The monastic community rejoiced today, Sunday 6th August 2023, on the occasion of the solemn monastic profession of Br Oscar McDermott OSB during Mass for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Br Oscar, a native of Lifford in County Donegal, made his lifetime commitment to monastic life at Glenstal Abbey before his brethren and a wide circle of family and friends. Deo gratias!
Homily of Abbot Brendan Coffey OSB:
Dear Oscar, here we are on the mountaintop with Jesus and those three disciples. The Lord is transfigured and it is as if the holy Scriptures are transfigured with him; Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets.
Mark, Matthew and Luke all give an account of the transfiguration. This year we have listened to Matthew’s telling of events. These accounts are remarkably similar, but Luke adds a small detail missing from the others: he tells us that the disciples were heavy with sleep, but they kept awake and saw his glory. Oscar, this line is so important for us today as we gather with you to receive your solemn monastic profession – keep awake, stay vigilant all your days.
A monk is a son of the day, a son of light. This is what the monks of Qumran called themselves, ‘sons of light’. St Jerome says to us: “Monk, you are lyre and harp, you have undertaken to sing psalms to God. Wake up and sing psalms, why do you sleep? Monk you watch only with your body, why do you sleep with your mind and not sing psalms to the Lord?” St Benedict says the same thing, does he not? ‘The mind must accord with the voice’. And in case you still don’t get the point the desert Fathers tell us, ‘It is better to sing the psalms, even with little skill, than not to sing them and hear them sung by others’.
Oscar, the monk must be vigilant because our task is to be a sentinel, a watcher, in the Church, like the watcher on the tower of our castle here in Glenstal. We are the watchers of the prophet Isaiah: “On your walls, Jerusalem, I have set watchmen. All the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You, sentinels, awaken the remembrance of the Lord, do not rest, but do not give the Lord rest either, until the Lord comes”. This is our diakonia, our service, as monks in the church today: day and night to remain in dialogue with him, to give him no rest, until he comes. And so you will sing et non confundas me ab expectatione mea – and do not disappoint me in my hope.
This watching is an affirmation of our freedom – as is your monastic profession. I do not believe there is a greater exercise than waking each day to express our freedom. Every morning when we awake the Lord says to us, ‘awake lyre and harp, I will awake the dawn!’ St Basil asks, “What is specific to the Christian?”, “To watch every day and every hour and be ready to do God’s will fully, knowing that in an hour we do not expect the Lord comes”.
Oscar, in monastic life it is not enough to have lived a good life, it is not enough to remain faithful to the end, it is not enough to do the things we have to do every day well. It is necessary, in the long run, to remain awake, because the great temptation on the monastic journey is to sit back and relax. To let things, overwhelm us, without us noticing. To become the foolish virgins, who lacked oil for lack of wisdom and vigilance. God’s today must always be welcomed: to begin again and begin again “for beginnings that never end”.
On this beautiful feast of the Transfiguration, so dear to monks down the centuries, we recall the creating and transforming power of God. God made this beautiful world of ours in six days; the disobedience of our first parents managed to ruin it in less than six minutes. In his risen life the Lord has transfigured our world into a new creation. He stands on that mountain between Moses and Elijah. Moses whom he transfigured at the burning bush and Elijah, whom he transfigured in a fiery chariot and brought to his side. Now he comes to transfigure you Oscar, as you make this gift of self to him. By your obedience, stability and conversatio morum, you will become all fire, a lyre and harp, singing the praises of God.