1. Mass of Thanksgiving, Rev. Adam Carrico
    Fourth Sunday of Advent
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
    December 20, 2015

    Behold, I come to do your will, O God
    Recently when I was at my mother’s home for Thanksgiving, I decided that I would rescue an old friend. The old friend was a picture of me when I was about three years old. It was a handsome picture, if I do say so myself. I had a sharp little crew cut, a brown striped suit (and who doesn’t look great in a brown striped suit?) and a large bow tie. It is a beautiful picture, the formal kind they used to take back in the day, but unfortunately the photograph was badly damaged when our family home was flooded during Hurricane Agnes which struck the east coast of the US in 1972. For years, the picture hung in my mother’s various houses, water-damaged, browned, bruised and bent. She loved the picture though, who wouldn’t?

    So, during my Thanksgiving visit, I asked her if I could have the picture to take home and have restored. She was a bit hesitant, but then agreed. I brought the picture back to Saint Meinrad and thanks to our wonderful development office, the picture was fully restored and I had some prints made. I framed one of the prints and sent it to my mother and I heard nothing. No enthusiastic thank you call, no gushing words for how wonderful a son I was. Nothing. Nothing.

    So, I called her and after some hemming and hawing I pulled it out of her. She did not like the picture, in fact she hated it. Well, not quite, the frame was OK but she hated the picture quite a lot. After some talk I finally got to the bottom of the thing. Here is what she said:
    The photo looks fine, as it is. I mean your folks did a nice job, but my old picture, well, my old picture had something the new one did not. It had history.
    I knew what she meant. That tattered old photo reminded her of many things. It reminded her of that flood and all our family endured in those scary days.

    It reminded her of my father who was taken from us just eight years later.

    It reminded her of that little me, her only child, her only son, and his whole history, triumphant and tragic.

    That photo bore something that the new, pristine one could never bear. It bore scars.

    Don’t we all?

    I was thinking about the story we have tonight from St. Luke’s Gospel. Of course, it is a famous one, a great one. Two cousins, both with child meet and their children greet one another in the womb. The story has been depicted for us countless times, in art, in film, in many homilies through the ages. Mary and Elizabeth’s greeting, the visitation is an image that has such deep theological ramifications that we could teach an entire course on it.

    But when it boils down to it, it really is just a story of two cousins meeting. What must that meeting have meant, not just for the future, but as a memory of the past, the past of these two women, of their lives, their struggles? Elizabeth must have suffered a lifetime of disappointment in not being able to bear a child. Was Mary the one who comforted her?

    Mary must have suffered already the confusion of an unmarried woman, pregnant in ways that no one, perhaps not even St. Joseph, could fully grasp. Was Elizabeth the one who understood?
    And what if we dug deeper?

    What hardships did these women endure as women in a time completely circumscribed by men?
    What troubles did they endure as members of a conquered people in the Roman Empire, as women from an outcast nation, from a rural place, poor and unknown?

    The story of the visitation is a beautiful one, but it comes with scars if we listen to its echoes down the corridors of time.

    What memories were there?

    What led these women to that fateful moment when both of them could say:
    Behold, I come to do your will, O God
    And of course their story, their scarred story, stretches back doesn’t it, to old places unknown in history, before history began, to homes in caves and cast on the sides of hills, to stories of husbands and wives set at odds over the fruit of a tree, to brothers locked in mortal combat, to the babel of the world, to sin and atonement for sin in the Law?

    And it stretches back to nameless faces of people turning their eyes heavenward and calling on the name of the Lord:
    Behold, I come to do your will, O God
    This is the legacy of St. Luke’s Gospel, a Judaism old and lost. Zachariah the ancient priest, Elizabeth, his barren wife, Simeon the doddering old man, Anna the widow. They were losing, but they were holding on, hoping that the light extinguished so long ago by their own folly might be restored to them.

    They were a scarred people who haunted the temple, that monument of Herod’s victory and his down fall, they wandered its cold precincts filling their old lungs with the daily stench of burning animals, fractured dreams and hopelessness.

    They were a scarred people felt their ways along the walls of its time’s precincts, its wailing walls hoping to pick up some gossip, some shred of good news.

    They were a scarred people who knew the darkness, knew it intimately in their ancient bones, felt it keen as wind winding across the desert at night, understood it like the loss that had already defined in so many ways their withering lives.

    And yet, in that wind of desperation there whispered something, a hope:
    Behold, I come to do your will, O God.
    And what of the world in which we live?

    What of the scarred places and scarred people?

    What of the woman in Aleppo cradling in her arms the lifeless body of her infant son torn from her by the bombs of ideological warfare, of human conceit?

    What of the women spending the holidays in shelters finally safe from the physical abuse that has crushed them at the hands of their own family members, safe but fearful?

    What of the children who alone and freighted make their way across the arbitrary borders of nations, bereft of family and friends, not knowing when or where their scarred legs will collapse and among whom?

    But we don’t have to draw the map so large do we?

    For time itself, the history of places and families is written over with pain and suffering. Who here tonight has not suffered?

    What floods have crowded out the happiness of lives gathered in this place tonight, this place parked beside the railroad of life?

    Families have been torn apart, by money, by politics, none of the important things.

    Children have been lost and found or lost and never found
    Husbands have betrayed their wives.
    Wives have betrayed their husbands.
    Countless disappointments have been registered.

    The long story has been told over and over, its familiar passages repeated often, like a bedtime story. We have heard its strains, strains as familiar to us as the meeting of relatives, pregnant with possibility.

    From sadness, from desperation, from illness, from alienations a voice croaks out, cries out:
    Behold, I come to do your will, O God
    Now that scarred pendulum of time swings in our direction.

    Now it is time for Fr. Adam to make his mark on this long story.

    Tonight a man comes to us fresh from his ordination. He comes to us by the side of the railroad track in a place impossibly named PeeWee Valley. He comes to us with a history, a past. He comes to us with so much promise. He comes to us as a man of compassion and concern. He comes to us as a man who knows many things, can teach us many things, can draw from his font of knowledge many things. And that is important, but more important is that …

    He also comes to us as a man who has suffered. He has known, intimately and full well the scourge of life’s indignation. He has felt the keen pain of loss. He has understood in his bones the fragility of the human condition. He has suffered.

    Yet, like the history of the man whom he represents for us today, the man Jesus Christ, that suffering has not been in vain. Whatever Fr. Adam has suffered in his life is now turned to one purpose, to announce the Gospel of the wounded man of Galilee, to proclaim Good News to those who have suffered on the trail of life’s compromises.

    Adam comes to us as one who knows our flaws and our faults and yet is willing to announce forgiveness in the name of the Lord God.

    He comes to us a scarred man for a scarred people and he says to us: Let me heal you.

    How can that healing come to us tonight?

    It comes in the words of an old story. It comes to us in a promise written down from eternity but made real in the passing of days.

    It comes to us through Fr. Adam as in the years ahead he prays for us, he makes God present for us in the sacraments, as he anoints us and announces the words of reconciliation, as his scars bless us.
    It comes to us in a piece of bread and a cup of wine that carries within its confines the power of the Most High.

    It comes to us in gestures as simple as handholding, as complex as sighs.

    It comes to us in the form of a message and …

    This is the message: Behold, I come to do your will, O God

    This is the invitation that Fr. Adam has answered on our behalf and when we pause to ponder it we know it.

    As familiar as an old photograph

    As common as the chill in the December air

    As proverbial as the greeting of two cousins, pregnant with hope ready to announce to the world, as light as angels wings shivering in the night breeze as a distant train whistle is heard riding the wind, sounding forever like a voice calling out to a frenzied population:
    Peace on Earth, Good will to all of the scarred people of this ancient world. 

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  2. Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
    Celebration of the Opening of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
    December 8, 2015


    God chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
    to be holy and without blemish before him
    The whole history of humanity begins with an intense need for one thing, a need for mercy.

    First, there was the smallest movement of the will, of the mind, of the hand stretched out to a tree and there was a need for mercy

    How could a single piece of fruit upset the balance of the universe? 

    There was a need for mercy

    A legacy of hatred, division, suspicion, pain implies a need for mercy

    Man and Woman are locked in mortal combat and there is the need for mercy

    A man murders his own brother out of jealousy and there is the necessity of mercy

    The simple language of faithfulness disintegrates into interminable Babel

    Cities and countries are aflame with the heat of battle

    Hatred is enkindled, impressed upon the killing fields

    The disharmony of greed, lust, violence, and hatred disrupts the melodic counterpoint of generosity, respect, peace, love in single action

    With a simple gesture the cacophony of sorrows descends upon the world, cascading its citizens headlong into chaotic future, writing on their burned skins a single word; mercy. 

    Naked, humanity became imprisoned in the desperate chains of its own fashioning and there was need for mercy

    We learned to despise the Law for embarrassing us in our weakness and there is the necessity of mercy

    We studied new ways to persecute and kill the sinners, the soul savers, the saints

    We enchanted ourselves with our own seductive capabilities, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

    We looked deeply into the mirrors of our imaginings and saw staring back at us nothing but our own faces and we called those faces: gods

    And we cursed, cursed the fruit, cursed the snake, cursed the earth, the mother and father, the fate, the selves that continued to raise the curtain day after day on the unrelenting drama, the tragedy of the human condition, the tragic, incessant desire for one thing, one thing to cool the blistered brow of our condition, one remedy to the infirmity of our kind, one eradicating knife to cut from us the choking remnant of that fruit. 

    We cursed the God who said: Be fruitful and multiply

    Multiply your woes, your wounds, your wayward wantonness. 

    And tangled, jumbled, reprobate in a horrible pile, we lost all hope, believing the fate of Eden to be a universal and lasting “No” 

    But even in the midst of this chaos, this Babel, this Hell on earth, God held His breath and waited until he remembered that he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
    to be holy and without blemish in his sight. He brought us even in our forlorn lostness to the brink of mercy

    And then it came, suddenly, obscurely, unexpectedly. Mercy came

    God brought us to a day in the life of a forgotten place, among a forgotten people

    He brought us to a couple, old and barren in themselves but open to the promise of God

    He brought us to a young girl, alone yet prepared to face the cosmos

    She was nothing in the eyes of the world, a child, a female, a commodity,

    And then …

    The frenzy of violent wings, of dirt flung up …

    A rage of light, stark lightening lighting so fiercely it revealed nothing …

    The angel called out to the carrion of the broken earth’s expectations, the slave of men’s expectations
    Hail full of grace
    Mother of mercy
    Lo, how a rose ere blooming
    Mary
    God knew her name and then he whispered in her ear the secret she had been prepared to hear from the first stirring in her own mother’s womb.

    Can you in your goodness have mercy on this tired world?

    Will you in your innocence have mercy on the history of your people? 

    Can you in your charity provide those footsteps in which humanity might follow?

    Yes, of course, this is why I was brought into the world. It is mercy.

    Yes of course, this is God’s plan and it is mercy.

    Yes, of course, this is the endpoint of my whole being, my suffering in this place and that is mercy. And God sighed and the breath of that sigh completed the Virgin’s yes and that yes was mercy.

    The breath of that sigh, held so long throughout the time of our collective wretchedness breathed forth full and welcome, it was mercy.

    It poured forth like water to a scorched earth, like breeze in the barren desert. 

    Jesus is that breath united to Mary’s yes, a sigh of mercy

    Jesus, the man of sorrows who from takes from us our sorrows, it is an act of mercy

    Jesus, the man of journeys who becomes our resting place, a place of mercy

    Jesus, the man of common hunger and thirst, who becomes our bread and wine, the bread of angels, the intoxicating wine of compassion, the food of mercy

    Jesus, the contradiction of human expectations, the crucified savior, the murdered God, the God of mercy who experienced no mercy in this life

    Jesus that daily reminder to us that in flesh, in spirit that …
    God chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
    to be holy and without blemish before him
    And so we can be brothers and sisters, so we can be who we were made to be in his mercy.

    This promise stands before us today as a threat and an opportunity

    A threat to all our intense intellectual jockeying and an opportunity to say yes to the call, the difficult but beautiful call he has summoned us to, we know he has summoned us to it, the call of mercy, a call that arches over the troubled littered places of our confined and confining imaginations.

    That promise is a threat to our wretched individualism, our selfishness and the opportunity to live into the mystery of God in the vital, breathing triumphs and sorrows, joys and hopes of our brothers and sisters, hopes wrapped in the vibrant wrapping of mercy. 

    That promise is a threat to our woundedness and the opportunity for healing in lives torn open by broken relationships, grudges, hurts, dismay, shunning, racism, shattered dreams

    In this celebration, in this cosmic, immaculate feast of God’s promise of one thing, of mercy

    We, a people taught to look down at the merciless feet of our own inebriated self-gratification raise our heads and behold, perhaps for the first time, our true destinies written in the skies, written in the characters of mercy

    Inscribed in the glory of steel clouds offering a gift of hard rain or snow

    Written beautifully in the highest aspirations of humanity, to perceive the truth, to love without counting the cost, to be crucified by beauty

    Embedded in a new promise, a future-oriented history of service, compassion, tenderness, kindness, fidelity for …
    God chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
    to be holy and without blemish before him
    We are not children of the Fall and darkness, for we are called to be sons and daughters of light., children of mercy in an everlasting Garden

    Brothers and sisters it can be accomplished in us as it was accomplished in Mary, we can, we must become immaculate if not for the first time, then, by God’s mercy, at least … again. 

    God whispers this promise to us today. Let us say yes and moving forward from this place so that we can rewrite the sad history of Man into the pure poetry of love inscribed in our hearts, though for a time hidden from view, before the foundation of the world, a message of mercy. 


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  3. Second Sunday of Advent
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
    December 6, 2015

    This is my prayer:
    that your love may increase ever more and more
    in knowledge and every kind of perception,
    to discern what is of value,
    so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
    Saint Paul’s words seem quite prescient this morning as we gather here to celebrate the Second Sunday of Advent.

    Advent is a time for every kind of perception, of images that pop out in the landscape of the world.
    I was thinking the last couple of mornings about the fog and how it layered the landscape, wrapping everything in its misty shroud.

    I was thinking about how the trees appear like ghosts, with a kind of life of their own but a muted life.

    I was thinking about driving down a road where you can barely see in front of you and that headlights were the only announcement of something oncoming.

    I was thinking about those headlights like voices calling out from the wilderness of bewilderment as John’s voice stood out in the deserted places of the human landscape in Israel a long time ago and today.

    I was thinking about the stone buildings of this seminary rising up out of the earth like waking giants perceiving an alarm in a cool haze

    On these cloudy mornings you can only see what is right in front of you. It makes you dependent until you realize:
    God is leading Israel in joy
    by the light of his glory,
    with his mercy and justice for company
    And this is my prayer:
    that your love may increase ever more and more
    in knowledge and every kind of perception,
    to discern what is of value,
    so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
    In these advent days I have been contemplating something I never contemplate, a picture of myself. You may have already seen it since it is surreptitiously making the rounds.

    It is a picture of me as a three year old, in my tiny incarnation, wearing a brown striped suit, a bow tie and a slightly ironic smile.

    Perhaps it is the time of year to contemplate smallness. Perhaps I am just getting old but as I look at that picture which I lifted from my mother’s attic I wonder:
    What did he know? I ask it in the third person because “he” seems so far away from me now.
    What did the boy in the striped suit know that gave him such ironic confidence?

    He could scarcely have known what the man would later know. He could hardly have known how he would grow, what his joys would be, what his sorrows would bring. He could hardly know of the sins he would commit. He could hardly know what burdens he would have the privilege of bearing for others.

    In that way, the innocent boy could not have known what was truly of value, what knowledge and perceptions would make him a man, a fallen man, a broken man, but a man whose anticipation of the coming of God among us would make him strong, would raise him up.
    This is my prayer:
    that your love may increase ever more and more
    in knowledge and every kind of perception,
    to discern what is of value,
    so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
    In these days of advent, we are starting the ordination season. Many of us traveled through the fog yesterday morning to see our brother Ambrose raised to the dignity of diaconal service. It was a beautiful ordination. The church was packed. The homily inspired. Ambrose was, quite literally,  inspired. There were many priests and deacons present including so many of Ambrose’ classmates. It was an important day for the Diocese of Evansville because for the first time they brought into their number in a permanent way a man from a distant country.

    I was thinking about that during the ordination. I was thinking about Ambrose’ family who could not come from Kenya to be there. I was thinking about his adopted family though, hundreds of people who filled the small church, who wished him well.

    I thought about Our Lord and how he came to us from a distant country. He came as one small and vulnerable. He placed himself in our hands.

    Think about how many of our people do that. How they allow themselves to be vulnerable with us because they recognize God in us, recognize his love in us, his mercy in us, his kindness in us. I hope they do. I hope they see in our love, increasing more and more the advent of the pure and blameless, the day of Christ.

    I hope that all of those people from strange places, from unpronounceable places can look here and see in us the welcome of Christ. I hope that they can hear in us the voice crying in the wilderness of sin and confusion, the sin and confusion of the world in which we strive, the sin and confusion of our own hearts.

    I hope that we can cry out for those who have no voices, no power, no discernment, for those lost in the fog of intemperance, of bigotry. I hope that we can become voices for those whose wilderness seems unfathomable.

    Because …
    This is my prayer:
    that your love may increase ever more and more
    in knowledge and every kind of perception,
    to discern what is of value,
    so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
    This is my prayer

    Last night, our brother Ramses feasted us once again with the joys of La Purisima and our most pure lady descended upon Saint Meinrad once again in song, in music, in readings, in rosaries, in images. Our Lady came for a visit last night and that would be a wonderful thing in itself.

    Even more wonderful, however, is that she brought her friends, men and women and children from the communities of Jasper and Dale, folks who have come from even farther places than Jasper and Dale. La Purissima gave us a gift last night, she gave us a great vision of the Church and of course there is more. As our holy father, Saint Benedict says, no monastery is ever without guests.

    Today we will welcome many, folks coming for our conference this week. Our friends from Alabama, many others, many, many others. How will they be received?

    Our Lord came among us, unwelcome in the inn of Bethlehem. Our Lord came as a refugee, a stranger. Was he perceived as a terrorist? He probably should have been. What if we had built a wall to keep Jesus away from the earth. Our Lady welcomed him as she welcomed our guests last night. Is our welcome pure? Is our love for the other unfeigned?

    Do we truly discern what is of value?
    This is my prayer:
    that your love may increase ever more and more
    in knowledge and every kind of perception,
    to discern what is of value,
    so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
    A little boy has been haunting me for a few days now. I mean a real little boy not my shadow self in the brown striped suit.

    His name is Dominic Schemenaur or at least I think it is Dominic. I saw him at Ambrose’ ordination yesterday but I first met him at the Saint Nicolas banquet last week. He is small, around four years old. He wears glasses, very big ones affixed to his little face. I happened to come across him standing in line at the reception. He was waiting to get some candied bacon and mushrooms, I guess.

    I stood there next to him towering over him and he did the strangest thing: he reached up and took my hand. He put his little hand in mine. We had never met. I am a big black enshrouded object. But, he took my hand. He trusted me.

    It reminded me of something important, something I can at times forget in this hectic world in which we live. It reminded me of what advent is about, and it is simply this:
    We place our hand in God’s hands but more than that He places His hand in ours.

    Isn't that what this season is about?

    Holding hands with God?

    God reaches out to us with his tiny fingers which look for the world like the chubby hands of a newborn baby lying in a manger.

    And that tiny grasp is enough to acknowledge what is here, through the fog and the fog is lifted to see ourselves standing on the shores of glory

    It is enough to move us toward the future, a future bright with the glow of knowing smiles
    It is enough to fill our hearts with love, a love for all, a love for myself in spite of the discouragement of sin and pain and death
    It is enough to recapture the innocence of our lost selves
    It is enough to open our arms to the needs of others
    It is enough
    This is my prayer:
    that your love may increase ever more and more
    in knowledge and every kind of perception,
    to discern what is of value,
    so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.
    This is my prayer … today.

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  4. Rector's Conference
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
    December 1, 2015

    There was a story in the news yesterday about two ladies who were taking a walk over the weekend in Los Angeles. They heard a faint noise which sounded like a cat but one of the women insisted it was a baby crying. They investigated. Soon they found a hole covered with asphalt and garbage. In the hole was a newborn baby, maybe one day old. It was a little girl. Her parents left her there. Earlier this week, a man in Kansas City was charged with murdering his seven year old son and attempting to feed his little body to the pigs he kept. For years the little boy had been suffering abuse at the man’s hands. What can we say about a world in which these things happen? What can we say about a world, an advanced, civilized world in which people abort their babies? Around one million infants lost their lives in this country this year because of abortion. What are we to say about a society where studies indicate that ten percent of our elderly people are subject to physical abuse at the hands of their so-called caretakers? What can we say about a world in which seemingly normal people walk into restaurants and blow themselves up in order to kill others in the name of God?  What can we say about a people who are twittering their lives away, posting pictures of their thanksgiving dinner or their Black Friday bargains while such things are going on?

    We stand today, just over the threshold of a new liturgical year. We are once again in the aliveness of the advent season, a season of bracing chill and of future promise. In many ways, for those in the Church it is the true “new year”.  And what do we do in the new year? We reevaluate our lives. Such must be the case. We are called as Christian men and women to continually reevaluate our lives. Who are we? What are we doing here? Why do we engage the mission we engage? These are important questions but they are not the only questions. Reevaluation means that we also must ask ourselves these questions: What is the best way for us to engage the world? What is the condition of the world in which this mission of Christ finds itself? I would say that this continual emanation of the relationship between my discipleship and the condition of the world is the very essence of following Christ today. As such we must always realize that we are standing continually on a new threshold. Every day is new. Each day should be new. Each day is a kind of advent.

    Yet, the world is crying out. For example, we witness daily the problem of racism in this country, the question of whether men and women can respect one another when they are of different ethnic backgrounds. We see the problem at so many levels, but in actuality, it is the level of the spiritual that is the most problematic. We can talk all we want about the social and cultural roots of racism, but ultimately it is a spiritual question of whether we have the ability within ourselves to respect our brothers and sisters. I am thinking about the words of our Holy Father earlier this week: Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself. And yet that still exists doesn’t it. We see it also in our growing distrust of Islam, a religion built on the foundations of love and peace like our own and yet often distorted by some minority of its own advocates to messages of hatred and distrust. We know that and yet what can we say about our own co-religionists who use the name of Christ to hate and discriminate against their brothers and sisters. What can we say about those within our own Church who despise others because of their particular beliefs whether those beliefs are so-called traditional or liberal?

    The world is crying out, crying out also against a kind of misguided nationalism that seeks to further our alienation with the rest of the world, to close our borders to the needs of others. I think of the poem of Georgiana Schuyler which was composed for a bronze plaque found today on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor:
    Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
    Are we ready to meet the homeless, the refugee, the tempest tossed? I hope so. I hope that is our creed as well and that we are encouraging our social order to establish itself on Christian principals. We are rightly fearful of terrorism. Terrorism is an awful evil, but it is my hope that in preventing terrorist ideas from spreading in this country, and we must prevent it, that we not evolve into a kind of terrorism that doesn’t consider the needs of the other as persons, but only as fodder that represents something else, an ideology. There is such a thing as terrorism of the spirit, terrorism of the mind. Racism is a kind of terrorism as well as nationalism.

    The world is crying out. Look around and see what we see. Every day 30 people die by handgun violence in the US. Please note I am not advocating for gun control. I follow the argument that if we outlaw guns only outlaws would have guns. That is true. What I am asking is why we live in a society that turns to violence and indeed killing to solve its problems. We can take away guns but if we have not solved the question of our DESIRE to hurt and destroy we have accomplished nothing. We need to look toward the deeper problem. Why do people turn to violence? Why are we so alienated from one another that we see physical destruction as the norm. Is the statistic like the one I just cited not also a kind of terrorism? Domestic terrorism is the condition of a place that day by day is confronted with both ultimate privilege and ultimate depravity. It forces us to ask the question as to whether or not our complete preoccupation with pleasure, entertainment, wealth, leisure as not led us down a path of violence. How much of the violence in our country do we experience because of greed and the desire for something else. How can we live in a place that casually watches as a nine year old boy is shot in gang violence as a particular victim in Chicago? Is that a sign of a culturally and morally upright nation? The death of Tyshon Lee at the hands of Corey Morgan is horrendous. The gang member shot the little boy in the head.

    Now, in the face of all of this, all of this unfolding for us as another advent makes its presence known, Jesus stands today on the shore of a sea. As we heard in yesterday’s Gospel he is calling to us: Follow me. Who is he calling? He is calling his disciples. Who were they? Men who were nothing in the eyes of the world. Yesterday we heard the call of St. Andrew a fisherman taken from among his people to serve a new cause, the cause of a new vision. Those disciples were called from their place in the world to serve a new vision, the vision of Christ, a vision of peace, a vision of justice, a vision of life, a vision of dreaming, and a vision of truth. They were called away from what was familiar to them, what was comfortable for them and they offered all. They gave everything. They held nothing back. They were not concerned about their comfort. They died for the message of Jesus.

    Here is the challenge for us today. Do you think that in coming to the seminary, that being a deacon, that being a priest or religious that you have given everything? Ask the question again. What have you given? Or perhaps you may ask a more pertinent question: what are you holding back. As we stand at the threshold Jesus asks: what have you given, what are you giving, what are you willing to give? If we are honest, really very little. Have we truly suffered any hardship being here? Do we think that our little acts of self-denial, such as living a celibate life, are the reason that we should cloak ourselves in the useless pursuits which eat up so much of our time? Do we say to ourselves: Look at how I have sacrificed being here. I deserve X or Y. When we realize that not only do we deserve nothing for the petty sacrifices we have already offered, but realize instead that God requires something else, he requires our life poured out in service even to the point of death. When we realize that, we have gained a starting place to discipleship. When we realize that we are mere sojourners in this world, that this world is not our destination, that world politics are as passing fancies, that the values that the world affords are as dust in the wind, then we have gained a starting place for discipleship.

    Jesus stands today in the shores of our future and he says: Follow me. What does that call mean? How far are we willing to go?

    I am thinking again of the pope’s visit to Africa last week...
    What was his message? Here is what he had to say in one of his many talks:
    One of the essential characteristics of this vocation to perfection is the love of our enemies, which protects us from the temptation to seek revenge and from the spiral of endless retaliation. Jesus placed special emphasis on this aspect of the Christian testimony. Those who evangelize must therefore be first and foremost practitioners of forgiveness, specialists in reconciliation, experts in mercy
    It was a message of mercy. Is that not a message we need to hear today? We know of the things I was speaking of earlier. We know about racism and nationalism, terrorism and crime. We know about it but, brothers and sisters, we cannot let those things consume us. As Christian men and women we are called to a life of mercy, and if we lay down our lives for that message, so be it. I am no kind of Christian if I cannot say today with full confidence that I am willing to die for the message of the Gospel. I am willing to die, but I can assure you of this as well. I am not willing to die on the altar of political posturing, or the pursuit of personal power. I am not willing to die for Clinton or Trump. I am not willing to die for anything other than the pureness of the Gospel message and the thing is, often it is my own failings or faults that must be cleansed if the pureness of that message is not to be made manifest.

    I can tell you something you already know, some of you know it very well. I am not perfect. I am a sinner. I can be judgmental. I can be hasty in my decision making. I can be impatient. I know this about myself. But I can tell you this as well. I don’t want to be that way. I want to serve God and Him alone and in that service to pour out my life for the Church and for you, its members. I desire this although I may not always achieve it. I know that I am weak, but I also know with Saint Paul that when I am weak in myself, then I am strong in Christ who came among us not only to make us strong but to give us the faith and the courage to stand up for the truth. The truth, and the truth alone will set us free. That must be our constant pursuit and if we have other pursuits those things must be put aside.  We must be men and women of endless, fatiguing service.

    Finally this evening, as I do each year, I would like to offer a challenge. If you are a veteran you have heard this spiel before. I hope you can hear it anew tonight.

    As we approach the end of the semester, I want to offer some ideas about the best way to spend your Christmas vacation. You will have almost a month to consider the things you are going to do and I would like to offer that you place foremost in your mind this idea: Do not plan to rest at all. In the coming weeks, during this “festive” time of year God has given you a unique opportunity for evangelization. Use it. Plan to offer your services in very menial ways in the parish, clean things, prepare things, fold things. Serve the early morning Masses during the week and use that opportunity to insure your Holy Hour. Pray your office faithfully. It is a good thing to learn how to pray the office well on your own. I get tired of hearing how the office is neglected during breaks. Pray!

    Use the opportunities you have this holiday to visit the forgotten, to visit shut-ins and folks in nursing homes who may have few people to be with during this season. During Christmas, plan to serve at every Mass, if that means being away from your family for a few hours, that is what it means. Try not to ask anything for yourself this Christmas. Nobody here needs anything for Christmas, least of all a new electronic gadget or a new video game. If you get gifts, plan to give most of them away. Give your money away. You say: I need money, I’m a seminarian. Neither God, nor your diocese, or the rector is going to let you starve. Practice charity. This season offers you an opportunity to practice the kind of stamina you will need to be a good priest. Read, pray, work. These are the cornerstones of priestly life and you can all do it. The work needs you. Little baby Jesus could not walk or talk. You can be his ambassador. How can we fail to accept an invitation like that? Please plan to return here in January exhausted. Know of my prayers and the prayers of the whole faculty and staff as you go out to share the Good News of Christ’s coming among us. I will be praying for you and your families every day. Our task is to keep the faith in a troubled world. If we can remain faithful to that task then there is hope and hope is what this season is about.



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Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB

Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB, is president-rector of Saint Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN. A Benedictine monk, he is also an assistant professor of systematic theology. A Mississippi native, Fr. Denis attended Saint Meinrad College and School of Theology, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1989 and a Master of Divinity in 1993. From 1993-97, he was parochial vicar for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Memphis, TN. He joined the Saint Meinrad monastery in August 1997. Fr. Denis also attended the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, where he received a master’s degree in theology in 2002, a licentiate in sacred theology in 2003, and doctorates in sacred theology and philosophy in 2007.

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