Congratulations are in order for Thomas Buckley, who was invested with the black scapular during his final oblation in Tasmania on 17 March 04. The officiating priest was Fr. Mike Delaney of New Norfolk Parish. As usual the ceremony was carried out on behalf of the Abbot of New Norcia.

Best wishes from the oblates, also due to Frank Woods, who was able to receive his final oblation at the March Chapter meeting from Fr. Anthony, our Spiritual Director. Frank gave the oblates a very interesting commentary and slide show on his work in Cambodia. He has since, once again returned there to complete his work stint.

Six oblates travelled to New Norcia, on Saturday 3 April, to witness the novice reception ceremony of John McInerney, carried out in the oratory by Abbot Placid. John has been receiving our newsletter for some ten years, whilst living in Sydney and decided to take the road to oblation. Having completed the Faith Formation programme via correspondence, he travelled to New Norcia for a retreat, as well as competing in a swimming championship for the ‘Police and other Services Association’, held in Perth. We were able to get to know John over lunch and celebrate with him his reception as a novice.

World Congress of Benedictine Oblates – The organisation of the Congress is continuing to take shape, with further details available from the web site – www.oblatesworldcongress.com/en/home For those oblates interested, the programme is as follows: Location – St. Anselmo, Rome 19^th-25^th Sept. 2005. Schedule of Events:

Monday 19^th - Opening address (Abbot Primate Notker Wolf, O.S.B.)

Tuesday 20^{th - ‘}The monastery/convent - a school of Communion’

‘The oblate and prayerful dialogue with God’

Wednesday 21^st Morning: audience with the Pope. Afternoon: free.

Evening: Vespers and buffet at St. Anselmo.

Thursday 22^nd ‘Communion inside the family’

‘Communion in the workplace’

Friday 23^rd ‘The oblate and the Inter-religious dialogue’

‘The oblate and the mission of peace, justice and care for Creation’

Saturday 24^th.Pilgrimage to Montecassino. Eucharist and lunch in the monastery.

Sunday 25^th.Final Eucharist (Abbot Primate Notker Wolf, O.S.B.)

Lunch and departure.

Prayer

How then, do we listen during times of prayer? Is there such a thing as a prayer of listening and if so, what is it like? This is a serious question, because most of us do not consider prayer as being a matter of listening, but rather of talking to God. We are much more concerned with trying to say something to God, than with trying to catch what He may be saying to us. Eli’s advice to the boy Samuel was that when God called him he should reply - 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.' We prefer to reverse this and say instead: 'Listen Lord, for your servant is speaking.' Nevertheless the course counselled by Eli is the one we ought to follow. Attempting to follow it takes us into very deep waters indeed, leading us to perceive important truths about the nature of prayer.

Is it not inevitable that when we engage in prayer, we should be active, talkers rather than listeners? In the presence of God we unburden ourselves, telling Him of our deepest fears, hopes, aspirations, joys and sorrows, giving thanks, pouring forth praise, requesting help and guidance, not only for ourselves but for others also and for the whole world. We do this both in our private prayer and in the communal prayer of the Church and there is nothing at all wrong with it. We have even been told clearly by God himself to pray in this way. 'Pour out your hearts before him' says the psalm and the Lords prayer is a splendid and concise illustration of how to do it. In all of this we are fairly active and we are indeed talking rather than listening. It is a very necessary thing for us to do and it is an important part of prayer. But it would be a great mistake if we allowed ourselves to think that prayer must always be of this kind, in which we say everything and God says nothing. The Psalmist says - ‘I will listen to what the Lord God says to me.' At times we have to stop talking and be silent, listening with a disciple's ear. This could well be what Jesus really meant when He told His disciples not to use too many words, not to babble on like the pagans. He was not here condemning the practice of repeating words and phrases, which can have a calming and steadying effect upon the mind and has therefore always been a standard liturgical and devotional practice in his own day, just as in ours. What he was concerned about was not whether we repeat words or not; rather he was reminding us that we also need to learn to pray a different kind of prayer, one in which we are more ready to listen than to speak. Such a prayer comes naturally to anyone who has any sense at all of the transcendence, the otherness, the impenetrable mystery and majesty of God.

This is also the reason for rules of silence in monasteries and why also in lay life we should try to find or create intervals of silence amid the noise and turmoil of everyday affairs. Their purpose is to create a climate in which God can speak and be heard. A noisy environment and lifestyle tends to shut God out. As with Elijah on the mountainside, we have to be very still and quiet within ourselves, if we wish to hear God speaking.

Therefore prayer, especially our private prayer, should contain intervals in which we do not say anything or express any thought or feeling in words, but simply remain still and silent in the presence of God, open and receptive like a flower turning towards the light. It would be foolish to attempt to lay down rules about how long or frequent these intervals should be. We can leave this to the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit, who makes them longer or shorter, many or few, depending upon the person or the circumstances. For some people they may be short and few. For others, prayer may consist almost entirely of such silent listening. Speech may be only occasional or sporadic. We need not worry about which path we ought to take here, but simply let ourselves be led easily and naturally, guided by the Holy Spirit without any forcing or strain. Prayer should be refreshment, not hard labour. What matters, is not whether our periods of listening are long or short, many or few, what matters is, that they exist. They have to exist because prayer is a dialogue with God, not a monologue by us. God’s part is more important than ours; what He says to us has far more value than anything we can say to Him. We shall never be able to hear what He says, unless we are prepared, at least occasionally, to be silent and listen.

If we do listen then God will certainly speak and we shall be able to hear. Like the boy Samuel, we shall eventually realise who is speaking and say - ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.' But how does God speak and how do we recognise His voice? We may not necessarily hear any actual words, or see any visions, although there are undoubtedly people who do. Whether we do or not is not a matter of great importance; it is a simple matter of temperament. No matter, God always finds some way of speaking in the depths of the heart. Often during prayer we shall hear or see nothing at all. We may have a general sense of God' presence, but not of anything specific being communicated. There is no need to worry, for God often communicates at the unconscious level, beyond words or images, so that at the time we are not aware of what is happening and it seems to us that nothing is going on at all during the prayer itself. It is often only when we emerge from prayer that we realise that something has happened. Suddenly we see an urgent problem in a different light or from a different standpoint, so that we are now able to cope with it. We can find ourselves able to relate to another person more positively and fruitfully than we could before; or we may become aware of some unhealthy attachment that we need to let go of. All of this is a common way in which God speaks and we listen; for many people today - the best or even the only one.

Lectio

There is another situation in which God speaks to us clearly, which is the meditative reading of Holy Scripture, called in the traditional monastic language lectio divina. Like prayer, this is a spiritual art which takes time to acquire and is not mastered in a single day. Learning how to do it forms a large part of a novice's training in a Benedictine monastery, but it should not be regarded as a practice suitable only for monks. St Jerome said that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ and that is something which none of us can afford, whether we are monks or not.

First of all we need to realise that when we settle down to read Scripture, we are doing something very different from what we do when we read any other sort of book. Normally when we take up a book, we are looking either for information or for entertainment. This is not what we are looking for when we read Scripture. What matters to us is that through the chosen text God is speaking to us; there is a voice whose modulations we are trying to catch; a message we are trying to pick up and digest. The text is not dead but alive; it crackles with the electricity of communication.

That means we have to tune into it, to get on to its wavelength. St Benedict says that before we undertake any good work we should pray for help to complete it. This is especially true with lectio that makes such unusual demands upon us and calls for registers of the mind that we never knew we had. Here again, as in all forms of listening, it is a matter of intuitive perception, of opening the ear of the heart and that is something we cannot do by relying upon our natural powers alone. God speaks to us through the Spirit and it is only through the Spirit that we can hear and understand Him. Therefore, before starting our lectio, it is important to make some prayer to the Holy Spirit, asking Him for illumination and guidance. Then, after pausing for a few moments of silence and placing ourselves in the presence of God, we can begin our reading.

The reading itself should be slow and meditative, with frequent pauses, so as to let the words resonate in the mind, and to allow ourselves to ponder on them and extract their meaning. This is not an occasion for ‘fast reading' techniques, which would undermine the whole purpose of what we are about. Spiritual food, like physical food, cannot be 'bolted' if we want to be properly nourished by it. We should regard what we read as being addressed to us personally, in the very situation that we find ourselves in at the moment. Its relevance to ourselves, however, may not be immediately apparent and we need to give it time and patience in order to let it unfold. Hence, the frequent pauses for reflection and prayer. Even so there may be many resonance’s in the text that we are not aware of straight away. As with prayer, it is often not until the operation is actually over that certain aspects of the message become clear. For this reason I have found it fruitful to do lectio as early in the day as possible, so that my mind can revert to it from time to time as the day progresses, sounding new depths and perceiving further applications which could not be seen at first.

But lectio does not merely answer our questions or help us solve our problems. It puts us in touch with God, it establishes a relationship with Him, just as prayer does and also as the sacraments of the Church do in a slightly different way. It is a meeting-point, a place of encounter and the more we resort to it the more our relationship with God will deepen. This relationship and its ever-increasing depth, is the true purpose of lectio. It does not merely give us guidance for conduct, it also reveals something about God, about ourselves and where we stand with Him. The question of who is speaking is of paramount importance for us. Indeed the message, if we are going to call it that, derives its whole value from the fact that it is from God and that it is building up our relationship with Him.

That is why Jews and Christians have always been prohibited from practising pagan forms of divination. Why ask questions of stars or clairvoyants, when we have God speaking to us in person, in ways which not only give us guidance but also build up that relationship with Him, which is the true goal of our existence! When we have His word to feed on, to look for alternative sources of knowledge would be both ungrateful and a form of infidelity.

Lectio therefore, is a form of listening, of opening the ear of the heart, in an attitude of quiet confidence, docility and receptivity. If we do this in lectio, we shall find it easier to do in prayer as well and if we do it in prayer, we shall find it easier to do in lectio. Both are modes of listening and they feed each other. They put us into communication with God, establishing and deepening our proper relationship with Him.

As we learn progressively to hear and respond to the word of God in these privileged circumstances, we can also learn to do the same in all the circumstances of our daily lives, even the most humdrum, the most uncongenial, the most apparently profane. The disciple's ear, open and attentive, can hear God speaking in the bus-queue, in the supermarket, in the conversation of a tiresomely boring or demanding person and know instinctively how to respond. That is the supreme spiritual art. Haven't you learned it yet? Of course you haven't. It takes a lifetime to learn it and once you have perfected it there will be no reason for you to continue your life on this earth, for you will have fulfilled the purpose of your existence. But if you want to get there, you have to start now.

Religious life began in Egypt. Its founders were not the philosophers of the Hellenistic world, but the fellahin of the country of the Nile. Its beginnings need to be seen in connection with the unfolding of that ascetic doctrine which had always been at thy heart of Christian teaching.

In earliest times asceticism was practised on an individual basis, without involving separation from home and family or absence from the ecclesial community and city life. However, the representatives of the new movement retired from the world and sought solitude and silence away from human habitation. Tradition connects the origin of monastic life with the Decian persecution (c.250), when many Christians fled from the populous parts of Egypt to the surrounding deserts and remained there for some time. Some of them settled there permanently to lead a holy life and thus became the forerunners of the hermits.

We owe our information about the origin and spread of the monastic movement in part to the biographies of its founders, written by their disciples. More especially, it derives from the 'Lausiac History' of Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis and an anonymous work, entitled 'The History of the Monks of Egypt', preserved in Greek and in a Latin translation by Rufinus. We have in addition the reports in the 'Church Histories' of Socrates and Sozomen and the oldest part of the ‘Sayings of the Fathers’, (Apothegmata Patrum).

1. Antony

St Antony was born of Christian parents around 250 at Coma, in Middle Egypt. At the age of eighteen or twenty, not six months after the death of his parents, hearing the Lord's injunction to sell all and follow Him, he did just that. 'Committing his sister to known and faithful virgins, he put her into a convent to be reared and henceforth devoted himself outside his house to ascesis, taking heed to himself and training himself in patience. After some fifteen years, when he was 35, he moved to the ‘Outer Mountain’ at Pispir, about 100 miles south of Alexandria on the east bank of the Nile. He lived here in an abandoned fort, for the next twenty years. Many gathered round him to follow his example, though Antony himself remained a hermit, and insisted that his disciples also be solitaries. He died in 356, aged about 105.

2. Pachomius

During the time when the solitary form of monastic life was in process of development in the northern provinces of Egypt, Pachomius the Copt was shaping its community form in the south. Born of pagan parents, Pachomius became a convert to the faith when he was about twenty and received his religious training in the ascetical school of the hermit Palemon. In 320 or thereabouts he started the first great coenobium or monastery of the common life at Tabennisi, more than 300 miles south of Alexandria on the Nile's east bank. He followed this up with eight foundations, six for men and two for women, over all of which he presided as abbot general. His important contribution was that not only that he housed the monks together - such grouping existed before he came along - but that he created a genuine fellowship. He drew up the first religious rule, providing for a government in the spirit of community, uniformity, poverty, obedience and discretion. Each monastery was made up of several houses, each holding about 40 monks and grouped in threes to form 'tribes'. The monks were grouped according to trade. Pachomius can, thus, be called the father of the community form of monastic life. He died in 346.

3. Mt. Nitria

What today is little more than a sandy mound, 30 miles south-east of Alexandria, was most probably, the first of the monastic settlements. In the first decades of the fourth century, a man called Amon, urged by his wife of eighteen years, built himself two small cells in which he passed the next 22 years, returning to civilisation twice yearly however, to see his wife. As his fame spread, disciples were attracted and eventually settlements of solitaries sprung up around him.

4.'The Cells'

Some of the solitaries at Mt Nitria were anxious for something even more secluded. Amon put the problem to Antony, who had dropped in on a visit and he proposed a solution. The next day a party breakfasted at about 9 o’clock and then walked all day towards the south. At sundown the party stopped, Antony planted a cross and a new settlement began. The distance covered we are told, was about twelve miles. In this way, Antony hoped to provide for greater solitude for those who desired it, at the same time making provision for the exchange of visits, since none would be forced to spend the night in the open, the distance being a daylight journey.

5. Scete

Forty miles to the south is the Wadi ‘n Natroun, in the Natron Valley, so called because of the sodium salts in which the area abounds. Here about 340 Macarius, familiar with the area from his merchant days, began the monastic colony that came to be known as 'Scete'. Macarius the Egyptian was born around the turn of the century and had won his livelihood as a camel-driving merchant. He was converted to the ascetical way of life and soon found himself ordained a deacon – much to his own distaste. For a long while he was under a cloud, a nasty calumny having attached itself to his name. He bore this with such patience and singular lack of bitterness, so that when the facts became known and he was cleared, he suddenly became the object of devout veneration. It was to escape this adulation that he made his way to the Natron Valley. This was about 330. Within 10 years he was surrounded by a substantial body of followers. Macarius led a foundation to the still existing monastery of Abu Magar, as it is now called, where he died.

3. John Cassian

John Cassian was born in Dobruja, in present day Roumania, about 365. When he was very young (maybe seventeen or eighteen), he went with his friend Germanus to join a monastery of Cenobites at Bethlehem, not far from the grotto in which it was believed the Virgin had given birth. This was before Jerome had arrived on the scene in 386.

Cassian and Germanus stayed two years at the Bethlehem monastery. After that they decided to go and see what was doing in the monastic world of Egypt. Their abbot agreed, provided they didn’t stay away too long. Stability, it will be remembered, assumed its sacred character only later on. Cassian describes the motives for their journey thus –

‘When we were living in a monastery in Syria after our first infancy in the faith and when we had grown somewhat, we had begun to long for some greater grace of perfection, we determined straight away to seek in Egypt and penetrating to even the remotest desert of the Thebaid, to visit very many of the saints, whose glory and fame had spread abroad everywhere, with the wish, if not to emulate them, at any rate to get to know them’.

Travel with a view to gaining personal and direct experience was the order of the day. St Basil, for instance, toured Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia before finally applying himself to living out, in his native Cappadocia, what he had learned abroad. So also there were very many other important visitors to Egypt, Jerome, Athanasius, Rufinus and Palladius among them.

All told, the first visit of Cassian and Germanus to Egypt lasted seven years, most of which was spent in Scete. They also called on the Brethren at 'The Cells' and at Mt Nitria, where they ran into Evagrius of Pontus, whose thought influenced Cassian’s so profoundly. Many scholars believe that Cassian also penetrated to the Thebaid, in the deep south of Egypt, where lived some of the most famous monastic personalities of the day, but this is not completely certain.

Cassian’s method was to approach some distinguished monastic figure with a request for an 'edifying discourse'. This discourse, punctuated with comments and questions from Cassian and Germanus and with a few biographical details added, makes up the bulk of each individual 'conference'. It is thanks to this interviewing and editing method of Cassian, that many of the thoughts and sayings of these great saints have been preserved, for in large part the Desert Fathers were simple, unlettered men.

After their first seven year spell in Scete, Cassian and Germanus returned to their monastery in Bethlehem. They stayed here for a few months before returning to Scete, not without causing some vexation, it seems, to their confreres.

Cassian remained in Egypt only five or six years. At this time a fierce controversy arose on the question of Origen's orthodoxy and Cassian and Germanus went off to Constantinople, where John Chrysostom welcomed them gladly. Gemanus he ordained priest and Cassian deacon and a great bond of mutual esteem grew up between the saintly archbishop and the young monk. So when Chrysostem was deposed and exiled, the clergy of Constantinople entrusted Cassian and Germanus with letters of protest to be delivered to the bishop of Rome. This was in 404.

Thus began Cassian's ten year association with Pope St Leo. Cassian was ordained priest at this time and Germanus, it seems, died.

In 415, at the age of 50, Cassian went to Marseilles where he founded two monasteries, one for men, the other for women. The bishops of Gaul instantly recognised his unique authority on monastic questions and asked him to give the religious men and women of Gaul some written account of his experiences. In this way the 'Institutes' and the 'Conferences' came to be written.

Between the years 425 and 430, Cassian rose to some eminence in the Western Church as a teacher. Along with the rest of south Gaul, he found himself in opposition to St Augustine on the semi-Pelagian question. Cassian did not directly have anything to say on the subject, but it seems likely that the thirteenth Conference, by Abbot Chaeremon, was intended to underline the necessity of supplementing and in a sense preparing for, grace by means of free human effort and most agree that it went a bit too far.

Prosper of Aquitaine, an ardent follower of Augustine who in his more mellow years became Pope Leo's secretary, published an attack on Cassian, accusing him of heresy, this was the ‘Contra Collatorem', written in 432. Cassian did not reply.

John Cassian died at Marseilles about 435. His was buried in the monastery he founded, St Victor's at Mars. Many Popes have spoken of his sanctity and the soundness of his doctrine. St Thomas Aquinas used the 'Conferences' as bedtime reading. St Benedict, we know, was vastly influenced by him and recommended the reading of his works both for general reading RB73.5 and for reading in public RB42.5. But it may be that his difference of opinion with Augustine denied him the universal acceptance which many men with less to say have won for themselves.

All of us must die. There is no getting around it. Death is an event all men have in common. That we shall die is certain. What will be the outcome is an open question. Will our death be merely the sealing of a life of self-centred autonomy? Or will it be a dying in Christ unto the Father, the climax of a life of other-directed love? It is our own unique and personal decision, a decision that takes a lifetime to make.

What is there about death that makes it so crucially decisive for salvation? Certainly it is not just a whim of God. Neither is God so grudging with His love that he will open the gates of the kingdom only after squeezing out the last drop of blood from the turnip. No, there is something about death itself that makes it the only way of salvation.

Look for a moment at what happens when we die. Our weakness, frailty, insecurity and terror are fully revealed. We are totally and absolutely helpless. All the doctors in the world, their hands full of pills, tubes and drugs, can now only stand back with infinite distance, and our closest relatives can only watch. Truly, there's nothing we, or they can do.

But now is the acceptable time. Precisely now is the time of salvation, for here man is starkly confronted with his deepest and truest self. With death, man is humbly brought to self-knowledge. He becomes aware of himself as weak and poor, as flesh and dust. As weak, he must now look to one who is strong. As poor he must open his heart to receive. As dust, he is ready for a life-giving seed. But who is strong? Who will give? Who will plant the seed?

Long ago there was an elderly couple, Abraham and Sarah and they were childless. Their skin was shrivelled and their bodies withered. For childbearing, they were as good as dead. But the Lord God promised to bring life from their dead bodies. Hoping against hope they believed, and God proved true to his word by calling forth from them a posterity as numerous as the stars of the sky.

But do not be mistaken. This was not the fulfilment of God’s promise to bring life from death. The promise was made to Abraham and his descendant, in the singular, that is, Christ. God fulfilled his promise to Abraham on Easter morn, when he raised Jesus from the dead. The exalted Lord, raised by the glory of the Father and filled with the power of the Spirit, is the proof that God gives life to those who believe his word.

We believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and this makes all the difference. For now when we lie on our deathbed, when we are flat on our backs, when our human weakness reaches its full exposure, we yet trust in the God who raised Jesus. And wonderful to tell we discover that God has not only raised Jesus, but that he is raising us with him! We discover that the risen Lord is no longer for us an object out in space, but that the transcendent Lord of Glory is yet the immanent Emmanuel, with us, and not apart. So much so, that now we ourselves are the offspring of Abraham, we ourselves are heirs of the promise, we ourselves are one with Christ. Death, where is thy victory? Death, where is thy sting?

Death has sting only for the sinner, only for one so taken up with his own might, that he cannot admit how anyone else could give him life. He cannot trust the God who raised Jesus. He cannot lie down and allow God to raise him. Like Adam, he must always stand on his own two feet to eat from the tree of life. For one who lives only the life of the first Adam, death is all sting, terror, and loneliness – forever.

Adam lives in all of us. But with the proclamation of the Gospel there is a call to decision. Judgment has entered the world. Will I believe the Good News that God has raised Jesus? Will I really trust his word? How I die will be the proof. Death will be my profession of faith, or lack of it. But this profession need not wait until our last breath. All of us who have been baptised, have we not been baptised into union with Christ's death? Already we have begun to share the death of the Lord. Already the power of the resurrection strengthens us. For as soon as we confess our sin and profess our faith in God, not only with our lips, but also with our whole selves, are we reborn as offspring of Abraham, heirs of the promise, sons of God, other Christs.

MEETING PLACE

PRAYER LIST

ITEMS OF INTEREST

FAITH FORMATION

LISTENING

THE DESERT FATHERS