The Abbot’s Notebook for April 4, 2018
My sisters and brothers in Christ,
Blessings to you! Christ is risen! Alleluia! Probably for me one of the greatest struggles in the spiritual life was to come to believe that Jesus Christ truly is man and truly is God. Many people don’t have such struggles, but I did and they have helped me grow deeper in my faith. It became clear to me some years ago that each of us has his or her own struggles to grow deeper in faith.
An important part of my personal growth was coming to realize that the New Testament is a collection of testimonies of various people about Jesus and that these testimonies are true. So often I find that the testimony of the New Testament is not accepted by others. Instead, all kinds of arguments are given to try to show why this testimony should not be accepted. On the other hand, when a small new fragment from a writer around the same time and place of the writing of the New Testament is found, everyone pays attention to that. And even more attention is given if that small fragment seems to be at odds with the writings of the New Testament. All of such new-found fragments have been found to be less reliable that the texts that we already have regarding Jesus.
It takes a good imagination and a good understand of Scripture to begin to have some idea of who Jesus is and how He lived. We have no photos of Him and we have only the various witnesses of the New Testament and perhaps one or two other references to Him. On the other hand, the witnesses of the New Testament are strong witnesses. They lived with Him. They are and drank with Him. Or they were I touch with others who had lived with Him and who ate and drank with Him. They are credible witnesses.
The more I read the New Testament and struggled with the New Testament, even in its Greek versions, the more I came to see and understand that Jesus was truly claiming to be God and yet still one of us. These testimonies are amazing in so many ways. This is a God who lives with us and who never forces Himself upon us. This is a God who invites us to live with Him.
Jesus invites us to pray and to ask of the Father all that we need. Jesus invites us to have a complete confidence in God, even in the midst of the worst trials. Jesus Himself trusts in the Father even as He is being killed by crucifixion. This strange man, who is both God and man, is a scandal to so many because He dies like a common criminal. Jesus is a scandal because He has divine power and never uses it in any way that would cause us to marvel at His power. Rather, we marvel at His weakness and His ability to accept humiliation.
Jesus us shows us a God who never uses power to coerce us. This God is a God who uses only the power of love and service to draw others to Himself. This God-man invites us to follow His example and to live with the same values of love and service as He did. We are invited not to judge others, but only to serve them. We are invited to see the Father as a God who is on our side and always there to love us.
Here in the Monastery, we had a strong experience of Holy Week and then the Easter Celebrations were wonderful. We have our Easter Vigil at 3:00 am on Easter Sunday and then also have an 11:00 am Mass as well. The Vigil service is almost all in English while all of the music for the Mass during the day is Latin Chant.
On Wednesday of last week, after I sent the last Notebook, I had to take the Weimaraner puppy, Benny, to the hospital. He had not eaten in several days and something was clearly wrong. It turned out that he had consumed four large magnets out of my room and they had blocked everything in his intestines. Then he began to eat grass so try to cure himself. So he had surgery on his intestine to get the magnets out and then the stomach had to be opened to take out the large quantities of grass that he had eaten. He is home now, thanks be to God. But that means that in less than a month, both Thumper the Beagle Mix and Benny the Weimaraner had to spend time in the dog hospital.
Brother Gregorio Carrizal Dolores and Marco Antonio Lopez Borjas came from Mexico to spend Holy Week and Easter with us and they have returned to Mexico now.
Because I have participated in everything in these days of Holy Week and Easter Week, I can feel that my strength has not entirely returned, even though I have done pretty well. There were a couple of times when I knew that I had to take a nap or I could not go on longer. That is unusual for me. Usually I can just go on and on and on.
Although we had snow just a couple of weeks ago, we all believe that we won’t have more snow this year. We shall find out, of course! The weather for all of Holy Week and Easter was splendid. On Good Friday we had probably about a hundred people here for the services. Our Church is not made for that kind of a crowd, but we always manage. And we fed most of them afterwards as well.
As always I send you my love and prayers. Christ is risen! Alleluia. I will celebrate a Holy Mass this week for you and for your needs and intentions. Please pray for me and for our community and for all the members of the communities associated with ours.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
