1. Immaculate Conception
    December 8, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    Where shall we start? In a dark world? In a cave somewhere in the outposts of civilization? In a barren field, somewhere on the outskirts of town? In a drug den in some nameless city? In an emergency room?

    Where shall we start? In the middle of a fight? In a conundrum?

    Where does the story of our Fall begin? Does it begin in the dirt from which we were created? Does it begin with some naked worm that got picked up in our primordial matter?

    Where shall we begin to think about persons, about personality? Do we begin with Adam’s eyes, with Eve’s smile? Was there tragedy already foretold in the smile or reflected in the eyes?

    They came into the world, just appearing. They were given everything, not even knowing for what to ask. They had it all and they fell. They fell hard, hard upon the ground from which they came.

    How can there be anything, any thinking, after the Fall? After that forbidden tree and its voluptuous, sticky ripeness, its intoxication, its pure, adulterated … temptation?

    How can there be anything outside of God’s promise, his love, his comfort, his perfection?

    How can we think about uprightness when the bend in the collective spine is so pronounced? How can we look up to the stars when my sinning hand, my corrupt arm, is poised before my eyes?

    How can we be something when our something stands on the other side of a chasm, a chasm that can hardly be breached by sight, much less by physical exertion?

    Where are you the Lord said to Adam?

    Where are you the Lord says to us. He asks us where we are. Do we know where we are?

    Are we free men and women or are we wrapped in the adamantine chains of our parents?

    Are we free men and women or are we predestined?

    Are we free men and women or do we hesitate to taste the air of liberty even if we could sniff it out.

    Do we prize the wasteland? Are we heaped in piles only upon the barren rocks of our lack of collective imagination?

    Brothers and sisters, do we even want to stand up?

    And so for generations, for ages upon ages, for fourteen generations, and then fourteen generations and then fourteen generations, they came, the searchers came, the prophets came, and the judges came. They all came and their tears showered the barren ground, they wept out the bitterness of exile, slavery, hopelessness.

    For fourteen generations and then, fourteen more, they plowed out their frustration as their eyes surveyed the chasm and the image of God became dimmer, greatly dimmer.

    They searched and squinted across time and could not find, could not imagine the promise.

    Like serpents, on our bellies we crawled. We tasted dirt.

    And there was nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

    And then … One day, in God’s own fiat, he sent an angel. An angel departed from the imperium, far away. An angel departed, full of furtive feathers, feathers scampering across the skies like flights of loose birds.

    An angel departed and went to the most obscure place on the earth. He went, not to Eden or the east of Eden, not to the halls of power, not to Rome, not to Jerusalem.

    Perhaps he needed a map, but he went to Nazareth.

    Now … Here is the mud house. Here is the hotness of the day. Here is the open window. Here is the rag before the door. Here is the darkness lurking within, the darkness no lamp can relieve. Here is the loamy scent. Here is the girl. Here is the girl dressed in her only robe. Here is the girl, now cowering in the corner. Here is the girl long prepared. Here is the girl miraculously, immaculately conceived. Here is the girl with curiosity in her eyes.

    It is curious, it is not usual for a great feathered angel to insinuate himself into your house. He had to scale down for the dark and loamy hut in Nazareth could not hold the imperium, or even its ambassador, or so it seemed.

    Hail full of grace. Did she know she was full of grace? Had her mother told her she was full of grace?

    Hail, the Lord is with you. It seemed like it must be for how can God’s ambassador, this great winged creature get into her house?

    There is a message and here it is: You, unknown one, you, prepared one, you are about to right the wrong inflicted so long ago on the world by our parents. You, you small person, person lurking in the dark corners, you are about to correct the tilt of the world, a world slouching for countless generations toward oblivion.

    The generations were slouching toward oblivion and they now depended, we now depended upon the response of a girl, prepared certainly, but also free.

    The world held its breath for a moment, we, in anticipation held our breath for a moment, future ages held their breath for a moment. Nature held her breath for a moment. Did God hold his breath for a moment?

    Just a moment

    And then … Let it be.

    And now everything is reversed and the imperium, appears in time. God appears again in time,  not traipsing around a garden, not standing in the fog on the other side of a chasm. God stands in time as an embryo, a zygote. God became a cell embedded in the womb of the prepared one. God became a freak, one of us.

    And the angel swept away, leaving molting feathers in his wake.

    One greater than angels was here now, crouching in potentia in the womb of an obscure girl.

    And now brothers and sisters, now because of the fiat, because of the yes.

    We can stand upright.

    We can stand on two feet.

    We can survey the world with undimmed eyes.

    Because of the yes.

    We can look at ourselves in the mirror, in the clear, still water of the baptizing place again.

    We can look at ourselves with God’s pride.

    Because of the yes

    We can say yes

    We can say yes

    Will we say yes?

    Will we put aside the crippling heritage and look to the promise?

    Will we say yes with outstretched hands as the child of Mary comes to us today?

    The child of Mary comes to us today. He comes to us today like the rising SON shining across the sky, ready to brighten the dark places of our lives.

    Here again is what St. Paul said to the Ephesians
    In him we were also chosen.
    Destined in accord with the purpose of the One
    Who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will
    So that we might exist for the praise of his Glory
    We who first hoped … in Christ.

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  2. First Sunday of Advent
    December 3, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    Watch

    It is a stark word, a powerful word that echoes across the landscape of time, that resounds across the barriers of our own time.

    Watch

    And yet it is prescient, is it not?

    Watch

    What do we need to watch?

    Watch for our world? Does our world not need watching, in the midst of swirling confusion, in the midst of political rancor, of wars and rumors of war? In the midst of chaos and criminality? Must we not keep an eye on the world? Should we care or not care?

    What do we need to watch?

    Watch for our families? What is the condition of our families? Having come from our break we must know the wonder that family is, the joy, the consolation. Must we not also acknowledge the challenges, the brokenness, the alienation that is sometimes there, that sometimes lurks behind the holiday traditions, disappointment crouching down behind the cranberry sauce.

    What do we need to watch?

    Watch for our community, watch as our brothers here grow and change through the year, the years of formation? Who of us here is the same as when he arrived, however long ago. And of course those of us who hang about are in awe of what we have seen in the careful watch we have given each of you as you arched, as you ached, as you wrestled into the new identity, a new ontological reality.

    What do we need to watch?

    Watch for ourselves? What is there on the surface? What is there deep down, in your heart, in your mind? What is there that we need to watch? What is there that is within the vision of the watchful God, the God who first surveyed heaven and earth, the God who first knew the faltering steps of child-parents, Adam and Eve and then children through countless generations.

    It is amazing to me the selective blindness that can rend the self, making us helpless in the face of our own need to watch.

    Watch

    The admonition of Jesus in today’s Gospel is also an admonition to us, called to minister

    Be aware. What do you know? What do you see when you look around? Be aware of the people around you reaching out to grasp your hand through the crowd of those seeking, those standing on the promise of the love of God each of us represents. Be aware and understand.

    Understand what you are doing. These are the words of the ordination rite. Know what you are doing. If I can say anything about my ministry, my mission here in this seminary, it is precisely this: The need to help you know what you are doing, the need to help you realize your vocations, to make those vocations living witnesses to the power of Christ in the world. Understand what you are doing and comprehend.

    Comprehend as you can, as you must, the mystery that we celebrate, the mystery that your life will celebrate, the mystery that comes down from heaven into the hearts of men. Comprehend as you can God’s creation, the intricacies of creation peeling forth across the winter skies these days, like angelic wings. Comprehend and love.

    Can you love? Can you forget for a moment the broken expectations of so-called manliness and love, ridiculously, embarrassingly?

    Love with broken hearts. Love with chastised hearts. Love with yearning heats. Love with sincere hearts. Love with hearts careening across the earth, touching down, hearts touching down in places famed and obscure, in little towns dotting Oklahoma and Wyoming? Can you love with hearts touching down in homes and offices, in schools and neighborhoods?
    Perhaps the most important watchfulness we can realize today is the need to recognize the spark of love that fills our soul, fills our minds in the presence of our brothers and sisters here.

    O my brothers and sisters: Watch

     Here in this season of advent we have the opportunity for something else, not just observation but renewal. Do we need to be renewed? We always need to be renewed. We need a revival.

    Today as we inaugurate a new year, can it be a year of revival for us? It must be a revival for us.

    Revive us Lord.  Complete us Lord

    Help us Lord

    Give to us Lord

    Fill us Lord

    Grant us Lord

    Witness to us Lord

    Enlighten us

    Love us, O God, love us

    Today in the inauguration of a new year, and, please God, every day of the coming year, for years to come, forever and ever. Amen.

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  3. Christ the King
    November 26, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    As any of you who preach regularly know, sometimes the grand arc of structure in a homily eludes the preacher. We cannot see the final vision, only the parts and the thread of commonality, well, sometimes it fails to materialize. This is a reality I call “random thoughts” and so this evening, as we close the celebration of this Solemnity of Christ the King, I have a few random thoughts.

    The first random thought is this: My father, who was a lifelong military man, loved “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, this, in spite of the fact that he was a died in the wool southerner with a backlog of many generations and of course, Julia Ward Howe’s great song was the battle cry of the Union army during the Civil War. I think my father loved it because it expresses so much about country, and patriotism but also about discipleship, our discipleship. I am thinking now about the last verse:
    In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
    With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
    As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free

    Of course, Julia Ward Howe is speaking of the soldiers of the Union army. But isn’t she also intimating something about us as well? Christ died for us. Christ was a king, yes, but he took the form of a slave, being born in our likeness. He died for us a death no king should have to die. And yet, he did, he did for us. Now, let us die to make our brothers and sisters free. Let us take up the mantle of our king and remember that what he did for us, we are called to do for others, to pour out our lives on the altar, to remember them in each offering of the sacrifice, his sacrifice.

    As he died to make us holy, we die so that the freedom of Christ may penetrate our world, through our ministry, through our work, through our identity, and yes, through our willingness to lay down our lives for others, to lay down our lives for the world. I think my father, a great disciple of Christ, knew that the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was not only a wartime chant, it was a discipleship chant. It still gives me chills today when I hear it.

    A second random thought that came to me as I was watching “The Crown” over the break. For those yet uninitiated, the Netflix show is about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II from the beginning. In one of the early episodes, the new queen is speaking to her grandmother, Queen Mary, about the responsibilities of her office. The elder queen tells her young granddaughter that the success of the monarchy depends upon the queen, or the king having no opinions at all, of absolute impartiality. There is no room for passion in the monarch. How very different of course, from what we experience in this feast. The message of the Gospel is a message of involvement.
    Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.
    Brothers and sisters what are we to do? I think the message is very clear, we must do something. You know, over the years I have come to discern something essential about our life. Our life, our discipleship, our meaning, our BEING in Christ is not about success, at least not success as we commonly, very commonly, think about it. Our BEING in Christ is about offering, it is about sacrifice. It is about trying and trying. It is about experimenting and failing. It is about standing and stumbling. It is about courage. It is about perseverance. Our minds must always be turned to questions like: What is next? What can I do differently? What can I do better? How can I serve more exhaustingly? There is no anonymity here. There is no cowering here. There is no fear here. What is here? Christ the King is here and he strengthens me for the journey that is ahead, a journey that is about pouring out and taking chances and failing and succeeding and doing everything we can to avoid perfect neutrality in matters of God.

    Finally, there was a random thought that came from this line in the Epistle:
    The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
    Of course, it reminded me of Harry Potter. Unlike some, I do not think of Harry Potter as a great Christian allegory. I don’t think there is that much in it except a really wonderful story. But that one line, Harry discovers written on the gravestone of his parents summarizes everything.
    The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
    Brothers and sisters, in these last days of November we have come to the waning of autumn and with that autumn and the advent of winter, the approach of a new liturgical year. Isn’t it prescient that just as the whole world is falling asleep, we in the Church are waking up? Just as death overcomes the world in which we live each day, life spring newly in the person of the Savior, about to be born for us in obscure terms, in a near-forgotten place, to a stumbling group of people. In that obscurity however, there is a kind of kingship. In that “smallness” One comes among us to change the course of human affairs, not by political wrangling (this is no Caesar or Herod) but by offering. The king is king by offering. We share his kingship by offering.
    Whatever you do to the least, you do to me.
    That is the reality
    The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
    That is the promise.

    Brothers and sisters as we stand tonight on the cusp of a new reality, the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ made manifest for us, as we stand here tonight in our randomness, let us thank God.

    Indeed, in our randomness, let us thank Almighty God. 

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  4. Mass for Candidacy
    November 9, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB 


    Brothers and sisters,
    Do you not know that you are the temple of God,and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 
    Every year at this time in the context of this Mass, I remark on the proximity of the secular season of election to this ceremony related to candidacy. I do it every year so those of you who have been around for a while, like our Third Year men here tonight have heard it all before. I have heard it all before. Candidacy and election, what do they mean?
    Candidacy and election: How are they interrelated?
    Candidacy and election: Blah, blah, blah.

    Tonight, in the context of our celebration, but likewise in light of the feast we observe today, the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, Mater et Caput Ecclesiam, I wonder if there is another twist and perhaps that twist comes in the reading from Ezekiel:
    Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.
    Now the prophet, himself a rather wild man, is offering something else.

    Here we see something different.
    Here we see images of fecundity, of fruitfulness.
    Here we find a kind of beauty, a beauty that may transcend the somewhat raucous language of candidacy and politics.
    In other words, I think …
    We learn something different about candidacy from the readings tonight.
    We learn that ours is a different kind of candidacy. It is a candidacy that seeks something aside from personal gain, a calling to something that strips away the façade of the eternal I, the resilient me and looks for a different kind of election.

    This is a candidacy without limits, the limits of gain and the limits of loss.

    This is a candidacy that seeks something beyond.

    Tonight our brothers are called to candidacy and like their secular counterparts it is equally a call to election, BUT an election that promises not personal reward, rather an election that:
    Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary.
    What it is this election? It is …
    Election to service in which we will may falter, but will not fail.
    Election to prayer the words on which we will stumble but remain ever faithful, thumbing through old breviaries day after day and year after year, experiencing in every recitation of the psalm, something new, something unexpected.

    It is …
    Election to holiness that is often halting, hiccupping like celibate socks at the end of the folding process but nevertheless rewarding, rewarding like fresh air breathed into tight lungs.

    It is …
    Election to sacrifice that sometimes looks like excess.

    It is …
    Election to martyrdom that enwraps us at times like random autumnal leaves swirling yellow and maroon .

    Why?
    Because …
    Tonight we have a call. All of us have a call on this feast because we realize …
    The dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran is not about a building, or at least not only about a building. It is about a people. It is about us. It is a call to be something, to own something, to desire something.

    It is a call to dedicate ourselves, all of us and perhaps in a particular way our brothers who seek election, who are named candidates 
    It is a call to …
    Dedicate the temple of your body. A call to learn to use your body in a way that surpasses the corporeality of this world, the dead-end corporeality of useless desire, of lustfulness, heartbreak and pain. Learn to use your body in an exhausted way, in a way in which your limbs are worn out in service of Christ and his people, use your body as an alter Christus, as a broken altar of the spirit and then you will know something.
    Drive away death. Drive away waste. Drive away gluttony. Drive away perfidy.

    And then … 
    Dedicate the temple of your mind. Learn to occupy your mind with higher matters. Learn the gift of sobriety. Learn to use your mind to creative purpose and not for mindlessness, pursuits of uselessness. Dedicate the temple of your mind by training your mind in complete, exhaustive service to the proclamation of the Gospel.
    Drive away all laxity, all laziness of thought. Drive away anxiety, and pain, and regret and despair.

    And then …
    Dedicate the temple of your spirit. Learn to find ways to make your spirit catch fire. Learn to seize the art of God. Learn the endless fascination of knowing and wanting the good for your brothers here, your brothers and sisters everywhere.
    Drive away the gaseous specter of listlessness, of doubt about God, of doubt about yourself, of doubt about yourself and God.

    Brothers ask yourselves tonight: what do you want …
    What do you want your life to be? Do you seek baseness or beatitude?
    What do you want your Church to be? Do you seek maintenance or magnificence?
    What do you want your world to be? Do you seek resignation or renaissance?
    What do you want afterlife to be? Do you seek death, or do you seek the Divine Vision, the fullness of that wonder, that marvel which is already working itself out in your lives.

    You may not know it, but I see it, we see it. Seek to make that greater. Seek to make that more vivid. Seek to find a true home in the Church. Seek to expand the horizons of your imagination. Seek to make your life more somber and cheerful. Seek to make yourself more cultured and more common. Seek God. Seek the Lord.
    This is your candidacy.

    We look at you, all of you and see hope, we see love.
    Do you want love?
    Do you want hope?
    Do you want friendship with God?

    And if you want love, if you want true friendship, if you want the love of God and the true friendship of God that transcends everything and makes every relationship I am in something beautiful for the Almighty.
    If you want that then you are already building something magnificent.
    Desire that, want it because …

    The people of God want it too. The people of God are yearning and crying out to you
    The people of God are looking for leaders
    The people of God are seeking those who can take them to a higher place

    This is not a game, brothers. This is real. This is serious. This is life and death. Your candidacy tonight is not about a base election. Your candidacy tonight is about the life and death of God’s people. It is about your life and death.
    Your life depends upon this candidacy in a very focused way. It tells you who you are. It fulfills a promise uttered long ago, in a language near forgotten:
    Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.
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  5. Rector’s Conference
    October 29, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    Perhaps you are becoming a bit weary of conferences. Perhaps I am too. Nevertheless, the calendar beckons and so tonight, I would like to conclude my reflections on the ideals of Benedictine life for diocesan priests. Tonight I would like to consider another of the vows, unlike those I have previously considered, this vow is pretty much the same for all religious, and indeed, I would hold for all diocesan priests. It is the vow of chastity.

    What does Saint Paul say?
    The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.
    Those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires
    There are some in the Church today that would like to make a great distinction between the vow of chastity and the promise of celibacy made by the diocesan priest. Perhaps I am not as theologically sophisticated as some of these interlocutors. I would say they boil down to essentially the same.

    At the gross anatomy level, they both offer the same thing, a prohibition, a foreboding forbidding of physical intimacy, an opportunity for the ultimate ascetical compromise, denying one’s body the natural urges that it has toward procreation all for the sake of the kingdom. But at a finer level, a more refined level, they both offer something quite different, something nuanced, something quite beautiful.

    Let me begin with a brief excurses on sexuality and in particular, the sexuality of the priest. Sexuality is the core of human being. Sexuality is our way of doing what we must do, that is relate, regard, interrelate, with others. No man is an island entire of himself. So says the poet, John Donne. He knew that because his own life was poured out in service to his fellow men and women, as a clergyman, as an archbishop, Donne knew that the fulfillment of his life depended upon his being available for other people. He also knew that availability was found in the profoundly religious aspects of his ministry, but even more significantly, in his being there. The sexuality of the priest is first and foremost, first and foremost. Our priesthood gets lived out in the dynamic of our sexual energy. The urge, the surge toward the other is what offers us the energy of the priesthood.

    What does this look like in daily life?

    Here is Saint Paul again:
    The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
    It looks like the joy of getting up in the morning, or perhaps more in keeping with our context here, the joy of staying up late, not to revel in our own solitude, and whatever activities that solitude begets, but to be with others, to interchange with others, to be there for others, to serve others. Is that to say that we introverts are at a distinct disadvantage here? Not at all. what we introverts lack in energy, I would say we make up for in depth. We want to be there deeply for others, to suffer with others, to be an offering for others, not too many at a time, but then, it doesn’t take too many, it only takes one. Extroverts live out their sexuality in the crowds. They love the crowds. That too is good ministry. That too is the work of God. Our sexuality, our relationality is comprised of offering what we have as a gift and giving it generously no matter what form it takes.

    Sexual energy in diocesan life gets lived out in the thousand events of the day. Here is something to bear in mind for the priest and future priest. My encounters during the day are predicated on two things. The first is my own mood, my own interest, my own energy, my own investment of time. How willing am I to compromise mood? How willing am I to chasten my interests? How willing am I to expend energy, perhaps at the end of the day when I think I have nothing left to give? What investment of time am I willing to make? That is the first part, but the second part is more tricky. What does the other need? How often I have found myself on a standard end of day walkabout and popping my head into someone’s open door, I have discovered need. There is a phone call just received. There is a temptation just overcome. There is pain or there is sorrow. There is just confusion. Here is where my interests and my energy meet your need. And of course, as in any exchange we may like a bit of reciprocation. Brothers, do not count on it. We are called to serve, not to be served. We are called to give and not receive. We are called to pour out our lives, even late at night and for what, the building up of ourselves, our egos? Certainly not, unless we have learned the key to a healthy sexuality, unless myself and my ego are dependent upon service and that alone. I become my own congratulations, by living my life in integrity and not for gain. Gain is in the service, not in the reward for service.

    A second aspect of the sexuality of the priest is that it is the heart of pastoral care. In our context here we are in the business of cardiac correction, of fixing hearts. We know there are different kinds of priests. First there is the open-hearted priest, the priest whose life is an open book, whose zeal for ministry supersedes all additional claims on him. This is what is needed today. In the Church today, we do not need bureaucrats, we do not need great men of business, we do not even need excellent teachers. In the Church today we need more open-hearted and generous priests willing to die on the pyre of their own offering of self.

    We also know that in the Church today there can be closed hearted priests. These men find meaning in the priesthood not in their lives of service but in the external trappings of priestly identity. These priests are cynical about everything in the Church, including themselves. These priests have a difficult time applauding others because deep down, they cannot applaud themselves. Closed hearted priests wish to cast the life of the Church in their own image and then bicker endlessly on twitter or Facebook about how the Church simply refuses to listen to them, all to the detriment of the Church, in their opinion. I would say to the detriment of their souls. These priests are not in touch with their sexuality. They are frequently deceiving themselves and others about what they really need, to be loved, to be accepted. These are the closed hearted priests.

    And there are the broken hearted priests, priests who have opened their hearts and have been hurt. These are the priests who have tried and failed, and then taken that failure upon themselves. These are the priests that long for something and feel they will never have it and so they wander aimlessly in their own imaginations. If only this … If only that … And of course, this and that never come. I tried and I failed and the pain was so great, I can never try again. My broken heart cannot be fixed, not on this life and so my priesthood flounders. Disappointment becomes my calling card. There is nothing that the future can hold for me.

    This is different from the heart broken priest. This is something else altogether, the heart broken priest is the priest who, like every breathing person, has known disappointment. He has known disappointment and that disappointment has made him a stronger man, a man more nuanced, more real. Nuance is the key to success in the priesthood and it is a virtue that begins with acknowledging heart break. We acknowledge it and we thank God for it. If my heart is broken, I know that it is there, so said a certain tin man of my acquaintance.

    A third aspect of our sexuality is our need to encounter. I know this, that self-understanding and knowledge of the world is essential to a fruitful priesthood. In other words, good priesthood built upon a solid foundation of celibacy is the fruit of wisdom. Wisdom is merely the understanding of the various types of encounter that we meet. What are these encounters?
    First there is an encounter with yourself. Of all the people in the world, please do not lie to yourself. Do not tell lies to yourself about yourself. Will this lead to suffering, a shivering, self-awareness? It most certainly will, but our encounters with the souls of others, that intimate encounter must proceed from an honest place in ourselves.

    The worst kind of codependence and enmeshment is the one who uses a privileged spiritual relationship to fulfill one's own need, a need about which they are not honest with themselves or with the other. If you are falling in love with a parishioner, for God's sake do not compound the problem by trying to be a priest to her. Do not confuse in her mind your infatuation and the service of Christ in the Gospel. 

    Celibacy, chastity prepares me to look into the mirror and not only understand what I see, but like what I see, warts and all. The authentic and truthful encounter with myself allows me to encounter you, encounter the other in all honesty. In all honesty I know who I am, in all honesty I hope to look to you. Chastity prepares us for this encounter by stripping away any false ideals of romanticism, false understandings of what our relationship is about. We encounter the other, I encounter you, also when I am willing to accept you as you are, in your weakness, in your doubt and in your pain. I want to accept you as you are. I want to lead you someplace else, to a place of peace, a place of true personal justice. I can tell you this: The greatest pain I feel in life is to experience your pain and to know that I have no power to take it away. I see your pain probably closer than you realize, and it hurts that you must live there. Every pastor knows this. Every confessor knows this. There is nothing more heartbreaking than to hear confessions week after week and know that for some internal obstacle the penitent cannot accept God’s love and forgiveness, that the confessional is not a place of peace but a place to rehearse their deepest sense of unworthiness, week after week. Here we must rely on God’s grace. Here we must depend upon his mercy.

    Encounter with self and encounter with the other leads to a real encounter with the Church, not in its institutional forms, its bureaucracy, its codes of conduct, but to the Church living and breathing in its members. An encounter with the Church is not an encounter with perfection. It is, rather, an encounter with the perfection that comes to be in the realization of brokenness. Encounter with the Church is an encounter with the broken Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Encounter with the Church is encounter with his blood, poured out in the Mass certainly, but also poured out in the streets of the world, in our streets, in the violence that sometimes overwhelms us. Encounter with the Church is encounter with God in prayer and that encounter is not always neat and formal. Sometimes our prayer is raw. Sometimes our prayer is a pouring out of sweat and blood, just as Jesus experienced on the cross. Sometimes our prayer is hoarse whispers, realizations from the back of our throats that comes from that vacant place that celibacy and chastity have forged.

    This is a truly personal encounter with God. This is God in his bathrobe and slippers and us in our nakedness.  This is God as the prophets learned he was, hoarse and whispering to us on the side of a cliff. This is God in the cold places of life. This is God in the hot places of life. This is God on the verge of nervous breakdowns. This is God at the very gates of purgatory, calling to us. That siren call my brothers is the call of a lover. It is the call of one who desires to know us above all things. And we can know him above all things. We can experience him deeply, tremblingly, if we open ourselves to him.
    If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.
    This personal encounter with God, the possibility of this exclusive encounter at the most basic level of self is our sexuality and it is our promise of celibacy, our vow of chastity. Brothers if we can make that connection then our lives are unfolding already according to the mystery of God’s plan. If we never make that connection we will never fully understood the vocation to which we have been called.

    None of us are perfect.

    I am not perfect. You are not perfect, but if we can learn to be imperfect together, then there is hope, a great deal of hope that through our celibacy, through our chastity we can make something beautiful for God. Sometimes we are caught up in that eternal I.

    But this I do know, in my best moments, hopefully very often, the I gives way to us, to our work, our plans, our dreams, our hopes, our lives, our relationships with God and one another.
    The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.
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  6. October 29, 2017
    St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
    That, I suppose is about the total thing .. heart, soul, mind

    From the Hebrew standpoint it is the totality of the human person, every once, every particle

    And, of course

    We should love God totally and we know we should

    We should love God above any other relationship that we have

    We should love God above any connection we have to physical objects, to bodies, to habits, to 
    practices.

    And here, of course, we do.

    We do, of course, unless, of course, we don’t

    Totality is a theme in today’s readings

    Totality is the reality that we are called to manifest, to give credence to, to assent to in our lives

    Totality is fullness, the fullness of God in the fullness of ourselves, the fullness of a human condition made whole again, anticipated in the Old Testament but made now complete in the blood of Christ, his whole sacrifice for us on the cross.

    Totality is perhaps a thing, a state we have a hard time getting to, but at least, as far as God is concerned, it seems possible

    Then we have the second strophe of the Deuteronomic code

    Love your neighbor as yourself

    Love your neighbor in this way, at this time, under these conditions

    Love your neighbor in season and out of season, when we need him and when we find him tedious

    Love your neighbor through the halcyon days of summer, but more significantly at those low points, those times when we feel as though we have nothing to give ourselves, much less  our neighbor

    We know that in Luke’s Gospel the parable of the Good Samaritan follows hard upon this same passage we have today in Matthew.

    Love your neighbor

    Perhaps this is a bit harder because the neighbor is a bit more rough, a bit more potent an idea than 

    God sometimes is, at least for most folks

    Neighbor is the fellow who lives beside me that plays his music too loud at too late hours of the night.

    Neighbor is the needy seminarian who shows up at my door uninvited and wants a little attention from me when my attention span is too well used already

    Neighbor is the one who needs to cry on my shoulder because the day, the week, the month, the decade has not gone well for him and he needs that most rare of human commodities, a little sympathy

    Neighbor is the one am visitor, the phone call in the night, the awkward text, the fatal message

    Neighbor

    Who is my neighbor?

    Perhaps all of that gives us a bit of a moment for pause.

    It should

    But this is what I want to hone in on

    This little passage that we might overlook as we look at the two big things here.

    The second is like it …

    We must love God in the same way we love our neighbor

    Think about the words of the Lord’s prayer

    God, forgive as we forgive . I’m struck by those words every day

    I am taken aback by Dorothy Day’s assertion that we can love God only as much as we love the one we love the least, love my enemy.

    The second is like it.

    Love, love, you know is so hard. It is so hard to remember moment to moment that we are all touched by divinity, even the troubling one, the trembling one.

    Love, love you know is so inconvenient. We cannot conjure it but we certainly cannot deny its presence. It burns us with the certainty of acid on the tender skin. It enflames us as it should, as it must

    Love, love you know is so un-called-for. It strikes more surely than a great reckoning in a little room. It strikes us. It convicts us. It makes us feel the soul of God, lodged like a stone in our hearts. It makes us pant after mercy, thirst after the luxury of grace

    Love, love you know is so aching. It wells up in us like tears of gentleness. It makes us sigh. It is not romantic, but there is a falling into it. There is a falling in love with God and in that falling in love we fall in love with each other, warts and all.

    That is love and I would like to say that love conquers all but is that always true?

    Don’t we doubt the power of God to forgive? Don’t we mistrust the mercy of God and his compassion? Don’t we lose heart with one another even in our triumphs?

    Don’t we lose faith when faith seemed so staid and so true just this morning, just last night?
    and yet there is love still beckoning us forward, the love of God calling us toward, upward, upward and toward eternity.

    How can we get to that ideal?
    with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
    I would say by little and by little.

    Can we start now? Can we start today?

    Can we be farther along the path tonight than we were earlier this morning?

    Can we be strengthened by the Sacrament we are to receive to realize that the second is like the first?

    Can the first strengthen us for what comes next?


    I hope so. I pray so. For you and for me. For you and for me.

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  7. Graduate Conference - Fall 2017
    October 21, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    I have been spending a great deal of time recently thinking about what motivates us. How do we understand, at a very basic level, who we are? How do we define ourselves, our value in the world, our position?

    Of course, there are many different answers and many different ideas about how such conclusions are reached. Perhaps they are as different as each individual.

    And yet, I do believe they fall into particular categories.

    Some of us define ourselves by our relationships. Am I in a relationship? Am I recovering from a relationship? Do I want to be in a relationship? We know that the permutations of interpersonal encounter can sometimes overwhelm us. We lay awake at night thinking: what does he or she think about me? Do they feel as strongly for me as I for them? Or we may turn that reality around a bit. I am not worthy to be thought of well by so and so. Can I ever meet there expectations? Can they every meet mine? These kinds of thought sometimes permeate them. They even permeate the lives of priests at times, when we find ourselves engaging in various kind of mental gymnastics in order to keep some kind of equilibrium.

    Another aspect of our personal identification is our work. As Benedictines we know that we are sometimes for good and sometimes for ill, defined by our work. We do these things and they define us. Likewise in the world outside of the monastery and seminary. We are defined by our work. Sometimes we are proud of that, and sometimes less so. Sometimes we believe that our work is closely matched to who we are and sometimes that we are merely floundering a world of meaningless labor in order to make ends meet. All of us desire at some level to be defined by our work and yet, we often find this a goal difficult to achieve.

    How am I defined?

    At a more base level, perhaps I am defined by money. How successful has my life been in monetary terms? I become defined by my possessions, what I have and what my neighbor has that I do not have. So much of life seemingly is looking across the fence into the neighbor's backyard and wondering how he was able to afford that pool or that RV. Or perhaps we are defined by less tangible but still infinitely important things like sexuality, or cultural identity, or any other construct.

    How am I defined?

    Is it family, friends, money, job, education, values, neighborhood. It might be any of those things or a combination of those things.

    However, as we advance in the Christian life (and hopefully that is what you are having the opportunity to do here) as we advance in the Christian life there is a growing complexity in our understanding of what is important, a growing complexity and, I would say, a simplicity.

    As Christians and as Catholics, I would say we have only one thing by which to define ourselves and that is the Eucharist.

    Our understanding of  a growing sense of discipleship must lead us to the conclusion that we are only fully defined by our participation at Mass.  Now, I think for us in this theological testing ground, that realization is, at least, theoretically correct. We know we are defined by the Eucharist, whether or not we have fully incorporated that reality into our lives. We are defined by the Eucharist. And yet, what do we practically encounter in our churches.

    Honestly we have to say that it can be a mixed bag. Sometimes the celebration of the Eucharist in parishes is very meaningful. Sometimes it calls us out of ourselves and our daily concerns and into the mystery of Christ lived in the eschatological moment of Holy Communion. Sometimes it does a very good job of reminding us of its centrality in our lives and the million practical ways it defines us.

    Sometimes, however we have a different story.  The celebration of the Eucharist can seem dull. It can seem perfunctory. It can seem to be rushed and watched over by less than diligent ministers. It can seem boring, the worst epithet our modern world can give anything.

    Now, we know at a REAL level, a valid celebration of the Eucharist is none of these things, and yet we can become ensnared in the external ideals and miss the internal truths. What are you experiencing here? I hope that you are experiencing quality education, good fellowship, a meaningful experience of Church, and GOOD LITURGY.

    Tomorrow we will have the privilege of praying together at Mass. This afternoon we will celebrate the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom in the Byzantine chapel (follow your noses) at 4:30. I hope to see you there. Sometimes a mere shifting of rite can give us some new insight into where we are going or where we need to be. Sometimes a new rite can show us what we might be missing if we are too caught up in the tangibles (or the politics) of our Roman Rite. Sometimes we just need a little liturgical reset to get us moving in the right direction again.

    I hope that many of you will join us this afternoon, but I also hope that you might think of this little reflection on values as a way of doing a kind of discipleship reset, something all of us really need every day.


    Peace and blessings to each of you. 

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  8. Mass of Thanksgiving-Fr. Stephen Lawson, OSB
    October 15, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson
    It is a very great honor to be asked to preach today on the occasion of Fr. Stephen’s Mass of Thanksgiving. I have had several chances to visit the community here at Saint Anslem’s through the years. My first time was more than 20 years ago, when I was visiting a young junior (I was also a young junior at the time) and then 7 years ago, I had the privilege of offering a retreat for the community. In those days, Fr. Stephen was a brand new monk. Now, I return for this day. What a good man and what a good new priest you have in Fr. Stephen. I am sure his own family is as proud of him as his monastic family is. In coming back to Manchester, I discovered an interesting bit of trivia, that is, Manchester is a city known for its dead-end streets. Let us pray today that the reputation of the city is not one that will effect the life of our new priest, Fr. Stephen.
    Now the homily.
    A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to reflect upon one of my favorite Church memories from seminary days, the group of women religious known as the Medical Missionary Sisters. Of course the sisters dated from even an earlier time in Church life. They were the products of the 1960’s, those experimental and somewhat heard days of liturgical renewal.
    If you ever knew of these women, you knew also of their most famous song: “I Cannot Come to the Banquet” a masterpiece of liturgical music that resounds to this day.
    Here are the words:
    I cannot come to the banquet, don’t bother me now.
    I have married a wife, I have bought me a cow.
    I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.
    I cannot come to the banquet (musical interlude).
    I cannot come.
    While it is quite evident that these women were medical missionaries and not professors of English, I think their observation is on the money.
    Doesn’t it seem like everyone has a reason for denying gracious invitations.
    We start with the excuses early on.
    The dog ate my homework.
    My grandfather died suddenly (for the ninth time)
    I cannot possibility take gym today with my fragile health
    Of course, as we grow older and grow up, the excuses become even more complicated
    My inner child is suffering
    Memory loss is setting in
    I live in a shame-based patriarchal system
    No one understands me.
    And of course, we are not immune to hearing excuses in Church life.
    I had to miss Mass because a sinkhole swallowed my car
    I do not really care for the choir and the music in the parish
    If I don’t stay home and wait for the Sunday paper, the neighbor’s dog will eat it.
    We know of course that the excuses of life are endless.
    In the Gospel today, the invited folks must have had a slew of excuses, marital, bovine, or, well anything else.
    I just cannot come to your banquet my dear king. There is too much going on.
    Fields, commitments, husbands, wives, livestock are all encompassing. They eat us up, eat us alive.
    And yet we still have the host, the king, let’s just call him God for short asking us for something, a little bit of our time, a little bit of our attention.
    God has provided us with something quite wonderful, something quite extraordinary, something that is bound to enchant us.
    God has prepared something lavish, something sumptuous ,something really embarrassingly over the top.
    Yet, our excuses remain quite rampant and as myriad as the clever curvatures of each one’s mind.
    Now, of course you know we are not talking about a dinner party.
    We are ruminating instead on the eschatological banquet, the great feast of salvation.
    Alright, I cannot come to the banquet. What are our excuses?
    Perhaps you are angry with God, perhaps you feel let down by him, forsaken by him and so you wish to just sit in the proverbial corner while your neighbors feast and celebrate.
    Perhaps you feel you have nothing to celebrate in life. Perhaps you are just tired of trying to find meaning in what the world continuously pours out for you as a meaningless ego trip.
    Perhaps you are conditioned by pride. I don’t want God to give me anything. I will take from this world what I will take because I will take it. We find that we cannot be dependent, cannot be reliant, cannot be vulnerable to love, to the options of grace.
    Perhaps we are conditioned by age. It is too late for me. I have no energy to even try now. I just wish to sit here in the corner and wait for death, slurping down the cold comfort of my infirmity.
    Perhaps I am too poor, to ashamed, not by material poverty, but by the poverty of the spirit that fails to call out: “Abba, Father” because we don’t think our voice is anything special. God does not hear. God does not care
    I cannot come to the banquet.
    Endless excuses.
    None of them very good.
    But here is the thing: God is a generous host.
    God never fails to offer.
    God never backs away from the invitation.
    God never loses faith with us even when our faith wavers like a candle in the wind of life’s precariousness
    God never abandons us, he haunts us through our own stubbornness, our own pride, our own conceit, haunts the backrooms of our imaginations. He haunts us in depression. He haunts us even in sin.
    God never fails to call us. He wants us, wants us profoundly and he calls us as he called Fr. Stephen, years ago, as he called him yesterday in his ordination. He calls in every moment of our lives. He calls us in our wakefulness and in our sleep.
    God never fails to challenge us. Like a good father, he loves us and in loving us wants us to become better people, better Christians, better parents, better monks, better priests.
    God never loses hope, even when the bright beacon of hope seems lost in the fog of an early New Hampshire morning, lost in the fog of the morning after homecoming.
    Here is the Good News today. God loves us and grants us his mercy, his regard, his designation of infinite value even when we occasionally cannot, will not, love ourselves, love him.
    I cannot come to the banquet.
    Not a problem.
    God will bring the banquet to us.
    In the cold corners.
    In the wavering places.
    In the hopelessness.
    God will bring the banquet to us.
    The table is set,
    The candles are lit.
    Our waiter today is Fr. Stephen Lawson, OSB.
    And here in this banquet the LORD of hosts
    will provide for all peoples
    a feast of rich food and choice wines,
    juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
    On this mountain he will destroy
    the veil that veils all peoples,
    the web that is woven over all nations;
    It may seem mere bread and mere wine but it is really something else. It is really falling in love.
    No fear. No self-reproach. No morbid conscience. Fr. Stephen will lead us.
    No grudges. No shame. No hurts. No animosity. No death. No death.
    Here God is all in all. Here we have a place at the table. Here we encounter the Lamb of God who removes all our sins.

    How happy are those called to the supper of the Lamb. Will we come? Will we come today?
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  9. Feast of St. Denis
    October 9, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    You know my spiel by now. You know my shtick related to this Gospel. Let me say it again for the new boys and girls.

    All of us are sons of ditches. All of us.

    It doesn't really matter who you are, who your people are or what you think you might have achieved 

    It doesn't matter how big headed you are, how intelligent, how prone to the vagaries of ideas and ideals

    It doesn't matter if you have something, a car, a house, a big portfolio

    It doesn't matter if you have several academic degrees

    It doesn't matter if you have a home and kids

    It doesn't matter if you have a great job

    You are headed for the ditch. I am headed for the ditch

    Whether the ditch rises to meet you or you meet the ditch in a headlong plunge 

    It is a place we all find ourselves occasionally perhaps quite often in life.

    And we know the geography of the ditch don’t we?

    We know it's muddy bottoms, reeking with the ooze of human wastefulness, mired in the folly of our sinfulness, our need to do this or that, our inveterate desire to control.

    We know it's vermin infested banks, crawling, coated with a sense of either abandonment or entitlement or both, infested and invested in the narcissism of a decaying personal sense of entitlement.

    We know the ditch with its little landmarks 

    Pride

    Greed

    Avarice 

    Lust

    The ditch grabs us. The ditch confounds us. The ditch holds us in its insidious clutches.

    And we need a savior

    There is no getting out of the ditch without a savior,

    There is no hope without a helper

    There is no chance without someone.

    And who comes along?

    A priest comes along, in Luke’s rhetoric the impotent exemplar of a forlorn and forsaken creed, a Judaism bereft of meaning and circumscribed by its own complex Law

    Along comes a lawyer, a man accustomed only to argumentation, not accustomed to freedom or the desire of an internal liberty. This he could not provide.

    But O my brothers and sisters there was One; a Samaritan, one reprobate, one despised and rejected by men.

    Here is the scourge of the earth.

    Here is an untouchable

    Here is one born out of the normal time.

    His face was not handsome to look upon 

    His hands were callous and torn, fraught by labor and the stripes of torture.

    His clothes were gruesome to sense, the look of poverty, the disdain of poverty, the reeking of the robe and the odor of human mendacity.

    His feet were carved by the blades of the hard dirt of the road, a road pushed hard upon by the incessant force of time but a road leading to nowhere, not to Jericho, not to Jerusalem, a road that only circled around to a hill called Calvary as if vacant Calvary were the center of the universe.

    We circle that hill called Calvary as though we remember it as Eden in its better days. We are looking for the shades of Eden in a ditch.

    Brothers and sisters, we are that Jew in the ditch, we are that man on the road, we search, do we not the those muddy bottoms, those vermin infested banks, we search them for signs of some salvation.

    O we are down, we are lost,  we have almost given up hope.

    And yet this one picked us up

    When we were naked, we gave us something to wear

    When we were thirsty, he gave us living water

    When we were homeless, he lodged us in an inn, the katalyma of the Church

    When we thought we had no future. He said: I will return

    He picked us up and he took us to the inn and he bathed us and he bound up our wounds and he loved us, he loved us, he loves us. 

    We were sons of ditches but in the fullness of time, not a moment too soon, we have been given such a promise, such a rescuer, such a hero, such a lover, such an advocate

    And O brothers and sisters He has a name 

    The Good Samaritan has a name 

    A name above every name

    The name that trumpets across the firmament

    The name that howls down the storms of life

    The name that promises, promises, promises

    The name that confounds our false religion in the power of his mercy.

    It is the name of Jesus, our Good Samaritan, our Savior, our Grace, Lord forever and ever.


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  10. Rector’s Conference
    October 8, 2017
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    In the life of every priest there is a catalogue, a litany of sinners and saints.

    Here are a few of mine.

    Winnie was an elderly lady in my first parish assignment. She was probably in her eighties. She worked in the sacristy. She seldom said a word. She worked, cleaning candlesticks. She never stopped working, she never sought any praise. She didn’t seem to need it. She always seemed to be working something out. She was always there. I suspect that even though she died a few years ago that her spirit is still hovering over that sacristy.

    Clare was a business woman, a very sharp woman. She had the world by the tail and she knew how to swing it. People looked up to her. They trusted her. She had it all, including alcohol addiction, undetected and undiagnosed until she died of liver failure at the age of 60.

    Ben was a man of the Church, one of those men who heads the men’s group, who opens the doors, who fixes things, who carries other people’s burdens, who makes donations anonymously. And Ben, a very good father had a secret child for whom he cared. He was a good father to this little one too, but many saw him as a sinner. I saw him as one of us.

    Ann was another sharp lady. She carried herself well. She contributed to the life of the parish. She was a good Catholic, until one day she just stepped out into the middle of Union Avenue into oncoming traffic. She did it on purpose. Those who saw it knew it was on purpose. No one knows why.

    Terry was a man of substance. He was important in local politics. His name was always in the newspaper. He was a good Catholic, church going, raising his children in the faith. One day he walked into my office and told me he was also a closeted homosexual who was tired of living a lie. I never saw him again.

    The catalogue goes on, as all of us through the years acquire a litany of sinners and saints those we have been privileged to know.

    Often when I am sitting in a confessional in a weekend parish I will notice the parish directory.

    Sometimes several generations of parish directories reveal how the folks of that place have changed through the years:

    Hairstyles change, clothing styles change.

    Who has disappeared? 

    Who has moved? 

    Who has lost someone in the picture? 

    Those directories are catalogues, litanies if you will, of loss and change but also growth living into the mystery of the paschal Christ .

    They are catalogues, litanies of conversion.

    In my conferences this semester I am looking at the vows of the Benedictine monk, particularly as they relate to the diocesan priesthood.

    Last month I spoke about the importance of stability, hopefully highlighting its centrality to the charism of what we try to achieve here, what we try to achieve here for you and for us.

    In tonight’s conference we are looking at another unique charism, the vow of conversion.

    What does it mean to take a vow of conversion to define one’s life by change?

    What does it mean to do that in the context of the vow of stability, of living in one place over a long period of time?

    I would say the relationship is something like this:

    Stability is the condition of conversation but what is conversion of life?

    That is, indeed, the question

    I think I know what it is not. It is not sensational. It is not flashy. It is not riotous. Conversion requires patience and it requires the ability to see things beyond the superficiality of the moment.

    It is more, so much more than a perpetual courting of the stridently ephemeral and the slickly controversial.

    This is something that we must mark carefully in the life of the Church, a life over which all of us will one day have a presiding role.

    I am thinking about those of us who write blog posts.

    People who long to pedal influence they have no right to pedal in the name of a non-existent church should be on guard. Leading people into schism and leading people into heresy corrupts not only the souls of often innocent readers, it corrupts the soul of the writers of controversy.

    Following the lead of pastors who lack credibility is hazardous. Follow the lead of authentic servants of God, those servants who know only one True Thing: Jesus Christ and him crucified.

    No priest is perfect, we know that, but most are striving for perfection.

    Knowing the Truth and getting fully to that Truth is the core of conversion.

    Conversion to the Truth is a conversion to docility.

    Conversion to the Truth is conversion of the ideal of being a part of something, perhaps something broken or not fully known, but something other prophecy in its most corrupted form.

    Conversion to the Truth is a conversion to the deepest part of me, to myself at the root, to my secrets and my sins.

    Conversion to the Truth is laying bare who I am because I have the need to do it certainly, but the freedom to do it, absolutely. I have won that freedom in the maelstrom of discipleship.

    Conversion in our context is a conversion to love.

    It is conversion to the man Jesus Christ..

    It is a conversion to intimacy with Jesus Christ.

    Conversion to love has a face.

    It is thorn-pierced and wrapped in the brow like so much shrapnel from the warfare of life.

    It is spat upon by misunderstanding in this world, drenched in the spittle of racism, sexism, phobias of every kind.

    It is slapped to a deep redness, the redness of embarrassment at finding myself exposed

    It is cursed at

    It is maimed 

    It is disfigured 

    It is injured

    It is longing

    It is wrenched by finitude

    It is pure beauty

    What does it mean to organize our lives along these essential truths?

    What does it mean to find meaning in our lives, not in social events and games, not in banal activities that ultimately do not propel us down that road to being the pure evangelists for the Gospel that each one, by our vocations, necessarily?

    We have one task only in life and it is not to entertain ourselves.

    Our task in life is to see the face of Christ and to seek it exclusively and relentlessly.

    This is not a mystery beyond comprehension. I can see the face of Christ and I can see it everywhere, every time I look out from this pulpit.

    I can see it in your faces, faces sometimes filled with doubt, often consumed by pain, but turned resolutely toward our Lord, shining out for us in the glory of this Blessed Sacrament, regarding us from the beauty of the Cross.

    Conversion is finding the face of Christ in you. That is my conversion. That is my vow of conversatio, to live my life in the relentless pursuit of the face of Christ in you.

    Your conversion is finding the face of Christ in me and all of the others, in all of us.

    Look at my face

    Look past the lines and the creases 

    Look past fear

    Look past concern

    What do you see in my face?

    I am sure it is the same as what I see in yours.

    Sin

    Bigotry 

    Deceitfulness

    Misconduct

    An occasional inability to live God

    A ceaseless striving after vanity 

    And charity

    Excellence

    Goodness

    Kindness

    Concern for others

    Virtue

    And the ability to bear something, to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Brothers we are far past thinking of the priesthood as merely a casual activity for Sunday morning, one that can be easily cast away when there is something more pressing on the carotid arteries of our desire.

    Brothers there is only one thing for us, an intentional and a total conversion to Christ and the full realization that nothing else makes any difference and when we can mark that, when we can start to show that, we are on the road to salvation.

    Conversion is also something else

    There is something else

    And something more

    Something more rare …

    Yearning

    Yearning

    Conversion is that yearning. 

    The ignorant of the world say that we celibate men are denied love. 

    It is quite the opposite. Love is what we seek above all things. We long for love. We long to be filled with love. We desire above all things to be consumed by love, eaten away by love, torn apart by love. 

    This is our conversion and it is hard for us to say, hard for us to realize, as men I mean.

    It is hard enough in family life and it is very hard in the priesthood because somehow we feel that the conversion to pure love is a weakness, a non-masculine emotive life that somehow does not suit our being men.

    We think that the consummation of God’s love is not in keeping with the distance needed to be a real man. 

    But here is what I know about real men.

    A real man is one not afraid to fall and not afraid to cry. Not afraid to be vulnerable, not afraid to be sober, not afraid to be lighthearted, not afraid to be open hearted not afraid to be IN CONVERSION, IN THE PROCESS OF COMING TO BE, and IN THE ABYSS OF COMING TO BE.

    We understand that the Truth of our masculinity lies as much in brokenness as in strength. 

    We know that the Truth of our masculinity sometimes edges away from what a false and cold culture wishes to heap upon it.

    Conversion is to know in the depths who we are and when we know in our depths who we are then we can turn toward glory.

    Do we have that strength in this community? I think so

    Can we in our conversion, in our celibacy long solely for God?

    Truly long for God?

    A longing that makes me cry for joy into my pillow at night?

    Can I live intensely for everyone and not the certain ones?

    Can my intense love for God only be relieved, only be realized by giving away my body and giving away my soul to all of you?

    And that in adversity as well as joy?

    Conversion is striving after God, searching for him in un-known rooms, seeking him out in the very halls of our personal hell.

    I think that is the key.

    To whom do I wish to give myself?

    You are this and you are that

    You are maimed and unable reach out

    You are wounded by folks in your past

    We are all of us, we are all that.

    We are … busted.

    And you know what?

    That is not only fine with me, that is my hearts blood.

    All of this doesn't happen overnight it never completely happens except for the saints. We are not yet saints but O my God we strive for it 

    In that striving for conversion, that heartache for beatitude, we become who we are called to be.

    And brothers it is our salvation. I cannot deny my undying love for each one here without denying that I have a soul. That God exists that there is hope not only in the world but in the cosmos for you and for me. For you and for me. 

    In conversion we remember that voice of the Lord calling to us calling for you and for me. 

    And, to me, that voice sounds like you. It looks like you.

    In conversion it looks like you

    It looks like Winnie 

    It looks like Clare

    It looks like Ben

    It looks like Ann

    It looks like Terry 

    It looks like us

    That conversion, that road I call the priesthood. 


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    Labels: Rector Rector's Conferences 2017 Reflections Seminary
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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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