The workshop, where we are to toil faithfully at all these tasks, is the enclosure of the monastery and stability in the community. You know, in comparison with the attention given to some of the other Benedictine vows, doesn't seem to have generated as much interest or exposition by all these authorities on monastic spirituality. But if there's one mark of my own vocation that I found to be a very effective witness in my ministry to others, one of which both lay and religious comment is important, it is stability. And I should Let you know, I probably have some personal bias on this, because as someone who was born and raised in a more or less homogeneous Catholic family in a community about two miles from where our monastery is, I look with a sense of gratitude on the identity I derive from this experience.

[01:14]

It certainly helped to sharpen my sense of belonging. and create a focus of awareness of who I am as a monk. I certainly see stability as generating a type of monastic mindfulness for all of us. It gives us an awareness of who we are, where we've come from, and where we're going. But even if we leave personal preferences aside, I think we have to acknowledge that the witness potential of a physically stable community of committed people is nowhere more powerful today than in the society we live in, where transience and rootlessness are sociological givens. You can see this in some of the surveys that have been done for people in consecrated life and in priesthood in the last half century in this country, where there's an uncommonly high percentage of vocations

[02:17]

coming from stable families that have spent several generations in the same place. And I've looked over the years at monastic life, at least in this country primarily, and I see that someone who comes from a farm family, someone who has a rootedness in a local community, is going to have a pretty good basis for a stable vocation. Of course, people say, well, I don't fit that, so I'm out of it, so Why are you talking about stability? Well, hang on, we'll get to that. But I think we see stability very clearly of value in the monastic tradition. You know, there's a great story in the Apotegmata. This one brother was a great devotee of Abbasusues, and he heard that Abbasusues had retired to the inner mountain. And he wanted to go see him.

[03:19]

And he finds him. And it was the first time he had encountered him. He's had this whole legend of the great situation. He asked why he came to the mountain. And he said that Anthony had died. He needed space. He had a Daniel Boone elbow room idea. He needed to find another space that was more quiet. And he wanted to do that just for a little while. And the disciples said, well, how long is a little while? And in a very understated way, he says, about 72 years. He needed that little while of 72 years to develop the maturity of his monastic call. And I think the message of Apposituis' little while is we need a place to develop our spiritual understanding and peace that we can make with ourselves and our God.

[04:24]

There's that great line, of course, in the Desert Fathers, stay in your cell and your cell will set you free. And, of course, a month out of a cell is like a fish out of water. But that's where the noonday devil of Assyria would come in. And, you know, Acedia is kind of in vice today. You know, you talk about Acedia and the Indian crowd, but you know, Avegrius of Ponticus, again, talked very eloquently about this, and I think for him, it was very important that we see, it just takes us out of ourselves, and Benedict in his rule had a sure grasp on how we needed to combat that. In fact, again, you look in the rule and you see in so many parts where Benedict is insistent upon being fixed.

[05:34]

Recall chapter 1, of course, in the Types of the Monks, the gyro-begs constantly wandering get a very heavy negative description. The vow formula in chapter 58, I love the way it's quoted, perseverance and stability. A visiting monk wants to come to the community in chapter 61, he has to bind himself to stability. And in chapter 60, if the priest wants to come into the monastery, he has to, I'm sure, first of all, stability as a condition for his entrance. That stability is something we can unpack, I think, more than we usually do. Sometimes we hear of stability of heart, sometimes stability of place. I think there's room for both. If we talk about stability of heart, we could say it's the stability we give to our superior and to our fellow community members.

[06:40]

There's a well-known line of Thomas Merton, who said that it all comes down to our actual relationship with the brothers in the community. He said, I don't believe in the Abbey of Gethsemane Incorporated. You know what Burke thought about the jams and the jellies and all the rest of that. But I do believe in my brothers. I stand or fall with them. I need them and they need me. you know, that's the burden. Actually, on the gospel point, he goes on to be a hermit, but I think it was very sincere, what he said. Even when he was in the hermitage, he needed that connection with his brothers, and he could relate to them at a deeper level. Certainly, the relationships one has with others in the community tend to be less superficial when you know that the person next to you may be the one who's going to be caring for you in the infirmary, when you are dependent upon that person.

[07:43]

And so it's a very practical virtue, not an abstract ideal, and it's never something that's static, it's always dynamic. And it comes out of this bedrock of trust for human interaction. And so many of the so-called communities in our society are communities of transience where that just simply can't exist. But there's also this stability of place. I think there are practical reasons for it as well. We see it accentuated by Benedict in his rule when he tells the monks that they should not go out of the enclosure in chapter 66 because it's not expedient for their souls. And it's a saying whose relevance is not lost in a world that has more in common with the moral menace of the Goths surrounding Montecassino in the 6th century than you might think. To reinforce the point, Benedict gives us in chapter 4, at his very end, the conclusion, that image of the monastery as the spiritual workshop.

[08:56]

It's in that place, he insists, that we go about the serious work of executing the spiritual craft and practice stability in the community. If one was truly a monarchist, one who was single-minded in seeking God, then your commitment had to be to one place, because if he was in that place, then you would discover the truth about yourself. I think that's an idea captured by the Cistercian Abbot William of San Thierry who writes, it's impossible for a man faithfully to fix his soul upon one thing who has not first perseveringly attached his body to one place. As we're talking about Cistercians, we remember that famous inscription on the tombstone of Stephen Harding, he loved the rule and the place. And that was absorbed, I think, by the late Abbot of Bepken Abbey, Francis Klein, who wrote that book, Lovers of the Place.

[10:02]

I think stability also has something to do with the fact we live a structured life. I always like structure better than regimented. And it's not structure for the sake of structure. You know, throughout the whole of our history, the architecture and spaces of monasteries symbolize how we live at the center of a fixed life in the midst of social flux and currents of change. And monasteries have provided both spiritual and social stability. Sad to say, you know, for most of our lives. In this country, a home and a nuclear family were expected to provide the necessary social worrying in our society. You would learn social graces there, your connectedness to local history, the wider world. Well, forget it. Even when you do have a family, they're getting their connection with the wider world on the Internet, not through mom and dad telling stories at the dinner table.

[11:12]

And with all this displacement, I think we need to take seriously that we are a school of formation, and that carries a passing, more than a passing relevance. I'm somewhat fascinated, we might go into this later, but you know, the Damascus have this notion of the school, And the important subject matter becomes what's taught in that school and how do we teach it. But I think connectedness to a center of our life is very important and that's something that has to be communicated. And it's more than just, you know, a place where we're safe and secure. This is the place where we abide. and of course we abide with Christ, we have Christ present in the tabernacle, and I think one looks very differently at a place where one dwells if it's situated in the same place as the Lord has dwelt.

[12:18]

There's also, with regard to stability of place, a great deal about the investment we make in the land and the locale. Certainly unlike other religious orders throughout history, Benedictines have always been entrusted, as we said this morning, with the gift of a particular space they call home. And the stewardship that has accompanied this investment in land has an obvious link with stability. You know, one of the books I've been reading here, in the library, I've never read it, Monday, was Antoinette Bosco's biography of Mother Benedicta from Regina Laudis. It's really a history of Regina Laudis, and it's pretty good. And I was amazed at how much time they spent on just identifying with the land and every aspect of the topography and the care they invested in. You know, it's really, it's very Benedictine,

[13:24]

And I'm sure you could have some people who might bawl their eyes, but you know, that's part of the vow of stability. You really are caring and loving the land. And we transform it in the process. When I was researching a book I wrote in Benedictine history, I had to go through all these photos from archives of American communities, and especially the older ones. You look at the first photos, you know, you get the very bleak, you know, log cabin-type buildings, you know, there's just prairie, there's no trees, it is pretty grim. And then you go 50 years later, 100 years later, and the landscapes are beautiful, the architecture is, you know, amazing, and you just recognize how much it has been transformed. I would give a class in our own Abbey's history, and we have about 300 acres that used to be farmland, and when we first

[14:33]

came to our present property. You at Poverty Hill, we were called Bald Knob. There was nothing there. And now, as we've planted the trees, it is a very beautiful place. It's been, I think, a sign of what a stable community can do. We're expected to beautify the locale where we settled. And, you know, we take on the specific contours and characters of the regional place where our monastery is, and we have landmarks and symbols that are readily identifiable. You know, I think your barns, that certainly is part of who you are. I think it's well-expressed, Benedict and writer Joan Schuster puts it, it is not the locale itself that binds, but our connectedness to the life around.

[15:38]

And that's life in all of its many ways. It's the agriculture, it's the climate, it's the flora, and it's the people, certainly. You know, I think there's a There's more than just this fascination with monks. Houses, you know, in our country now, have people moving toward them. And we'll talk about this in hospitality, but if you look at all these retirement centers that are being built, at least in the Midwest, we have a lot of monasteries that have retirement centers with the name of the monastery affixed to it close by. People are drawn there. And people are drawn to our cemetery. We, with the oblates, you know, about 10 years ago, we agreed the oblates could be buried outside of our cemetery, but in the same place.

[16:42]

And believe me, we've got a long line. In fact, we've got, I counted them the other day, six tombstones already there. They're not dead yet, but they've got their tombstones there in the cemetery. They want to be in a monastic cemetery. And, you know, that's a credible witness of presence. And, you know, you don't have to watch romantic, but, you know, the bare-ruined choirs and all that, people come to these monasteries, there are ruins in England, and write wonderful poetry. And then, of course, we have this incredible witness of the Trappist monks at Tiberine, in Algeria, in the 1990s, as they stayed in their sacred space, in the face of not just Islamic extremists, but a resentful government, and some have been martyred. You know, it's clearly, I think, one of the most outstanding testimonies of the effectiveness of a monastic presence.

[17:44]

And if you've seen Gods and Men, The movie that depicts all the events surrounding the monks of Tiberias is very well done. I've shown it to my seniors when we studied Islam and they really capture the relationships in the monastery well. I was marveled at how well they did that. I think a monastic community is going to serve its very essential role of providing a place where many different people can come together and find their bearings, then it has to take seriously stability. Especially because look at all the rest of the institutions around us, you know, you look at business, look at the entertainment industry, look at sports, everyone's here, there, and gone.

[18:47]

I mean, it's just this incredible transition, one place to the other, and we know how that works. Generation of my father, you went out as a young head of a family, you went to IBM, you went to Sears, you worked all your life, and that was expected. Now, you're just you're desperate to stay on for four or five years before, you know, the latest headhunter comes in and, you know, out of efficiency decides to let people go. The fact being, you know, our society needs institutions that have a center. And, you know, we have to be an institution that's not just some museum of quaint antiquity but a center of shared memory, a live conviction, that has a healthy interaction with the world where people are spinning all around but they don't have a center.

[19:56]

And I think you can make a good case for the fact that exterior stability is a very effective means to bring about our interior stability. I think St. Benedict knew The question, who am I, was connected with where am I? And there's a great talk when he was still at Apple Fort by Cardinal Basil Hume about stability and expresses it well. He says, the inner meaning of the vow of stability is that we embrace the life as we find it in this community, with this work, with these problems, with these shortcomings, knowing that this, and not any other, is our way to God. And you can see opium as part of that, too. But here, stability is not restricted to a matter of geography, but is placed in a broader perspective of a relationship among persons who commit themselves to share together their common search for God.

[21:05]

You need an environment that facilitates this. And certainly, you know, our environment is not too conducive. All the social mobility, dislocation, fragmentation, migration of peoples, it's very difficult to have stability seen as a value. So we become very counter-cultural. And it's important that we maintain that sense that people see us as those people who have some center that we're working from. You know, the same problem if you worked in vocations, I think the biggest problem I was with vocation directly not too long ago, We were going through the usual, someone said, the pathology reports. Well, I'm not quite that grim on, you know, what can we learn?

[22:10]

And even, you know, from exit interviews and, you know, what came up across the board was we just have people who don't really have a sense of what a lifetime commitment is, you know. If you gave them a two-year sign-up for the monastery, they'd be interested. But lifetime? No. And I think stability lends itself to that. You know, I mentioned the jest that people had with the vow of poverty. And of course, we get some shots on the vow of stability. You know, we heard the monks, they got the frequent flyer mileage and all those foreign stamps on their passports. But the truth is, you know, obedience to a superior's request is the precipitator of time away from the monastery. Father Charles can attest to that. He thought he was going to be at Christ in the desert, and boom, boom. But you know, some things deliver, I think, the meaning of it.

[23:18]

I teach the rule in a class of junior high school students, and sometimes they go, well, Father of Stability, what does that mean, really? Come on. And I say that it means that I'm going to wind up in the Atheist Cemetery. And that cuts off all further discussion. They get it. That's where we will be. And I think, you know, the community cemetery may be the most evocative symbol of Stability's power. You know, I was looking at the graves for the Damascus for the Martin. I was thinking, that's going to be some conversation that's continuing out there. But, you know, there's this sense, yeah, Mount Savior is here, but it's It's here in many different respects, and the eternal resting place speaks eloquently to a number of our characteristics as a monastery.

[24:28]

There's this unbroken record of the community's presence. And if you go to some places, I mean, the Junior Monks are going to St. Vincent's next week. Well, if you go to St. Vincent's, make sure you look at the cemetery. I mean, it's huge, it's the Arlington of cemeteries. And you just, you have to ponder, you just look and say, my gosh, all these monks, whoa. You know, you can visit old friends, see new arrivals. I always, I enjoy visiting cemeteries. And of course, remember the rule, chapter 4, keep death daily before one's eyes. And far from a morbid thought, it reminds us of the Christian homeland to which we all are heading. The vow of stability also highlights, I think, certain special moments in the life of a community. I mean, the community retreat is always a draw, brings people together here, brings

[25:32]

certainly people in my monastery home, we have a jubilee day afterward, not unlike the visitation and funeral of a monk, or professions, or ordinations, they're bonding rituals that are very restorative, uplifting, and I think perhaps because of their relative infrequency in the normal cycle of our life, it reminds us of the support we need of other community members, and the strength we derive from a stable presence. We get this too from, we just came off of last weekend, we had our academy with our alumni reunion and people come back and it's good. Forty, fifty years out they come back and they see some of the same people they taught and they see the same place where they went to school. Even in our Guatemalan community is only fifty years old but you know anything about Guatemala, it's gone through terribly tortuous time and

[26:34]

A lot of religious communities pulled up stakes. You know, we've been a stable presence in a society that's known very little stable presence down there. And there's this deep connection, too, with an age-old religious longing to live life out of the center and to resist the recurring temptation to head somewhere else. You know, we think of the psalmist saying we want to dwell in the courts of the Lord all the days of our life. And we call our gospel this morning, you know, Jesus sending the disciples on mission. Don't wander from house to house. Find that house where people will accept you and stay there. And operate out of that house as you preach the gospel. I think the wisdom of the monastic tradition tells us that if you can't find God in this place, You're not going to find them anywhere else. And we know those stories, you know. People who blame, it's that Superior, it's that monastery, those people.

[27:39]

If I go here, things will be okay. Same problems carry, and you carry the problems with you, they will recur again. You know, some of you may have read or heard of Kathleen Norris' book, Ascenium. It's a delightful book. It's not her best. But she comments there how dislike for staying in one place inevitably leads us to one diversion after another. And eventually we lose the capacity to be still, and then of course we lose the capacity to pray. And, you know, talk to superiors, you know. I talked to one superior, and he was describing the community. actually he was retired superior, but all the meds that these people were on, and just for depression, and it's a given in our society, but you know, it strikes me that the vagaries, the particles were around the day, you know, he just would say, okay, connect the dots, and something is

[28:57]

evident as the Internet and our use of it. I think all the diversion that it creates on a regular basis is very disruptive of establishing that stable center of our existence. You know, this restlessness that we will feel if we're serious about living this life is something that has to be confronted, and stability helps us confront it. I think a stable monastic setting can help us better appreciate that gospel imperative. The kingdom of God is within you. It's embodied in the ordinary ebb and flow of life with others. It's not to say that time in the monastery is some automatic ticket to holiness. Because I'm sure you've seen community members who can remain within the confines of the monastery all their lives and still be pretty unstable spiritually.

[30:05]

Those forms of interior wandering and mobility can really undercut the virtue of stability. Michael Casey, as is so often his want, This is a great phrase about this. He says, the place should never become an accomplice in our dissipation. And, sad to say, sometimes it is. And, you know, we have people too who want to attain a measure of personal security. And they invest so much time and energy in that, they have little time for God or for the community. And then, of course, there are those people, we'll talk about this tomorrow with work, who get assignments and jobs that leave them little space for drawing from the forces of the community instability. I'm sure you've heard the line credited to Woody Allen, who knows if he said it, 95% of life is showing up.

[31:15]

And I think for us, the truth in that is Our bodily presence in prayer each day speaks as deeply as any other action about the need and importance of stability. Whether it's people coming in with their walkers, and then you get some large community, here comes the carts, here come the wheelchairs, here come the walkers, it's huge. It's usually the middle orchestration, but they're all there, and they're coming to pray, and that's what's important. And, you know, it develops this sign of solidarity of hearts and voices. It's a solidarity reinforced at our prayer each day when we pray for the absent brothers. Much like the deceased, their presence is missed, but they remain a part of the community all the same. And this showing up, when it gets multiplied by centuries and generations, has a cumulative effect on a community.

[32:25]

Sooner or later, monks who throw in their lot with the community make an investment in the place and the people who inhabit it. I know I always like, when I'm teaching monastic history and our community, the new monks, to have them appreciate the sacrifice and investment of the forbearers of our community and how they're the beneficiaries of that. I also remind the new monks that not only does the place change them, but they will change the place. It's not unlike the expert grapher of the vine or the plant. You know, the virtue of stability is that you have a continuity that's able to assimilate difference and new strains and still maintain the health of the organism. Well, showing up is important, and the opposite of showing up is giving up. And with regard to monastic life,

[33:27]

we have the same challenges as many other commitments. You know, there's the daily routine that at times we think is pointless. There's discouragement over goals not achieved. Sometimes we think about just chucking it all. And I think the two attendant virtues that counter this are perseverance and patience. Henry Nowlin writes that patience means we're willing to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. You know, I don't know, how many of you have read Nowen's book, The Genesee Diary? It goes way back to the 60s. If you know anything about Nowen, he was at his neurotic worst. And it was just wonderful. As a young monk, I read that.

[34:30]

John Hughes Bamberger, he was just great. It's like the Fathers of the Desert. Now one would come in with all this stuff, and you know, there was this backboard. You know, gently, John Hughes Bamberger would say, okay, I'm looking patient with that, and now I'll go back and think and realize the wisdom in it. But the fact of the matter is, he had this place where he could finally see, and he had to stay there, you know, he had to be making the bread, he had to be going down, you know, doing that annual work. And, you know, that's the whole business of being patient with ourselves. And what Benedict says is the perseverance in our resolve. He says it in Chapter on Humility, repeats it for the person entering the community early on in Chapter 58, And in that sense, you know, the monastic life is a marathon rather than a sprint.

[35:35]

Even though Benedict gives us all these images of running in the mule, the idea is to stay the course. And I think stability injects into the perspective of a monk the expectation that our inner life and the exterior place intersect in this vow of stability. You know, there are communities that have ceased to exist. There always have been in our history. And I think the genius of monasticism is capacity to adapt and reconfigure itself according to circumstances. And that's not just a survival skill. I think there's a lot to say about the unique character that we have that people see as precious. You know, we built an abbey church not too long ago and we had the good fortune we got to call in all these architects and we went through their plans and I remember one of the architects talking about all these parish churches they had done

[36:47]

and how that was pretty pedestrian. This is a monastic church, of course, we were rolling our eyes, yeah. And then he very eloquently said, you know, monastic churches last for years and years, centuries. They're not like parish churches. And, you know, he'd done his homework, but you could see he was, he saw that the monastery really was this place that was going to last. And it was a very forceful way of reminding me, yes, Stability is something that's different. Of course, there's that great model we get from Monte Cassino. Sushi started to rush it. If you cut it down, it's going to go up again. And that was the case during World War II with Monte Cassino. And it's the case with a lot of the monasteries who, I think, have a resilience and durability we may understate.

[37:50]

And, you know, the capacity for adaptation and change is important. But we have to do that where we have a point of reference, where we can get our spiritual bearings. And if you look at monasteries throughout our history, whether it's the Dark Ages or any other critical time, you know, they were doing that. However, minuscule monasteries might appear in the larger picture of the world today, we are in a position to provide some of the same stable witness that took place a millennium ago during some of the twists and turns of Europe. And on the subject of twists and turns, I'll conclude with just taking the old shaker again and hoping that magnetic stability will enable us to turn and turn but come back to the place where we come around right.

[38:56]

The rule They must not become distressed if local conditions or their poverty should force them to do the harvesting themselves. When they live by the labor of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks. Yet, all things are to be done with moderation on the count of the faint heart. Ora et labora, as the Benedictine model, found its way into our monastic lexicon only a long time after Benedict. Even more recently, the dictum, laborare est orare, to work is to pray, is a spin on that motto that I think has changed the emphasis and reminds us we've incorporated probably more of our Puritan work ethic than

[40:04]

the attendant spiritual properties of work that Benedict wanted. But work is something we do need to talk about because work in a monastery is no different than anywhere else. It's partly enjoyable, it's partly disagreeable, but it's always inevitable. And there's a vein in monastic spirituality that sees work as an extension of who we are. We feel something about our inner life to others and to us. And it does have intrinsic value that we need to discover. But we can do that only if we see that whatever work we're dealing with, it's part of God's work, God's creative plan and order. And human labor is only going to derive its full and proper meaning in that relationship. Certainly, we're called upon to offer a counter-witness to so many of the alienating and dehumanizing aspects of work today.

[41:13]

You know that Tracy Kidd book at midday with Dale of Burundi? I mean, that's terrible, isn't it? They work in that grocery. But that's so typical of a lot of our workplace today. Wherever you go, We think in Scripture, Jesus in the home of Nazareth, the apostles putting down their nets, Paul priding himself on his tent-makers trade, they remind us of the dignity and the utility of work. And that was the case with the ancient monks, where work was at times considered an ascetical practice, a sign of our inability to pray, a means of disciplining the monks against idleness, but also a means of promoting a spirit of recollection and peace. Think of that basket weaving and the hours of office.

[42:16]

And certainly it was a necessity for self-support. We certainly see all the early figures of monasticism attesting to that. Cashin tells us in the Institute's The fathers in Egypt never allow monks, and especially the younger ones, to be idle. They estimate the purpose of their hearts and their growth and patience and humility by their diligence and work. Benedict himself saw work as part of the daily rhythm of monastic life. He alternates it with prayer and public reading in chapter 48. And he begins that chapter with a principle, idleness is the enemy of the soul. I don't think Benedict is as concerned about the harmful effects of idleness as the rule of a master, where the mobility of human work is downgraded a little more than keeping sinful desires at bay.

[43:20]

But Benedict certainly has no illusions about what can happen when idleness is given free play in the monastery. Remember in chapter 48 when he talks about Sundays and the monks who are not able to do their reading are to be given some necessary work. This chapter 48 also touches on self-sufficiency. At the beginning we mentioned about living by the labor of their hands like the fathers and apostles, and we recall seeing Paul emphasizing that too, especially in 2 Thessalonians and the early apostolic community. This self-sufficiency is part of our heritage. We need to certainly see that it must shape our identity. But it should never give way to pride, which is why we need to remember that warning on the artisans of the monastery in chapter 57, that the products of their labor should never lead them to place too high a value on their goods or have too exalted an estimation of themselves.

[44:35]

For Benedict, work is always connected with service to the wider community. It's wonderful, especially in chapter 35, when he wears a table. The service at table is what is equivalent for the brethren. And, of course, that's at work throughout the whole monastery. The work of human hands is important, but it's always secondary to the work of God in the Old Testament. That certainly is going to touch a lot of nerves, people who want to be productive. But for Benedict, work is not a penance, it's not a punishment. It should be considered a privilege and a grace. We know that the main work at the monastery of Manicassino was manual labor in the field, which was a rather unprecedented phenomenon for early monasticism.

[45:39]

But for Benedict, it was required, that necessitas loci we talked about the other day, because it was the only way they could survive. You had to work in order to live. And in Book 2 of the Dialogues, Gregory the Great gives us this picture of Benedict working in the field alongside his monks. And in the best pages of Benedictine history, that's the model of the superior at work. If circumstances dictated that those working could not return to the church for prayer, then they would pray in the field. It's so unlike our dichotomized world of work and leisure, workday and weekend, For Benedict, work and prayer are in this seamless whole. And that's why chapter 48 is so wonderful because you have not just work but it's Lectio and public prayer. They all intermix. There's that wonderful story of the Cistercian Gary de Vigny who comments on how one day the brothers would go to the Lectio and the Lord wasn't there in the Lectio.

[46:50]

Then they would go into the liturgy the office, and he wasn't there either. It was only on the garden path, as they were going out to work, that they found the lore. And even modern-day Trappists try and see this whole connection to the lore coming to us in our work. You know, James Fox was the abbot for most of Merton's time at Gethsemane. And when Burton had that first itch to become a hermit, he created this job for him of the fire watcher in the forest, so he didn't have time alone. And it worked, you know, it was at least a way of recognizing this is the need. There was another monk at Gethsemane who loved flowers and They gave him a job. He was the keeper of the Wayside Shrine. They created the shrine so he could have a way to exercise his talent.

[47:53]

You know, work is always woven into the ordinary life of our world. And, you know, like all things, if it's performed with mindfulness and care, it's made holy. We think again of the image that's always used, but we use it again in chapter 31, that we should have a reverence and care for the tools of the monastery as if they were sacred vessels of the All. And that's so much at odds with the work climate we see today, where we have throwaway items and a cycle of obsolescence. Well, the only thing left, you know, is the work tools. It's a very male thing, you know, my tools. But so much else is just, we throw it away. We discard it. I think a typical test for a starting worker's status in the secular workplace is his willingness to accept long hours and give priority to work demands over those of religious obligations of the family.

[49:06]

It's really cruel to see the expectations some people have for their first job and how they have to sacrifice so much. Again, it lacks the Benedictine balance. There's a necessity for work and rest, and success is not part of that. Benedict says we should have moderation. And moderation in work is an important part of our spiritual well-being. Michael Casey has a good quote. He says, work done in moderation is more likely to be mindful than work that leaves no space for anything beyond itself. And certainly, we see the workplace today needing that. And some people get it. I mean, you have these flexible hours for work, working from home.

[50:08]

I think there are great advantages to that. But for us, there is this rhythm, I think, that recognizes that work will sanctify us, as well as give us a satisfying outlet for energy. It will produce spiritual peace. and not all the cyclical stresses that are there in the workplace for non-monks. Whatever the urgency of our work, we know it has to fall in priorities after the work of the community. And of course, we talked about the work of God being first, that prayer is the primary obligation, is what we are called to. And we have to be explicit about that and remind people. And sometimes they remind us. I know when we're doing stuff, of course, it's a great excuse.

[51:10]

I've got to go to Vespas. I remember how many times I've used that when I've left a social occasion. But, you know, you're in the midst of doing something and then you just say, OK, I've got to go. And they say, why? prayer. Oh, really? That's a powerful way of reminding them where work should be. And for us, I think, you know, we need to see that that's where the older members of the community are especially important. Their presence at public prayer. That's how they're contributing to the well-being of the community. And We also, of course, have to allow the older monks a chance to work within their limits and have well-deserved leisure time without making them feel guilty or overly dependent. You know, monks don't really retire.

[52:13]

We know that. Physical diminishment comes. But that can direct us to other work that we might, say, use a gift from God. I know there was a wonderful instance of that. A monk at St. Minard, who retired from the business office, and wondered what he was going to do. And he had always been interested in calligraphy. He began doing calligraphy, and he was great. And he said he made more money for the community his first year of writing calligraphy than he did 30 years in the business office. or, some of you may know, Killian MacDonald, a monk at Collegeville, who is a tremendous theologian, a wonderful man, but Killian always dabbled in poetry, and then he retired from teaching in his early seventies and just began writing poetry, seriously, and he continues to do it, and he sells. So those things come in. We discover different skills.

[53:13]

We also should know, though, that if we're dealing with our aging monks, you know, if we've lived a life where Lectio and Prayer are always component parts, then they should be part of that retirement. One of the saddest things, I've seen enough of, if you go to infirmaries at different houses, and, you know, if the television is on, and off, and off, because that's all the time they have to do. Or, you know, we have a monk, retired, coming into the parish. It's the PC, and I think Netflix is able to make a big profit margin from what he has. Nothing to do but watch movies. Of course, there's another irony, you know, we have infirmaries with people, and the rest of the monks are too busy working to spend time visiting the people in the infirmary.

[54:26]

We can see how we get priorities jumbled there. But work, you know, has to have a connection to the human spirit. And, you know, a number of people are probably too small, or that the work is too small for them and what they're engaged in. Again, I'm thinking of that book of Taylor. Dale obviously has to find something else to do, given his gifts. But the work we choose, when we have a choice, says a lot about us. I think today we also have the reality of technology, which certainly poses a greater threat to depersonalization, to alienation. You know, the computer is a great gift in many respects.

[55:32]

It saves us time, it allows us to do things in a marvelously efficient way, communicate better. But, you know, you can see people who, you know, look at the streets. People have their iPhone and that's their world. We have to be able to not let that take us away from the community. So I think a good standard needs to be in place for any monastic work is does it draw the community together or does it promote further fragmentation? And the corollary to this Does the work lead a person to closer union with God and a contemplative spirit, or does it create greater stress and anxiety? I think at a minimum, you know, the traditional monastic works, bread baking and weaving and woodworking, are conducive for meditation. They keep a person within the silence and supportive framework of the Cloister.

[56:36]

Unlike so many people whose work carries with it the burden of providing for a family, and they're juggling several jobs at once, we have the relative luxury of being able to contribute to a wider whole. And of course, it's helped by good management, but, you know, it's not looking for the profit motive. In fact, you know, if we make a profit, we presume that that's going to find its way to the poor, we hope, eventually. And then work in the monastic context is closely associated with leisure. Leisure for us, of course, is of a different genus than what the popular culture would categorize as leisure. In our tradition, it's characterized by the Latin word otium, literally a time for no activity. Rather than be intent upon what most of us would describe as recreational pursuits, monks see leisure as a time when we create space so that we can allow the Lord to touch us in that space, vacare.

[57:53]

Of course, the classic activity associated with that is Lectio. But we also have this notion today that's being developed of Sabbath time, and I think Benedict was aware of this and certainly knew what the Scriptures tell us, that Sabbath was made for man, not the reverse. And we see today sabbatical periods of monks helping both the monks and the community. The person comes back from the sabbatical, the community is broadened and enhanced by that. Some monastic communities even practice desert days, or common vacation time, for the purpose of a type of corporate renewal and detachment from the demands of our work. Sunday rest gets to be very problematic for some monastic communities who call it sacramental supply and service of guests. Guests come on Sundays.

[58:55]

But there too, you know, that's part of the necessary work that I did talks about. I think Benedict wants to provide us with a type of leisure that is never to be confused with a diversion. Leisure, like work, is intended to ennoble the human person. And if Benedict would look at the typical couch potato there, surfing away on TV, I think he would just shake his head. He should, and we should too. I find it of interest, as I research the history of monastic houses in this country, to see how insistent were the demands for work. The needs of the immigrants, the local church, through communities in a situation where a well-regulated rhythm of work and prayer was next to impossible.

[60:03]

It was You know, we talk about maintenance mode today. It was survival mode back then. And certainly, if you were willing to work hard and long, you were welcome into the monastery. And boy, we produced workers. That was of a peace with the people we were serving, the climate in which we grew up. But, you know, the immigrants evolved, and so did we. And I think You know, at least Mount Savior has the advantage of not having to carry that baggage with them. I think there was always stress and importance placed on leisure and time with the Lord. But, you know, in our formation of members of the community, this question of work is clearly a neurologic one. You know, the message given to a lot of people who came into our communities was not to be on board with work.

[61:13]

And you were evaluated on performance and productivity. I remember the novice reports, you know, we had one novice master who would always, he might go through a whole checklist of, oh, he wasn't doing that well, he wasn't he's a good worker, and that was a cinch. If he was a good worker, he was in. You know, the fact of the matter is, your spiritual health is certainly key to work, but the fact that you work hard and long is not necessarily an assurance that you're going to be spiritually healthy. And of course, you know, The way we look at work is colored by the society in which we live. You know, in a society, understandably, people think of excellent pay, social status, benefits, of course, today, and power and influence, speed, productivity.

[62:22]

Those are the key words. And so the quality of the work seems sometimes to be incidental. Look at all these cars that have to be called back. In contrast, you know, the monastic tradition has always maintained a sense that work is something that has a communal and an individual character, and that the community is accountable for its work. And that work is always part of God's created order. So we do it with care. You know, and that's something we inherit, certainly. We go back to the European notion of craftsmanship. We talk a lot about late brothers too, but boy, we had this sense of craftsmanship of things that we did. And of course, even all the manuscripts in the scriptoria of Europe, even today, icons, investments, they're examples of this craftsmanship that we invest in work.

[63:30]

Unfortunately, we also have the expectation, it goes all the way back to the Enlightenment, that work should provide happiness. Be happy. And, you know, we should be self-fulfilled. And, you know, the fruits of our work should produce some type of satisfaction that's on a par with the time and energy we invest in it. But that can only happen if we see our work as part of God's creative order, and if we subordinate our personal efforts to the common good. And in that sense, in the Christian monastic tradition, work is not so much a means of acquiring happiness as it is an instrument for having us come to a closer union with God, who can only give us true happiness. You know, again, I was a formator in my monastic community for quite some time, and I found myself on occasion trying to mediate the attitude toward work

[64:43]

of the people who would come into the monastery, who already had years of experience and independence in the secular workspace. I mean, you have that here. In the past, of course, people came in, they were teenagers, they had no experience of work, it all came through the monastery. You know, today is so different. One of the different things is that people begin to negotiate their identity in community through the medium of work. You know, there's careerism in some of our monasteries. And sometimes the new people, I'm thinking of larger monasteries, are courted. You know, they have X and Y skills, so Father Z is going to try and get him into his little territory to have them work for him. And, you know, it just, it creates all types of pressures and problems we don't need.

[65:49]

I think the particular work that is given us always needs to be connected with the common good of the community. And to know that it's bound to change over time. What becomes important, though, is the monastic skill of working hard out of the center of one's truth, and not identifying too much with the results of the work, or seeing it as my work. There's always going to be a problem, but it's certainly one we have to recognize. And we have to see, too, that we're not immune from the pastime of judging people and judging communities by what they do. rather than who or what they are. I think, you know, we don't obviously judge people by their salaries, but, you know, we have work sinecures and one of the great things about a multi-generational community is that you have this range of differences and that's good.

[66:59]

You know, we're all spiritual seekers, and, you know, we can flub up in the kitchen and excel elsewhere, or vice versa, and we know we have to accept that. We also have to accept the fact that there's probably been a good critique, and again I picked this up from formation, that we work too much. Some people think we don't have workaholics in our monasteries. Well, I can solve a couple bridges on that one. You know, it's like other addictive patterns. We can adapt those patterns to make them spiritually acceptable. And that should never happen. And we also reflect our roots. At least, you know, you've had I think a favor on that, but some of us who had deep dramatic roots or were engaged with agriculture or other demands, we tend to be more nose-to-the-grindstone people.

[68:14]

Or where you live, you know, I remember once going from Manchester, New Hampshire, St. Anselm, to St. Joseph's Abbey in Louisiana. It was night and day. I mean, you know, the chisel, New England, boom, boom, boom, boom. But then you get down to, you know, New Orleans. And it's different. Work is there, people are working, but It's a very different climate. And, you know, that's, I think, to be expected. You know, we should recognize that our monastic houses are going to be a perfect place. But people can also get wedded to their jobs. And I think a reliable test of workaholism and all of its variances, once we're relieved of a job, do we accept that? Or do we try and desperately cling to this job because this is all my identity?

[69:15]

And certainly, if our work is associated with status or security rather than spiritual solidarity with our community, the potential for exploitation is going to be increased. You know, there's a great deal of healthy output for our work. And sometimes it's interesting that the work we're assigned tells a lot about us. When I was a young monk, we had summer assignments. All the people around me, they'd have their plot for flowers, and they'd be working on some type of wonderful artistic expression. I was always in the demolition team. I was going, so, okay, I guess I know what I'm good at. And we have to accept the fact that that too will change.

[70:18]

We had a person, when I came in, who was great with cars. Within 10 years, he was obsolescent because of all the computer technology. And he was frustrated. And, you know, eventually we got to the point where, okay, I can do other things. But, you know, again, that's part of the pride. I can do this. Well, there are other people who might be able to do it better. And there are some real problems here. I mean, you've got these farms and God knows the nasty farms, you know, are just problematic as all get on. But I think we have to do what we can to promote what we know is the witness we can provide with this type of work. Certainly, you know, if you look at your future here at Mount Sager, it's going to have to be different.

[71:24]

How work measures into that is certainly a vital question. and it has a lot of positive possibilities and we have to look at those positive possibilities but we also have to be realistic and uh... you know it was one thing to have the farm when in the uh... fifties and sixties you had all these good strong backs and everything it's quite another thing to speak of it now i think you know part of that too is the problem of uh... how we We're forced to outsource a lot of things. People on the roof. Well, we can't do that. I mean, if we did it, we'd make a mess of it. I mean, we had a professional roofer who came to our community, and the first few years he was in, we sent him up to two jobs. After a while, he said, let the professional people do it. We're just going to mess it up more. And he was right. You know, the elevator is out, you know, we're not going to be able to do anything about it.

[72:31]

The server on the computer goes out, well, okay, we just wait for everything else. You know, when you have that tornado here and you have your generator, but you know, you're at the mercy of a lot of other people and that's not necessarily bad because it It requires that we have some connection with the wider world around us. And, you know, we have to see that we're part of that wider community. And even, you know, look at the workplace today. It's all about downsizing. It's about diversity. It's about diminishment. And that's certainly at work in other monasteries. The larger monasteries in this country and elsewhere that have these huge investments of land and buildings, and of course we have that huge manual workforce of laborers, recognize that's past.

[73:38]

You know, we had the era of brick and mortar expansion, these physical plants, we had the dairy cattle, we had the grain mills, the carpentry, I was wonderful, but it just can't exist anymore. So I think we have to really see that there's going to have to be an understanding of what our limits are, and an understanding that as Benedictines we always adapt. and we will adapt our work to fit the needs of the particular time and place. So monasteries have to be pliant in changing their methods. But the mission remains the same. And unlike the business world, where the mission is always connected with profit margins, the mission of the monastery is to lead people to salvation. And that's not just a pious thought, it has to be foremost in our minds. I think that's where the element of diminishment comes into play, because we have to let go and guide the prevailing understanding of human labor as being connected to financial gain and promotion and competition.

[74:56]

You know, human labor for us is what leads us to eternal life, what involves us in the pastoral mystery. I would think, you know, that would have been Father Damas's idea that whenever we're at work, we're consciously seeing ourselves involved in the pastoral mystery. And, of course, you know, the greatest, the newest cottage industry for monasteries, which makes that explicit, is caskets. I don't know if you've ever explored that, but, you know, Mallory and St. Margaret, it's a big deal, and they're making good money. And, of course, it's preparing people for eternal life. But I think it also embodies the practicality that we have to have and use when we speak of work. There seems little doubt, then, that the work in the monastery is going to be challenged in future years by the same demand we see in the wider world.

[76:00]

It's going to be increasing amount of technology we have to deal with, professionalism, specialization of work goals, the stress of a diminished workforce, of income-reducing people, and an expanding number of elders. In the face of these challenges, I think the Monastic Division of Work can offer a model that at the least will lead us to integrate all of our work with our seeking of God. We can make it, in the words of Mother Teresa, something that is beautiful for God.

[76:39]

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