which, by the way, welcomes new members. Our presenter this morning has a 17-page curriculum BTA, which I won't go into. But that was as of three years ago. It needs an update. We are extremely honored that she took time out of her busy schedule to be with us this weekend, as she will be back in the city working tomorrow. who are also blessed that she chose to become an oblate of Mount Savior Monastiria back in 1980. In fact, it was the Benedictines who saved her life. But that's another story. The title of this morning's presentation is Glorifying God by Their Lives, Benedictine Oblates as Models and Mentors. I offer some reflections from the Fourth World Congress of Oblates in Rome in 2017.

[01:02]

What is the future of Benedictine life? That is a question that many people seem to be asking with fear and trepidation. At a time when there are fewer traditional vocations to Benedictine monasteries, Many people seem to fear that many monasteries will close and this ancient way of life is in jeopardy. The reality is that this is a time of tremendous change and transition, but also of great hope. Benedictines have always responded to the deep underlying needs of the times. Today, Benedictines are still responding to the needs of the times. But the difference is that many of these Benedictines are oblates. Oblates are increasingly the face of Benedictine life in this new century. Oblates can become the people who take our mission and charism to places we can no longer go. Oblates are often the public face of the monastery as they share their connection to the monastery of their oblation and their commitment to Benedictine spirituality and life.

[02:16]

I quote Father Demasus when he spoke about oblates in 1962. He said the secret of any monastery's success is the degree to which it projects the face of Christ to the world around it, and that oblates are the best means of showing the loving face of Christ outside the cluster. Sister Joan Chittister mentions that oblates are not meant to simply be consumers of the benedicting tradition, that they are meant to be carriers of that tradition, and that they are required to become not only witnesses to the values espoused in the rule, but to be the active bearers of those values. I expect Mr. Julie will have a bit more to say about this problem, Mr. Julie, up to Thank you very much, Brother John.

[03:22]

I'm so happy to be with you and I will try to remember to talk into this. I'm so happy to be with you and to be speaking in this lecture in honor of the founder of Mount Saviour, Fr. Jamesa Swinson, whom I did not know. Madaliva told me I've slept in his bed. I know I spent many, many wonderful days in the chicken coop down here, what then became, I guess, the old Gaza. And I definitely know him through others, and he's in this presentation for a bit. So this is the outline that I've kind of arranged for myself today. If you've got questions at any point, you know, feel free to stop me, ask more questions. I could go on for days about this, so you'll have to stop me. So I first want to begin by doing a little snippet of oblate research that I did in 2014.

[04:25]

And that really, that research has already been published in the American Benedictine Review that many of you might have read. Some of the lessons I learned from that, and especially a metaphor that one of the participants used, which really is the metaphor that I've been using about how the rule has affected my life. And then I'm going to focus on three models and mentors of Benedictine monasticism who are oblates. The first is Father Hans Ansgar Reinhold, who was an oblate of Maria Lach. And he actually had been a novice there with Father Damasus. And he's buried here in the cemetery, and some of you might have known him. Yes? The next is Ade Bethune, who was an oblate of Portsmouth Abbey and she is buried there.

[05:29]

The third is Dorothy Day, who was an oblate of St. Procopius Abbey in Illinois. She had been an oblate of—she made her first oblation at Portsmouth Abbey and transferred her oblation to St. Procopius, which was more convenient to her by that later time in her life. And she's buried on Staten Island, not in a monastery. So, in 2012, Martin Shannon, that some of you might know because he did his dissertation on Father Damasus at Catholic University under Mary Collins, he was president of the American Benedictine Academy, which I joined in 1990. at the urging of a Benedictine monk from Glastonbury Abbey. He thought that given my interest in theology and the fact that I was an oblate, I would benefit by that organization, and I certainly have, and I hope they've benefited by me over the years. So they asked me if I would do a survey of Benedictine oblates.

[06:35]

around the country because there was a lot of anecdotal evidence about Benedictines, about the Oblates, but there was no scientific evidence about them and what drew them to the monastery and who they were and all that kind of stuff. My first instinct was, why is he asking me to do this? I am not a social scientist. I'm a theologian. But then he came back to me is that he wanted, you know, a theologian to approach the methodology as a social scientist might, but to pull out the theology that was in there. And I was at a big university, and I had a lot of resources there. And at the time, I was still the provost of the university. So others came to my assistance. And I went through the university's IRB. And I developed a survey instrument that I fielded online principally, except it was also in print.

[07:41]

I emailed it to all of the Oblate directors in the country. There were 102 of them. at the time, and I did that in the last week of October. And they then sent the URL for the instrument all over the place. Some people who did not have their obliques on an email list or something like that, they printed it. So I got some printed returns. And the University's Office of Institutional Research helped me with organizing all of this. It was fielded between November 2013 and March 2014, and I got 744 responses. So the Institutional Research Office was already blown away by that. They thought I might have 70 responses, so they couldn't believe that I got such a great response. But we don't know exactly what that percentage was because we had at that time no idea really officially.

[08:42]

Nobody keeps track of any of this stuff. How many oblates there really were out there? So these responses came both in electronics and paper. So I had 744 responses. 299 of them came from what I came to term the top six monasteries. St. John's Abbey, and there's probably no surprise to this, St. John's Abbey, St. Benedict's, the Women's Monastery in Minnesota, New Camaldoli, which has a huge number, huge number of young oblates. Conception Abbey, Mount St. Scholastica, and Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Indiana. These are also monasteries that have a lot of American Benedictine Academy members, and so they were really, you know, encouraging this among their participants. I really found that, and if you want to know all the details, you can read the ABR article, in many ways, except for New Kemal Dali, the oblates kind of reflect the monastery.

[09:53]

In age, in breakdown, there are, and it doesn't make any difference whether it's a men's monastery or a women's monastery, there are more women who are oblates than men. And they are a very educated group. And they come from primarily what you might call the helping professions. I want to focus specifically on their reasons for becoming an oblate though. The oblate life strengthens their faith and formalizes a spirituality. They get a deeper connection with a spiritual community. The rule, interest in Benedictine or monastic spirituality, it deepens their prayer life. and its more structured spiritual instruction and personal fulfillment. And then some of the quotations that come from them, they made me fully return wholeheartedly to the Catholic Church because of their charism of interfaith dialogue, their extraordinary Benedictine hospitality to all, and their loving acceptance at Mass

[11:13]

of all at the Eucharistic table. If someone came, they served." If I were going to do a survey again, you know, I would say, well, I'm not going to put down other, or I'm not going to leave room for this. But actually, it's the quotations that really are very, very powerful. And I've got hundreds of them. So this is just really some of the really lovely nuggets. I fell in love with the silence and the peace and the chapel and my time praying with the monks. I wanted to extend that to my home that was far away from the community. I also wanted some official connection that would keep communication going between myself and the community. A guide for living a healthy life, the discipline of Alexio, prayer, and attitude toward living life in balance is such a joy for me.

[12:14]

I am prone to getting off balance as a workaholic. The rule keeps me on track. The oblate meetings and the fellow oblates are essential. The rule is like a trellis on which to grow, and that's really the metaphor and the image that I've always had of the rule in my life. that, you know, the rule is there and oblates to the extent that they can, you know, live that rule in their lives. And it doesn't, it keeps, it keeps you focused. It kind of keeps you regulated in a way. So many times, I'm not exactly an artist, but I do, when I'm praying, often paint, do watercolor or draw. And I often, I have many images of that trellis of the rule. it guides my life. Ablation offers a community of those seeking God within this tradition and a connection

[13:18]

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