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SAINT BENEDICT ABBEY |
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Saint Benedict Abbey 252 Still River Road P.O. Box 67 Still River,. MA 01467 |
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To contact us: |
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Faithful to the Church, Faithful to Our Call, Guided By Our Lady |
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The Story of Saint Benedict Center’s Becoming Saint Benedict Abbey |
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To Order Your Own Copy Of Abbot Gabriel’s memoir history of the Story of St. Benedict Center Becoming St. Benedict Abbey: |
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Where We Are Today |
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It is very clear to me that for us the “battlefield” has shifted from the classroom to the cloister. It is also clear to me that the center of spiritual activity is shifting from the parish to the monastery as it did in the centuries after St. Benedict. This holy monk, the Center’s patron, and author of the monastic rule we follow, called upon his monks to do battle by putting on the bright weapons of obedience. For St. Benedict, the monk is engaged in a battle, a spiritual warfare, and victory is salvation. The intellectual activity is absolutely necessary, but over the years we have found that debates often become a distraction. A war of words is often a lot of hot air getting nowhere. Every brother has a story about showing a friend or foe the three papal definitions which state infallibly that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, and the universal response is one of total disbelief and incomprehension. They look at us as if we are from another planet or speaking a foreign language. Now it’s time to show by our lives what we believe. St. Paul says, “Let your citizenship be in heaven.” Well, we will show by our actions that we are living for eternity, that salvation is the most important goal in life. Salvation is the reason for our existence. What did the old catechism tell us? We were put here on earth “to know, love and serve God in this life and to be happy with Him in the next.” With this perspective in mind, everything we do as monks makes sense. Without it, nothing makes sense. A lot of the confusion and chaos that hit the Church with all the changes in the ‘60s and ‘70s was because priests and religious were bored with praying the Divine Office. Frankly, if one is not motivated by the salvific value of that prayer, it will become boring! But if you are excited about salvation practically every line in the Psalms leaps out at you declaring God’s saving power or praising Him for His saving love. The noted Benedictine liturgical theologian, Cypriano Vagaggini, wrote a small book entitled, The Flesh, the Instrument of Salvation. There he asserts that, first of all, redemption is not an exclusively spiritual affair. The whole human person, body and soul, is saved through the saving actions which Jesus accomplished through His own Sacred Humanity. Furthermore, the priest, as a representative of Christ, as an “alter Christus,” an “other Christ,” consecrates the Body of Christ saying not, “This is His Body,” but “This is MY Body.” And through that Sacred Humanity made present at Mass in the Sacrament, Christ “reaches out” so to speak, through these sacred signs and actions, and “touches” us with His saving grace by way of His saving Body. The priest is the instrument through which the grace of salvation is conveyed and bestowed. In other words, the hands of the priest are the hands of Christ. The physical contact of the priest is nothing less than the physical contact with Jesus, our divine Savior. The mission of the priest is to bestow salvation. In the recent past, the Church has been rocked to its core by the abuse scandal among clergy. However, the priest’s vital role, the salvific effect of his priestly ministry, was obscured many years ago. In fact the obscuring started as far back as 1949 when the Church, especially the Church in America, most notably the Church in Boston, the epicenter of clerical abuse today, rejected the doctrine that the Sacraments of the Church were necessary for salvation. Does this have practical ramifications in our daily lives? Absolutely! Right away, missionaries began to ask, “Why should we convert these natives?” “They may be cannibals, they may be eating one another for dinner, but they are so sincere!” In some parishes, priests announced that there would be no sick calls after 9 p.m. Why should Father travel at night, in the dark, in the cold, in the wet weather? What was so valuable about that which he had to give? It “obviously” is not necessary for salvation! In the days of faith, when a man was ordained a priest and he was called upon to get up out of a comfortable bed on a cold winter’s night to make a sick call, he believed his sacrifice was worth the effort because he was helping to save a soul. When a priest came across an accident scene on the highway, terrible enough to make strong men nauseous, he didn’t hesitate to walk right through the wreckage and anoint those bloody and broken bodies because he believed he may help them get to heaven! He knew that he kept souls out of eternal damnation. He ushered immortal souls into Paradise. A good priest had always found his priestly role so rewarding. If a man is told that his work as a priest really doesn’t make any difference – that his words, turning ordinary bread into the Body of Christ at the consecration of the Mass, don’t really matter because as long as people are sincere, no matter what kind of lives they live, they will reach eternal happiness – is it so utterly surprising that the devil steps in and tells him that he should be good to himself? And since the lines are blurred about any kind of objective right or wrong, it’s fairly easy to be fooled into believing that there will be no accountability either. In the Old Testament, whenever the Covenant was rejected, the people became corrupt. In the New Testament, when the salvific value of the sacraments was no longer considered necessary, the priests began to become corrupt. Quicker than anyone realized, the frailty of human nature took over weak souls. While their path to sin is considered so abominable even by secular society, it was surprisingly logical. If Sacraments are not necessary, my priesthood is not necessary. Grace, salvation, heaven, what do these mean any more? What I do, or do not do, matters little. Should we be surprised at the horrific drama of new names, more names in the daily headlines? No, the surprise is that there aren’t more. Father Leonard always said, “If you lose your Faith, you lose your morals. If you lose your morals, you will lose your Faith.” Right from the beginning, Sister Catherine, Father Leonard and the Center Family knew that the Church’s teaching about salvation was important to Catholics as well as non-Catholics. Baptism is not magic. Being born a Catholic is not a free pass to Heaven. We have been talking about “No Salvation outside the Church” What about Salvation inside the Church? Everyone has to ask, “What must I do to attain eternal life? What am I willing to do to gain the prize of eternal happiness?” We had to answer those questions for ourselves. We knew the saints would answer, “For God one should and can sacrifice everything.” We asked, “What are we willing to do, willing to give? What are we not willing to give?” There are no limits. That is what led us to our dedication as Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to give Jesus our all for all that He gave us. That is what led us to our vows as Benedictines. Monasticism seems to be the powerhouse for new mission activity. If a new Dark Age is coming upon us, perhaps once again, St. Benedict is there to lead the way - to bring the light of Faith. So, are we the same people who thundered out the unequivocal message of Jesus Christ? More than ever before. Not in Harvard Square, not on Boston Common, but every day, living a life of work and prayer, aware that all that we do is working toward eternal life right here in Still River in the Catholic Church. |
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An Excerpt From |
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You can drive from the quiet fields of Still River in Harvard town to the busy streets of Boston and Harvard Square in less than an hour. However, the distance between our life now and in Cambridge and on Boston Common is far greater than indicated by the miles traveled. In fact, it is not at all uncommon for visitors to watch the monks peacefully chanting the Psalms at early dawn or to observe them performing the simple, often menial chores that monks do and ask, “Are you the same people who once declared that, ‘the full, unequivocal, uncompromised message of Jesus Christ had to be thundered in the world again’? If so, what’s the message and where’s the thunder?” |
