Enter into the unity and harmony of the Trinity with this latest video from our Icon Chapel:
Enter into the unity and harmony of the Trinity with this latest video from our Icon Chapel:
We are happy to begin sharing some lessons which our monks have learned during this pandemic. Br Justin begins our ‘Lessons from Lockdown’ series:
Shortly after I was ordained in 1988 I officiated at a wedding. At the reception afterwards I overheard the mother of the bride say about my homily, ‘He’s a young celibate priest! What would he know about love?’ Faced with the task of preaching on the two great commandments of love this morning, I fear that good lady may have been right after all. Years later, in a family conversation after a few drinks, the discussion turned philosophical and got onto the question of love. I can’t remember what nonsense we may have been talking, but I do remember that my elderly uncle basically stopped the conversation when he said, ‘I think the only one who knows anything about love is God.’ It is at this point that I should now stop speaking and sit down, because maybe there isn’t much for me to say.
But I think I am on very firm ground when I point to the altar in this church and say, ‘There’s one place where there is true love.’ Absolute love, infinite love from God, a life poured out for us. Love that invites us to receive. God loving us with all God’s heart, all God’s soul, all God’s mind. Not just thoughts about love, but love put into our hands and our mouths, and for those watching on webcam God will have his own special way of doing this for each person. So we need to pay as much attention as possible to what is happening there. It’s the school of love. I will add two other ideas which may be of help, one from monastic tradition, and the other from the Bible.
‘Love the Lord your God with all your hear, and all your soul and all your mind’ In other words, nothing is supposed to come between us and God. Teaching from early monasticism speaks of the power of the mind to really make this happen, to set the process going. The monastic tradition has very helpful things to say about the mind. I don’t mean so much thinking about God, trying to ‘work God out’ in our head, making logical deductions, ‘A plus B plus C, therefore D’. I mean something much simpler, easier and far more beautiful. When you look at a beautiful sunset, you don’t set about measuring the amount of light, listing the colours, measuring the shapes of the silhouettes and then deducing that it is beautiful. You just notice the beauty. Similarly the mind can turn very simply towards God the way a sunflower turns towards the light, or the way you might glance at a friend.
We use our mind for all sorts of good and important things, counting money, sending emails, planning work or holidays, getting the right ingredients for a cake. But monastic authors tell us there is something else which the human mind really specialises in, something really easy for the human mind, and that is turning in love towards God. When the mind turns towards God it finds its natural homeland. It’s like a fish in water. It’s easy. It’s restful. It’s natural.
So one way of helping love to enter our whole self, heart and soul, is that at every waking moment, our mind can be gently focussed towards God, or else on something which we are doing for God or which we know is pleasing to God. Blessed Laurence of the resurrection once spoke of picking a piece of straw off the ground for the love of God. Even in the middle of tasks that are accomplished for God we can pause and mentally glance heavenwards, like a driver who keeps has to keep his eyes on the road but still manages to look regularly at the speedometer and the rear-view mirror. When our mind is turned towards God, the heart finds its natural resting place. When our mind turns towards God, with a glance that is open to love, it’s like opening the curtains of our our soul so that God’s sunlight can reach every part of who we are. And when the mind turns to God, it finds itself at rest.
The second thing is that our first reading today hints at particular forms of love of neighbour that are critical in our world right now. Look out for the stranger. The Irish know what it was like to emigrate – to the USA, to Britain, to Australia. What about the people who arrive among us? Sorting out exactly what the State should do may not be easy, but at least when we hear a voice or see a face that seems a bit different, we can go out of our way to let the other person know we are glad they are there. Every person on the planet has a need to feel accepted – that they have a right to be there, that somebody is happy to see them around. And there is the stranger who arrives into the family by engagement or marriage. The new person at work whose style is really not what we are used to. The new neighbour. The widow and the orphan, in the time of the Book of Exodus: these were the people who had little or no social support. Don’t be harsh on people who are struggling. Financial dealings: the book of Exodus is saying, make a living by all means, but in your financial dealings don’t lock other people into poverty or leave them destitute.
Scientific experiments have proven that an act of kindness reduces the stress, not just of the recipient, but also the giver. Love of neighbour will take the edge off our cravings and our rantings. What I want and what annoys me become less important, and my mind turns more easily back to its natural focus on God. It begins and ends with God’s love, in our heart, our soul, our mind. As we prepare to move towards the altar, let’s get ready to taste and see that the Lord is good!
Father Henry first discovered Glenstal in the late 1960’s, as one of only a few Catholics studying at Trinity College Dublin. Learn more in this week’s #MeetTheMonks
Brendan Coffey OSB, the Abbot of Glenstal Abbey, has delivered a message at the start of Ireland’s Level 5 lockdown which aims to reduce the rising numbers of COVID-19 cases.
Watch here:
‘You will not fear the terror of the night… nor the plague that prowls in the darkness’ – Br Colmán shares a psalm for the pandemic in today’s episode of the Mindful Monk:
The raising of Lazarus reminds us of the saving power of Jesus in our own lives and our need for further Divine help:
Render to Caesar
Caesar is code name for whoever is in charge. Cyrus of the first reading this morning from Isiaiah, was king of Persia. He conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Israelites to return home from exile to rebuild their temple. He was Caesar as the good guy. The imperial title, Caesar, derives from the family name of Julius Caesar, perhaps the most famous Roman emperor of them all, who remains a household word. Whether you came into the world by caesarean operation; whether you are having a Caesar salad for your lunch; whether you go to the barber and ask for a Caesar cut, you are rendering to Caesar. His family name became the dynastic title for those coming after him as emperors in Rome. Caesar Augustus was next in line, and then Tiberius Caesar who was emperor when Pontius Pilate, Governor for Rome of Judea, condemned Jesus Christ to death.
And Pilate said to Jesus, “Do you not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered Pilate, “You would have no authority over me if it were not given to you from above’ [John 19].
In German they say Kaiser, in Russia it becomes Tsar; it doesn’t matter what they are called, Caesars are the ones who call the shots. And rendering happens without our even noticing it. Each July, for instance, we spend 31 days honouring Caesar, as this month was called after Julius. And the reason why August has 31 days also, and February only 28 days, is because his successor, Augustus Caesar, wanted the month called after him, August, to have as many days, if not more, than his illustrious predecessor. Today, let me tell you, there are only 68 more shopping days before Christmas. Forces beyond our control wind us up to a Caesar pitch. Voices deep inside say: What the hell are you doing here, when you should be at the shopping mall. There are even those who shop on Christmas day to get the best bargains for next year’s fandango.
Politicians are predicting that there will be no Christmas this year owing to Covid restrictions. Turkey farmers the world over are in a panic. Breeders plan to reduce the size of their turkeys as so few will be allowed at each Christmas dinner table. Downsizing mightn’t be a bad thing for the turkeys themselves. As Caesar prefers white to the dark, stringy, fatty meat that comes from other turkey parts, breeders have developed what they call ‘the broadbreasted white.’ By December, your perfectly realised commercial turkey should take an oval shape, something like a pathologically obese rugby football. Tiny little wings, hardly a leg to stand on, flying is quite out of the question. These turkeys can hardly walk; they are far too fat to mate, so many arrive on our tables through artificial insemination. Those advertised on the cellophane pack as ‘free range’ were probably allowed to move their necks.
The notion that Christmas won’t happen if we can’t shop, visit, party, or eat our faces off, is the ultimate reversal of the order of those ‘things’which are supposedly Caesar’s.
‘As kingfishers catch fire,’ Christ will be born this year ‘in ten thousand places’ . . . ‘lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his’ [Hopkins]. Christmas has happened and will happen with or without Covid 19; whether we have a thirty pound turkey on the table or not.
But if Christmas is to happen, it must happen for you. What matter if it takes place elsewhere, in Jerusalem, in Rome, in Grafton Street, Dublin. Wherever you are, whatever your situation is, Christmas can happen this year, perhaps more easily than ever before, in the Covid converted stable of your own heart. You are the one being asked to give birth to the love of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit. If you render to God some of this time that is God’s, that one little room of your Covid lockdown could become an everywhere.
Learn more about Father Columba’s journey from Dublin priest to Glenstal monk in this week’s episode of #MeetTheMonks
How do we respond to this difficult time in our culture of comfort? In negativity and complaining, or in generosity and love? Join the discussion with Father Simon: