Cultivation Blog

I’ve been wondering about glory. 

The Benedictine motto, ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus, translates “that in all things God may be glorified,” and while I can appreciate that this expresses an essential and defining aspiration, I have to admit I hadn’t really considered what it might mean beyond its most surface level. Watching our beloved monks move between prayer and campus activities with their characteristic humility and kindness, however, I’ve been thinking lately about the motto by which they live.

When the word “glory” comes to mind, usually I imagine some variation on magnificence: the gold of kingship, trumpets blaring, towering mountains, blinding sunsets, or a thundering host. Certainly we have no shortage of evidence of God’s greatness, grandeur, and omnipotence, as the psalmist reminds us daily, but this vision of glory still seems insufficient. After all, what does glory mean – not to a human perspective anchored in notions of earthly dominion – but to a God who makes Himself bread for us? What does it mean when we consider that God embraced our lowliness with so much tenderness that His birth elicited both singing angels and a bed made from a feeding trough? Or that He died the death of a criminal and an outcast to save us from the consequences of our own sin?

God reveals Himself not only in the brilliant light of the Transfiguration or the radiance on Mt Sinai – which so filled Moses’ face that he had to veil himself when he returned to the people – but also in the Cross and the poor. The earth quakes at the voice of its Maker, mountains melt like wax, and yet God speaks to us in the “still, small voice,” and Christ calls Himself “meek and humble of heart.” There is more to this worship we owe to God, then – and which fills the created world – than thunder and clamoring gold. 

When I pray that in all things God may be glorified, what am I asking?

As I return to these words, I realize that the motto’s passive construction means that God is the object, rather than the subject, of the clause. “All things” act, while God receives the action, in itself a startling and a humbling invitation to the “ora et labora” of Benedictine life: whereby we respond in word and deed to the very source of our active being – to all we can do or say. It reminds me of the priest’s prayer at Mass, “…that our praise adds nothing to Your greatness, but our thanksgiving is itself your gift.” If God doesn’t need our praise (and He doesn’t), but our “thanksgiving is itself His gift,” then surely it comes down to love. 

God is omnipotent and utterly beyond our power, but He also gives us freedom to act and to participate in His life. He loves us, draws near to us, and takes on our very humanity in Christ. Without diminishing His glory or power, He actively embodies – and transfigures – the reality of human love: that by loving someone, we allow them the power to hurt us. We choose to will their good – the life for which God created them – even if it leads us to the cross.

To pray that God may be glorified in all things is also to pray that we – in our lives and relationships, our prayers and work – will embrace the love of God with joyful participation, inviting Him to love and live in us with the full freedom of our will. Our praise and gratitude pleases God not because he requires magnification but because He loves us – and all those we encounter. He knows that our turning toward Him unites us more authentically with His will, which is Love and the source of our deepest happiness. 

By voicing our desire to give Him glory, we take part in the eternal hymn of praise that, in the great paradox of God’s incarnate Love, is both beyond us in its undiminished and perpetual beauty and also awaiting our beloved voice. It’s a prayer I hope to learn how to make more authentically, looking to the monks of Belmont Abbey and all those who imitate Christ in His glorious humility.

May we all draw closer to the God who loves us, that in all things God may be glorified!

Those of you fortunate enough to know Br. Edward Mancuso are probably also blessed to recognize the name “Solanus Casey.” Rarely have I encountered the Abbey’s beloved Guest Master without sharing a moment of prayer for Blessed Solanus’ intercession, and since we celebrated his feast day on July 30, I’ve been thinking about this holy Capuchin priest, for whom Br. Edward has such a joyful devotion.

Known for his gentleness, his gratitude, and his merciful compassion for the poor and sick, Father Solanus espoused a trusting simplicity of faith rooted in that “peace the world cannot give.” And though throughout his life he served communities in Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, and Detroit (where the Solanus Casey Center is located), I particularly like to imagine him in his role as porter at St. Bonaventure Monastery, where he welcomed each guest with such attentive hospitality and offered the comfort that never ceases to “thank God ahead of time.” Blessed Solanus trusted that the Lord would bring good from all things, and in response God worked many miraculous healings through his intercession, both during life and after his death.

Before we all rush headlong into the weekend, I wanted to take a moment to share with you the prayer for Blessed Solanus’ intercession and canonization. Since Br. Edward first introduced me to it, I have come to love the way its simplicity and trust cut through the anxious circles I sometimes make in my prayer. Like Blessed Solanus himself, this prayer reminds me that inviting God into my life each day – and trusting Him to act in me even (or especially) when I don’t trust my own capacity – only takes the simplest, earnest movement toward God:  

O God, I adore You. I give myself to You.

May I be the person You want me to be,

and May Your will be done in my life today.

I thank You for the gifts You gave Father Solanus.

If it is Your Will, bless us with the Canonization of Father Solanus

so that others may imitate and carry on his love

for all the poor and suffering of our world.

As he joyfully accepted Your divine plans,

I ask You, according to Your Will, to hear my prayer for… (your intention)

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Blessed be God in all His Designs.”

May each of us renew in simplicity our commitment to God and our trust in His Love, which never fails to act in and through all things.

While the monks of Belmont Abbey – and Benedictine communities around the world – reserve March 21 for the most solemn celebrations of St. Benedict, yesterday’s more generally observed feast of July 11 nevertheless holds a special place in our hearts, and it is often a day when our monks observe vocational milestones.

Last year Br. Leo Young made his Solemn Profession, embracing his vocation and dedicating his life to God through the rooted particularity of this monastic community. And this year the monks of Belmont Abbey welcomed two young men into the next stages of their discernment: one as a novice and one through First Profession, or Temporary Vows.

As I listened to these vows yesterday during Mass, I thought about the ways we discern God’s will in our lives. A Benedictine monk in discernment seeks the will of God through prayer and work, ora et labora. He listens within the Divine Office, the Mass, and the Scriptures. He attends to the shared life of his confreres, the humble rhythms of community life. And although the monastic life is a distinct calling and a particular vocation, discernment is something we all need, and we seek God’s voice in many of the same places: in our own prayer and work, in the Liturgy, the Bible, our families and communities.

We, too, can cultivate the quiet patience that waits for God to reveal Himself. And even if most of us don’t formally vow ourselves to a discernment period, we can still commit to following God’s will no matter what He asks, knowing that the more we give ourselves over to Him, the more He promises to fill us with the Life and the Love that surpass understanding.

Please join me in praying for the Belmont Abbey monastic community – and especially its newest members, as they continue their journeys of discernment over the coming years. May this joyful Feast of St. Benedict remind us to listen to God’s voice in our own lives, knowing that His love and generosity are always orders of magnitude greater than we can fathom.

I’ve been thinking this week about St. John the Baptist, whose feast we celebrated on Monday. The Forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord!’”(John 1:23) His call to conversion disturbed or inspired, depending on his listeners, but he spoke out fearlessly to all, even to King Herod himself, who had taken his brother’s wife in contravention of God’s law.

It can be a challenge, at any time, to speak up in defense of the Truth, and St. John the Baptist’s martyrdom is a sobering reminder of why. But Monday’s feast, June 24, doesn’t commemorate his death, the way such days usually do. (For that we have another feast on August 29.) Instead, this week we celebrate John the Baptist’s birth, and this unusual circumstance reminds me: there’s another side to our call to speak the Truth, a side that doesn’t diminish the risk or the danger but instead shows us why it’s worth facing.

After all, Christ Himself was present at the birth of John the Baptist, within the Blessed Mother’s womb. The unborn John leapt in recognition within Elizabeth when Mary arrived, ready to tend to her cousin in the last months of pregnancy. And the purifying joy John expressed in that moment, even before his birth, evokes the joy of a call that is more than a call – that is a Person – and reminds us just how profoundly our human calling embraces who we are in our divinely created selves, even before we take our first breath.

The One for whom we help “prepare the way” in each other’s lives actually precedes us, offering the joy of His promised salvation long before we are conscious of our need for it. He accompanies us from the beginning.

Our God is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so proclaiming Truth at all costs means proclaiming Him, truly. It can be easy to distract ourselves with fear and anxiety at all the obstacles to speaking up, but St. John the Baptist reminds us, at his birth, that embracing this call is embracing the deeply personal Love of Christ, enduring forever and worth the cost.