Cor Unum Abbey

We have been employing the wonderful gift of imagination. Imagine God thinking to give us an imagination!

Now, since we are imagining, consider the possibility that out of all those women, enough of them that the king could entertain a new prospect every night, the king’s eunuch saw something in you worth protecting and promoting, and imagine if you dare that among all the others, it was you who began to receive special advise and favor inside the court of the concubines.

There was once, not a mythical but an historical king who called for the ingathering of the beautiful maidens in his country, and there was a eunuch whose name was Hegai who was put in charge of them all.

No one knew the king the way Hegai did. The former Queen Vashti certainly did not. She had been stripped of her crown and her royal honors; a new Queen was to be discovered and lifted up to her place.

Hegai would know what trinkets, teases and trifles were tedious to Xerxes. Hegai would know what conversations, comforts and considerations would hold his interest. If anyone would know, it was Hegai.

Speaking quite frankly, Hegai was at liberty to know women after their deceits or virtues, when he found them, for he would never have one – a woman – of his own. He was able to see every imaginable defect or perfection at close range. Somehow, something about the heroine of this story must have been unique in the extreme. Stay tuned. She’s a Cor Unum woman!

Jean Cocteau’s

Belle et le Bete

         We have done a little “imagining” together, and thank God for that amazing facility! We can imagine ourselves walking the earth with Jesus; we can imagine the touch of His hand upon our faces; we can imagine His compassionate glance turned our way.

         Imagine for a moment that you fell asleep one night in the stucco-walled room of a modest house where you lived as a cultural outsider, orphaned and cared for by a kind uncle, far from your own people, except those who also lived with you as “strangers in a strange land.”  Do you have it?  Can you smell the dust of the roads and feel the warmth of the day and hear the cry of merchants and drovers in the streets?

         Now imagine that less than twenty-four hours later you have been picked up against your will with hundreds of other women, and that you have been told the ruler, and by ruler we mean potentate, of the land intents to choose from among all of you to take a new wife. Your new dwelling is a palace and your surroundings are luxurious beyond description, but your prospects are not to be envied unless you should be the chosen woman, for no one gets the King’s cast-offs to call their own.  

         Imagine it is YOU. Imagine you are really there in the harem of the King. Imagine the former queen has been deposed and one of you will be chosen to replace her. If we are really employing our imaginations, that is probably enough imagery for one day.

         Thank God that, when you were seized from your uncle’s home, you can take Cor Unum with you!

Poster from Jean Cocteau’s movie,

Belle et la Bete

public domain

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8, NIV)

         The cost of loving can be great. Massive. To us in Cor Unum, however, the cost of withholding love is too great to measure. It is too great to consider.

         Here in this monastery, we love our family and our friends; we love those in our church and the church down the street, too. We love those with whom we agree and those with whom we categorically disagree. We love our enemies. We love them. We must. We simply cannot afford any other strategy. Our God is LOVE, and our personal proof is that He loves us in all our unloveliness.  How can we think to relate to Him without it?

         This last word, for the time being, on this surpassing great subject is from Jesus’ words to His disciples as He prepared to leave them to love in His absence.

         Let’s employ a bit of Lectio Divina for practice. Here is what we can see in John, chapter 15.

• The Father loved Jesus, and He loved us. (verse 9)
• He wants us to remain in His love and commanded us to do that (verse 9)
• To keep His commandment to love, we must keep His commandments.     (verse 10) What were they?
• He has had joy in keeping His Father’s commands and He wants us to have that joy, too. In fact, He says we can have complete joy. (verse 12)
• He seems to be speaking in a circle … His command is to LOVE! (verse 12)
• He gives a measure for love … to the laying down of one’s life. Is that once and for all or, more likely, on a continuing basis?   (verse 13)
• The measure of that love is to be called Jesus’ friends. That is, we are His friends if we do what He commands. It makes sense. He is glad to be our Friend, but He is still King and Lord of ALL. (verse 15)
• He doesn’t call us servants, even though this friendship is built upon obedience. This makes sense, too. After all, He is SON to the Father, even closer than a friend, but He is obedient. (verse 15)
• Servants don’t know what their master is doing; this means that we do. That indicates that we know the plan of God is to love, and we will have all that we need to obey … to LOVE … as we go along.
• Jesus has left nothing unsaid or undone or unknown. He has imparted to us everything that He learned from His Father. That must mean that from here on out, we will be reminded of what we know.  What we know is that LOVE is God’s nature and His plan, and it is our vocation, by commandment.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.   (John 15:9-15)

       Should anyone suggest we are here in Cor Unum for another purpose, to accomplish something outside of the love of God, we are safeguarded to dismiss that idea. All our hours of stillness, thanksgiving, “Lectio”, all worship and all “Conversatio”, it’s all because we love and that we might love more faithfully. We pray because we love, we sing because we love, we bring our hearts into the fullness of hope, because we love our Father and our God, and He loves us and those very like us and those very much opposed to us.

         Most of us were, after all, once very much opposed to what we are now. Blessed be the God Who loved us then and loves us now!

Carl Heinrich Bloch

public domain

         We have all asked ourselves from time to time, “How did the saints of old, and the saints of yesterday about which we are privileged to hear . . . how ever did they display such great and unselfish love for others?

         The secret of great love toward others is found among those who keep themselves in the love of God.

         Corrie and Betsie ten Boom managed it in the concentration camp at Ravensbruck; Mother Theresa did it among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta; Dietrich Bonhoefer did it as a patriot and a prisoner. Therese of Lisieux said that she hoped to spend her heaven praying for those she was leaving behind on the earth.

         There are a couple of things that cannot be taken from us in this life, and one of them is that we may keep ourselves in the love of God. No one can take that privilege from us; neither height nor depth, things present nor things to come, can separate us from His love. It is given to us to keep ourselves there.

The other possession we may hold dear and never fear to lose is the love of others. We may love them all we want. Our love may or may not be reciprocated, and our emotions may sometimes snivel and pout and lay claim to all the juiciest part of self-pity, but in truth we may love others extravagantly, as long as we will content ourselves with the giving of it.   Never will that privilege be taken from us.

Next time, one more all-important instruction in the how-to of love, and we will see that it is rather as if the labyrinth of love has let us out at the door.

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.  John 10:9

Betsy ten Boom

pmsocialmedia

by permission

         While the God concept of loving others is straight forward and comes without a “catch,” there is key to unlock the door to that kind of loving.

         We speak of the quality of loving that prefers others and honors them, that gives precedence to them, even to the laying down of one’s own life. The life laid down is the measure of love, but it is not the key in the lock.

         Nearly hidden inside the one-chapter text of the book of Jude there is a priceless solution to nearly every Spiritual mystery. After speaking forthrightly about the mockers, the worldly-minded, and the divisive ones even among us, an instruction is given:

         But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. (Jude 20, 21)

         Simple, workable, straightforward, and glorious. Here is an injunction without which we may try and try in vain to be loving and kind toward others. The key that springs the lock will ever be that we learn to keep ourselves in the love of God.

         Lets’ see…where did we put that KEY?  Who can find it before we meet again?

Sigismunc von Dobschutz

by permission, Wikipedia

         Did anyone ask, “So then, how DO WE continue in the love of God?”

Reading on in John 15, Jesus helps us with that . . .

“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”

We continue in the love of God just as Jesus did . . . we keep Jesus’ commandments to us just as He kept the Father’s commandments.

If we are not sure we may ask, “What are those commandments?”

Oh look! He tells us right away! We don’t even have to ask!

In fact, so that our joy might be full, He is telling us everything we have needed to hear!

“And this is my commandment,” He says, “that you love one another, (even) as I have loved you.” That’s it? It wasn’t a trick question? “Just” love one another? For joy and answered prayer and fruitful lives and fruit that REMAINS – just – LOVE ONE ANOTHER?

There must be a catch . . .

Yes?

No?

We’ll talk about that tomorrow!

released by Jon Sullivan into the Public Domain

Wikipedia

           When we see leaf, flower, and fruit on the branch, we know with certainty that the vine lives.  All the “show” may be in the branch, but the “tell” comes from the vine.  The tree may be old and largely decayed, the stump may appear more dead than alive, but if there hangs a cluster on the branch, the vine lives.

          In our case, the vine is life and health to us, even unto eternity.  Pruning comes to the branches, which then provide fruit . . . more fruit . . . much fruit . . . and FRUIT THAT REMAINS, by the will of God.  Here is food for thought!

         We’ve all watched blossoms turn into squash or tomatoes or peaches. It’s mysterious and miraculous to us, even thought it happens in millions of gardens around the world all year long (remembering greenhouses and the eternal summer of the two hemispheres.) But spiritual fruit, and fruit that remains? No earthly vine can accomplish that latter part, but this is, we are, the engrafting that has turned history and humanity toward heaven. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, may we bear fruit, and may our fruit remain! 

          How do we do it?  We “cultivate” nearness.  Apart from the vine, we can do nothing, though we have sometimes tried to bring forth fruit by branch power, branch anger, branch management and wound up with a barren branch.  

          Now we are learning to do what we’re good at . . . branches that remain in the vine bear fruit.  Jesus tells us just how it is done, and for us in Cor Unum, it is our standard of every day life: 

          “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what ye will and it will be done for you.”  (John 15:7)  Fruit comes forth in prayer, and the one who abides in Jesus, with Jesus’ Word abiding in Him, knows the fruitfulness of answered prayer. 

         There is more . . .         “Just as the Father has loved me so have I loved you; continue in my love.”  The life of the vine is rooted in the most healthy, the most vital love of the Father.  When our Cor Unum life is planted there, we will be a fruitful cloister . . . or cluster, if you will.    

Unknown; cropped, cleaned up, and levels adjustment by Howcheng

And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but zsadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. (Nehemiah 2:2)

What did we think would come next? After our morning offering:

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might; heaven and earth are filled with Your glory?”

Now . . . bowing? Scripture reading? Silence? More worship?

Good idea! Great idea! Oh, we will practice all of the above, but first . . . dear ones . . . first . . . let us find joy!

Before anything else, before we open our Bibles or even fall on our knees, unless we can do both, simultaneously, let us find joy. Let us not bring a morose, defeated, self-referential heart before our God this morning.

Remember Nehemiah? Cup-bearer to the king? He bore the weight of the destruction of a nation in the fullness of his heart, but he TREMBLED to bring sorrow and dejection into the presence of the potentate. We can learn from Nehemiah! Yes, we mourn with those who mourn, and the Holy Spirit prays with groanings that cannot be uttered (more about that to come,) but our God is not mourning … His Son has returned to His right hand, leading captivity captive!   (Psalm 68:18)

Let’s find JOY, and see where it takes us at break of day!

Derrynfian Chalice

Kglavin, Wikipedia, by permission

And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6:3, NIV

         What a glorious, God-centered time we shall have together, separately. When we wake up in the morning, we are never alone. All over the world, monastics rise to greet the dawn – they awaken the dawn! – and some of them even live in convents! (Psalm 108:2) In the city, in the suburbs, in townhomes, trailers, and tents, married with children, students, wives and widows, Cor Unum Abbey takes its place among the sanctified of the earth and of the ages. With worship and prayers and all the consolations of the Word of God, the day begins.

         Here in Cor Unum Abbey, we are making an adventure of the real monastic experience, which is to say, we bring into our daily lives whatever degree of personal discipline and diligence required that we may say, with the Psalmist, “I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” (Psalm 16:8) We are numbered among those for whom neither business nor pleasure will rob us of friendship with God.

         When you wake up in the morning, when the clapper sounds up and down the dormitory hall in the Abbey . . . or just when your alarm clock goes off . . . try this:

         Say with your first breath, even under your breath . . . “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty; the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord.” (Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8)

         Say it again, and again. Say it until you pick up your Bible to study or until you go to prayer or worship . . . or until you sit down for coffee with your spouse or your cat.

         Say those words, and mean them. You might choose another phrase proclaiming God’s glory and majesty, but we use those words here in Cor Unum because they are among the proclamations resounding before the throne of God, day and night. Angels crying out and twenty-four elders falling down, casting their crowns before the Lord, while we slept and at the moment we wake up, continually. Join in! Say them tomorrow and every morning. and plan to say them first thing every day as long as you live. Say them over and over again, commanding your soul and your day, and do not give in to those encroaching mental and emotional demands that come early to rob your peace and pervert your attention. First … God! First … worship!

         Before long, you will find that the reality of the holiness and the supremacy of God has made its way deeper into all the rest of the hours of your day. We are the Sisters of Cor Unum Abbey, taking our places among the angels and the saints who see the face of God!

Sunrise at CuaLo

HandyHui, Wikipedia

         Life can be a bit peculiar to us sometimes, but rarely more so than our own hearts.

We looked yesterday at some of the attractions of enclosure . . . stillness, worship, TIME to seek God. It should not surprise us that inactivity, uselessness, and ennui are some of the crushing difficulties, too.

A little stillness, injected at our pleasure into our busy lives, is a balm. When the “worship is good” at church or at a retreat, we delight ourselves in it. We so lament the schedules and rigors and distractions of our lives that swallow our time and keep us from God, but we alone can “seize the day.”

I speak to those who have time and those who will make time. Twenty minutes of Quiet Delight can, as we have seen, set the tone for our day.   Twenty minutes daily can change our lives by changing our perspective and our inclinations!  Even five or ten minutes of pure enjoyment in the Incomparable Presence of the Lord are not without effect, and not least of all because we aren’t there for the affect.

We must stand to, however, dear ones! Jesus was not given a “pass” by the enemy in His relationship with the Father, and neither are we. There will be dozens of times when it feels as though our Quiet Delight is anything but, when it is absolutely clamorous with intruding thoughts and lusts for activity and stimulation. Those twenty minutes will seem like the biggest possible waste of the day.

It will help us to recognize that in stillness we see what is going on in the cloister of our hearts, what it’s like in there when we leave the governance to all the impulses of the day and of our carnal souls. It’s horrifying!  All the worries of all the years of our lives, all the unanswered fears and unresolved conflict and unanswered questions and unmet expectations and all the demands personal and spiritual that have yet to be confronted by truth and decision. Because we do not stir them up with stillness, they romp and screech and jeer at us, right inside, where we are making an abode for Jesus Himself. That is not right.

Stillness works, coupled with a quiet delight in the Lord our God.  As we persevere, peace will prevail at last, at first with no measurable change in our twenty minutes of stillness but in our every day souls. By our own volition, day by day, we choose the Nearness of God for our good. (Psalm 73:28) We choose this expression of worship with this one expectation, that God is, for us, enough.

Questions will find their answers or they will find their rest. The push and pull of being human will begin to balance quite naturally on the head of this point of light, “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:20, NIV) Remember, my dear Sisters, we ourselves have become the temple of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 3:17)

This will never be, for us, a journey into Karma or mindlessness or oneness with ourselves or the universe. Oh, precisely where we do not want to be! This is an investment in the simple truth that if God reigns on high over all His creation, and because He is pleased to make His abode with us and to be for us a dwelling place, then we will sit at His feet for the joy of being where we belong.

Jumieges Abbey

by Urban at fr. Wikipedia