In Cor Unum, as in Regina Laudis Abbey, we are saints when we come through the door, if we have first come into new life through the blood of our savior.
Why, then, is “sainthood” such a venerated condition for the monastics of some houses? Why should one strive to obtain what one already owns? It does seem such a long and slow process toward that should already be ours.
SAINT Paul did it. He said that, though he did not consider himself to have “attained,” that he was pressing on to take hold of all that for which Jesus Christ had taken hold of him. This is the crux of monastic conversion. Had Jesus not got hold of us, we could not attain the prize of life lived in His hands.
What was Paul seeking to attain? It wasnt sainthood, in the ecclesiastical sense. Neither was Patrick. Neither was Valentine. ‘t was that which Caspar ten Boom sought with all his heart, even unto his death in Nazi captivity, and it is that for which Patrick left his family to return to the barbarians who had abducted him in childhood. It was that which allowed Valentine to suffer a martyr’s death in the faith, and it is that for which we seek a monastic style of life, wherever we may be, however great our responsibilities and duties in life.
It is CHRISTLIKENESS they sought. It is Christ’s likeness that we seek. One does not become a saint, in practice, overnight. First we tremble, we hate ourselves, we fear God’s sovereignty, we hold back . . . and then we overcome. In Cor Unum as in any monastic house, we overcome by the blood of the Lamb that was poured out for all those who have wronged us, as it was poured out for us in all our wrong. Jesus is the Redeemer for all who believe.
We are becoming that for which Jesus Christ took hold of us, and it must take place through the everyday discovery of our little selfishnesses, jealousies, fears, and prideful unbelief.
Almost nothing can help us as much as it does to know and see where we still live out our little selfishnesses, jealousies, fears, and prideful unbelief. We overcome by the word of our confidence in the love and mercy and holiness and justice of God, our testimony of the absolute effectiveness of the death of One for all.
We overcome as we begin to love the life of God as Jesus lives it in us, to love it more than we love our own schemes and control, better than we love laying hold of lesser things, better than even life itself.
Patrick did it. He loved the vile and wicked, slave trading, human sacrificing Picts better than he loved his own life. Today their descendents love Patrick.
Window, St. Benin’s Church
Andreas F. Borchert, by permission
Cor Unum Abbey 