The Abbot’s Notebook for December 28, 2016

Blessings to you!  May the blessings of the time of Christmas be with you!  May the celebration of the Birth of Jesus bring you many graces and much joy.  In the tradition of the Church, this great Solemnity of the Birth of the Lord is celebrated for eight full days, an octave, as if these eight days are one day.  Not many places still celebrate in that way.  Our modern world finds it difficult to celebrate more than one day!

Occasionally we have problems with our electric system.  As you know, we are completely off the normal “grid” and produce all our own electricity from solar panels.  When there is not enough sun, then we have a generator backup system in place.  Nevertheless, there are still times when there is no electricity because of various technical problems.  Like most places today, our lives are reliant on having electricity available most of the time.  Most of the monks simply take electricity for granted.

Christmas is a bit like that.  Many people take God for granted and sometimes don’t even believe anymore.  If something goes wrong, God is often blamed but if things go well, then we are happy that we have done such good things.  However when the world begins to have problems, we wonder why God has allowed bad things to happen.  If there is a disaster, then sometimes we realize that we need God.

We always need to look into our own hearts and to ask ourselves:  am I really seeking God or I am just looking for myself.  Often we may find a mixture of motivations, but we can always ask God to help us love Him more and to seek truly what He wants.

At a practical level, we can find ourselves at times living as if we don’t believe in Christ.  Even in the monastery that is easy to happen.  Life is generally pretty well organized and goes along fine and then we can easily forget got, even when we have organized times of prayer.

What is really important—and I see this more and more as I get older—is committing ourselves to a deep and loving personal relationship with Jesus, with the Father, with the Spirit.  It is only when we begin to develop that relationship strongly that we actually are drawn into the mystery of God, the mystery of His love for us, the mystery of salvation.

When a monk enters the monastery and does not have this strong, personal relationship with the Lord, the monastic life often becomes impossible unless the brother can develop such a relationship with God.  Sometimes marriages fail for the same reason:  one or other of the partners does not have such a relationship.  Yes, marriages have survived without God.  And yes, sometimes a monastic vocation seems to survive without God, at least in some explicit way.  People are often survived when I speak about atheism in a monastery.  Lots of monks have gone through periods of an enormous lack of belief.  Some monks never seem to be able to recover belief and most of them leave monastic life.  However, there are at times those who wait on the Lord, hoping that their faith will return and sometimes live for very long periods as atheists.

What can we do to develop that relationship?  First, we have to ask for such a relationship.  We have to pray very personally and with all of our being for a strong, deep and loving relationship with the living God.  One would think that every Christian would do that, but instead, for many, faith has become an inheritance and not something that one has to work at.  This is why Christianity is dying in so many parts of the world.  Our relationship with Jesus must always be made new and deepened or it begins to become just something we do rather than a living relationship.

We must spend time with Jesus every day.  We don’t have to do much, just take ourselves into His presence and spend time there, asking Him to renew us, to deepen us in His love, to make us aware of His mercy and compassion.

Lots of young people today (and plenty of older ones as well) spend hours on social media and internet sites.  The amount of time that people spend surfing the internet or caught up in pornography or just being social with others on the internet is amazing.  One study reports that on average, people spend more than 490 minutes of their day with some sort of media.  This is not all internet, but the use of internet is increasing enormously.  But think what a life this is where people are spending more than eight hours a day on media of some sort.  Where is any time left to relate to others in real time?  For many of us, where is time left to spend with God, with this relationship with Jesus?

Not only must we spend time with God, with the Lord Jesus, every day.  We must also find time to serve others, because this is how God’s love is made manifest.  Far too often today, the focus is only on me and my needs and what I want.  This comes into the monastery as well.  Our life is clear about praying but includes strong elements of service to the brothers every day:  cooking, cleaning, working, etc.  Yet even in these areas, sometimes we find brothers sneaking off from assigned duties in order to find access to the internet and keep up with others.

So we need time to be along with the Lord.  We need time to spend reading the Sacred Scriptures because that is where God reveals Himself.  We need time to worship together with others.  We need time…..

As always I pray for you every day, you who read this letter and you who ask the prayers of our community.  I will celebrate Holy Mass once this week for you and for your needs and intentions.  Please remember me in your prayers and remember all of the sisters and brothers of our communities.  I send you my love and prayers.

Your brother in the Lord,

Abbot Philip