All oblates wish Fr. John Herbert hearty congratulations on the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood, which occurred on Sunday 1 February. Most Reverend Bishop Justin Bianchini of Geraldton officiated, with several oblates travelling to NN to be part of the proceedings. Fr. John’s first Mass was at 10.30am the following day. Fr. John has since taken off for Europe and the US for approx 5 months.

Dom Steve Storer renewed his oblation on 30 January for a further twelve-month period, as a Regular Oblate of New Norcia.

Fr David went to the annual clergy reunion at St Charles’s Seminary in Guildford, where he was presented with framed congratulations for the 40th anniversary of his ordination, which occurred on Holy Cross Day, 14th September.

Oblates might like to recommend to relatives and friends the “Benedictine Experience” weekends – An opportunity for men and women from all walks of life to spend some time apart, to enter into the Benedictine rhythm of prayer, work, liturgy, silence, solitude & community. To stimulate reflection, the monks will offer short talks exploring the meaning and value of monastic spirituality for today’s world. 11 – 13 June, 23 – 25 July, 3 – 5 September & 29 – 31 October.

There was a grand celebration at the ‘Little Sisters of the Poor’ in Glendalough on 21st December for Fr Maur’s 70th anniversary of ordination. Fr Abbot celebrated the Mass with Fr Richard Rutkauskas and Fr Steve Kelly. Fr Maur and Fr Reg Hynes assisted from the front row while Dom Michael served.

Fr Seraphim spent his Christmas in hospital at Moora, recovering from an infected wound to his leg after tripping and falling in the orchard. He had another spell there early in the New Year, when the wound was not healing properly.

A message from Fr. John on the occasion of his ordination.

“Thank you to everyone for making my ordination to the priesthood such a joy filled occasion. The liturgy was a moving and inspiring experience and the festive meal a source of great happiness. It was a great blessing to have the presence of so many family and friends, representing every era of my life. I am so overwhelmed by the many letters, cards, e-mails and gifts I have received. Most of all I thank you for your gentle prayerful support and encouragement. As friend, monk and priest, I remain your unworthy and humble servant”.

Fr. John Herbert.

The Rule of St. Benedict opens with the word - listen. Properly understood, this is the key to his whole spiritual teaching. A monk should be above all, a listener. So indeed should every Christian. But who, or what, are we to listen to? The Rule says - 'to the precepts of the master'. Who is this master? Is it St Benedict himself perhaps, or our abbot? In a secondary sense we can certainly say that these are masters we have to listen to, but our primary and ultimate master is God. The whole spiritual life of the Christian and especially of the monk, is a process of listening to God, ‘inclining the ear of the heart’, as the Rule says. This image of the inward ear, the ear of the heart, shows us that our listening is not merely an intellectual or rational activity, it is intuitive, springing from the very core of our being, where we are most open to God, most receptive to the word He speaks. We have to be very quiet and still within ourselves, very alert and attentive, if that word is to resonate properly in our innermost depths, so that we are fully illumined and nourished by it.

We have begun the Christian journey, we have set out upon the monastic path, so as to be taught by God. That is why St Benedict calls the monastery a 'school'. It is not a club for people who have already achieved spiritual perfection, it is a school where people come to learn and none of us are going to learn anything, unless we are prepared to listen.

This idea is not an invention of St Benedict's- It came to him out of the heart of the Jewish and Christian tradition. ‘Hear, 0 Israel’ says God to the Chosen People when he is giving them the Law. Jesus, when telling the parables, cried out - 'Listen, you who have ears to hear!' Jesus Himself was the greatest of all listeners. Everything He said and did was in response to what He had heard from His Father. This is a fact that is often unnoticed when studying His life. What we overlook is that the awesome power of Jesus had its origins in silence. In St Luke's Gospel especially, we learn of the long periods of solitary prayer that He spent on hilltops, often during the hours of darkness. What did this prayer consist of? Since He told His disciples not to pour out a torrent of words when praying, we can be sure He took His own advice and avoided talking more than He had to. So His prayer consisted mainly of listening - silent, relaxed, and attentive.

His obedience to the Father meant that His ear was totally and continually open to the Father's promptings, communicated to Him by the Spirit in the depths of His heart. He listened in silence while His Father disclosed His plan and issued His command. This is why Jesus’ words and deeds had such tremendous power. They were not His own but came from the One who had sent Him. He said nothing to His disciples that He had not previously heard from His Father.

In this He is our example and model. What He did, is what we have to do. Furthermore, since we have to do it, we can be sure of being actually able to do it. We received the Spirit of Jesus at our baptism. His life is now our life. His wisdom and power are ours to draw on. At the Last Supper He said that there is nothing He did which we also will not be able to do (John 14:12). Why not take that seriously? Why not see for ourselves what happens when we try to do what He did, thinking, speaking and acting in Him? If we try it, we shall never again find our lives boring or meaningless. So let us make a serious attempt at this and base our lives upon listening, as Jesus did. What does this listening consist of? How do we actually set about it? Above all, when and where and how does God speak to us, so that we can know when we should be listening?

The truth of the matter is that God is speaking to us all the time, in every circumstance of life. All work that we undertake, every experience we undergo, every encounter and relationship we are involved in, is a manifestation of God. He is revealing something of himself, speaking something out of His own depths, in all of them.

Our part is to be perpetually alert and attentive, so as to heal and digest what is being said, to catch the flashes of light as the veil is momentarily lifted. However, to do this continually, throughout our waking lives, is extremely difficult. Our tendency to be simply engulfed in everyday affairs, engrossed in them to the point of forgetting God altogether, is far too strong for us at the beginning, when we are just starting out on the serious spiritual life. A foundation has to be laid first, which we can then extend and build upon. In other words, we have to start by recognising that there are certain privileged circumstances in which God speaks especially clearly, more clearly than at other times. If we develop the habit of listening in these circumstances, then there is the chance that we may learn later to do it at other times, when God's voice is not so easy to hear, but nevertheless can be heard quite clearly enough, once the listening disposition has become habitual and deeply rooted in us. What are these, special circumstances and how should we set about listening in them?

There are two situations, above all, when God speaks to us with particular clarity and force. The first is in prayer, the second is through the Scriptures. I am sure from my own experience and reading of the Rule of St Benedict, that they are interrelated and complementary. They feed each other. To listen in the one situation helps us to listen in the other as well.

Prayer and the reading of Scripture are the two main sources for the spiritual life of monks and Christians generally. They are both large topics and each need special treatment in their own right. All I want to point out at the moment, is that they are both occasions in which God speaks more clearly than he usually does at other times and that therefore it is in these above all, that we need to develop the habit of listening.

To be concluded in the next issue of the Oblate newsletter.

St. Bernard was born at Fontaines-les-Dijon in the year 1090 and died at Clairvaux on August 20th, 1153. Tescelin, his father, was of the ancient stock of Chevaliers de Chatillon who held feudal lordship over territory in Burgundy and Champagne. He was said to have been a religious man of unblemished character. His mother, Aleth, was related to the Dukes of Burgundy. There is reason to suppose that her father was Bernard of Montbard. Bernard was one of seven children all dedicated to God at birth by their mother.

All the usual legends surround his early childhood. Although he was believed to have been mature in virtues from earliest infancy, we are assured that he was a child in worldly affairs, a not surprising quality in a child. If the lineaments of the child may be divined from the character of the grown man, it may be supposed that there was little of the prig in young Bernard. He received the education usual for children of his position and age. As a youth he is said to have been highly intelligent, good looking and distinguished for his urbanity. He did not escape the usual difficulties and temptations of adolescence, nor is there any reason why he should have done. But we can believe that he passed the crisis unscathed.

For such a young man as Bernard, any distinguished career would have been open to him, in either Church or State. For a time he seemed to hesitate, but in the year 1111, he finally decided to enter the monastic way of life, not in any great monastery but in the poor and obscure house of Citeaux. Robert of Molesme had founded this house some years previously, in order to follow in all simplicity the Rule of St. Benedict, without any of the elaborations that had been accumulated down the centuries by contemporary monasticism. For some years it had been languishing for want of recruits, until its future was assured by the arrival of Bernard and thirty companions whom he had induced to follow him, in the year 1112. When they entered, St. Stephen Harding, the Englishman, was abbot. In the way that Bernard induced so many of his noble companions to undertake with him such a hard and rough manner of life, we encounter for the first time an indication of that extraordinary power of moving others, which was to be characteristic of him all through his life. On the other hand, we must not exaggerate the contrast between the manner of life to which these young noblemen would have been accustomed and the rough living they found at Citeaux. The life of even the nobility in those days would seem rough by modern standards,

Three years after his entering Citeaux, Bernard was sent by Stephen to make a new foundation at Clairvaux. The Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne, William of Champeaux, who immediately became one of Bernard’s firmest friends, formally installed him in his office as abbot of the new foundation. This is significant, for it was undoubtedly William who first spread the fame of Bernard throughout France, while his influence on Bernard's intellectual outlook may well have been responsible for the strong line he took in combating Abelard in later years. From this moment Bernard began reluctantly to enter the field of great affairs. Bishops and great ecclesiastics began to insist on having his advice and help in their troubles. His decision was required and followed in all difficulties. We begin to find letters from him addressed to the King of France and the Pope. From the first he was fearless in his condemnations of the folly and vice of those in high positions. No one, no matter how exalted, was exempt from the sometimes very scathing rebukes of the young Abbot of Clairvaux. Times have changed. Such freedom of language is not permitted nowadays. In St. Bernard's time it was permitted, but naturally it gave rise to ill feeling and jealousy. It was not long before men were asking themselves who this truculent young abbot could be and why he did not stay in his monastery. There is a letter of his to Cardinal Haimeric in which he answers just this accusation. There is little about it of conventional humility. Of course he will stay in his monastery, he says. There is nothing he would like better. But the cardinal must not think that the troubles of the Church will cease just because he has ceased to give them tongue. In fact there will be no improvement until the Roman Curia ceases to heed tales told behind people's backs. But in view of these accusations which were levelled against the saint, at any rate at the beginning of his career and which may raise a question in the minds of modern readers, it were well to remember that although Bernard seems to have been torn between love for the solitude of his monastery, a sense of responsibility to his monks and a burning desire to reform the current abuses in the Church, yet he never concerned himself with public affairs, save under the compulsion of a strong sense of duty to the Church and under obedience to his superiors. His letters are full of complaints that he is always being torn away from his monastery by the commands of his superiors and we find him repeatedly begging to be left in peace. On one occasion he firmly refuses the request of the Pope himself that he should come to Rome.

When in the year 1130 the Roman cardinals surpassed themselves by electing two popes on the same day and within a few hours of each other, St. Bernard entered for the first time on the field of world affairs. He could not hesitate. The whole Church was in danger. Without delay he threw his weight on the side of Innocent II against Peter Leonis who had been elected anti-pope under the name of Anacletus, a few hours after Innocent. Anacletus seems to have been a Jew by birth and to have obtained his election by intimidation and bribery. Even Peter the Venerable has no good word to say for him. For a time the fate of the two popes swung in the balance, but it was Bernard who turned the scales in favour of Innocent, although the schism lasted for some eight years. He stormed through Europe persuading, encouraging, and threatening. It was he who alone had the courage to withstand the Emperor Lothair when he attempted to make his support of Innocent conditional on being granted the right of investiture. He fearlessly rebuked the Emperor before all the assembled bishops, whereupon the Emperor quailed, and gave way.

When he was not actually on the road, letters to every person of note or influence in the West were pouring from his pen. Not only was he writing letters, he was also receiving them. Almost anyone in difficulties seemed to think that he could appeal to the Abbot of Clairvaux. Sandwiched between letters to popes and kings, one finds other letters to poor and insignificant people, consoling them in their small troubles. He himself tells us that he made a point of answering every letter, even those from the most insignificant people. He kept more than one secretary at work and he is said to have been able to dictate more than one letter at a time. At the same time there was his responsibility to his own community. Every day Clairvaux was growing with fresh recruits and almost every year it was sending out fresh foundations. During the troubled years of the schism, nearly twenty foundations were made from Clairvaux alone, carrying everywhere with them the influence of their abbot and monastery and providing Bernard with an army of supporters for his tasks of reform. During his abbacy, Clairvaux founded 68 daughter houses. The whole world was becoming Cistercian. Undoubtedly he had the gift of delegating his authority. However when we consider that besides the care he had for his monks, besides his concern in great affairs, besides his vast correspondence and his many theological and mystical writings, he was tortured by ill health. This was some distressing gastric malady that made it difficult for him to retain his food. His vitality and energy seemed to surpass human strength, as undoubtedly they did. No one could have achieved all that Bernard did, under the conditions that he did it, with only his unaided human strength.

The final entry of Bernard on to the stage of world affairs was his preaching of the Second Crusade. This was a task imposed upon him by the Cistercian Pope, Eugenius III. As everyone knows, this Crusade ended in disaster. This was not Bernard's fault but of course everyone blamed him. So, like many other great and holy men, Bernard died under a cloud of disappointment and failure.

Although written for the monastic vocation, this article has many points of particular reference to Oblates and Christians in general.

In his personal testimony of faith in the monastic ideal, Cardinal Gasquet sets out to explain why he became a monk and why he found such happiness in ‘that mode of life which St Benedict calls the Via I'itae - the path of life’. Religio Religiosi is a short book, only 120-odd pages and was the outcome of a dinner- party discussion in which someone queried the point of voluntarily sacrificing one's own will to a hard rule of life. Published in 1916.

The little book begins with a small child's first awakening to the idea of the spiritual life and continues to describe why a man might decide to dedicate his life to serving God in a monastery. It may seem rather surprising that it ends with a terse little chapter on the dangers of 'tepidity'. This is worth quoting at some

length -

Of all the evils in the religious life Tepidity - the opposite of earnestness is to be dreaded. The lukewarm soul is regarded by God with particular aversion. 'I know thy works' he says- ‘that thou art neither hot nor cold, but because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth' (Apoc 3:15-16). Tepidity has all the qualities we should naturally dislike. It is dull, disloyal, ungenerous, insincere. It is an obstinate, unamiable enemy and tyrant that once allowed to get a power over our souls, is most difficult to expel. It is a kind of monastic sleeping-sickness which, once acquired, produces increased lethargy and insensibility and the priest or religious who gives way to the disease may well fear. He is neither against God - nor striving for Him, neither cold nor hot, but he hopes to he able to live with the least possible trouble of conscience in his own way. Of course he knows God to be so good, so glorious, so great, so just. However he does not trouble himself to reflect much on this. He would probably say that his only desire was to serve God with all his heart and soul and to draw nearer to the union of his soul with his maker for which he had left all things to follow Christ in religion. Yet he will practically hold that very little will do - as little as possible - to carry out his sworn service.

The tepid religious is really in a dangerous state of decline - in the spiritual sense. Grave offences against God he will avoid committing, not probably for fear of offending against God's love, as out of fear for His anger. Venial sins he does not think it necessary to take even the trouble to avoid. He is indolent and will not bestir himself in God's service. He is self-dependent and independent and so does not hesitate to indulge in criticism of others. He is governed not by principle but by human respect. The duties of his state are burdens to him and he makes little secret that they bore him and that the yoke of obedience is galling his neck. His saying of the Divine Office is perfunctory and becomes a burden hardly to he borne. His prayers and in particular his mental prayer are full of distractions and God seems to he left out of his mind and heart when he engages in them. The same can he said of his Communions and his Masses. He feels little or no consolation in them and his mind quickly passes to other thoughts and employments as a relief from the tedium and restraint of communion with God. His virtues are of the negative kind - self-denial and self-discipline do not enter into his philosophy. In other words the tepid religious is suffering from that which is the cancerous disease of the regular life - the attempt to make the principle of the ‘good-enough’ and not ‘the best’ the practical rule of the cloister.

Well! No one ever said that asceticism was easy! For Gasquet, the 'cancerous disease' is a particular danger to those who have spent some years in the monastery and who can hardly remember the initial ardour of the novitiate. It is so insidious a temptation that it can take hold before one is even aware of it.

The imagery of disease and sleep appear in a curiously parallel passage in Holy Wisdom, a book by Fr. Augustine Baker, which Gasquet must have read. ‘Souls infected with that poison’ warns Baker, ‘will find their lives will be full of anguish and their deaths very uncomfortable’.

Baker tells us – ‘Tepidity is a bitter poisonous root fixed in the minds of negligent Christians, who though out of servile fear abstain from mortal actual sins, yet they perform their external necessary obligations to God and their brethren sleepily and heartlessly, contenting themselves with things however outwardly done, but in the mean time remain full of self-love, inward pride, sensual desires, aversion from internal conversation with God’

Both Gasquet and Baker are in absolute agreement about the lethal nature of tepidity. This kind of monastic 'working-to-rule' is death to the spiritual life of the monk because it interferes with his loving relationship with God (Gasquet) and makes spiritual perfection impossible (Baker). A modem lay equivalent might be found in the office 'clock-watcher' who lays down his tools as soon as the official working day has ended. Nobody wants to work alongside someone like this. The clock-watcher is out for himself - he doesn't care about his colleagues and performs his allotted task with the minimum possible effort. We must look on the effect he (or she) has on those around him. Both Baker and Gasquet agree that he readily criticises others, especially those more conscientious than himself. This is not merely frivolous and unkind, but damages the whole community. The tepid soul is the 'rotten apple' in the barrel and that is why he does so much harm.

Baker's list of the ‘marks of tepidity’ - pride, murmuring, fractiousness, envy and ambition, are reduced by Gasquet to 'human esteem'. This is surely the tragedy of the 'disease'. It tempts the monk or nun to think of the religious life in purely human terms, stripped of the supernatural element. Yet without the supernatural element - docility to the Holy Spirit - the religious life makes no sense at all and the tepid person is living out an illusion. He is a sham.

Baker points to two causes of tepidity and both are interesting. The first is bad direction. This will sound familiar to anyone even remotely acquainted with the teaching of Holy Wisdom. Fr. Baker's extraordinary sensitivity and insight concerning spiritual direction deserve to be recognised even today. There are, he teaches, more people offering spiritual direction than have the necessary wisdom and discernment to do it. Some are motivated by pride or a desire to control others and they can cause great damage. Perhaps some tepid souls have been bullied in this way, been put off or felt inadequate to the demands laid on them and given up.

The other cause is what Baker calls ‘outrunning grace,’ which he thinks is as problematic as neglecting to respond to it. An excess of zeal for example, in scrupulously excessive mortifications, might induce a feeling of hopelessness - the ideal is too impossible to attain, so one might just as well not bother. In the moderate, intensely wise way, that is so typical of Augustine Baker, he tells us to co-operate with what graces we receive, only that and no further, lest we lose heart.

Both Gasquet and Baker agree that the only remaining religious motivation of the tepid monk, is the fear of hell. The minimum necessary will be done to ensure that he doesn't lose his salvation. Thus even here, the consideration is selfish. The irony is that by retaining an attachment to the world, the tepid monk dwells in a private hell that (says Baker) can eventually transform itself into the real thing.

The remedies given for tepidity are straightforward but not entirely satisfying. Perhaps we are supposed to be so well-versed in pious practice that these do not need to be dwelt on very much. For Baker, not surprisingly, the answer lies in courageously giving oneself anew to God and ‘with a discreet fervour’ (ie: not overdoing things) co-operating with His grace through prayer and mental exercises. This will not only have a bearing on one's eternal destiny, but lead to a greater ‘present contentment and joy’.

Gasquet on the other hand, comes a little closer to the Desert Fathers with the tantalising word 'watchfulness'. Since tepidity is an ever-present danger in the spiritual life, we need to wage war on it ‘without cessation’. One is reminded of the phrase in the Holy Rule ‘never to lose hope in the mercy of God’ when Gasquet says ‘It is perseverance and steady personal watchfulness which are required of all’.

But perhaps more is needed - and here intended - to amend a shoddy prayer life and general boredom with even the thought of spiritual matters, than the daily examination of conscience? Eastern spirituality would certainly suggest so and presents the lukewarm soul with some positive opportunities.

'Tepidity' as such is not spoken of, but the spiritual malaise, which it indicates, is warned against frequently. Cassian, writing on the eight vices, mentions dejection and listlessness, while St John Climacus talks of despondency and insensibility. The first of these is more commonly understood as ‘acedia’ - a distaste for spiritual things, languor, tedium (Cassian's 'dejection'), while the second refers to the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another. In a passage surprisingly full of humour, he tells us -

He who has lost sensibility is a witless philosopher, a self-contradictory windbag. He talks about healing a wound and does not stop irritating it. He complains of sickness and does not stop eating what is harmful. He prays against it and immediately goes and does it. He philosophises about death but he behaves as if he were immortal. He talks of temperance and self-control, but he lives for gluttony. He reads about vainglory and is vainglorious while actually reading. He repeats what he has learnt about vigil and drops asleep on the spot. He praises prayer, but runs from it as from the plague. He blesses obedience but he is the first to disobey. He praises detachment, but is not ashamed to be spiteful. Having overeaten, he repents and a little later again gives way. He blesses silence and praises it with a spate of words (The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 18).

The solution, says St. Hesychios, is in ‘Watchfulness’ - whereby the soul remains permanently attentive to the actions of grace within it. ‘Watchfulness is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart. If we are conscientious in this, we can gain much experience and knowledge of spiritual warfare. Continuity of attention produces inner stability and inner stability produces a natural intensification of watchfulness and this intensification gradually and in due measure gives contemplative insight into spiritual warfare. This in its turn is succeeded by persistence in prayer and by the state that Jesus confers, in which the intellect, free from all images, enjoys complete quietude.’ (On Watchfulness and Holiness - from The Philokalia. Vol. 1).

There is no 'instant solution’ - all the writers on the spiritual life worth reading are in agreement here. Prayer must grow in the soul until the soul radiates with the life of Christ. 'Dying to oneself’ is never easy- but Baker promises that it does bring a ‘joy and contentment’ all of its own. The alternative is spiritual lethargy, not just a threat to the monastic, but an ever-present temptation to the lay person who contents himself with fulfilling 'obligations', notching up Lenten sacrifices as if these were doing a favour to God and collecting indulgences like 'get-out-of-jail-free' cards in a game of Monopoly. Of course one does have obligations towards God and it is good to practise devotions, but the great goal of the spiritual life, whether lived within the monastery or outside it, is ‘Union with God’. To be able to say with St. Paul ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’(Gal 2:20).

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ST.BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Taken from the ‘Letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux’ by Bruno Scott James

TEPIDITY - ERODING THE MONASTIC IDEAL

An article by Clare Anderson, taken from ‘The Chapter’ Oblate Newsletter of Ealing Abbey