A Young Man's Monastic Journey (Part III)

This passage is taken from the Epilogue of Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, by Martin Laird.  It is a beautiful example of radical openness to God from the depths of our hearts. http://www.amazon.com/Into-Silent-Land-Christian-Contemplation/dp/0195307607

Part 3 of 3

He carried on with these jobs for what seemed like years.  One day the abbot asked the novice master, “What about that man who was so intent on making his profession in our monastery.  Is he no longer interested?” 

“He doesn’t mention it much anymore,” said the novice master.

“Is he unhappy?” asked the abbot.

“No, he seems content enough,” responded the novice master.  “He doesn’t say much to anyone.  He goes about his tasks in the garden; he consoles the old monks in the infirmary, and encourages the new ones in the novitiate.”

“Bring him to me,” said the abbot.

The man was brought to the abbot who began to question him: “I was wondering if you were still interested in making your profession.  You don’t seem as keen to do it as you once were when you were making such a thorough study of our tradition.  Have you gone off the idea altogether?”

The man looked at the abbot.  The lines beginning to show round the man’s eyes reflected the fact that he’d been in the monastery a number of years now.  But his face had the freshness and peace of those whose poverty had taught them they had nothing to defend.  The man said to the abbot, “Jesus Christ is my monastery.”

The abbot sat up in his chair and leaned forward.  He gazed into the man as though looking for something, looked into him as though gazing into the heart of mystery.  His gaze fixed on the man, sifting him, assessing every turn taken, every decision made in order to know if this man really knew what he had said.  The abbot stood up slowly, towered over him and said, “You have learned our tradition well.  May I have your blessing?”

A Young Man's Monastic Journey (Part II)

This passage is taken from the Epilogue of Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, by Martin Laird.  It is a beautiful example of radical openness to God from the depths of our hearts. http://www.amazon.com/Into-Silent-Land-Christian-Contemplation/dp/0195307607

Part 2 of 3

After more than a year the young man was convinced that now he would be able to answer correctly any question the abbot might put to him and he could see, moreover, the abbot’s wisdom in putting him off for a time.  And so the young man told the novice master that he felt he was now ready to make his profession and could he please see the abbot.  The novice master arranged this, and soon enough the young man was brought to the abbot.

The abbot said, “I’m very happy to hear that you still want to make your profession and to live your monastic life among us.  But tell me, why do you feel you are ready to make your profession?”

The young man responded, “I’m convinced that this is what God is asking of me.  I don’t claim to understand it.  I only know it is something I must do.  Moreover, I have been studying our tradition and our charism.  I identify with it very deeply and think it confirms the sense of interior call that I feel.”

The abbot was obviously listening to him very intently and sincerely.  He said to the young man, “What you say is very edifying indeed, and I feel even myself encouraged in the life just listening to you speak the way you do about your conviction of God’s love for you and of his call.  But I think you should go back to the novitiate, back to the novitiate until you are really ready.”

The man was in quite a state as he left the abbot’s office.  He was in fact completely shattered.  He couldn’t imagine what on earth the abbot could possibly have wanted to hear.  He knew he belonged more in the monastery than half of those other wretched monks.  But he returned to the novitiate.  He had already completed his formal studies, so he took to helping in the garden, pruning vines and thinning carrots and also served in the infirmary.

A Young Man's Monastic Journey

This passage is taken from the Epilogue of Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, by Martin Laird.  It is a beautiful example of radical openness to God from the depths of our hearts. http://www.amazon.com/Into-Silent-Land-Christian-Contemplation/dp/0195307607

Part 1 of 3

The young man settled into the novitiate with relative ease.  He found he liked all his fellow novices and pretty much all the monks he came across.  It wasn't long before he felt certain he wanted to stay here for the rest of his days.  So he went to the novice master and said, “I believe I’m ready to make my profession.”  The novice master said, “Well, the abbot will have to see you about this.”

In due course an appointment with the abbot was arranged, and the young man sad down to speak with the abbot about his vocation.  The abbot asked him why he felt he was ready to make his profession.  The young man said, “Well, I've come to like it here very much.  Everyone is nice to me, and I like all the monks.”

The abbot said, “Well, that is very encouraging to hear, and I’d have to say that we are very happy to have you and we hope that you stay.  But just the same, I think you should go back to the novitiate for a while longer.  It’ll do you no harm.”

The young man left in great distress.  Why didn't the abbot want him to make his profession?  Did he say something wrong?  Was he deluded about his vocation?  Not a little disappointed, the young man returned to his life as a novice.  The abbot’s gentle rebuff ended up teaching the young man a great deal about his own faults and failings and presumption.  He began to grow in self-knowledge and applied himself with great dedication to the study of the monastery’s long history, its traditions, and various customs.  He soon mastered all of this.

National Vocation Awareness Week to Be Celebrated January 10-16

WASHINGTON—The Catholic Church in the United States will celebrate National Vocation Awareness Week, January 10-16.

“This week provides the opportunity for parishes across the country to promote vocations through prayer and education,” said Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. “It is our responsibility to encourage young people to be generous in their response as they discern the possibility of a call to service in the Church. We must also ask parents, families and our parish communities to assist with this work, vocations are everyone’s business. As we pray for an increased number of seminarians and candidates for religious life, we recognize the importance of safeguarding the gift of vocations.”

Several initiatives to highlight priesthood and religious life are on-going in 2010. The Vatican-sponsored Year for Priests continues through June 2010 http://www.usccb.org/yearforpriests/. Dioceses are highlighting the role of priests in diocesan newspapers, on their Web sites and with other events.

An exhibit on the contributions of women religious in the United States, Women & Spirit, opens at the Smithsonian institution in Washington, January 14. More information on this traveling exhibit can be found at www.womenandspirit.org. The Smithsonian is co-sponsoring this exhibit with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

The U.S. bishops have also named promotion of vocations to priesthood and religious life as one of their current five priorities and are deciding on efforts to promote vocations, for example, through their Website, www.usccb.org.

Father David Toups, interim executive director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, added, “The church needs to help young people hear the Lord in prayer, so they can recognize him in their lives.

“This week reminds us that it is our responsibility to pray for vocations and to invite young people to consider a call to ordained ministry and consecrated life.”

The observance of National Vocation Awareness Week (NVAW) began in 1976 when the National Conference of Catholic Bishops designated the 28th Sunday of the year as the beginning of NVAW. In 1997, this celebration was moved to coincide with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which falls on January 10 in 2010, marks the initiation of Jesus into public ministry. At his baptism Jesus is named the beloved Son of God. With this celebration the faithful recommit themselves to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. They are also initiated through their own baptism to be the Beloved of God, commissioned to proclaim Good News with their lives.

Papal Ordinations

This year St. Vincent is blessed to have 3 of our Brothers ordained to the Holy Priesthood on 3 different continents.  Our Joseph, OSB was ordained a priest here at the Abbey (North America) last week.  Our Brother Benoit, OSB will be ordained in Italy (Europe) in a few weeks as well as our  Brother David, OSB in Taiwan (Asia).  Indeed God is good!

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI ordained 19 priests and urged them to make sure their ministry is not contaminated by a worldly mentality.

Priests should dedicate their lives to prayer and service and never lose sight of the self-sacrifice of Christ, the pope said during the lengthy liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica May 3.

The Mass marked the annual celebration of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The new priests, who will serve in the Diocese of Rome, included 13 from Italy and six from other countries on four continents.

After prostrating themselves on the floor of the basilica as a litany of the saints was chanted, each of the candidates knelt before the pope as he imposed his hands on their heads, part of the ordination rite.

In his sermon, the pope quoted the First Letter of John, who contrasted the spirit of the Gospel with the spirit of the "world," a term he used to refer to all that is hostile toward God.

St. John said that "the world does not know us" because it did not know God, a lament that remains true today, the pope said.

"It’s true, and we priests experience this: the ‘world,’ in John’s meaning of the term, does not understand the Christian, does not understand the ministries of the Gospel — in part because, in fact, it does not know God, and, in part, because it does not want to know him," he said.

Accepting God would place this worldly attitude in "crisis," the pope said.

"Here we need to pay attention to a reality: that this ‘world,’ in the evangelical sense, threatens even the church, infecting its members and the ordained ministers themselves," he said.

"The ‘world’ is a mentality, a manner of thinking and living that can pollute even the church, and, in fact, does pollute it, and, therefore, requires constant vigilance and purification," he said. The Christian vocation, he said, is to be free from evil and different from the world, though living in the world.

The pope emphasized the centrality of prayer in the life of each priest. This prayer should be Christ-centered, and its highest form is the Eucharist, he said. From prayer comes the effectiveness of all other priestly ministry, he said.

"The priest who prays often and prays well becomes progressively expropriated from himself and increasingly united with Jesus, the good shepherd, and the servant of his brothers," he said.

The pope, who recently turned 82, looked good during the two-and-a-half-hour Mass. It was his last major liturgy before his departure May 8 on a weeklong pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Afterward, at his noon blessing, the pope urged the entire church community to pray for priestly vocations.

The pope recently proclaimed a year for priests that will run from June 2009 to June 2010. In recent years, Vatican statistics have shown that the number of priests and seminarians in the world is increasing somewhat, but not as fast as the general Catholic population.

Br. Gabriel makes Pittsburgh News!!!

Carnegie native monk is 'regular' guy with lofty goals

By Becky Shetler

TRIBUNE-REVIEW NEWS SERVICE

Thursday, August 28, 2008

He might not have realized it at the time, but the seeds of Carnegie native Andrew Kurzawski's vocation were planted in him more than a decade ago.


"I was so fortunate when I was growing up at SS. Simon and Jude. It was the largest Catholic school in the diocese," Kurzawski said. "There were young, vibrant priests, and they played sports with us. They were guys you could relate to. I didn't see them as just priests."

"They were regular men living an exemplary life, guys trying to do the will of God in their lives. They chose to follow Christ as priests."

With nearly 175 monks in the community, St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe is Kurzawski's home now.

Known by the religious name Brother Gabriel Myriam, Kurzawski joined St. Vincent -- the first Benedictine monastery in North America -- 13 months ago.

Kurzawski professed his first vows during vespers for the feast of St. Benedict on July 10. The ceremony marked his first year in monastic life.

During the past year, Kurzawski studied the rule of St. Benedict, learned to pray and sing the psalms and studied church and St. Vincent history.

In July, he plans to renew his vows, and then after three to five years, he will take his final vows. He is studying to be ordained to the priesthood.

"Overall, I'm extremely happy," Kurzawski said. "I haven't found this type of joy in anything else I've done."

He explains that God calls people in different ways.

"It's important to see if you are called to be a married man or woman or a brother sister or deacon," Kurzawski says.


"God calls Catholic visionaries to all different vocations. As Catholics, we need to support and nurture young people, whether they are a brother, sister or friend. Help with their calling -- whether it is to be a priest or to get married -- it's important that we do that."

While at Carlynton, Kurzawski was the captain of the basketball team and he originally thought his future would be on the basketball court.

"When I was done with high school, my main focal point was that I wanted to play college basketball and teach high school," he said.

Upon graduating in 2003, he thought long and hard about his options. 

The Rev. John Dinello, a Catholic priest at Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph in Bloomfield, is Kurzawski's godfather, and his influence made him see those called to religious life as regular people with an exemplary calling.

(Father John Dinello, Br. Gabriel Myriam, OSB, Fr. James Dowds, C.Ss.R, and Seminarian David Verghese of the Archdiocese of Washington, all friends and mentors for Br. Gabriel)

He also credits his vocation to the Rev. Carmen D'Amico, pastor of St. Benedict the Moor in the Hill District.


"I thought about the priesthood, and I thought about family. My parents probably dreamed of grandchildren. It took a while to grow on them," he said.

"They really respect (my choice), and they are extremely proud of me. They see that I'd be helping people. It's very rewarding."

What Vocation Shortage?

By Russell Shaw
March 29, 2004
Originally posted at: Intentional Disciples

The Brothers and retreatants on the annual "In the Footsteps of St. Benedict" Pilgrimage. This program allows men discerning the Monastic vocation a chance to walk and live where our Holy Father St. Benedict did 1500 years ago. (Note: 2 of our Novices, Br. Maximilian and Br. Michael entered the monastery shortly after this experience, Alleluia!!!)

Despite all the talk about a vocation shortage, there is in fact no such thing in the Catholic Church. The real shortage is that of vocational discernment, and that is a very different problem. The shortfall in the number of candidates for the priesthood, the consecrated life and other forms of Christian witness and service would quickly disappear if many more Catholics, and ideally all, made it a practice to discern, accept and live out their unique, irreplaceable callings from God—their personal vocations.

The idea of personal vocation and the practice of discernment are also the key to removing clericalism from Catholic life once and for all and replacing it with a healthy understanding of clergy-lay relationships. Personal vocation and vocational discernment also are crucial to helping the laity, along with everyone else, understand and embrace their proper roles in carrying out the church’s mission.

These are large claims, of course. In weighing them, it is useful to begin with the three distinct but related senses that the word “vocation” has in religious talk.

The first of these is the common Christian vocation received in baptism and strengthened by confirmation. In very general terms, the common vocation consists in what follows from the commitment of faith: loving and serving God above all else and loving and serving one’s neighbor as oneself, and so collaborating in the redemptive work of Christ that is the mission of the church. In 1964 the Second Vatican Council offered a succinct but clear statement of the idea when it said the baptized are “appointed by their baptismal character to Christian religious worship” and have an obligation to “profess before people the faith they have received” (“Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” No. 11).

The second meaning of the word refers to what traditionally is called “state in life.” The clerical state, the consecrated life, Christian marriage, the life of the single lay person in the world—these are states in life. They are specifications of the common Christian vocation, chosen by overarching commitments that set us on long-term paths that shape our lives by the countless specific choices and actions needed to see them through to the end. Christian states in life are meant to complement and reinforce one another, not to compete.

The third sense in which “vocation” is used is that of personal vocation. It is the unique combination of commitments, relationships, obligations, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses through which the common Christian vocation and a state in life are concretely expressed in the case of someone trying to discern, accept and live out God’s will; it is the particular role intended by God for each of us in his redemptive plan. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). Or, as Pope John Paul II said in a message for World Vocations Day in 2001, “Every life is a vocation.”

When Catholics speak of vocation, they usually mean state in life. In fact, they usually mean priesthood or religious life. A “vocations director” is someone in a diocese or religious institute responsible for recruiting and screening those who think they may be called to be priests or religious; a “vocations program” is a program with this purpose. From one point of view, there is nothing wrong with speaking of vocation in this way. Priesthood and religious life really are states of life and, for some people, central parts of their callings from God. From another point of view, however, exclusive emphasis on vocation as state of life—and, practically speaking, as a call to be a priest or religious—can do much harm.

The most obvious harm is in communicating to those not called to be priests or religious the message, “You don’t have a vocation.” That may be disappointing for some and welcome news for others; but in either case it is a disincentive to continuing discernment, acceptance and living out of God’s will for oneself. Here is one of the root causes of the clericalist mentality still so widespread among Catholics.

The idea of personal vocation is the antidote. Everybody has one—God calls every member of the church by name. Seen in this light, the challenge is not to find out whether you have a vocation but to identify the vocation you unquestionably have.

The idea of personal vocation is unfamiliar to most Catholics today, but it is hardly new. It is rooted in the Pauline doctrine of charisms and of the church as the body of Christ. Other classic sources of Christian wisdom have developed the insight further. St. Francis de Sales, for instance, spoke of personal vocation in his Treatise on the Love of God, though he did not use the term. It is not God’s will that everyone live the evangelical counsels, he points out, “but only such counsels as are suitable according to differences in persons, times, occasions, and abilities.” Writers like St. Ignatius Loyola and Jean Pierre de Caussade, S.J., suggest the same.

Cardinal John Henry Newman

Cardinal John Henry Newman offered a particularly insightful exposition of personal vocation in one of the sermons he gave while still an Anglican, “Divine Calls.” Newman emphasized the here-and-now, ongoing character of this uniquely personal call: “For in truth we are not called once only, but many times; all through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in baptism; but afterwards also.... He works through our natural faculties and circumstances of life. Still what happens to us in providence is in all essential respects what His voice was to those whom He addressed when on earth.”

Given the existence of this powerful and persuasive testimony, why have Catholics been slow to grasp the idea of personal vocation? One probable reason is that Martin Luther was an enthusiastic exponent of this truth. “Everyone must tend his own vocation and work,” he wrote. But Luther also rejected the idea of mediation in the spiritual realm and, with it, priesthood and religious life. The reaction this provoked among Catholics helped make the idea of personal vocation suspect in Catholic circles for centuries.

In modern times, nevertheless, the concept can be found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and in many postconciliar documents of the magisterium. No one has analyzed the idea more carefully or promoted it more vigorously than Pope John Paul II, who wrote about personal vocation long before becoming pope (in Love and Responsibility, which appeared in Poland in 1960) and has returned to it time and again during his pontificate. In his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, published in 1979, he said:

For the whole of the community of the People of God and for each member of it what is in question is not just a specific social membership; rather, for each and every one what is essential is a particular “vocation.” Indeed, the church as the People of God is also “Christ’s Mystical Body.” Membership in that body has for its source a particular call, united with the saving action of grace. Therefore, if we wish to keep in mind this community of the People of God...we must see first and foremost Christ saying in a way to each member of the community: “Follow me.” (No. 21)

The Servant of God, Pope John Paul II

The idea of personal vocation is an important complement to Vatican II’s teaching about the universal call to holiness. All members of the faithful, not just a select few, are called “to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love,” the council declares (“Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” No. 39). But there is not much guidance for living this out, and even less incentive to do so, in telling people that if God has not called them to be clerics or religious, they do not have a vocation in any meaningful sense.

Personal vocation puts this matter in a radically different light. Everyone has a personal vocation, an unrepeatable call from God to play a particular role in his redemptive plan and the mission of the church. The task of each is to discern God’s will, accept it and live it out. That is responding to the universal call to be holy.

Contrary to an elitist view of vocational discernment, which tends to treat it as an exercise for a select few, discernment is for everybody. “The fundamental objective of the formation of the lay faithful is an ever-clearer discovery of one’s vocation and the ever-greater willingness to live it out,” Pope John Paul II says in his post-synod document on the laity, Christifideles Laici (1989).

To carry out this mandate, parishes need to become schools of vocational discernment—places where liturgy, catechesis and spiritual direction encourage parishioners to engage in continuing, prayerful reflection on what God is asking of them. The effort should start with children (in an age-appropriate manner) and continue with adolescents, young adults and adults at every stage of their life journey. Special opportunities—retreats, days of recollection—should be provided for those who have major vocational choices to make. The aim is discernment, not recruitment.

But, someone might object, won’t emphasizing personal vocation distract people from heeding calls to the priesthood and consecrated life? Won’t it make the real-life vocation shortage worse?

The answer is no. If many more Catholics practiced ongoing discernment regarding their personal vocations, many more would discover that they are called to the priesthood or consecrated life. The best solution to the dearth of new candidates—and to many other problems in contemporary Catholic life as well—is personal vocation. Indeed, it may be the only one.

Bishop David Zubik receives honorary doctorate at St. Vincent Seminary and encourages vocations

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Monday, May 12, 2008
 
By Ann Rodgers

Catholic Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh received an honorary doctorate from St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe over the weekend, capping a week in which his prayers for more vocations to the priesthood show signs of being answered.

More than 80 men and boys from the Diocese of Pittsburgh attended an inquiry meeting Thursday for those who think they might be interested in priesthood. It was followed by a standing-room-only hour of prayer for vocations.

"The spirit is moving," Bishop Zubik said.

The inquirers, who attended a cookout at St. Paul Seminary in East Carnegie, got a tour and a talk from the bishop on what priesthood is about. They ranged in age from older grade school students to professionals, the oldest of whom was 51. Then they joined nearly 600 other people from across the diocese to pray for more priests, with people standing five rows deep in the back and spilling out of the auditorium door to fill the lobby.

"I have never seen the seminary auditorium so packed," said Bishop Zubik, who gave up the traditional bishop's mansion in Squirrel Hill when he became bishop of Pittsburgh last year to live at St. Paul with the seminarians.

New seminarians live there for at least two years to receive spiritual formation and take college-level classes in philosophy and theology at Duquesne University. Then they go on for at least four more years of graduate and continued formation at one of several seminaries the diocese uses, including St. Vincent.

Only after receiving a master of divinity degree, as nine men did at St. Vincent Friday night, is a man eligible to be ordained for a diocese or a religious order.

There were no Pittsburghers among the St. Vincent graduates this year, although Bishop Zubik expects to ordain three men from other seminaries next month.

The diocese currently has 27 seminarians. Four of them attend St. Vincent, which currently has students from 13 dioceses, 12 Benedictine monasteries and several other religious orders.

One graduate in Friday night's commencement was a woman, Carol Ann Seraphin, who had earned a master of arts in theology, which is different from the ordination-track degree.

When Bishop Zubik spoke he addressed her briefly from the pulpit, apologizing for having assumed that all of the graduates were going to become priests and asking her understanding for having prepared a commencement address that was primarily about priesthood.

In his address he told the future priests to make sure their knowledge of God was more than academic.

"Do you know about Jesus and really know him?" he said. "Can you listen to experts speak about him, but especially let him speak about himself?"

Archabbot Douglas Nowicki of St. Vincent presented Bishop Zubik with his honorary doctorate, calling him an example of "what it means to be a follower of Christ and of the Holy Spirit."

Bishop Zubik has two master's degrees, the one required for ordination and another he earned later from Duquesne University in education administration, but no earned doctorate.

Although he attended seminary at St. Mary's in Baltimore, he has long-standing ties to St. Vincent from his many years as a priest and auxiliary bishop in Pittsburgh, when he served as an adjunct spiritual director at the seminary in Latrobe.