all started in the 1970’s at the University of Kansas when some professors inaugurated the Integrated Humanities Program, a study of Western Civilization as expressed in the Great Books. I know of what they speak for I was a Humanities Major in college taught by a professor dedicated to the classic truths and legacy of Western Civilization. I like to say that my Business major got me a job but my Humanistic Studies major prepared me for life. I am very grateful to my professor.

Anyway, as the students read such things as The Aeneid and The Confessions of Saint Augustine, conversions to Christianity, especially to Catholicism, abounded. A couple of the students went to Europe in search of a monastery that used the ancient Latin liturgy. They found a home at Fontgombault. In 1999, several of the Americans along with some Canadians and Frenchmen, arrived in Tulsa to found Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey under the Patronage of Mary’s Annunciation. Today, there are forty-one monks in residence living in buildings built to last the ages.

Today is a special day at the abbey as His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, will celebrate Holy Mass with the monks in Oklahoma.

If you would like to support the Benedictine monks, please visit their website. You can order Gregorian chant CDs, books, rosaries and other items. They have a beautiful monastery partially completed but more is planned to handle the growth of this young community.

General interest

Our Restless Hearts

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I am writing about Saint Benedict at the moment and am intrigued by one of the three vows professed by Benedictines:  stability. Msgr. Charles Pope has an interesting article on the subject contrasting the Benedictine vow of stability with the instability of family and societal life today. As always, the saints are way ahead of us. Especially Saint Benedict who lived 1500 years ago.

The vow of stability means that a Benedictine will live out his or her life in one monastery. There’s no looking over the fence for where the grass is greener. It means that problems have to be worked out, difficult people have to be loved, selfish desires have to give way to the common good.

Look how it is today: no one lives in their hometown, parents move to Florida, no one stays with one company for their entire life, people don’t seem to want to settle down and establish roots. This is especially true in marriage where 50% of marriages end in divorce.

Monsignor says, “Stability, though difficult to find in our times is very important to cultivate wherever possible and to the extent possible. In particular, the gift to seek is the kind of stability that is content with what God has given and is not always restlessly seeking a more ideal setting. For again, as we have noted: Ultimately there is no escape from oneself, and the idea that things would be better someplace else is usually an illusion.”

Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

 

Women's Communities

You Are Forever a Spouse of Christ

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May 31, 2012, was the solemn profession day for two Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of St. Walburga. St. Benedict says in his rule, “Let him who is to be received make in the oratory, in the presence of all, a promise of stability, conversion of manners and obedience before God and his saints. This petition is to be written in his own hand.” The two sisters, Sr. Lioba and Sr. Maria-Gertrude,  followed their spiritual father, Saint Benedict, by doing just that.

Mother had an interesting insight into what it means for a Bride of Christ to die to self.  She said, “You have embraced the very heart of what John the Baptist has said, ‘He must increase, I must decrease.’ If a nun’s deaths do not make her more alive to God, she is still living in the Old Testament, she will not be very good news to the world; but you are good news to the world. You have embraced the Paschal Mystery.”

The Abbey is the newest IRL Affiliate Community. Located in the Archdiocese of Denver, they were founded in 1935 from the Abbey of St. Erentrud in Austria. In addition to participation in the daily Eucharist, spiritual reading and liturgical prayer, they also run a gift shop and retreat house.

 

Men's communities, News

Benedictine Video: Quaerere Deum – “To Seek God”

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On April 14, 2012, Fr. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., will receive the 2012 Pro Fidelitate et Virtute award at the 2012 IRL National Meeting banquet. Fr Folsom founded a new monastery in a small apartment in Rome in 1998 and in 2000 moved the community to Norcia, the birthplace of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica. The Vatican II document Perfectae Caritatis urges religious to rediscover to their roots which Fr. Folsom surely did!

A 40-minute video, “Quaerere Deum,” showing what life is like for the monks has recently been released and is available to all for viewing. The title comes from the first task of all monks, “To Seek God,” as described by the Rule of St Benedict.

In 2009, the monks were given a new apostolate by the Holy See: to make both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman rite available. “This practice of offering both forms (in utroque usu) allows us the possibility to drink deeply from the riches of the tradition and, at the same time, to open our doors wide to the Church as she is today.”

For registration information for the IRL National Meeting and/or banquet (April 13-25, 2012), please visit our website or give us a call at (847)573-8975. The theme of the meeting is “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts: The Liturgy as a Foretaste of Heaven.”

Men's communities, News

“Inside the Vatican” 2011 Man of the Year to be Honored at the 2012 IRL National Meeting

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This year, the IRL’s Pro Fidelitate et Virtute Award will go to the Very. Rev. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., named the 2011 Man of the Year by Inside the Vatican magazine.

In the article, Dr. Robert Moynihan, editor-in-chief of the magazine, wrote: “Sometimes we are able to see a splendid adventure of life and faith just at the moment that it is unfolding. … Such is the case with Father Cassian Folsom and the refounding of the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, Italy—the birthplace of St. Benedict in about A.D. 480—which was closed in 1810, and reopened after 190 years in the year 2000. For what Father Folsom has done for Norcia, for what he has done for monasticism in general and Benedictine monasticism in particular, for what he has done for the Church’s liturgy and for what he has taught all of us about following Christ by his Christian example, we feel privileged to have the opportunity to select Cassian Folsom, who is also an old friend, as our ‘Person of the Year’ for 2011.”

Please join us at the IRL banquet dinner honoring Fr. Cassian which will be held on Saturday, April 14, 2012, at the University of St. Mary of the Lake. The banquet is just one part of our National Meeting (April 13-15, 2012) which this year is focusing on The Sacred Liturgy  as a Foretaste of Heaven. All are invited to attend. Please visit our website for more information.