St. Benedict mural at St. Joseph’s, by Dom Gregory de Wit (photo: Abbot Michael Brunner)

From February 18-21, the Abbots of the monasteries in North America that follow the Rule of St. Benedict met at Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Covington, LA for the annual workshop; annual, except that due to Covid, it has not met for the last two years. This year the topic was “Evangelization” and the presenter was Bishop Robert Barron. Evangelization may seem an unusual topic for monks in monasteries. After all, St. Benedict admonishes monks to almost never leave the monastery, seldom talk to anyone if they do and never talk about what they see outside the monastery when they return. But maybe times have changed a bit since St. Benedict’s time. Bishop Barron was not telling us that we should go out into the world to evangelize, but to evangelize by being true to who we are, true to our charism. He said we can do this in six ways. 

 

 

St. Joseph’s, de Wit mural of the Good Shepherd (photo: Abbot Michael Brunner)

First is by cultivating humility in ourselves and in those we encounter in our ministry. Humility consists first and foremost in listening to the bigger voice, the voice of God that defies our ego. He encouraged us to help others to have breakthrough moments, epiphanies, in which God can work in their lives. Secondly, we can evangelize through justice and care for the poor, the pursuit of the common good. This was at the heart of Jesus’ message and is the sign of the presence of the Kingdom of God.  We should witness radically here what life is like in heaven. Thirdly, we can evangelize through beauty, by cultivating beauty in our monasteries, our work and our liturgy. Beauty is one of the great philosophical transcendental realities. The poor, Bishop Barron said, need beauty as much as they need food. I can tell you from my work in Haiti and our own inner cities, this is so true. Beauty enriches the spirit. Fourthly, we can evangelize through intellectual life, the pursuit of truth, another one of those transcendental realities. People need answers to their religious questions; if they don’t get them, they leave religion. I know this for sure from my own life experience. Not all monasteries have schools, but those that do are in a privileged position to evangelize in this way. We are blessed here to have the Portsmouth Institute also engaged in this important ministry of education. Fifth, there is community. This is the goal of our Benedictine virtue of hospitality, to welcome friend and stranger into our spiritual home where they can be at home. This is most powerfully expressed and experienced in the liturgy, in the Mass. Human beings want so much to be connected not only to each other, but whether they realize it or not, most especially to God, who is all good, the good being the last of those three transcendentals. And lastly, Bishop Barron says, we should be masters of the spiritual life. You can’t give what you don’t have. Master here means teacher; it doesn’t mean someone who has achieved perfection. But people do look for and to those whose lives manifest the reality of God through a deep and real relationship with the real person of God, who can show them the way to God. People, especially the “nones,” do not want bureaucrats and managers. Bishop Barron offered the image of Jesus on the road to Emmaus with the two disciples as the exemplar of this kind of master. 

 

 

St. Joseph’s Last Supper de Wit mural (Photo: Abbot Michael Brunner)

I’m sure I’m not doing justice to Bishop Barron’s thoughtful and eloquent presentations to us. But whether we are monks or oblates, clerics or laypersons, the relevance of his observations and the relevance of the Benedictine charism is obvious to our mission as Christians in this world, the world Jesus came to save and to which He sent us preach the Gospel by living and sharing our faith. This workshop-meeting was also attended by the Abbot Primate, the head of the worldwide Benedictine Confederation, Abbot Gregory Polan. He gave what amounted to a “State of the Confederation” speech, which I found fascinating. He began by asking us to pray for the one men’s monastery in the Ukraine. While in the developed world Benedictine monasteries are shrinking, in Africa, India and Vietnam there continues to be significant growth. There are 11,000 Benedictine women in the world and 7,000 men, 40% of whom are brothers. Abbot Gregory reported that the pandemic has affected monastic communities by strengthening the communities themselves, by increasing generosity and by deepening interiority. To me this powerfully demonstrates how our omnipotent and merciful God can bring forth good even from something as evil as the pandemic. If there is one thing I came away with from this meeting, it is with a great sense of hope.  “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will act.” Ps 37:5 

 

 

Bishop Robert Barron (center front) with abbots
(Ab. Primate Gregory Polan to his left; Ab. Gregory Morhman of St. Louis behind Ab. Polan;
Ab. Michael Brunner at left of Ab. Mohrman, back row)