The
St.
Perth - Western Australia
Oblates affiliated to Holy Trinity Abbey, New Norcia
New Norcia web site - www.newnorcia.wa.edu.au
Period September -
November 2007
MEETING PLACE
Chapter meetings are held at
Meetings are held each 3rd. Sunday, commencing at
September - Chapter meeting to be held on Sunday, 16 September.
Discussion on RB 64 & the Gospel of the day - Lk
15:1-32.
October - Chapter meeting to be held on Sunday, 21 October. Discussion
on RB 65 & the Gospel of the day - Lk 18:1-8.
November - Chapter meeting to be held on Sunday, 18 November. Discussion
on RB 66 & the Gospel of the day - Lk.21:5-19.
PRAYER LIST
Please remember all our sick oblates - in particular
Pat Cockett & Michael Kent.
Prayers requested for Des Hoad and
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Rhod's
mother who passed away on 15 August. Our sympathy to Rhod and his family.
Also and always, continue to pray for our parent community in New Norcia.
Would you please remember all our deceased oblates.
ITEMS OF INTEREST
As usual, a good number of oblates were in attendance at the annual retreat
held at New Norcia during the Trinity Sunday weekend
period.
Fr. John spoke on 'Benedict in the World Today' - 1. The challenge of Today and 2. Prophetic
statements in the Rule.
Fr. David spoke on Prayer and to guard against 'Acedia'
(Slothfulness and Boredom).
To each of the above speakers, the oblates offer sincere thanks and
appreciation for the time and effort taken by them to provide us with spiritual
guidance as well as their assistance in making the retreat a memorable
experience.
Our congratulations to Anne-Marie Mendis
on being received as an oblate during her final oblation ceremony. Our thanks to Dom Chris who conducted the ceremony in the offertory
and gave a homily in the presence of the monks and oblates of the Community.
The oblates made their annual renewal of oblation at this time.
A large group (as usual) of oblates gathered together to celebrate St.
Benedict's feast day on 11 July. The oblates celebrated Mass at the Redemptorist Monastery in
Following an invitation from the Anglican Oblates and also to celebrate St.
Benedict's Feast Day, we received an invitation to attend Evensong at
WHAT GETS BETTER WITH AGE AT
NEW NORCIA?
Wine, Olive Oil & Dom Paulino! -
taken, with thanks, from 'The Chimes' newsletter.
Dom Paulino Gutiérrez used
to say that once he passed Fr Maur Enjuanes' record as the oldest ever monk of New Norcia, he was happy to 'go' when God decided. He passed
that record in August last year when he reached the age of 96 years and 60
days.
However, not long after this, Dom Paulino realised
that if he did die soon, the inscriptions on the crosses over his and Fr Maur's graves would only indicate that they were both
96-years-old. It would not be obvious to future cemetery observers that Dom Paulino was older. Suddenly, God had to wait - he decided
he had to reach 97 so it would be clear to history that he held the record. As
of 22 June, Dom Paulino showed he was again ready to
accept the Lord's will - he turned 97!
Born in 1910 in a little northern Spanish village called Villaespasa,
the main thing Dom Paulino remembers about his childhood,
is how he and the boys of the village spent much of their time playing games.
His family had a small farm with wheat for making bread, a few sheep and some
cattle for ploughing - just enough to 'keep the family alive'. All 50 families
in the village were poor, but Dom Paulino says
everyone was very happy: 'You didn't know you were poor. You thought you had
just enough for yourselves'.
At the age of 14, Dom Paulino was at a Sunday Mass in
his village with his grandmother and the celebrant was a Benedictine monk who
asked the young men to consider joining the monastery. Dom Paulino
told his grandmother that he was interested. After Mass, his grandmother spoke
to the monk, who told Dom Paulino to be at the train
station next Saturday. His monastic journey had begun!
Dom Paulino first went to the Spanish monastery at El
Pueyo, but after about six months there, he was sent
to the monastery at
However, believing the photographs were of New Norcia,
when in fact they were taken at the mission in Kalumbaru,
Dom Paulino arrived at New Norcia
in 1928 to find - to his great surprise - the Aborigines dressed like everyone
else and not a spear in sight!
After nearly seventy-nine years at New Norcia, Dom Paulino may be a little slower these days, but he still
keeps himself busy. 'I'll have plenty of time to rest in the cemetery,' he was
once heard to say.
Asked for advice on how to live a long life, New Norcia's
miller and baker of 50 years and olive oil maker for 20 years, replied - 'Bread
and olive oil!' Good genes, however, might also have something to do with it.
Dom Paulino's father lived until he was 96, his
mother until she was 88, his sister reached 90 years and his three brothers,
with ages ranging from 75 to 90, are still going strong in
Regular visitors to New Norcia have often been farewelled by Dom Paulino with
the words, 'See you in heaven', but many have heard it so many times now, they
wonder which of them will make it there first.
The Benedictine Community and the townspeople of New Norcia
take great pleasure in congratulating Dom Paulino on
his 97th birthday, in thanking him for his cheerful presence among us and in
wishing him the very best of health and happiness for the future.
INTIMACY - WITH GOD, OTHERS AND
OUR 'TRUE' SELVES
An article on Lectio
by Brendan Moss OSB
Lectio Divina involves
relationships. In lectio we have the opportunity to
encounter God, other people and our 'true' selves. In the Scriptures we meet
God. We hear God's Word and enter into conversation with the divine. Through
our meditation and contemplation, we seek to know God's heart, God's will for
us. We also share our concerns, our fears, our joys, etc. Lectio
helps us 'grow in the love of God' as we grow in any intimate love relationship
- through a continuum of knowing, trusting, desiring, surrendering our defences
and fears and ultimately our very selves, to the Beloved. Lectio,
in the life of a Benedictine, becomes the place of
rendezvous for the monk/oblate and God. Through lectio,
the two lovers meet and rest in the arms of each other, striving to become one.
We experience the tender compassion of our God.
Lectio, however, does not limit our intimacy to God
alone. Holy reading opens us to intimacy with others. The Scriptures are filled
with friends of God, whom God wishes us to meet. Lectio
invites us to come to know Mary, Martha, Paul, James, Peter, Ruth and so many
others. We can meet the saints within the text and the saints who wrote them.
Lectio also assists us in coming to know our 'true'
selves. Thomas Merton, the famous monk and author, often wrote of the 'false'
and 'true' self. The false self is what we present to the world. It is the
façade of what we believe about our material success and well-being. It is the
image we want to project to others. The 'true' self however, is the reality of
our person. It is our soul as God sees it. It includes our talents, gifts, sins
and weaknesses. The 'true' self is how we appear when God looks upon us. In the
depths of the lectio experience God reveals to us our
'true' selves. He shows us the truth about our hearts and spirits.
In lectio, 'we not only get to know the love and the
Lover more, we get to know ourselves more as we come to see ourselves, as it
were, in the eyes of the Beloved'. In lectio, God
speaks a personal word to us. During our holy reading we are invited to stand
naked before God, bearing our whole self to the Lord. This means the practice
of lectio can help us face our sinful nature. It
calls us to see the truth that we are creatures dependent upon our Creator. Our
dependence on God is part of the beauty of our relationship with the Lord. We
need God. Our nature yearns for God. We want to be one with Him. As lectio draws us closer to God, we also grow closer to our
'true' selves and see ourselves with divine eyes.
Conversatio - Conversion As we come to know our
'true' selves in lectio, we become more aware of our
fallen nature. We are in touch with our weaknesses and flaws. We recognize our
need to continually set our hearts on the Lord, that we may receive God's Word.
We understand that we are sinners who frequently fall from God's grace and need
to return to that grace. Conversatio is the 'vow to
respond totally and integrally to the word of Christ.' 'Conversatio
is essentially the vow to do metanoia (repenting),
the turning away from self-will and the turning toward God's will.' Lectio Divina is a vehicle
through which monks/oblates do that very thing. In lectio,
Benedictines set their eyes on God. Benedictines read, reflect and rest with
God's Word. By opening the scriptures day-in and day-out, the monks/oblates
open themselves up to its transforming power. Lectio
helps them get up over and over again when they have fallen into sin. We go
each day into the 'holy of holies' of lectio to
reconcile ourselves with God. The act of holy reading forms the monastic heart
in the practice of conversatio. We become disciples
aware of our utter dependence on God. Growth in the habit of lectio causes us to grow in our desire for God. The
increased desire we experience then moves us to seek the Lord more and more.
Our lectio then expands to the world around us,
insofar as we begin listening for a word from God throughout our day-to-day
experiences. A scene from nature, an article in a magazine, the phrase we hear
on the radio or see on a billboard, can become the source of our next divine
encounter. We become people that seek God in all things. Ultimately the goal of
lectio is to open the Benedictine's heart and soul in
such a way that the disciple can absorb the Word of God into the rhythm of
his/her life. The fruits of lectio, especially rootedness in God's Word, intimacy with God, others, our
'true' selves and conversatio, help us to make the
Benedictine way of life our own. These fruits unite us with those who have been
nourished for fifteen hundred years in this 'school of the Lord's service.'
Through lectio, the heart of a monk/oblate learns to
beat with God's Word. It is formed by holy reading that then defines who we
are. Let us then as monks/oblates renew our commitment to this sacred prayer
and 'run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the
inexpressible delight of love.'
MORALITY OF ACTS AND MORALITY
OF GOALS
By Anselm Pedrizetti
OSB - taken from 'The Oblate' newsletter of
Many Catholics find it rather difficult to go to confession. To the extent that
this is the case, it is worthwhile to examine the attitudes we bring to the
confessional, for we are obviously concerned here with a crucial aspect of
Christian life and an aversion for the experience necessary to make contact
with the saving act of Christ in the Sacrament of Penance. This can lead one
down various lonely roads, towards an isolation
without any real security, meaning, or hope.
The Old Law
The phrase 'to go to confession' is itself an indication of the kind of
emphasis we can give to an act that is essentially a joyful liturgical
celebration. It gives prominence to the process we must undergo in order to
make a 'good' confession. It conjures up the painful work of examining one's
conscience, of producing the most perfect act of contrition at one's disposal,
of actually confessing one's sins with proper regard for the distinctions of
venial and mortal, essential and unessential modifying circumstances and
finally it reminds us of the resolution which we have been avoiding all month,
to change our ways and the need to perform the penance given. While all of
these things are necessary and worthwhile, they can if considered apart from
the action of Christ who we meet in the Sacrament,
lead us into an attitude that has been described as a 'morality of acts.'
This means that our entire moral life is built around the formidable list of
sins in the typical examination booklet. Such an approach is basically
negative, for it elicits - if it has any effect at all - a concentrated effort
to avoid an enormous array of activities, any one of which is viewed as
plunging one into the depths of hell. It is most pitiful to see a person who is
struggling valiantly to lead an upright Christian life, slip into a consuming
depression over the experience of a slip of the tongue, a momentary flash of
anger, or some other single indulgence in selfishness, which is quickly
regretted, but looked upon as involving a complete condemnation and rejection
by God.
A morality of acts keeps us preoccupied with the minutiae of the commandments,
engenders a complete mistrust of emotions - for they become little more than
possible vehicles of sin - forces a strained alertness towards the complicated
details of moral obligation and tends to make us see danger lurking ominously
around every corner. One is very hard put to face up to such a situation and
the appalling thing is, that success in such an endeavour makes one a Pharisee,
proud of the accomplishment, better than the rest of men, fully confident of
pleasure given to God and a reward which becomes a quasi-juridical right.
The New Law
But this is not Christian life. The law of the New Dispensation revealed
through Christ is a call to perfection that is first of all Christ Himself
incarnated in our world, the eternal and infinite Sacrifice given to the
Father. In His glorified form it is communicated to us through the Sacraments
of the Church. The glory of God is the splendour of His holiness and love, a glory
which embodies the redemptive sacrifice of Christ in enduring and permanent
form and a glory which calls us to participate in the divine redemptive
perfection which is Christ and which He freely and lovingly offers us. The
appearance of God on
Our faith tells us we have already received the beginnings of this glory in
Baptism. There Christ has been given to us, together with the supernatural
virtues and graces which form in us what
This is the message of the New Testament and unless morality in its practical
aspects is tied to this message, it is bound to go astray. Separated from the
Gospel it becomes powerless to effect what it demands. It stultifies, inhibits
and discourages. Joined to Christ and the power of His redeeming love, it gives
life, incentive, inspiration and most of all, it gives direction to our lives.
In the Sacrament of Penance, it lays emphasis on the absolution, the most
important act in the confessional, for it is the act of Christ communicating
His redemption to us and renewing the energies we are asked to direct towards
the full development and manifestation of the glory of God within us and the world.
The Challenge of Christianity
Here we have a 'morality of goals.' Christian life is not a collection of
isolated acts, but a continuous growth and development towards the goal set
before us by God. In this light, the moral problem we have is not so much to
struggle against the inroads of temptations to specific sins, but to render
these temptations ineffectual. We do this by organising all the forces at our
disposal, joining them to the power of Christ at work within us and directing
them towards the goal appointed to us by God. This is actually a more difficult
task than avoiding sins. We can be the most honest and just businessmen in
town, for the sake perhaps of public relations and expediency, but such an
attitude does not necessarily involve the total dedication of our lives and
persons to the law of Christ which is demanded by a 'morality of goals.' If we
appear at Mass each Sunday and eat fish on Friday, we are keeping a minimum.
But the morality indicated by Christ suggests that it is our obligation to take
stock of the talents given to us and make use of all of them for the glory of
God and the spread of His kingdom. Christ dares us to offer ourselves without
reservation to Him and to His work.
The difficulty involved here however, is not as likely to discourage us as the
hovering burden of an impersonal sea of moral prescriptions, for our dedication
to God gives us the confidence we need. We can depend upon the power of God
within us and its effectiveness in proportion as we accept and cooperate with
it. With the goal given to us by the Gospel in mind, the incentive to keep
trying is certainly enhanced, for our ultimate objective is not merely to be
freed from sin and its wages, but to strip away the mirror of faith and find
God as He is in Himself. This kind of project makes our toil eminently more
meaningful.
BASIL THE GREAT
By Hugh Feiss
OSB
Basil, like his brothers Gregory and Naucratius,
received a traditional classical education which prepared them for public life.
When Basil was about 16, after his father's death, he went to
St. Basil returned home from his studies in 355. Gregory of Nyssa (his brother)
tells us that Macrina (his sister) needed to bring
him down a peg or two. Within a year he was baptised and before long became a
monastic organiser and ecclesiastical leader. For some months he travelled
around monasteries in the
Eustathius was born in
From 357-359, Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus studied
in their retreat at Annisa. They followed set written
rules of life. Their life included regular prayer, reading, silence, simple
dress, humble demeanour, limited sleep and food. The goal was emotional control
and tranquillity. They read the bible and compiled a selection of texts from Origen's writings (the Philokalia).
After Gregory departed from Annisa, Basil attended
the Synod of Constantinople toward the end of 359. He was appointed a Reader in
the church, then returned to Annisa.
In 362, Gregory returned to Annisa, after having been
ordained a priest. Basil himself was ordained before the year was out and
became active in the
Beginning at Annisa, Basil gathered together a series
of questions and answers of Christian life, which is known as the Small Asceticon. He is also responsible for a Great Asceticon, which contains some parts of the Small Asceticon, along with much other material. Both works are
in question and answer form and they seem to have originated in actual question
and answer sessions between Basil and other Christians. Although these works
are often termed rules, they are not monastic rules after the fashion of the
Rule of Benedict or the Rule of Augustine. They have
more affinity with the question-and-answers in the Sayings of the Desert
Fathers. However, Basil's questions and answers, though many reflect a monastic
setting, deal with matters of interest to Christians who are not monks.
Basil speaks of a life of eusebeia (piety), that is,
a life lived according to the way of God and so a life well pleasing to God (euaristesis). This is a life of effort (askesis),
but effort in community (synaskesis). Those who seek
to please God keep the commandments, do God's will, live strictly and keep a
single aim (skopos) in mind - the glory of God. Such
a life is rooted in the Bible. The first 'rule' in Basil's collection of
questions and answers is that the greatest commandment is the twofold
commandment of all. For Basil, love is the norm for each day of the Christian's
life, not simply the goal (as it seems to have been for Evagrius).
In this first rule, Basil united separation from the world, to love God with
love of neighbour in community. His spirituality and his monastic ideal were
always communal and he encouraged monastic and other communities to offer
hospitality and other forms of charity. The second 'rule' discusses how God has
implanted a desire in each person, a love or desire for the Good, which is God.
Basil attempts to inflame such love, by insisting on how much God has done for
us. God has also made us social beings, hence the biblical command to love one
another which is illustrated in the lives of holy people. The key to fulfilling
the commandment of love, is never to forget God, to
live always in His presence. This requires a mental and often a physical
separation from the crowd, in imitation of Christ, though not from community.
Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa was well educated, married and though he was a Reader,
beginning about 364 he pursued a secular career. When he was about 40, in 372,
Basil convinced him to become bishop of Nyssa. When Basil died in 379, Gregory
became a champion of Basil's theology and ecclesiastical policies. Gregory was
a man of wide interests who wrote on many different theological subjects. He
does not seem to have been a monk. For our purposes, most important are those
works of his which supplied theoretical foundations for the monastic movement
championed by his brother. Most of these works come from the latter part of his
life. He emphasised the infinitude and incomprehensibility of God. Christian
life is an unceasing striving or ascent of the soul to union with God. He
interpreted the Song of Songs as a celebration of the union of love between God
and the human soul. His Life of Moses encouraged withdrawal from human affairs
to seek God, the need for asceticism and contemplative striving toward God and
the need to return from contemplation to offer service to others.
Conclusion
St. Benedict's Rule concludes with references to St. Basil (73.5). Basil
certainly had enormous influence on later monasticism, especially in the
Eastern Church. Basil and Macrina lived at a time
when the lines between lay Christians, ascetics and monks were blurred. Macrina seems to have gone from fiancée to widow, from
family ascetic to organised community life, in what was probably a double
monastery. Basil, like another of his brothers, Peter, went from hermit to
bishop, but he was clearly very interested in many forms of ascetic and
monastic life. Naucratius died as a hermit. His
brother, Gregory of Nyssa was married and perhaps never was a monk, but he
wrote on asceticism and contemplation. Basil, Macrina
and their siblings lived at a time when there were many options open for
Christians and the definitions of various vocations were still quite fluid.
Basil's ministry and writings, inspired and supported by his sister Macrina, built upon the work of Eustathius,
even while diverging from it, to promote communal (cenobitic)
forms of celibate Christian communities - to keep monasticism firmly rooted in
the life of the church and to encourage such communities to offer organised
hospitality towards the needy. This threefold legacy was a great gift to St. Benedict and those who follow the Rule of Benedict.
THE TRUE FACE OF MARTYRDOM
Article from 'The Tablet' by Brian Wicker - Aug 2006
Dying for one's faith, previously associated with acts of courage, is now
tainted in the public mind by the claims of suicide bombers to be martyrs for
Islam. How did such perverted thinking emerge and can martyrdom be reclaimed as an honourable act?
The arrest of terrorist suspects in
To the majority of people, these acts will be seen as barbarous, taking the
lives of innocent people. To some though, they will be seen as acts of
martyrdom. Martyrdom has a long tradition in both Islam and Christianity, for
the shedding of one's blood for the sake of one's beliefs has an emotive pull
as well as a religious one. Within the early Christian Church, martyrs were
perceived as heroic witnesses to the truth in which they believed, with shrines
and churches built in their honour.
But surely no sane person wants to be a martyr, any more than he or she wants
to be crucified. Of course, the best of us want to witness to the truth (which
is what being a martyr really means) and a few are prepared to do this even at
the cost of being killed. The world being what it is,
it is quite likely that anyone who is truly prepared to be such a witness will
in fact be killed. But being a witness and being killed are different things.
Part of the problem is the greed for glory. While none of us want to be killed
for our beliefs, quite a lot of us in anticipation, would relish the posthumous
veneration which those who have died for the faith commonly attract. Perhaps we
imagine that we will enjoy becoming part of the 'cult' of martyrdom. I suppose
it is even possible that some twisted individuals would invite death for the
sake of being venerated for it afterwards. Nevertheless, surely nobody can
actually want to be killed in order to get this 'glory'? Yet wanting it seems to
be at the root of the 'martyrdom operations', such as suicide bombing, which
has scarred
It is at this point, I think, that Islamic 'martyrdom operations' differ most
radically from Christian examples. Indeed, the term 'operations' gives the game
away, for it suggests that being killed for the faith, that is being martyred,
is something you choose to do, not something that happens to you, whereas
Christian martyrdom is a gift from God - the gift of being able to witness,
come what may. Modern Islamic martyrdoms, on the contrary, seem to be based on
actions that people choose to carry out, presumably to prove - to themselves
and to their communities, perhaps to God - that they
are prepared to die for what they believe in. At this point, the witness stops
being a martyr and becomes a criminal.
It was not always so. Indeed the two traditions earliest theologies of
martyrdom, or witnessing to the faith, are very similar. In both, even against
persecution, 'witnessing' was essentially a non-violent response.
In Arabic, the word commonly translated as 'martyr' (shahid),
in the sense of someone willing to be killed for the faith, does not occur in
the Qur'an at all. It is used there only for a
witness in the legal, or eyewitness sense. It was only in the post-Qur'anic period, following fierce persecution by the pagans
of
The development of the Islamic meaning of shahid is
paralleled by the development of 'martyrdom' in Christianity. In fact, some
scholars suspect that there was a Christian influence on the Islamic
development of the term, through contacts between the Muslims and the
Christians of the
This process was later helped by the use of the concept of 'abrogation' (naskh) in the scholarly interpretation of the Qur'an itself. In this, verses held to have been revealed
to the Prophet in later life were said to have 'abrogated' the earlier
(predominantly non-violent) messages of the Meccan
period. Modern scholars have challenged the misuse of naskh,
which lends itself to the justification of a 'military' concept of the role of
the faithful Muslim, or 'martyr', against that of the Muslim who is a
non-violent witness. But they have an uphill struggle against the now widespread,
albeit mistaken notion, that Islam was rooted in violence from the start.
For Christians, the story was different. Very early on, they were scattered in
many parts of the
Aquinas, in his treatment of martyrdom, takes it for granted that martyrdom is
incompatible with participation in warfare, with only one exception - members
of the chivalric military orders in the Crusades could become martyrs, because
they were fighting in God's service, rather than that of a mere king. This
concession could have become a loophole through which much damaging ideology
might have been driven. Perhaps the demise of crusading prevented such a
disaster.
The early teachings of both traditions on suicide are very close - suicide is
clearly forbidden. But on both sides, theological difficulties soon arose and
very often the answers given seem weak. Thus, the Christian virgin St Pelagia of
Parallel problems arise for some Islamic theorists, such as Ayman
al-Zawahiri, in justifying suicidal operations today. Provided these are done
for the greater good, he has argued, the Qur'anic
prohibitions can be set aside. Or it is sometimes maintained, that suicides are
not really suicidal because they are such heroic deeds. They are not done out
of hopelessness or despair but out of a desire to 'cast terror and fear into
the hearts of the oppressors' (Al-Qaradawi). Both
sets of answers seem to be notably weak, even irrational. They tend to muddle
the actions which the 'martyrs' do with their motives for doing them. Either
way, the prohibition on suicide is weakened. Thus the suicidal operations of
today are provided with a sort of theological justification.
More interesting perhaps, is the thought that in the future we may need to
acknowledge a new kind of martyr - one that both traditions could accept. I am
thinking of martyrs 'for justice and peace'. I borrow this phrase from Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's public praise of Margaret Hassan, who was murdered for helping the ordinary citizens
of
One way in which the West could help to rebalance the distorted notions of
martyrdom that have become prevalent today, would be to acknowledge publicly
that these witnesses (and doubtless many others, of both faiths) are martyrs
for everybody - that is witnesses who can be venerated by Muslims as well as
Christians, because what they died for was something recognisably good for all.
Brian Wicker, as chairman of the Council on Christian Approaches to
Defence and Disarmament (CCADD), is the editor of 'Witnesses to Faith? martyrdom in Christianity and Islam', recently published by Ashgate. CCADD may be contacted on CCADD@lineone.net.
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