Oblates of St. Benedict

The Holy Spirit and Scripture

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:22:53 +0000

Four ways the Holy Spirit helps with Scripture:

Guides us to have a correct understanding of the inspired meaning of the words of Scripture (grace of a clear mind);
We are able to read the Bible as God's word, to us as individuals;
The Holy Spirit gives us insight into the mysteries of God which scripture reveals; and
The Holy Spirit inspires our responses to God in prayer.

". . . Make sure that you never refuse to listen when He speaks."

God Can Be Seen in Man and in Each One of Us

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:48:59 +0000

If I insist on giving you my truth, and never stop to receive your truth in return, then there can be no truth between us. Christ is present 'where two or three are gathered in my name.' But to be gathered in the name of Christ is to be gathered in the name of the Word made flesh, of God made man. It is therefore to be gathered in the faith that God has become man and can be seen in man, that he can speak in man and that he can enlighten and inspire love in and through any man I meet. It is true that the visible Church alone has the official mission to sanctify and teach all nations, but no man knows that the stranger he meets coming out of the forest [or the desert of Iraq!!!] in a new country is not already an invisible member of Christ and perhaps one who has some providential or prophetic message to utter.

Thomas Merton

A Walk into the Dark

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:39:36 +0000

The spiritual life does not come cheap. It is not a stroll down a Mary Poppins path with a candy-store God who gives sweets and miracles. It is a walk into the dark with the God who is the light that leads us through darkness.

Darkness, I have discovered, is the way we come to see. It creates the depressions that, once faced, teach us to trust. It gives us the sensitivity it takes to understand the depth of the pain in others. It seeds in us the humility it takes to learn to live gently with the rest of the universe. It opens us to new possibilities within ourselves.

Darkness is a very spiritual thing.
Myra B. Nagel has written, “The season of Lent is a time to reflect on the cross and its meaning for our lives.” There is no doubt in my mind that the cross is significant in any life. Who ever carries a cross and is the same at the end of the journey as they were at the beginning? The only question is the nature of the change. I have so far always been stronger at the end of struggle than I was at the outset. But I have always been more independent, distant, isolated, as well. That hasn’t been all bad—but it has, at the same time, taken its toll.

I have discovered over time that the cross is supposed to take its toll on us. It forms us to find God in the shadows of life. Ironically enough, it is the cross that teaches us hope. When we have survived our own cross, risen alive from the grave of despair, we begin to know that we can survive again and again and again, whatever life sends us in the future. It is this hope that carries us from stage to stage in life, singing and dancing around dark corners.

But hope is not a private virtue. Hope makes us witness to the invincibility of the spirit. The hope we bring to others becomes the one sure gift we have to give to those in pain.

The God of the Dance beckons us out of the caves of the soul to faith and trust and new beginnings. It’s when we get trapped in the past — in its details, and its shame, and its narrow boxes and short leashes — that life stops for us. When life is defined for us by others, we limit our sense of ourselves. Then we dismiss the God of Possibility from our lives. We refuse to become the more that we are. We sit on the dung heap of our past and make it our present. We fail to believe that God is. That God is in us. That God is calling us out of the darkness into the light.

Darkness is one of the ways to God, provided we see it as leading to the light. Provided we don’t turn it into the death of our own soul.

–from Called to Question by Joan Chittister ( Sheed & Ward)

Because of Your Humility

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:16:21 +0000

As Abba Macarius was returning to his cell from the marsh carrying palm-leaves, the devil met him with a sharp sickle and would have struck him but he could not. He cried out, "Great is the violence I suffer from you, Macarius, for when I want to hurt you, I cannot. But whatever you do, I do and more also. You fast now and then, but I am never refreshed by any food; you often keep vigil, but I never fall asleep. Only in one thing are you better than I am and I acknowledge that." Macarius said to him, "What is that?" and he replied, "It is because of your humility alone that I cannot overcome you.

I Hate Lent

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:22:56 +0000

I hate Lent. Or at least I hate the culture of Lent. After all, it really is a silly season, isn’t it? What is all the talk among Catholics these days? What did you give up for Lent? And of course the answer is many things like, smoking, or candy, or using foul language. For forty days and nights (not counting Sundays) these sacrificial victims will make their lives and the lives around them miserable with their constant grousing and complaining about their heroic work for Jesus. Then, on the Day of Resurrection all of the smoking and candy bar eating and foul language will crank up again and it will be business as usual. A few years ago a movie came out called Forty Days and Forty Nights in which a young man gave up pre-marital sex for Lent. How do you work that out? Lent can be a silly season. What is it anyway? Is it a sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice kind of time? I hope not, that business is called Jansenism and we (at least officially) gave up on that ages ago. Is it a season of tokenism, symbolic engagement? I don’t think we have room for much more tokenism in the Church today, many of the faithful are already resolute minimalists. Can Lent be more? I hope so. Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray for forty days and nights in preparation for his public ministry. He went in and came out a changed man. The catechumens of the early Church used the season of Lent as a time or preparation for becoming new persons at Easter. Can Lent not be the same for us? The Holy Rule says that Lent should be a time for sweeping away the negligence of other times. Good enough! Perhaps the season of Lent should be a season of resolution and change. What we give up for Lent we might as well give up for life. In Lent we can become new persons in Christ and rise on Easter in newness of life. It’s not for Lent, it’s for life! In that way maybe Lent could become less a silly season and more a serious season of true conversion. If we add up the Lents of our lives, we may come out with something like discipleship. The Holy Rule also says that the monk’s life (the disciple’s life?) should be a perpetual Lent. Life should be a perpetual season of change and conversion, but if not every day, how about forty days and forty nights?

Orignally posted: http://substancehopedfor.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-hate-lent.html

Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
President-rector of Saint Meinrad School of Theology
St. Meinrad, IN.