Blessings to you! When you receive this, I will be on my way to Kenya with our Brother Charles. We will visit his family there and his bishop and a religious community of sisters—among other things. I will also meet with some other Kenyans who want to join our community and with a former monk of our community who will begin studies for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
My time in Mexico was completely full. Our Father Francisco Alanís Ríos and I served the Benedictine nuns at the Abbey of Saint María de Guadalupe, conducting their Canonical Visitation at the request of the Abbot President of the Annunciation Congregation. Truly it is an honor to serve another community and to encourage their monastic life.
Then I traveled back to Mexico City and celebrated the solemn vows of Sister Ester the Monastery of Nuestra Señora del Tepeyac in the suburbs of Mexico City. I have known both of these communities for over twenty-five years and rejoice with them in their monastic lives.
Now I am off to Kenya, where I have never been before. We have two professed monks in our community from Kenya and their families will never be able to come and visit us. So my practice for some years now has been to visit the family of a brother after he makes his first vows in our community. Since our brothers come from some fourteen countries right now, it means that I travel quite a bit.
Mr. Jay Thornton has come to join the community. He joins Mr. Hector Arredondo Hernandez in the postulancy.
One of the elements of spirituality that I reflected on a lot during my time in Mexico is the element of working together with others. Most of us do not have the calling from God to live as hermits. And even though there is a huge focus today on personalism and individualism, most of us are called to live together with others in a family, in a marriage or in a community. There is always a small number of people called to the single life outside of any religious community. Just as contemplative nuns and monks are a tiny portion of humanity, so also is the portion of single women and men outside of a commitment a tiny portion. By that, I mean those truly called to be single. Most people are called to marriage and to a relationship with another person. There are unmarried people who are called to marriage but who have not yet met the person who will be their companion in life.
Far too often marriage is presented as some romantic and wonderful state in which all problems disappear. True marriages go through all kinds of trials and difficulties. So also in a religious community! From the outside, many times, people have told me that we monks are like angels. My usual reply is: come and live with us. You might find us closer to devils!
In religious community, just as in a marriage, a person must learn to give up self and to work for the common good. A marriage is a sacrament and also a social institution, even though for some today, that seems to be changing. A religious vocation is a sacramental and also a social institution.
In a marriage, the husband and wife must listen to each other and come to a way by which decisions can be made in the marriage. In our Benedictine way of life, there is a relationship between the community and the abbot or abbess. The abbess or the abbot must learn to listen and listen and listen. Only after intense listening can decisions be made that seem to reflect what God may be asking. Listening is not the same as agreeing with everyone. Rather, listening in a religious context can only come from a deep faith that God speaks through other people and that listening helps reveal what God is saying.
The first word of the Rule of Saint Benedict is “listen.” Throughout the Rule, the role of listening is emphasized many times. If a person spends a long time trying to listen intently to another person, trying as much as possible to understand what the other person is saying and what they really mean, a kind of exhaustion can set in. It is truly difficult work to listen to another person.
Happily for most of us, we don’t have to spend immense amounts of time listening intensively! On the other hand, we can become lazy and not truly listen to others. If we are serious about our spiritual life, we come to recognize that it is important to listen to others and that in listening to others we can also learn to listen to God at work in our lives and in the lives of others.
Once I had a truly profound experience when someone listened to me so intensely that I realized that I had nothing important to say. That did not change the listening of the other person. He considered what I said as important because he was truly listening to me. In my heart, I was humbled because someone would think that what I had to say was important. This helped me realize that often I don’t take other people seriously. Instead, I only listen because I have to, not because I truly believe that they might say something important.
How my world changes when I try to listen! The other person becomes the focus and not my own thoughts. The focus on the other person takes me out of myself and helps me understand that the other person is more important than I am. Just as I was humbled by someone listening to me, so I am humbled when I am able to listen to others. Why humbled? Because it is a bit like experiencing the presence of God in a way that reveals that the Divine Presence is always inviting me deeper into living and deeper into loving.
That is enough for this week. I send you my love and prayers. As always I ask your prayers for me and for all the monks and nuns of our communities. I will celebrate Holy Mass for you and for your needs and intentions.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
