Blessings to you! In just nine more days I will be returning to the United States from Vietnam, presuming that all goes as planned.
The Year of Mercy calls us to reflect on how we give example to others and how we are called to remain faithful. All of us are sinners. That does not excuse us from seeking the Lord and striving to be good examples, even if we are only examples of penitence! How well I remember some 35 years ago preaching at the Christmas Midnight Mass and tell those who had come: we monks are no different from you. We are all sinners and we are all seeking salvation.
After that Mass one of those who had come from a distance just to pray Midnight Mass with us told me: Father, you should not tell us that you are no different from us. We need you to be different from us. We want to think of you as holier than we are so that you can be an example for us!
Although I could understand his feelings and his desire that the monks be an example, I reflected with him on this matter. For me, for sure, we monks and we Christians are supposed to be examples to others. Yet at the same time, we are all just human beings engaged in spiritual combat. At the level of our humanity, there is no difference at all. The call to live a life consecrated solely to the Lord in prayer and contemplation makes our sinfulness worse, not better!
The contemplative life in a religious community is different from life outside of the Monastery by the fact that our life is organized around prayer. Such organization is meant to help the monk be faithful to the daily spiritual combat but it is no guarantee that the monk is holy! I have lived monastic life more than fifty years and I am still a sinner and deeply aware of my sinfulness. The example I give is of faithfulness to the spiritual combat, faithfulness to the Sacraments, faithfulness to the commitment to this community.
In so many ways I think of the parable of the Prodigal Son that we find in the Gospel of Saint Luke. The younger of them asks for his inheritance and then goes off and squanders it on bad things (called reckless living!) and then finally decides to come home. Normally a son would not receive his inheritance until his father dies, so in effect the younger son has no respect for his father. And it is clear that the father loves him. And when this younger son decides to come home, the father is already waiting for him and has compassion (mercy) and runs to embrace him and kiss him and then starts a party to welcome him home.
This parable is explaining how much God loves us and yet how we walk out on God all the time. No matter how often we walk out, God welcomes us home once again, embracing us and kissing us. Anyone who has done stupid things in his or her life can understand this parable, especially if those stupid things have been forgiven and forgotten and not held again the person.
In the parable there is the elder son as well, who simply cannot comprehend his father. We have to be careful that we don’t live like the older son and refuse to accept others when they return repentant. We should recognize that the father does not even ask any questions about the repentance of his younger son. He is just delighted to have him home once again.
In order to understand these stories of the New Testament, once more we have to take time to understand the stories of the Old Testament. How often God is portrayed as seeking His People. Even when God reveals His name to Moses, God reveals more than a name. God reveals that part of his nature is always to be with us and to seek us and to be in relationship with us. God reaches into time and history to speak with Moses.
Over and over in the Old Testament we see God reaching out to His People. This reaching out never denies their sinfulness or their unfaithfulness. This is the same in the parable of the Prodigal Son—there is no denial that the younger son made a mess of it and broke relationships and wasted his inheritance and his life. Yet beyond the necessity of justice, we always find mercy and forgiveness.
Both in the Old Testament and in the New we find God reaching out especially to the poor, the broken hearted, the oppressed, the Little Ones. We need to recognize over and over that God reaches out to us not because we have become good but because God loves us. In that love of God, we are invited to be transformed.
Far too often in Christian communities, and in the Monastery as well, we strive to keep everything in order so that things function well. There is value in that, of course, but if order interferes with our loving one another, then we are in deep trouble. And all of our communities are communities of sinners, so we find always a lack of order, we find mistakes, we find conflicts—and are called to live with love and forgiveness in the midst of it all.
What this Year of Mercy is calling for is a deep conversion in each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are. We are called to follow the Lord Jesus and love all other people, especially those who offend us or even harm us. This is at the heart of following Jesus and it is the most difficult aspect of His teaching. It is much easier to find people with whom we are comfortable and then try to stay in that safe zone.
As always I pray for you and will offer Holy Mass for you and for your needs and intentions. Please continue to pray for me and for all of the sisters and brothers of our communities. I send you my love and prayers.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
