Abbot Brendan OSB
Dear Gaelán in a few moments you will be clothed as a novice and I will ask you formally if you wish to join our community. The answer you will give is revealing; you will say, “I have come here seeking the mercy of God and your brotherhood.” What important things these are, the mercy of God and community life. It is so obvious one even wonders why we bother to spell it out.
However, the novitiate is all about paying attention to the obvious, the ordinary; learning the basics and coming to a new appreciation of their importance. God invites, we respond and God sustains us in this response.
I want to tell you a story about a Desert Father called Abba Joseph. He and some of the other monks went out into the desert for a time of retreat taking their novice with them. They pitched their tent and turned in for the night. During the night, Abba Joseph went and woke the novice and said to him, “Look up at the sky and tell me what you see and what it tells you?”
The novice answered, “I see millions of stars.” “Astronomically speaking – It tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. “Horologically speaking – I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically speaking – I can see evidence that God is all-powerful, and that we are small and insignificant. Meterologically speaking – I suspect that we shall have a beautiful day tomorrow.”
Abba Joseph was silent for a moment, and then said: “You have learned much, but you see nothing! Someone has stolen our tent!” It is a gift to learn how to see the obvious. The novitiate is about learning the alphabet of monastic life and receiving the tools you will need. It is about noticing things, listening for the voice of the Lord and entering into his peace. It is about learning how to live in this community, with this very imperfect group of people. It is about patience, it is about desire, it is about love and it is about God. It is about learning what it means to say that nothing is to be preferred to the love of Christ. It is an adventure. The Benedictine saint whose feast we celebrated today, Hildegard of Bingen, reminds us to, “take a good look at yourself. Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world—everything is hidden in you.”
To help you on this adventure you have chosen St Colmcille as your patron, in deference to the name of our monastery and to the one place this great saint loved Doire Cholm Cille. From now on, this is how you will be known. Under the protection of your new patron and with the help of Mary, Mother of God, may the Lord bring the good work he has begun in you to completion.