(In)stability

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my final oblation to Saint Martin’s Abbey in Lacey. Recently, Francine and I have considered the idea of transferring our promise of stability to Mount Angel Abbey in St. Benedict, Oregon. Just another moment of uncertainty in this uncertain age.

As Oblates, we promise to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict inasmuch as it applies to our state in life.

When we made our Oblation, we promised in the presence of our Abbot or of his delegate ‘the reformation of our life,’ which means a turning away from the world in order to live in Jesus Christ. The Lord appeared to us then as the solid rock on which we wanted to ‘build our house.’ We knew that He alone has the promises of eternal life and that none of those promises is empty….

Let us recall to mind often the promises of our Oblation, in order to maintain or to reestablish the harmony between our actions and the divine will. Dominus exspectat quotidie … ‘The Lord is waiting every day for us to respond by our works to His holy lessons.’

(Commentary for Benedictine Oblates, Prologue)

Actual monks and nuns vow stability, meaning that the monastery you enter will eventually be the monastery where you die. Oblates do not make this promise, though when you offer your oblation it is to a specific monastery. This is why the matter of “transferring your stability” is something that cannot be taken lightly. Saint Benedict intends that the monastery will be our calm center in the storms surrounding us.

It is the place where we can cling most easily to Christ.

As Oblates, we are required to pray some form of the Liturgy of the Hours and to practice Lectio Divina. For this is the charism of the monk, amateur or otherwise.

Although my spiritual life is grounded in the Breviary and the Rule, its foundation is the Holy Scriptures and the Sacred Liturgy. Of course, the Breviary is a liturgy in itself, and the Rule nothing more than Saint Benedict’s guide for living Scripture and Tradition.

In this crazy time, it’s important to have something to ground you, to remind you to cling close to Christ and the Sacraments. While access to the Sacraments is problematic for many of us in these days of plague, access to the Lord Himself is not. Pray, pray, pray!

In today’s reading from the Rule, we hear of the profound responsibilities of the Abbot:

Let the Abbot always bear in mind that he must give an account in the dread judgment of God of both his own teaching and of the obedience of his disciples. And let the Abbot know that whatever lack of profit the master of the house shall find in the sheep, will be laid to the blame of the shepherd. On the other hand he will be blameless, if he gave all a shepherd’s care to his restless and unruly flock, and took all pains to correct their corrupt manners….

(Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, Chapter 2)

This is something that everyone who is responsible for the spiritual welfare of another must internalize. You will be called to account. Whether you are an abbot, a bishop, a pastor, a father or mother, a teacher, you will be called to account.

This is something I often think about in my capacities as a catechist and a leader of altar servers, in addition to being a father and husband. I will be called to account. I am well aware of my many faults, of my pride and prevarication, and I pray that the Master of the house have mercy on me.

It was with this firmly in mind – as well as with a heavy heart – that I just wrote my last email to our altar servers. Honestly, I’m a little shattered right now, but I hope and pray that in some small way I have led my charges closer to the Lord.

So what stability is there? Our world in the grip of a plague the likes of which we have not seen in a century or more. Political instability is endemic. Our own parish, the place that should have been our refuge, is closed. Perhaps this is the Lord’s not so subtle reminder to cling to Christ.

O holy Father, Saint Benedict,
blessed by God both in grace and in name,
who, while standing in prayer, with hands raised to heaven,
didst most happily yield thy angelic spirit
into the hands of thy Creator,
and hast promised zealously to defend
against all the snares of the enemy
in the last struggle of death,
those who shall daily remind thee
of thy glorious departure and heavenly joys;
protect me, I beseech thee, O glorious Father,
this day and every day, by thy holy blessings,
that I may never be separated
from our dear Lord,
and from the society of thyself,
and of all the blessed.

Through the same Christ our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God,
world without end.

Amen.