Crown Him with many crowns...
Crown Him the Lord of Life...
Crown Him the Lord of Love...
Crown Him the Lord of Peace...
Crown Him the Lord of Years...
Thus, we sang this morning in our opening hymn for the Feast of Christ the King. This feast, which inaugurates the final week of the liturgical year, resonates with the joy, the hope, and the glory of Easter. It brings together life and death, space and time, in an eschatological hope and yearning. The Kingdom of Heaven is both here, but not yet. And so we yearn, we long to behold the Face of God.
The proper name of the feast is: Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Jesus Christ is King, not of a country, or of the earth, but of the whole and entire universe--of all that exists, of all that has been created, of all that is and is yet to be. And what kind of King is He? A shepherd King. A humble King. The Good Shepherd. In Ezekiel, we hear these words:
I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds
himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them...I myself
will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest...The lost I will seek out, the strayed I
will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal...
Our Lord Jesus Christ is King and Shepherd of every one of us, whether we acknowledge His kingship, or not. Whether we accept His shepherding, or not. He will seek out the lost. He will seek out those who choose to run in the opposite direction, as Jonah did when called to preach to the city of Nineveh. The Shepherd seeks us out, because the love of God for us is relentless.
If God is Shepherd, then we, too, are called to be shepherds. Whether pope, priest, or people with no specific ecclesiastical office, all have a call to shepherd those in their care. God has entrusted us to one another, now and for all eternity.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Not One Stone Left Upon Another
I have often pondered Jesus' lament over Jerusalem about there not being one stone left upon another (Luke 19: 44). This was the gospel passage read at today's Eucharist. It struck me more today, since we learned very recently that our former monastery in St. Louis, Missouri, which was sold to the Archdiocese in 2001, is to be sold and razed--or razed, and the property sold. I'm unclear which. But I'm very clear about my thoughts and reflections on this news and today's Gospel.
The monastery in St. Louis was one of my favorites. It had a courtyard enclosed on all four sides by the monastery and chapel. This was where I received my formation as a novice and where I made my first monastic profession. It is the place where we worked, prayed, played, laughed, loved and cried. It is the place where sisters lived and died. The chapel was a large rectangle with grey marble walls and a very high vaulted roof. It looked for all the world like a gymnasium. It had two sets of red-orange padded double doors which opened into the monastic hallways--doors which looked like they belonged more in a Chinese restaurant than in a house of worship. The clerestory windows on either side of the chapel did not match--a result of one side's having been blown out by tornadic winds and replaced with various colored panes. The walls and ceiling were singed with soot from votive candles, the odor of burned wick and wax ever in the air. Sisters either loved or hated the chapel, yet I found it beautiful in its stark simplicity, despite it's aesthetic flaws.
Six months after my first profession, as a junior sister, I was transferred to our monastery in Tucson, Arizona. For many weeks afterward, I dreamed vividly of the monastery and its grounds. Even in my waking moments, the monastery I had left was more real to me than the one I found myself residing in. It held for me a power I had never experienced, before or since. After five years in Tucson, I transferred back to the St. Louis monastery in 1999. Two years later, I transferred to our monastery in Clyde, Missouri. Unlike some of our sisters, I never went back to our former monastery after it was purchased by the Archdiocese. I never desired to. I didn't want to see what the Archdiocese had done to it. I wanted to remember it as it was, when it was ours, when it was filled with the life, love, laughter, tears, and prayer of my sisters.
I am not sad at its loss, our loss. I know this is the way of things. Nothing here is lasting. Nothing here is permanent. We are not meant to pitch our tent and remain on this or any other holy mountain. The Buddhists are right. Impermanence is the very nature of existence--and it is this very impermanence that gives life its glory. Yes, there will not be one stone left upon another. But the memories can never be dismantled. The life, love, prayer, joy, laughter, and tears can never be taken away. Even the place of my first monastic profession can never be taken away, for I have learned the true place of my first monastic profession was not in the midst of a building, but in the midst of a living community, built not by hands nor of stone.
We may lament and wonder what is happening in our times. Why so many closings of monasteries, convents, churches, and schools? So few vocations? We see the signs of the times, but do not understand. Yet, I believe the Spirit is at work even in this deconstruction. This dismantling may be the very work of the Spirit. The old must go, to make way for the new. And the new is probably not what any of us think. Not the old brought back some how as new, but something truly new: Behold, I am about to create something new. Do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19)
The monastery in St. Louis was one of my favorites. It had a courtyard enclosed on all four sides by the monastery and chapel. This was where I received my formation as a novice and where I made my first monastic profession. It is the place where we worked, prayed, played, laughed, loved and cried. It is the place where sisters lived and died. The chapel was a large rectangle with grey marble walls and a very high vaulted roof. It looked for all the world like a gymnasium. It had two sets of red-orange padded double doors which opened into the monastic hallways--doors which looked like they belonged more in a Chinese restaurant than in a house of worship. The clerestory windows on either side of the chapel did not match--a result of one side's having been blown out by tornadic winds and replaced with various colored panes. The walls and ceiling were singed with soot from votive candles, the odor of burned wick and wax ever in the air. Sisters either loved or hated the chapel, yet I found it beautiful in its stark simplicity, despite it's aesthetic flaws.
Six months after my first profession, as a junior sister, I was transferred to our monastery in Tucson, Arizona. For many weeks afterward, I dreamed vividly of the monastery and its grounds. Even in my waking moments, the monastery I had left was more real to me than the one I found myself residing in. It held for me a power I had never experienced, before or since. After five years in Tucson, I transferred back to the St. Louis monastery in 1999. Two years later, I transferred to our monastery in Clyde, Missouri. Unlike some of our sisters, I never went back to our former monastery after it was purchased by the Archdiocese. I never desired to. I didn't want to see what the Archdiocese had done to it. I wanted to remember it as it was, when it was ours, when it was filled with the life, love, laughter, tears, and prayer of my sisters.
I am not sad at its loss, our loss. I know this is the way of things. Nothing here is lasting. Nothing here is permanent. We are not meant to pitch our tent and remain on this or any other holy mountain. The Buddhists are right. Impermanence is the very nature of existence--and it is this very impermanence that gives life its glory. Yes, there will not be one stone left upon another. But the memories can never be dismantled. The life, love, prayer, joy, laughter, and tears can never be taken away. Even the place of my first monastic profession can never be taken away, for I have learned the true place of my first monastic profession was not in the midst of a building, but in the midst of a living community, built not by hands nor of stone.
We may lament and wonder what is happening in our times. Why so many closings of monasteries, convents, churches, and schools? So few vocations? We see the signs of the times, but do not understand. Yet, I believe the Spirit is at work even in this deconstruction. This dismantling may be the very work of the Spirit. The old must go, to make way for the new. And the new is probably not what any of us think. Not the old brought back some how as new, but something truly new: Behold, I am about to create something new. Do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19)
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