Metropolitan Association of Contemplative Communities Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Have already allowed much too much time to go by without reporting a very special event. Back in July MACC celebrated its 40th anniversary by gathering at Mt. St. Alphonsus Retreat Center. The members of twelve different contemplative communities from New York and Connecticut shared memories, rejoiced in their history, gave thanks to God for the bounty of vocation, community and monastic life. MACC began in 1967 as a place where contemplatives of various charisms could come together to educate themselves intellectually and spiritually in preparation for the work of renewal to which they had been called in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. There is no homogenization here. Each charism remains distinct and firmly intact. Each of us knows that in God's plan we belong in our respective communities. But, at the same time, by our association we have grown in appreciation for our vocation as contemplatives and become prepared to move into the 21st century.

Photos: Top - general membership on the front steps of Mt. St. Alphonsus. Bottom - Sr. Regina (Poor Clare), Vicar for Religious Sr. Helen Coldrick, Sr. Marjorie (Carmelite), Sr. Mary (Carmelite) and Sr. Moira (Redemptoristine)

That day we were challenged in three areas. The first was that of AUTHENTICITY as indicated in the quote, "With integrity, nothing else maters. Without integrity, nothing else matters. The second was to IDENTIFY AND RESPOND TO THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. It was suggested that we ask ourselves: What are the signs of the times for my community; given its mission and charism? How are we responding to those signs? Where are the gaps? What more needs to be attempted? The third challenge was to ACTIVATE THE IMAGINATION. As we face new challenges, God is once again asking for the imagination of a Dominic or a Francis, a Clare or a Maria Celeste, a Benedict or a Scholastica, a Teresa of Avila - not to found new congregations, but to reach deep into our own charisms for new insights, new applications, new directions - not for our own sakes and legacy but for all our brothers and sisters on this fragile planet.

From A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry

Thank God our time is now

when wrong comes to face us everywhere,

never to leave us

till we take the longest stride of soul ever took.

Affairs are now soul size,

and the enterprise

is exploration unto God.

The Passion of Mother Teresa

Out of the effort to gather the writings of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta in accord with the cause for her canonization has come a collection of her journal entries and correspondence with a variety of spiritual directors. They reveal the startling news of her lengthy and very deep 'dark night of the soul'. For forty to fifty years she lacked any felt sense of the presence of God or assurance of the intimacy of her Spouse, and questioned the existence of God.

This is the topic of the cover story in the August 23, 2007 issue of TIME MAGAZINE. One wonders not only at the profound mystery of God's work in the soul of such a servant as Teresa but also at the respectful and lengthy consideration of such revelations in the secular press.

This great woman who ministered to the most abandoned languishing in the streets of India has now become REAL to me, and her reality is both consolation and encouragement for all who struggle at the depths of the human condition - weakness, lack of courage, depression, and the struggle to maintain energy for perseverance in the journey.

With the help of one of a long line of spiritual advisers, Mother Teresa came finally to see that this stark and painful reality was the answer to the sincere desire she uttered in prayer, "I want to give all." With nothing material left to give and spending all of her energy on God's "little ones", the last gift she had to give was the consolation found in certainty. In another sense, as she experienced greater and greater success in her mission she was provided with the corrective to any tendency to cater to the ego.

With this in mind, I now experience Mother Teresa as a flesh and blood figure, no longer a one dimensional caricature of the perpetually joyous and perpetually certain. Out of this revelation of her truth she emerges as an even more heroic figure yet, at the same time, also more accessible. Is a fearless soldier ever truly brave? He has no inner struggle to conquer before stepping into the line of fire. How much greater the the bravery and achievement of the one who must acknowledge and overcome paralyzing fear and revulsion in the gut in order to enter into battle?

Mother Teresa, we now know, overcame more than we ever imagined and persevered in spite of harsh interior desolation. How much more heroic she appears in a three-dimensional portrait!
How does this news hit you?

Prayers for Vocations Answered in a Remote Diocese

On August 19th, my dear friend, Maria Paz Arnes, professed temporary vows as a hermit in the Diocese of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada in accord with Canon 603 of the Roman Catholic Church. Hers has been a long journey beginning in the Basque country of Spain, stopping in Mexico and the U.S. and now arriving in the very young city of Prince George, four hundred and fifty miles north of Vancouver. In the early 19th century it was a fur trading outpost. In the early 20th century it was in corporated and dominated by the logging industry. On the longest day of the year in June, the sun sets at 11pm and rises at 3am! Temperatures of 40 degrees below zero are not unusual. To get anywhere you must drive for a long time.

Sr. Maria Paz of Jesus and her hermit vocation has been welcomed by the People of God in Prince George. For more pictures of Maria, her Bishop Gerald Weisner, OMI and her profession at regular Sunday 11am Mass in Sacred Heart Cathedral click on to this link to the diocesan website. http://pgdiocese.bc.ca/events/SrMaria.htm. May the Diocese be blessed in all its ministries to the poor and most abandoned. And may Sr. Maria receive every grace necessary to persevere in her vocation.

Saints Remind of the Presence of Suffering

August 9 - St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), Carmelite Martyr

August 14 - St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

Long before the word "holocaust" came into popular use as reference to the Nazi killing machine which practically eradicated Eastern European Jewry and assorted "undesirable" others, the reality of that horror was known to me. The area of Brooklyn, New York in which I grew up was shared by Italian Catholics and Jews of mostly Russian or Eastern European heritage. While the former came to this country largely to escape poverty in the Mezzogiorno of southern Italy and Sicily, the later had come to escape military service in the army of the Russian tsar or lethal pogroms periodically declared to clear the countryside of a Jewish presence.

After World War II, many new immigrants began to arrive in the neighborhood. Many Italians came and along with them a smattering of young Jews from the displaced persons' camps of Europe. They had to be young because only they had the stamina to survive if survival was at all possible. Their young bodies had great resistance to deprivation; they could work hard; they could run and hide; or they could be hidden by some extraordinary non-Jew willing to risk life and limb. And some of these refugees had numbers tattooed on their arms. When asked about them by her observant daughter my mother replied in hushed tones, "They were in the camps." She gave no details but I intuited that this was a grave circumstance of which one did not speak.

Most of the history I know I learned from reading great historical novels as a teenager. From the fiction of Leon Uris (Exodus, Mila 18, Armageddon) I learned about the Warsaw Ghetto, the concentration camps and the refusal of the United States to wave immigration policies to receive more Jews into this country as the intentions of Hitler became undeniable. Later Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, proved that the truth was even more horrid than the fiction.
The Saints Teresa Benedicta and Maximilian Kolbe are our Holocaust reminders in August of each year. Yes, we have the moving Diary of Anne Frank and the film Schindler's List to remind us. But as Catholics following the liturgical year these names and their stories come before us year after year to bring to our eyes the inhumanity of which we are capable. But they also speak of the heights of courage, fortitude and generosity of which human beings are still capable.

With such memories in mind, I thought today of the 'holocausts' of our own days in the streets of Baghdad, on the parched earth of Darfur in the Sudan, in the wee hours of the morning as four young people are gunned down execution style in Newark, New Jersey.

A few years ago I read an old book by Caryll Houselander, The Comforting of Christ. Houselander is best known for her book about the Blessed Mother, The Reed of God. The older book, published in 1947 in England, reflects the horrors of World War II. The author's bold suggestion is that by our lives, our prayer, our sacrifices, our attentiveness and availability we have the power within us to comfort Christ who suffered and continues to suffer for us. At the end of the book Houselander offers A Meditation on the Mass of Reparation. I have been using it as a preparation for receiving the Eucharist and find it very powerful. Houselander was a poet and a mystic and these affinities are expressed so well in this lengthy meditation. After speaking to each Person of the Blessed Trinity she follows the movements of the Rite of the Eucharist. Of the moment when the priest adds a drop of water into the wine-filled chalice she writes:

Receive the tears of the world, in the drop of water in the Chalice; receive the tears of old mothers who weep in the ruins of their homes, rifled nests of the little birds that were once their sons; receive the tears of frightened children, of homesick children. Receive the privileged tears of those who can weep for contrition; receive the tears that are not shed, that are hard as salt-water frozen in hearts that can weep no more; that ache in the throats of those who have no more tears to shed. Receive, O God, from my hands, who am not worthy to breathe the air He breaths, the tears of Christ in the Chalice of our salvation, the tears of the Infant in Bethlehem, the tears of the little foreign Child in Egypt, the tears shed over Jerusalem, the tears shed over Lazarus...O God, we offer Thee the tears of Christ in the tears of the world: "We offer Thee the Chalice of Salvation, humbly begging Thy mercy that it may ascend to Thee for our salvation and for that of the whole world."

Sisters Retreating, More on the Liturgy of the Hours, and a Traveler's Blessing

Today three of our sisters drove to the Trappist Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts for five days of retreat. The horarium (daily schedule) of the Abbey includes these 'hours' of the Divine Office:

3:30am Vigils

6:30am Lauds, morning prayer, followed by Eucharist

10:00am Tierce

12:15am Sext, midday prayer

2:00pm None

5:40pm Vespers, evening prayer

7:40pm Compline, night prayer

Years ago I visited the Abbey and was so moved by the blessing at the end of Compline. The monks approached the Abbot two by two and received his blessing in dismissal as they entered into the Great Silence of the Night which ends at 8:00am in the morning. After all the monks were gone, the Abbot came to the visitors' section and solemnly blessed each of us. Here, in our monastery, we also receive this customary blessing from the prioress at the end of night prayer: May the Lord bless us, protect from all evil and lead us to everlasting life. Amen.

Protect us Lord, as we stay awake, watch over us as we sleep

that awake we make keep watch with Christ

and asleep rest in His peace.

Antiphon for the canticle said every night during Compline, the Nunc Dimitis (Simeon's Prayer)

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Here is the Blessing for Travelers we used today. You may want to adapt it for use in your family or parish.

Leader: May the Lord turn His face toward us and guide our feet into the way of peace, now and for ever.

Response: Blessed by God for ever.

Leader: Let us entrust our Sisters to the hand of the Lord. Let us pray that He will give them a prosperous journey and that as they travel, they will praise Him in all His creatures; that they will experience God's own goodness in the hospitality they receive and bring the Good News of salvation to all they meet; that they will be courteous toward all; that they will greet the poor and afflicted with kindness and know how to comfort and hep them.

All: All powerful and merciful God; you led the children of Israel on dry land, parting the waters of the sea; you guided the Magi to your Son by a star. Help our Sisters and give them a safe journey. Under your protection let them reach their destination and come at last to the eternal haven of salvation. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Blessing by the Prioress with holy water: In the paths of peace may the Lord guide you, and may He send His holy angel Raphael to accompany you on your way: that safe and sound, in peace and joy, you may return to those who love you. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Response: Amen.