The Abbot’s Notebook for December 14, 2016
Blessings to you! We have been having a lot of cold weather, like many other parts of the country. I don’t mind the cold as long as I can stay warm, either inside or with adequate clothes outside. I like the seasons of the year and am happy to live where there are four pretty clear seasons.
We should be about 45 monks at home for Christmas this year. For us, this is a very large number. The future seems to indicate at this time that there will be even more of us. What size should a monastery be? That is always a question. When I was young, that question was never asked. Monasteries simply accepted those who seemed to have vocations and kept growing. So in the 1900s one could visit monasteries with 300 or more monks. In the Middle Ages also, monasteries sometimes were enormous. It is thought that under Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, there were about 140 choir monks and 500 lay brothers. But this was not the normal size of most monasteries.
Throughout the centuries of Christian monastic life, most monasteries have probably been about 20 to 50 monks, although there were lots of monasteries smaller and many larger ones as well. It is difficult to know what the average size was. On the other hand, I am sure that I would like our Monastery of Christ in the Desert never to have 600 monks! Or even 100 regularly living here. It is not easy to choose a number and yet, if we must construct more buildings, we have to choose such a number. So pray for me and for the community, please!
Again I want to return to the challenge of remaining in peace and with tranquility no matter what happens in life. For me as abbot, this is often an enormous challenge. There are times when I have to deal with many situations that can cause anxiety and stress and I must remain peace and tranquil. I don’t always manage to do that, but I am always working at doing that.
Only when a person is at peace can that person really begin to see the truth as it really is. Even with peace, the truth is not always easy to discern, but without peace, it is impossible. So often I find myself struggling with this inner peace when things become emotional or when there is a conflict of some type. I also feel stress when there are important decisions to be made. In the midst of that, I seek to find peace and tranquility.
Sometimes when a monk comes with a “demand” more than a request, I must pay attention. Lots of people cannot imagine monks making demands of the superiors, but it happens fairly often. When I was a young monk, most monks would never have dreamed of making such a demand of an abbot. Today it is much more common and I am susceptible to such demands. So I have to work to remain calm and to listen and then take the time to respond instead of just reacting. Sometimes I go into my inner cell and lie down and place myself in the presence of God, often using the Jesus Prayer. Other times I just sit in a good chair and try to become center on the name of Jesus. Sometimes I just practice breathing slowly, but again having the name of Jesus in my heart and in my mind.
It is so easy to react instead of respond. Just because there is a demand made of me does not mean that I accept every demand just as it is given to me. Instead, I try to listen to what is being demanded and to find a way to respond to it, even if I must deny the demand, in a way that is peaceful and shows a way forward in peace.
The real challenge for me, most of the time, is never to react to anything, but to remain peaceful and tranquil, no matter what happens. Such a response always brings about peace in the long run, if not right at the moment. For me, then, I keep learning this one lesson: peace! How I wish that it came naturally to me, but it does not. I find myself defensive at time, angry at times, hurt at other times—whatever! But it is not peace that comes naturally. As I work to maintain peace, I find it easier to remain in peace, but it is still work for me and sometimes I don’t get there.
Another part of the spiritual life that comes with striving for peace is the ability to get up and keep working when I fail. And I fail quite a bit. Perhaps less now that in my youth, but nevertheless I find lots of spiritual challenges, even in one day. If everything were just stable and nobody bothered me, it would be easier. Instead, in our type of monastic life, anyone and everyone can come to the abbot and speak freely or challenge the abbot. I am also choirmaster and that is a job that also brings lots of challenges. But, no matter, the challenges of being abbot or choirmaster or anything else are the challenges of living in the Lord and seeking His way and not mine.
Always we humans can blame our past, or blame others, or blame a situation or blame almost anything else. Instead, we need to learn to blame nothing and no one, but simply to get on living in the Lord and fighting the spiritual combat that allows us to use every situation as a doorway to the divine. Always we can respond with God’s love and mercy, no matter what happens. But in order to do that, we must begin the spiritual combat, which means fighting myself and loving others.
As always, I send you my love and prayers. I will celebrate a Holy Mass for you and for your needs and intentions. Please pray for me and for the sisters and brothers of all of our communities.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
