March 2001 – May 2001                                                                                                                  Issue 001

MEETINGS - New Venue

PRAYER LIST

All oblates will join in offering Barbara Agocs and her family their condolences on the death of Barbara’s mother who passed away on 30 January 2001.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Our congratulations to our President, Brian Low, not only on his re election as President but also on the effort he has put in for the Oblate group over the past twelve months, also to all the office bearers and committee members.

It is with sadness that we farewell Fr. David as our Spiritual Director. We understand that his duties have expanded to such an extent, especially as Prior at New Norcia, that he cannot guarantee us the continued personal attention we have received in the past. We all thank you Father for the commitment you have given to the oblate group during the past few years. We take this opportunity of welcoming Fr. Anthony who is to be our new Spiritual Director and will be with us at our March meeting. 

As most oblates may know, we have been deliberating for a time over the selection of the next venue for our monthly meetings. Our Christmas meeting on 17 December was the last to be held at the St. Vincent de Paul headquarters, the management of which elected to sell the building and move to new offices at Belmont. A vote by oblates at this meeting decided to relocate to the Rivervale premises for future chapter meetings. Twelve oblates were in attendance at our AGM held at the new location and were favourably impressed by the facilities there.

It was a pleasant surprise for all the oblates in attendance at our Christmas meeting to catch up with Tom Gollop, our elder statesman and foundation member, who joined us for the occasion – Good to see you there Tom!

For those oblates with access to the Internet, we now advise that an ‘Oblate’ site has been set up on the main New Norcia Web page (Other Links). This can be accessed at their address www.newnorcia.wa.edu.au Also our newsletter is now on line through this Oblate site.

We include below some information for those interested in the recent publication of ‘New Norcia Studies Journal No.8’.
New Norcia Studies Journal No.8 for 2000 is a journal of papers celebrating the fascinating history and lifestyle of the New Norcia area.

Prof. Peter Spearritt, Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University has said:
‘New Norcia Studies is one of Australia’s most intriguing annuals, reflecting on both the activities of the monastery and its impact on the surrounding community. Issue No.8 ranges from an account of the Aboriginal Studies programme at the New Norcia Education Centre to Kevin Seasoltz’s article on ‘A Monastic Geography of Time and Place’. Readers interested in Australia’s social and cultural history will find much to engage them in this issue.’

An article on the ‘Mission Farm’ by former Farm Manager, Keith Hunt, gives you an insight to the farming practices in the area over the past 28 years, while the story of a young Belgian who wished to enter the Benedictine Order at New Norcia makes interesting reading.

The effects of the Spanish Civil War on the Spanish monks of New Norcia is dealt with in a sympathetic manner by Isabel Perez-Molina.

Daniel O’Connor’s paper on ‘Biography as History and Abbot Salvado of New Norcia’ may change your expectations of the next biography you pick up.

The journal is available from the Archivist, Benedictine Community of New Norcia, New Norcia WA 6509 at a cost of $20.00 plus postage $4.00 and $9.00 overseas.

FAITH FORMATION

Obedience

Why is it that obedience is to be cultivated as one of the greatest virtues? St. Benedict shows us that obedience is the step off point to even greater attributes. We note from the opening paragraph of the Prologue that it is the labour of obedience that will bring us back to the Lord from whom we have drifted. The oft quoted scripture ‘Obedience is better than sacrifice, submissiveness better than the fat of rams’ (1Sam15:22) implies that obedience, well developed, is at the service of the Gospel of Love. That is why it is important for monks to have ‘unhesitating’ obedience. As Jesus told His disciples, ‘Blessed is the one who hears the word of God and keeps it’ (Lk11:28).

We notice in chapter five of the Rule that St. Benedict makes obedience the gateway to the most treasured monastic quality -humility. He says that humility will grow from unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ. Moving on to chapter 71, we find that ‘obedience is a blessing to be shown by all, not only to the Abbot but also to one another as brothers, since we know that it is by this way of obedience that we go to God’ (RB71:1-2).

As there is a linkage between cultivating the virtues and obedience, it is perhaps no accident that St. Benedict describes its ideal manifestation as a reflex action. Carried out well, obedience becomes unselfconscious and immediate. In fact it brings us to ‘That good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life’ (RB72:2).

Throughout our lives, it is God’s will that is at stake. If we obey out of faith in God, then the grace of God is promised to carry us through. For Benedict, obedience is the great workhorse that ploughs the fields of the Lord. This is perfectly in accordance with Biblical tradition. If one has a great personal problem with obedience, then it could be a great spiritual breakthrough to be able to put aside fear, doubt and suspicion to do God’s will. The example of Abraham’s sacrifice is always held up as a major act of blind faith in God. Abraham, as we know, went so far as to be willing to sacrifice his only son Isaac, at the command of the Lord. Abraham’s faith was credited to him precisely because he obeyed the Lord – unhesitatingly.

Of course, the Lord Himself becomes the model of obedience par excellence. We might even say that the entire doctrine of the atonement, when Christ redeemed us from original sin, is rooted in obedience. God becoming flesh embodies obedience in the service of divine humility.

There is another aspect of obedience that it is necessary we touch on and that is the social dimension. We are presuming up and to this point that as individuals we have a perfect understanding of right and wrong and that all we have been asked to do under obedience is good.. We must remember that the Church has always taught the absolute primacy of the individual conscience. We are bound to follow our best moral understanding of how we must act in a given situation. No one is ever permitted to rest entirely on the judgement of another. To carry out orders, bad or good, without attention to moral judgement is a fundamental moral heresy.

It is easy to see therefore that obedience is a discipline that repairs and even recreates our relationship with God. Obedience is not a series of acts done grudgingly because we feel we must do them, but the response of a willing heart in the service of God and our neighbour.

Obedience – or active listening – is not a project we take up. Rather it is a way of being in the world. God’s Will is not a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery to be lived! For the Benedictine monk, nun or oblate, listening and living is achieved through an attitude of contemplation. Contemplation is nothing more or less than ‘listening with the ear of the heart’ to the joy of the discovery of God in every aspect of our lives, as we are invited by St. Benedict.

We add a few comments from Thomas Merton on the subject of obedience which links it with personal integrity. The question of obedience is more difficult for us now than it was for previous generations. Thomas Merton spent a long time meditating on the phenomenon of the Nazis who murdered millions of Jews in concentration camps and then said they were ‘only obeying orders’ and he was convinced that the almost self-surrender of the individual to political mass movements was one of the biggest threats facing the human race. He distinguished this sort of abnegation of personal integrity sharply from the genuine obedience and self-giving of love. In ‘Contemplation in a World of Action’, he writes: Let us not imagine that this ‘existing for another’ is compatible with perfect love. The alienated man cannot love. He has nothing to give. Nothing is his. The lover however is able to give himself completely to another precisely because he is his own to give. This is not alienated. He has an identity. He knows what is his to surrender. The alienated man has no chance to surrender. He has simply been taken over by total control.

Genuine love has nothing to do with allowing yourself to be manipulated by the self seeking expectations of another. It has nothing to do with turning yourself into something you are not simply to pacify the unreasonable demands of someone else. It does not absolve you from responsibility for your own conscience.

A Word from our Abbot.

The monks of New Norcia are under pressure. We are told that we must revive and develop connections with the Aboriginal community. We are also told that we must preserve the historical buildings, the art collection, the museum and library. We must preserve the archives and promote research and appropriate publication of their treasury of information on Aboriginal, colonial, local and church history, on the Colleges and the other religious communities who have worked in this town. We must protect and foster the ecological resources of the farm with its large tracts of uncleared bush supporting native plants and animals.

We must keep providing employment for the seventy or so people who work for us full-time or part-time. Most of them live locally and depend on off-farm employment to remain on their farming properties. If they can stay in the neighbourhood, we have a good chance of keeping the trading post open with its post office, and the roadhouse, and the hotel.

They tell us we must encourage more tourists and visitors, because without their spending the town cannot survive; and we must provide them with facilities, while at the same time controlling their numbers and their activities so that they do not destroy what they come to see, or spoil the distinctive monastic peacefulness of the town. We must bring more parties of school children to be educated by carefully devised programmes exploiting our diverse resources; and we must continue to house, in the former College buildings, residential school groups of all sorts.

We must continue to provide the highly-appreciated opportunities for adult groups and individuals to spend time in the monastery guesthouse, and in the other guest units that have sprung up across the road from the monastery as parts of other buildings become available.

These are some of the things people tell us we must do. I think that they are right; all of them.

The monastery can support all these projects, if it has its own house in order. For the house to be in order, our first priority has to be prayer, community and private prayer, the expression of our desire for union with God. Genuine love of God necessarily overflows into love of our neighbour, whom we take to be everybody in need. We must and we will do all that we can to provide for their needs, concentrating on the needs that can only or best be met by monks.

For that we need space for silence and reading, reverence for the traditions that we have received, for the Holy Scriptures and the sacred mysteries of the liturgy; we need intelligent, honest, and critical study of the ideas of the past and of the present, and openness to and deep respect for all the people with whom we come into contact.

And we need more monks. At present we are rather short of monks, and particularly young ones. Young people find it difficult to make a permanent commitment to monastic life, as they do these days to marriage. It is important for us not to panic in this situation, and certainty not to lower our standards of selection. The monastery can survive with a small number of monks if necessary; it is more likely to survive and flourish with a small number of good monks than with larger numbers of unstable characters. I like to hope that, as our community has had a multicultural history, its monks will reflect the multicultural composition of the church and world in which we live.

It is not quite true that the monastery can cope with all the needs I have mentioned. Good management of our resources in recent years has meant that we are able to provide for ourselves and for our religious work. But we cannot afford the outlay necessary for the conservation of the rest of the buildings apart from the monastery and the church, or for adequate provision for the art, museum, library and archive collections, or for the services and facilities that would normally be provided by a town or shire council.

I have talked with governments and many advisers about how to deal with these problems, and the answer seemed to be the establishment of a Trust Fund. Therefore, the New Norcia Heritage Trust was set up in 1995.

We have received a great heritage from the past. We want to administer it well and contribute further to it in the present, and pass it on to the future as a living organism. The monks' community is at the heart of it, but we have always wanted to share our inheritance with the people of Western Australia, and with students and visitors from further afield.

Some readers will be disappointed not to find here a grand vision for the future. You might have heard that the vision was the Aboriginal mission from 1846 to 1900; that it was the schools from 1908 to 1991; it was the mission in Kalumburu from 1908 to 1982; it was the Abbey Nullius from 1859 to 1982. That is what the romantic historians of New Norcia will tell you. I do not believe them.

The grand vision has always been a core community of monks who lived and prayed together and were open to the practical love of their neighbours in whatever ways were most needed at the time. This is my grand vision for the future too. A monastery that is defined in terms of some one definite work has got its priorities upside down. Besides, it is more exciting, not to know too much in advance which way the Spirit of the Lord and the cries of the poor will direct us in the future.

Comment

Fort Augustus Abbey.

A visit to Fort Augustus is almost worth it for the journey alone. The further north one travels in Scotland, the more the landscape dominates as the roads wind round the mountains and lochs. Past scenes of tranquil beauty, like Loch Lochy and great drama, like the former battlefields of Killiecrankie and Glencoe. Despite the incursion of modern roads, the highlands are still very much as they appear in old films and pictures. A drive north from Edinburgh will take one through Pitlochry, famous for its knitwear, where a decent tea can be had and plenty of time left to reach Fort Augustus before nightfall and night falls early in the winter months. It is almost dark by 4.30pm.

Yet the journey is not the best reason for coming to Fort Augustus Abbey. The long long journey along the banks of Loch Lochy seems never ending, as highland journeys often can. One pulls into the driveway of the abbey with a sense of homecoming. There it is: a sturdy grey fortress surrounded by hills, with one of the best views in Scotland, straight on to Loch Ness, its surface glassy–smooth, or strangely rippling.

The Abbey buildings were given to the Benedictines in 1876 by the 15^th Lord Lovat. It was then an old fortress dating from the 18^th century which the 14^th Lord Lovat, Thomas Alexander, had purchased in 1867 as a shooting lodge from the British Government. The fort was originally built in 1729-42 for the stationing of troops after the Jacobite rising of 1715 and named after Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (later known as the ‘butcher of Culloden’). In January 1745, the fort was captured by the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who held it until after the battle of Culloden when it passed into the hands of the British Government.

By the late 19^th century, the fort was in need of some renovation. Largely derelict, the Governor’s house was demolished to let in more light and gothic-style cloisters were designed by Pugin who was also responsible for the magnificent ‘Benedictine’ fireplace in what is now the guest house lounge. Integral with the mantel, carved from the same stone, is a great statue of St. Benedict dressed in the distinctive English Congregation habit; his hands held out to his sons and daughters. The fireplace tiles have the word PAX entwined in a crown of thorns.

With the closure of the boys school in 1993, the monastery has shifted its emphasis from education to hospitality. The boarding accommodation is now a thriving guest house staffed by lay employees who also provide the excellent catering in a dining room once frequented by noisy boys and now used by retreatants, tourists staying at the guest house and visitors to the new highland Heritage Centre, which houses a permanent historical exhibition presented with stunning up-to-date technology. There is also a separate room with murals depicting the story of St. Benedict and the growth of monasticism. The Heritage Centre attracts many visitors, some of whom have never been near a monastery before. Thus the traditional Benedictine values of education and hospitality are maintained.

The Guest House is open all year round to visitors who can use it as a base to tour the Loch Ness area. In the summer there is quality accommodation for back-packers. In the colder months, good central heating and the old fortress’ 3ft. thick walls make the Abbey a comforting refuge from the bitter winds and snow storms of a Scottish winter. Fort Augustus is a half-hour’s drive from Glen Nevis, sometimes described as the most beautiful walk in Scotland and once a favourite with Queen Victoria. It’s a good walk for the not-so-fit and well worth it with its great foaming waterfalls and tiny streamlets which flow at one’s feet. Shaggy highland cattle and sheep can hold up the traffic on the roads, so allow plenty of time for a walk, preferably with a picnic. In winter, there are several ski-runs nearby.

The monastery gift shop is very good and among other things, stocks monastery produced beeswax candles and honey at very reasonable prices. The other commodity, not so easily produced, is the Loch Ness Monster and curious to know what the ‘locals’ make of all the rumours, I asked one of the monks if any of the community had seen the monster. I was surprised to learn that almost all of them had experienced something at one time or another. Indeed, one of the older monks is an acclaimed authority and has made several TV appearances on the subject. The monk I spoke to was generally sceptical about 95% of reported sightings, but was open minded about the rest.

The Abbey Church was finished in the 1980’s and is an interesting combination of styles with an attractive modern foyer. As well as Mass, the public may attend the office four times daily.

Nessie net hunt.
News item from The West Australian 6 January 2001.
Edinburgh

A Swedish search team plans to use a net to capture the legendary Loch Ness monster. Jan Sundberg, of the Global Underwater Search Team, said Operation Clean Sweep would begin on March 20. He was confident his four strong crew would find any large creatures living in the Scottish loch.

REFLECTION on the BOOK of NATURE
Adapted from an article by Tom Casey OP of Co. Cork, Ireland.

Some of you might remember a poem from your school days that began like this: ‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare’. I was reminded of it recently while walking across a paddock which had a creek running through it. I stopped and began to look as if for the first time at the extraordinary variety of growth before me by the bank of that winding stream. The marvellously sturdy weeds that struck up so boldly towards the sky; other shy shoots that barely peeped up for a glimpse of the sun – tiny, perfectly shaped flowers whose blue or white or yellow was so gentle and yet so strong.

Then to my surprise I noticed that the whole scene was teeming with life. Tiny insects crawling up the blades of grass. Strange winged creatures flitting from reed to reed in what seemed to be a meaningless pattern. Flies skimming over the surface of the water at dizzy speed. It was as if I had been blind until that moment. Here was all this wonder and beauty and variety before me and I was only now beginning to see it, to relish it. Quite spontaneously, I began to give thanks to God. It was good indeed to give thanks and stare. So often we fail to see what is right in front of us: the beauty in a flower, the ever changing patterns of sky and clouds, the shapely splendour of a blackbird, the majesty of a tree. We are too busy to notice, too busy rushing for the bus or train, or dashing to the supermarket, or frantically making plans for next week or next month or next year. We don’t have enough time to stand and stare and we are the poorer for that.

Jesus knew how to stand and stare. He could relish the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. He marvelled in the way the tiny mustard seed grew into a sturdy tree. He knew how moth and woodworm can destroy, how yeast leavens the bread, how the weed chokes. He noticed people too, - how the farmer scatters his seed, how the woman searches for her lost coin. He spotted Zaccheus as he peeped from the sycamore tree. He noticed the widow with her two small coins. He had time to spend with children, with the beggars, with the lepers. Because He had time to contemplate the world around Him, Jesus could sense in it the presence of God, the work of His Father.

Brother Andrew’s: My Poverty in India.
Taken from the Hazaribag newsletter ‘News from India’

Brother Andrew, co-founder with Mother Teresa of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers, finished his earthly journey on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on 4 October 2000. As Rev Ian Travers-Ball SJ, Brother Andrew sailed for India and the Australian Jesuit Mission in Hazaribag Bihar on 1 December 1954 as a member of the fourth group of Australian Jesuits to be missioned in India. Last year he revisited India briefly and below we print some reflections he made on this his final trip.

Last year when I was invited to visit India, I readily agreed to go without thinking too much about what it would entail. As the day to leave approached, I was thinking it was a pilgrimage arranged by God. I was surprised that I had made it a full two months, but I think that God arranged that too. I felt a bit apprehensive; my age now and health, the turbulence in India, my affection for familiar things and people in Australia.

A few days before leaving, I saw it in prayer as a call, a mission – as in 1954 when I first went to India leaving family and country for good, as was the understanding at that time. I don’t know how much I realised back then what a step it was. But now I could see it was a call to let go of everything, to let go of things and people who are dear to me.

However, I could pray; ‘If it is You Lord, that is everything. I can go joyfully in and with You. I can entrust everyone and everything to Your loving care – with joyful hope, faith and love. Mary, my mother, you are Queen of this mission.’

As I prepared to leave, I saw that I did not need to take much – just a change of clothes, no books or papers – not even pre-worked out ideas or talks. I could go freely with Lady Poverty. There was no time for acclimatising. Immediately on arrival the heat, the humidity, the pull of bones and body, the crush of crowds was heavy upon me. I came to India for a sort of romantic spiritual experience and reminiscing, but the weight of the flesh was a large part of the journey from the beginning, it was a call to trust and surrender – to let go.

Current concerns in Australia disappeared instantly; football finals, government elections, public issues etc. Here was a heavy humid purging. But all would be well. All was in His hands. Beautiful loving things can also be heavy and demanding. There was the overwhelming love of the Brothers and Sisters of Mother Teresa. One has to respond to loving welcome and expectations and endless requests for talks and sharing. It is beautiful, privileged grace to be loved, but also a demanding and also exhausting call. Happily I could be thankful for it and I could wait on Him and trust.

On my second day, I was invited to celebrate Mass at the tomb of Mother Teresa on her second anniversary. This was pilgrimage. But not much time for quiet reflection in that pressing, sweating crowd and a sermon to be preached.

The power of that place and the moment was real indeed. So many people thronging to her tomb, parents putting sick babies on the tomb, ordinary people with their needs and hopes and their suffering coming to Mother Teresa, brought to their God by her continuing life giving spirit. Many were Hindus and Muslims.

With my experience of the heaviness of my bones and flesh in the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes and the amoebic dysentery; I discovered patience as an opening to hope and love for the One who loves me unto life.

Later, on quieter days, I would spend a little time silently at her tomb. Quieter days, but always coming and going were a few parents with sick children, Hindus with their prayers and hopes, young men and women with the hunger of their heart, the poor and wounded, nuns and curious tourists.

As I sat there I listened for what Mother would say to me and it came clearly; it was Jesus in Mother Teresa coming through so powerfully after her death. It is the risen Jesus so alive in her and in those who come here.

I could see out the door and across the courtyard to the parlour where many times she and I talked. Now I could realise the tremendous gift and grace of a saint upon me. Mother Teresa is very much alive after her death – which is one of the marks of great saints.

Staying in the Brother’s houses and close to the poor, the wounded and visiting the sisters too, I was struck by the serenity of the poor and by the continuing dedication and love of the Sisters and Brothers and many co-workers and volunteers. So many lives supported, touched and inspired. This is the miracle of Jesus present, of the Spirit. It is very strong. It is the church everywhere. Human weakness evident? Yes. But undeniable life and love that has to be pondered in silence, for it is so easily overlooked. St. Luke says of Mary in the days of her Son’s infancy; ‘She treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart’. It is enlightening and freeing to ponder the things of God.

That serenity of the poor and broken also calls for a real prayerful pondering. It is in striking contrast to the anger, the resentment, the depression of many sophisticated people.

These ‘poor’ ones are somehow graced to know that life here on earth is an exile, a waiting. That it is the journey out of Egypt – but not yet fully the Promised Land. The scholar, the independent, the self-reliant has to surrender their mind and will to this. But pride gets in the way… ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are those who mourn and weep’. That is the strange promise of Jesus.

With my experience of the heaviness of my bones and flesh in the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes and the amoebic dysentery, I discovered anew the exile, the waiting on the dawn. I discovered patience as an opening to hope and love for the One who loves me unto life. It wasn’t all serene for me as I journeyed on amid the beauty of the people I was with and the faith that the living God has given me in Himself.

Jean Vanier has long been saying that the poor reveal to me my own poverty. The background of discomfort I was experiencing highlighted this for me.

I quickly saw how preoccupied I was with myself. Would the dysentery clear up? Would I get malaria from all these mosquito bites? Would I get a seat on this long uncomfortable crowded train journey? Would the floods make it impossible for me to get to the airport and catch my flight to get out of it all?

The experience that God did always provide and work things out only served to humble me more – even if He did constantly give me a run for my money!

One instance stands out. It was an early morning start from a  remote house of the Brothers with their lepers, to catch the early train to Calcutta. As usual I was preoccupied with my own convenience and the arrangements. Everything of course worked out – even a seat, broken though it was.

Stepping out of the train on to the platform on arrival, right there at my feet, lying on a rag of a blanket was an old woman breathing her last, flies around her open gasping mouth. I recognised the misery of my preoccupation with myself.

The Brother who was with me arranged for her to be taken to their hospice for the dying where she died on a bed, bathed and comforted a little. That was the grace for her at the end. The grace for me? In her death she revealed to me my own great poverty which is an amazing mystery and a deep liberation from self delusion.

I have long been struck by the parallel between physical bodily conditions and the spiritual. This is clear in the healings and miracles of Jesus.

The blindness of the beggar corresponds to the spiritual blindness of us all. The hunger of the crowd that He satisfies is the spiritual hunger that we feel. The life that He restores to the dead Lazarus is the new life he gives to us in the death of our sin and selfishness.

There is a vitality in India. Here is a people of the future – if western materialism doesn’t overtake them.

One morning going to Howrah station, I saw the teeming crowds – rickshaw pullers, people carrying huge loads, people rushing and pushing in the heat and humidity on their business. I was feeling weak and discomforted myself. I thought, why don’t they just sit down and wait for death? Yet they struggle fiercely to live and support their families. In Australia we look to anti-life measures; abortion, euthanasia, redundancies, economic rationalism that dispenses with people. Everywhere in India you find the sense of the sacred. God is not denied or excluded. At times it may be naïve or distorted. But people know God and so they live on in the incredible conditions of our life.

In these two months I experienced the suffering of the poor and the deprived in India. I saw the human weaknesses in the Brothers, in the Church, in Indian society – and in myself. But I was also touched by the loving, living Spirit of God in the Indian poor, in the Brothers – even in my own poor self.

It is all the mystery of God. Without Him there is nothing.

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