Cultivation Blog

For a few months now, I’ve been sneaking into the back of the basilica during the monks’ morning prayer, and although it’s been a source of significant blessing in my life to join the monks even from a distance, I’ve only just recently taken up their gently repeated invitation to sit with them in the choir. 

To be perfectly honest, I’ve always been a little (or a lot) intimidated by the fabled complexity of the Liturgy of the Hours, but when I made my hesitant way up to the choir, I saw that Brother Edward had prepared psalter and hymnal beforehand, opening the books to their proper pages for all newcomers and guests – and even making sure that anyone unfamiliar with the Hours received a brief and welcoming explanation of the rhythms of prayer.

Well taken care of by Brother Edward’s warm and considerate hospitality and, as a consequence, suddenly much less nervous than I’d expected to be, I waited for Lauds with a growing sense that the evenly segmented stalls – their ordered continuity in stepped rows – echoed a deeper reality of Benedictine life and community.

Each stall is distinctly marked, but each belongs, too, within the unity of the whole: of the full monastic community praying together and face to face. In parts of the Liturgy, they join in one, layered voice. In other parts, the measured alternation of one side, then the other, marks a slow and lovely pacing through the psalms, evoking community in relation – almost as an echo of God’s perfect, trinitarian unity of relation, which is Love. 

It’s reminding me of what community itself can mean, not only when we physically gather together in prayer, but also when we join our prayers to those rising always from the Body of Christ, the Church, in their patient, familiar rhythms across time and space.  

If you’ve never prayed one of the Hours with a monastic community (as I hadn’t until about a week and a half ago), I encourage you to seek out opportunities to do so. And if this simply isn’t possible in your area – or in the daily exercise of your state in your life – I’d invite you to draw on the Psalms this weekend. Pray them slowly; let the silences hold and frame the words. I didn’t appreciate what a remarkable gift that can be until my brothers and fathers, the monks of Belmont Abbey, showed me, with characteristically Benedictine hospitality and kindness.

May God draw us closer in community through prayer.

Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross. It’s a day that reminds us, as Christians, that God can make even the consequences of our fallenness into a means of glory and an opportunity for recognizing His unfailing Love. It reminds us that, no matter where we go or what we suffer, Christ is there before us, in His triumph, and with us, in our suffering as members of His body, the Church.

On the back of Benedictine medal we find the abbreviated prayer “Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux.” which translates “May the holy cross by my light! May the dragon never be my guide.” The Cross has the power to illuminate our way, even as we carry it, for Christ, who is always present in our darkness and suffering, offers unfailing light to our steps even when we struggle to see.

Often we don’t – and can’t – know what battles the people around us might be fighting, or what they might be suffering. But Christ knows, with a nearness that transcends empathy. So today, in honor of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, I invite you to pray with me for the people around us, whoever they may be, in their private sufferings. May Christ touch their lives, offering strength and comfort through us, by His inexhaustible, creative Love.

Dear Jesus,

You suffered death to open the gates of Heaven. In the triumph of Your Holy Cross, heal and strengthen us, that we may share in Your redemptive work and rejoice forever with You.

Be near to those who are hurt and suffering. Reminds us, by Your grace at work in and through each of our lives, that we are never alone.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Happy Blessed Mother’s birthday!

As much as I enjoy my own birthday (and I do), there’s something particularly exciting about celebrating the birthday of someone you love, especially someone to whom you owe more than you can comfortably articulate.

Her resounding “yes” to God’s plan both participated in salvation history and modeled the trust and generosity needed to embrace our own vocations in each moment – no matter what God may be asking of us or how veiled His plan might seem. And long after this pivotal moment of assent, our Blessed Mother showed her attentive care and trust when she interceded for the newlyweds at the Wedding Feast of Cana: placing them in the hands of her Son, the true Bridegroom, who would – she knew – provide what they lacked.

No one – of all our friends, the saints – better embodies the love, generosity, and attentiveness God wills us each of us to practice better than Our Lady.

In fact, in true Marian fashion, the Blessed Mother seems to enjoy requesting special, particular gifts and graces, large and small, for all of us on her own feast days. At least, this always seems to be the case when I’m not too distracted to notice, or to appreciate the myriad blessings God sends to us through His little mother. Whenever I walk into Mary Help of Christians Basilica on the Belmont Abbey Campus, I’m reminded of just how tenderly she, as our patroness, cares for us.

So today, as we celebrate her birthday, let’s thank God for the way He invites us to participate – as Mary did and does – in His plan of salvation and His inexhaustible generosity to each of us.

Happy birthday, Blessed Mother!

Happy Labor Day weekend! Like many of you, I’ve been looking forward all week to the Monday holiday, thinking about how I’ll take advantage of the extra time out of the office. But this year I’ve also been thinking about Labor Day itself, its importance, and the ways I do – or don’t – appreciate the significance and the dignity of labor in my daily life.

Labor Day may be a secular holiday, but considering the Benedictine tradition of ora et labora (prayer and work), a holiday dedicated to labor and laborers seems particularly appropriate to life at the Abbey. In a way, prayer is an expression of our relationship with God, while work is an expression, or recognition, of our relationship with others and with creation.

Given this, and the value of Benedictine hallmarks like discipline, humility, and stewardship, I’m realizing that I don’t always recognize those whose labor is actually a ubiquitous presence in my daily life.

When I get up in the morning and switch on the light, I don’t think about those at work in the power plant supplying my electricity, or the technicians who keep it running all over the county and the state. I don’t necessarily think about the manufacturing labor involved in the dress I put on or the agricultural, transportation, and service labor that brings the fruit or the coffee to my breakfast table. When you stop and reflect on it, it’s astonishing how many people we need to be grateful for as we carry out our day-to-day lives.

The monks of Belmont Abbey have taught me that work is a part of the daily rhythm of our vocations. Labor allows us to exercise patience, endurance, and generosity, and it gives us the opportunity to imitate our Creator, who is, after all, at work in the ongoing creation of the world.

As we celebrate this Labor Day weekend, let’s try to value the work we do and the work we receive as means of strengthening community and embracing responsibility for each other. Let’s remember to show our gratitude to each other and uphold the dignity of work and of workers in our words and deeds.

It’s hard to believe that August is already underway. Before we know it, students will return to campus, fall sports will gear up in earnest, and the leaves will turn Abbey Lane into a glorious riot of color. I’ve always loved fall, and I can’t wait to enjoy another new year at Belmont Abbey.

Even before season openers or student orientation, however, we actually get a foretaste of another, deeper form of glory this weekend. On Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration!

I love to imagine how Christ’s divinity radiated within and through His humanity, how St. Peter got so excited and unsettled that he started proposing an encampment, and how the New Covenant shone forth in conversation with the Old, with Moses and Elijiah, there on the mountain. And it feels particularly appropriate, here on the threshold of new beginnings at the Abbey, to contemplate the way Christ fulfills and extends the Old Testament’s promise beyond our wildest expectations, shedding new light on the past and giving us, in Himself, new and luminous hope in a future already begun.

Though He invites each of us to climb different mountains with Him, we are all called to witness, in our churches and our homes, how near and how powerful His love really is, and how vibrantly it brings our history and our hope together. We may not always understand the “how” or the “why” of past and future – of suffering and someday resurrection – but in His Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor, Christ invites us to trust Him: that He, who took on our humanity without losing his divine nature, will transfigure our earthly lives with the radiance of His divine love.

So on this beautiful feast, let’s join the monks of Belmont Abbey – and Benedictines everywhere – in a joyful celebration of hope, trusting that in all things, past, present, and future, God will be glorified. That all will be well, and more than well… Alleluia!