Cultivation Blog

For those of us living in the United States, today is a federal holiday. It also happens (not by accident) to be the feast of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of soldiers. November 11, 1918 saw St. Martin’s Feast named “Armistice Day” to commemorate the end of World War I. Twenty years later it would become “Veterans’ Day” in the U.S.

When I think of St. Martin of Tours, two images compete for space in my brain. One is the soldier, using his sword to cut his cloak in half so that he can share it with a beggar. The other is a gentle-looking man in bishop’s robes, looking down at the goose who shares his stained glass window in Mary Help of Christians Basilica.

In the famous story with cloak and sword, St. Martin has not yet left military life, but his weapon nevertheless assumes an unexpectedly constructive role, reminding us almost of the biblical swords being beaten into plowshares. What was made to be an implement of war and violence becomes a tool allowing him to equip the poor man – who later appears to him as Christ – with warmth and comfort.

I have to admit, however, that I had to look up the goose. I’d been puzzled by its presence in the window: it seemed so mischievous to me, peering around St. Martin with its sharp, cheeky eye. And as it turns out, this impression is actually fairly appropriate. According to the story, St. Martin hides himself in a barn to avoid being named bishop – at least until a goose sprints out to the square, flapping and squawking to alert the townspeople of Martin’s whereabouts.

The cloak story, whether apocryphal or not, does at least harmonize thematically with the change in St. Martin’s life, from earthly soldier to soldier of Christ. But the goose story has almost a flavor of the prophet Jonah to it, inasmuch as St. Martin is running from God’s will. And although no large, marine mammal shows up to swallow Martin, an uncooperative animal does demonstrate God’s irrepressible sense of humor. And in both stories, the wayward messenger ultimately finds his way: St. Martin of Tours would, in fact, become a bishop, serving in the unsought role with faithfulness and love. It’s comforting to know that even a great saint like St. Martin needed a nudge, from time to time.

The soldiers we honor this Veterans’ Day understand something about the courage it requires to face what has been asked of you. As we remember their sacrifices and struggles this weekend, let’s pray, also, for the grace to accept God’s will in our own lives; to trust that God doesn’t abandon us, even when we hide from Him; and to hope that He will bring an end to war and violence, that we, too, may turn our resources to caring for Christ in our midst.

We’ve had a late start to the autumn weather here on Belmont Abbey’s campus, but this week has finally found the crisp anticipation that marks my favorite season. I know our students will be eager to take advantage of this during their mid-semester break: hiking in the glorious Blue Ridge and generally enjoying all the bracing loveliness within reach of our North Carolina campus.

Of course, even before this belated temperature shift, I’d noticed the level of animal activity (and boldness) increasing – as the urgent impulse to prepare began overriding timidity. And now the campus squirrels are everywhere. A mockingbird has been singing long, communicative songs from the lampposts and treetops outside Stowe Hall. Leaves are falling in earnest, first from the crepe myrtle, then slowly from other trees. And cardinals and chickadees pepper and glow overhead with an energy I can’t help sharing.

I love the autumn, as so many people do: the robust colors, the scarves and sweaters, the nutmeg and cinnamon that find their way into every dessert and specialty drink… but it does seem strange to feel so much excitement and joy over a season oriented, ultimately, toward preparation for the cold, dark days ahead. Then again, maybe it’s not so strange, considering who we are as Christians, and the Word in which we live and hope.

Watching the grass dim and all but stop growing, the trees become stark, and the last wildflowers brown and brittle, we can still breathe the clear, cool air and the tannin spice of fall with joy. Because the truth is, we are fallen people, who need cycles of renewal, of giving up to God all that we are and have. Dying to ourselves, we trust in God to build us back more beautifully than ever.

The oak, maple, and crepe myrtle shed their leaves in preparation for the weight of snow and ice, the punishing cold and the short days, but we recognize even in their barren forms a kind of patient beauty. In a way, autumn shows us prudence and generosity: prudence in preparing ourselves for cold and meager times; generosity in flaming out with the beauty of sacrifice and repentance, of dying to ourselves, that we may be transformed to new life in the coming year. Both prudence and generosity require and embrace trust. They make lovely and meaningful what might otherwise seem bitter.

Because winter is not the end of the story, we can place the loss, even seeming death – so vividly embodied in the drift of dry leaves – within a larger narrative of hope, life, and resurrection. The seasons may bring change and challenge, but Benedictine stability reminds us of the abiding presence of God, Who endures beyond change. Let us relish our autumn days in the promise of life beyond our failings and our struggles!

One of my favorite saints happens to have a feast day at the beginning of October: St. Therese of the Child Jesus, often called “The Little Flower,” was a Carmelite nun whose autobiography, Story of a Soul, is still widely read and loved.

Therese wasn’t always my favorite. On the one hand, it’s hard not to admire this beautiful saint whose “little way” embraces small things with great love, and who wanted to spend her heaven showering roses on earth. On the other hand, it can be hard – at least for me – to relate to someone who’s been painted as nearly perfect, even angelic, in her holiness. The stubbornly fallible part of me starts grumbling at the prospect, or just plain distrusts the image.

I’ve come to realize, however, that the “Little Flower,” beyond espousing a way of life that’s frankly beautiful, is also a tenacious and imaginative saint. To be martyred for one’s faith is certainly a profound and glorious affirmation of love. To undergo daily anxiety, annoyance, frustration, and discomfort – to carry the chronic crosses, day after day, is no less profound an opportunity. To take the irritating circumstances of grinding teeth and clacking beads, the mundane chores or thankless errands – the whining, pestering, broken circumstances – and meet them with love takes an incredible act of will. It looks at the world and sees, not what’s immediately obvious to our last nerve, but the transformative, even creative potential by which we participate in God’s ongoing gift: that Love by which He holds us unarguably in existence.

From the outside, it might look as if nothing bothered Therese, or as if she was somehow immune to temptation. But when I think about what it takes to seize the moment with determined love, I recognize a stubborn joy that acknowledges – and flatly refuses to be turned away by – the unpleasant aspect of an experience. It’s more like athletic strength, muscled and deliberate, than a show of virtuosity. Therese, after all, was no less human than the rest of us; her virtue is most heroic in that she had to choose it at every opportunity. “I can prove my love only by scattering flowers, that is to say, by never letting slip a single little sacrifice, a single glance, a single word; by making profit of the very smallest actions, by doing them for love,” she wrote.

When I think about it, I have to remember that even a “little flower” holds a fierce root grip in the earth, drawing from its particular circumstances life-giving water. Its leaves have the power to transform light into food, and its color and fragrance attract in order to pollinate, enriching the complex system of relationships in which it grows. While certainly the prospect of drifting rose petals is a lovely one, the reality of root and pollen, sap and fiber, fill me with renewed hope. And when I receive a rose from my sister and friend, Therese, it reminds me of the energetic grace teeming in the soil and atmosphere of daily circumstances: in all its challenging, uncomfortable, and glorious reality.

So when we face the crosses of our daily lives (and we all have them), let’s seize the opportunity to transform each one with love, as St. Therese did. We, too, can relish the opportunity to live with our whole hearts, even (or especially) in situations that seem rough, difficult, or undignified. Remember – the battle is already won!

On this tempestuous Friday, so different from the Belmont Abbey Homecoming we’d planned, it nevertheless seems appropriate to take a moment to think about what it means to be at home, to return home after a long time away, or even to long for it from afar. As human beings we might find ourselves “at home” in a specific place or within a particular community, even as we travel toward that ultimate home of “many rooms” where Our Father prepares a place for us.

Different languages and cultures, of course, evoke home and homecoming in different forms, but all seem to share the significance of belonging, either enjoyed or desired. The Welsh, for example, have the lovely word, “hiraeth,” which has no direct equivalent in English but blends a longing homesickness with the warmth of nostalgia. There’s a yearning as you speak the word, a keenness and a lengthened aspiration that evokes the wistful memory of that deep, savoring breath you take on arriving home at last. It reminds me, in a word, that home is also a site of longing for the true rest and belonging we find in God: the beautiful now and not-yet of our pilgrim lives.

And speaking of journeys, the Ancient Greeks explore “nostos,” the hero’s homecoming, over and over again in myth and literature. The most famous instance is probably Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey – weeping for Ithaca even on Calypso’s island paradise – but the Greeks often turned their attention to heroes pressing on toward home despite overwhelming obstacles. These obstacles challenge and affirm the hero’s human identity with a people and a place, even as he pours his superhuman effort (and godlike prowess) into reaching them once more. In a way, these stories place the human and divine in tension with each other within a single man, not only asking who are we? and where do we belong?, but also uniting these questions, so that neither can be answered in isolation.

But it isn’t just the journey home, or what it means for mortal man, that fascinates the Greeks. “Xenia” was a related value, involving an ethic of hospitality. When we think of hospitality today, we might recall the Benedictine hallmark: its ready generosity to share a meal, open a door, offer a home. In Greek myth, however, hospitality was an important means of deflecting that double-edged sword of the gods’ attention. Certainly it offered critical refuge to travelers in a dangerous and unforgiving world, but as a host, you also never knew when you might be entertaining – or turning away – a god in disguise. Not only, then, was home a site of the familiar – of one’s deep, human identity – but it also became a place where mystery or the divine might well visit unannounced.

From this wandering reflection, I can’t help but return to our beloved monastic community at Belmont Abbey. Of course, Benedictine monks don’t welcome the wandering stranger out of fear. The prospect of being transformed into unflattering shapes or otherwise punished by vindictive deities doesn’t feature in their motivations the way it did for the Greeks of myth… But in a deeper way, the monks do extend their generous welcome, not only to all of us: students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends, but also to Christ, Himself, who feeds us with His presence and makes His home in our souls. God dwells with us, far beyond what the Ancient Greeks believed possible. And by sharing our earthly home, He invites us, in turn, to that life in Him which alone can satisfy our marveling “hiraeth.”

Whether or not you are an alumnus, and whether or not Hurricane Ian has prevented you from traveling this weekend, I hope you’ll have a chance someday soon to come and walk the Belmont Abbey College grounds. Step into the cool quiet of the basilica or tree-lined avenue of Abbey Lane. Wherever we roam, the Abbey invites us to cultivate, as pilgrim people, the peace of our true home, while rejoicing in this earthly echo of beatitude to come. Come join us. You are always welcome.

It’s not always easy to focus when I’m sitting alone with God. I love these moments of peace, whether in the St. Joseph Adoration Chapel, the Our Lady Help of Christians Basilica, or elsewhere – and I miss them when something unforeseen interrupts me – but even so, I find my mind wandering at times, as I sit in the quiet of a holy place.

For a while, my distractibility caused me more than a little anxiety. Somehow, I thought I should be able to grip prayer without letting go: keep a kind of laser focus on Jesus, who was, after all, right in front of me. Without putting it quite in these terms, I thought that “pray[ing] without ceasing” was something I couldn’t really accomplish until I’d conquered those wayward tendencies that brought my “outside” life into the church in ineffectual eddies with me. I’d jolt guiltily back to myself and dart a look in His direction, apologizing, then casting around for something to say, some way to address Him and wrench myself “back on track.” In other words, I thought praying well was a matter of effort on my part, and even as I acknowledged God’s presence in the abstract, in practice I was denying its living, breathing place in my prayer.

It’s taken years for me to realize that I don’t have to “carry the conversation” in my visits with Jesus, that my human foibles don’t preclude quality time with God, and that there really is no such thing as “outside” life. The monks of Belmont Abbey, in their daily rhythms of ora et labora, prayer and work, treat prayer as conversation, but work and prayer aren’t mutually exclusive to them. Community, companionable life, is more than this, and not all conversation need be vocalized.

I’m still learning how to live and love in His presence, but these days, when I spend time with God in prayer, I try not to grow anxious if I find the concerns of life intruding. And I try not to fill every second of this time with prayer aids or the sound of my own, internal voice. Although there are many beautiful and fruitful forms of prayer – from the rosary to lectio divina, from reading the psalms to giving thanks for His many gifts – I’ve begun to realize that those exist as means to the end of a greater intimacy, a deeper quiet, not as proofs of individual piety. God wants us to share our whole lives with Him, not just segmented moments in the morning or before we go to bed. And sometimes sitting with Him, giving Him the things that distract me, resting there in His presence as we can only with those who really know and love us, allows me to hear His still, small voice a little more clearly in my life.

This weekend, I hope we each have the chance to settle in His presence, not with the taut, nervous itch we sometimes apply to prayer, but with that trust in simply being with the Beloved One, who wants – more than we want it ourselves – to fill our souls with joy. May the Benedictine hallmarks of prayer and stability dissolve the boundary we put up in our lives between being with God and being busy with our daily lives.