CISTERCIAN
GRACE TODAY : CONFORMITY
TO CHRIST
“Lord
Jesus, who are you and who am I?” I
often use this question to focus myself as I enter into quiet prayer. Just who is this Christ
that we seek to be conformed to? The
mystery of Christ is so vast and rich that no single line of thought can do it
justice. Yet, key for me is that Jesus Christ was and is the place of God’s
presence among us…Emmanuel - God with us.
The
Dutch theologian Eduard Schillebeeckx referred to Christ as “the sacrament of
encounter with God”.
When
I reflect on the theme “Cistercian Grace today: Conformity To Christ,” it seems
to me that we are called individually and collectively as a community to be the
sacrament of encounter with God…In union with Christ to be a place of God’s
presence in the world.
This affects all aspects of our
life.
In
worship we are united with Christ, as all creation comes to consciousness in us
and is able to praise and celebrate the Creator. We pray the very psalms that Christ prayed, we join Him in His
Eucharistic prayer to the Father. In
Snowmass, partly because of the small size of our community, our liturgy does
not have the splendor of liturgies in our larger communities. Nonetheless, it has a simple grace to it,
the prayer is real, and Christ’s presence fills the silences. Our singing is sometimes accompanied by the
singing of the coyotes outside and our chapel’s clear glass windows let in the
grandeur and beauty of nature surrounding us.
In
lectio divina and quiet prayer we grow in our consciousness of our union with
Christ and open ourselves to His Spirit working in us…the Spirit that
transforms us into the image of Christ.
In
our Cistercian community relationships we become the presence of Christ for one
another. At our last General Chapter we
examined the theme of the monastery as Schola Caritatis and found the love of
Christ flowing through all the dimensions of our community life. In our caring
for and being cared for, in our forgiving and being forgiven, the life of
Christ flows through us. “Seniors love
the juniors, juniors respect your seniors.”
In practicing this admonition from St. Benedict we offer to society an
example that can heal the increasing division between generations in our modern
world. At Snowmass, in our respect for
the unique process of growth in Christ to which each member of the community is
committed, we strive to nurture a freedom in each member that will be conducive
to a mature responsibility as a Cistercian monk for the vitality and
Christ-centeredness of the community’s direction.
Cistercians
are also the presence of Christ in our relationship with the full body of
Christ, which we embrace and support with our loving prayer and which we
receive with hospitality, receiving them as Christ, and receiving them as
Christ would receive them. In our
hospitality Cistercian monasteries provide an environment for guests and
retreatants to be drawn into the presence of God and into encounter with
God. It seems to me that is why so many
people are coming to our monasteries for retreat and liturgy these days. Hopefully these people carry the peace and
love they find back to their own communities.
We also hope to be the
presence of God for our neighbors. I
think of our brothers at Atlas and the deep bond they had formed with their
neighbors in that farming community, a bond so deep that the brothers chose to
stay in that place with those neighbors even if it were to mean their
deaths. As I understand it they did not
feel the need to preach explicitly about Jesus, sufficient if the people around
them could experience Christ’s love through them.
Cistercians seek to be
the place of Christ’s presence in our relationship with the environment where
our farms, ranches, orchards, and lands are stewarded with deep respect for the
Creator and for His designs, continuing God’s care for the world…His care for
His creation. We are becoming more
reflexively or self-consciously aware of this stewardship today. The truth is that this stewardship of the
land has always been a part of our Cistercian tradition where our monasteries
were models for good stewardship. Today
we have a heightened sensitivity for how our actions are affecting the well
being and future of our human family and our whole planet. This stewardship in partnership with the
Creator also shapes our response to the prevailing ethos of so many today,
especially in the wealthier countries, namely consumerism: the continual
purchase of new products in a throwaway culture. Our stewardship hopefully exemplifies a healthy alternative for
living simply on the land.
I began this paper with
the prayerful question that I often ask myself, “Lord Jesus, who are you and
who am I?” This question normally serves to
focus and silence my inner being, but once in an age an answer emerges
to the question – from wherever it is in a person that such answers come. On one particular occasion when I had just
become abbot and was wondering what I could do to bring back some of the spirit
of the “good old days”, I was sitting quietly while this question was echoing
in the back of my mind and suddenly I heard inside myself the text of
Revelation, “Behold, I am He who makes all things new.” I had to laugh since I was focused on
bringing back the old and Christ was turning me a full 180 degrees around so
that with Him I could face the new. Of
course we reverently carry the core of
our tradition into the new with us, but still the challenge of being with and
in Christ as He makes all things new is what we face today.
To conform to Christ in
this way—being the place of God’s presence—requires that we more and more take
on the mind and heart of Christ; Christ’s way of seeing; Christ’s way of
loving. This we do both individually
and as community.
Individually to do this
requires that we be deeply nourished by lectio and prayer in all of its forms,
but especially I would underline (at least from my experience and that of my
community) the transformation that comes from quiet, wordless contemplative prayer. I see in this a connection with Jesus going
off alone to pray at night to be nourished at the fountain of Divine
Union. Sometimes, in the early morning
hours, I find my consciousness being focused by the prayerful question: “Lord, what shape do you want to take in me
today?”
Collectively to take on
the mind and heart of Christ requires not only that the individuals in the
community be deeply committed to their own process of transformation in Christ,
but also that the community itself be able to discern together what is the
special and particular presence of Christ we are to be in the world today in
our unique situations. Being mindful of
St. Benedict’s phrase that God often reveals what is better to the younger, it
is so important that we learn to listen to one another, each and every one in
the community, pray over these things, and discern together on how we will live
this Christ-life in our concrete, day by day situations. I see the work that many of our communities
are doing to improve the communication skills among the members as a helpful
tool in this process of working together to know and live the mind and heart of
Christ.
In our time of rapid and
radical social and cultural change this personal transformation and communal
listening and discerning are especially necessary. To be the presence of God in the world today in conformity with
Christ is a deep challenge to each one of us and each one of our
communities. It is critical today to be
in touch with and reflect what is essential in a world where the essential is
often lost sight of and where materialism and moral confusion are wreaking
havoc. This can only flow from an
ever-deeper communion with Christ.
We are blessed in this
Chapter to be gathered here at Lourdes, the place where our Mother Mary spoke
to St. Bernadette Soubirous a century and a half ago, a place where heaven and
earth met, a place where God’s healing presence touches so many. Hopefully our communities also are places
where heaven and earth touch and God’s healing presence comes alive in us and
through us. Then are we truly conformed
to His Christ, our Emmanuel.
Fr. Joseph Boyle, O.C.S.O.,
Snowmass