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I've been asked by my superior to start a weekly column. It must be in the area
of spirituality. That's the only condition placed on this effort. So how do I
begin anything? We pray about it. I ask the Holy Spirit for His guidance that my
writing will be enlightening to the reader and also interesting. I ask for God's
blessing on this effort and on you, the reader. Everything we do should be done
with God's blessing. That can easily be accomplished when we do good things and
do not sin. Sinful or questionable practices do not carry God's blessing. I
believe it was St. Bonaventure who said that "if you love God you do not sin,
and if you still sin then you do not love God enough."
Until our house sells life at the monastery is close to normal. Our things are mostly packed. A mountain of boxes fills the porch. So there is now a lot of time for prayer and work. That's what monks do. Each of us pray the Liturgy of the Hours daily and we have or participate in a Holy Hour. That, and Holy Mass, is the best part of the day. Since we do not have a resident priest (we're all brothers) we go to St. Mary's Monastery for Holy Mass with the Benedictines. Their vocation is Liturgical singing. Saint Augustine said "to sing is to pray twice," and these good Benedictines sure do this very well. They sing Gregorian chant. I know there are some who feel Latin is not what the Second Vatican Council wants us to use but it is still the norm and it is impossible to sing Gregorian chant in any other language. We will miss this beautiful singing when we move to Florida. I love to sing. In my private Holy Hours I sing a lot. I sing to Jesus and to Mary and to the angels and saints. Before I became a monk I used to serve on an interesting church choir. That was at St. Helen's Church in Vero Beach, Florida, where I sang at every Sunday's 6 p.m. Holy Mass with a small group of men and women, accompanied by piano/organ, a couple of guitars, sometimes someone with a flute or drums. The choir sang in four voices (soprano, alto, tenor and bass). It was challenging but when you sing for Jesus it's a challenge that's worth making, and besides, it's a high form of prayer. Of course, we also sing when we pray the Liturgy of the Hours but not always. We sing when at least two of the participants know the hymn designated for the Hour we're praying. As you know we record Office of Readings, Morning, Evening and Night Prayer. I hope we don't make too many mistakes, but we try. That's what we should all do—TRY! Try to refrain from the little mistakes and you'll try to refrain from the big mistakes. Yes, Our Lord demands perfection from us. This week I pray that we'll all get closer to that goal!
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