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My Calling to be a Benedictine ( Part II )

From Conversion to Vocation
My Calling to be a Benedictine

A Monk ??

My first visit to Saint Vincent Archabbey, the Benedictine monastery that is now my home, was an experience of transformation and growing trust in God. Led by our campus minister I arrived with some other college students on a Friday evening and enjoyed some pizza with the group in the novitiate lounge of the monastery. I had no idea what a monastery was aside from movies and fiction novels. I had no interest in being a part of the stereotype of monastic life I had in my head from movies like Monty Python’s “The Quest for the Holy Grail.” I felt a particular call to share the gift of prayer I had received during my studies in Germany, which I had rephrased in my mind as “evangelization,” and I did not imagine that that was part of the life of a monk. So I had rather low expectations of my first visit to Saint Vincent Archabbey, but I was open and willing to learn.

After a pleasant, social time on arrival, I slept quickly and got up early to join some monks for a time of Eucharistic adoration at 5:30am in a small chapel and then later followed the monks to morning prayer and Mass with the whole monastic community in the Archabbey’s beautiful Basilica. Then after some pleasant encounters with some monks throughout the day, followed by chanted Vespers and dinner, I retired to my guest room in the monastery. I had some time before the evening recreation and so I picked up the small Rule of Saint Benedict that was in my room. Looking at the table of contents my eyes were drawn to the chapter on humility, because it was a Christian virtue I had recently become interested in. Reading the chapter on humility, however, immediately summoned up in my mind all the scary stereotypes of a harsh, inhumane, medieval monasticism that belonged more to the “Dark Ages” than to our “enlightened” modern times. (Side note: I love those passages on humility now that I have learned the deeper meaning and context in which Saint Benedict teaches us!) Suddenly the reality that I was in a monastery came crashing down on me and I wondered what had happened to my life to bring me to this point! I was aghast and started plotting my escape, not wanting to spend another night in such a place. At least I planned to hide in my bed and sleep through everything until our departure the next day.

Catching myself, I took a deep breath and said a prayer: “Jesus, I need your help! I am going to make an act of faith and go to recreation, but you need to give me something to hold on to!” Jesus is faithful. I went to recreation and discovered a cribbage game with three players awaiting a fourth. I sat down across from one of the players who was wearing a t-shirt with the words, “Ich spreche, ich lehre, ich liebe Deutsch,” and when I read it out loud, that monk lit up and engaged me in German for a few sentences. When everyone departed after our cribbage game, I stayed for almost three hours speaking to this monk and sharing with him all the events that had led me to baptism, to discern a vocation and ultimately to Saint Vincent Archabbey. In the course of sharing my journey with him, the grace returned and I was flooded with a spiritual consolation as I saw how actively God had been guiding my life. It broke through my fears and renewed my strength to stay the rest of the weekend. I left Saint Vincent the next day with such a love for the place and the monks that I declared to my spiritual director that I would love to join right away.

God directed my decision

I knew I could not join right away because I had only been baptized for a week! More important for me was the fact that I could not say I ever heard God calling me to priesthood or religious life. I knew my desire for priesthood was strong and I believed my insight to share the gift of prayer (which I had reformulated as “evangelization”) was inspired but I could not say I had heard, in a time of spiritual consolation, God confirming my call.

That confirmation came at World Youth Day in Paris. During our trip to Paris, our group spent time at the parish of Le Trinite where I had the opportunity for an extended time of Eucharistic adoration. As I knelt in the silence and read the Gospel account about the call of the first Apostles, I was inspired to ask Jesus what He wanted from me. I said to Him in my heart, “I want to do whatever you want me to do. Do you want me to become a priest?” As everything became perfectly silent inside of me in great stillness and peace, I believed I heard Him say “Yes.” That filled me with a great joy that stayed with me the rest of the day and the intensity and concreteness of the memory lingered long after that.

At the same time, it was still on my mind that my call was to “evangelization,” and so I had started to abstractly exclude the possibility of a Benedictine vocation despite the powerful first visit I had had to Saint Vincent. I did not understand how Benedictines evangelize (I can write several books on that now!). I still returned for another visit however and on that visit, one of the monks told me about a Franciscan community that was trying to live the charism of Saint Francis more radically and they were devoted to evangelization. That led me to visit the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (the “CFRs”) in New York City. I spent a week with them and loved my visit. I loved the friars, I loved their radical zeal for the Gospel, I loved their courageous ministry to the poor and their fearless proclamation of the Gospel. I learned many things from them about how to live the faith. They helped me formulate some ideals that have stayed with me for over two decades now. To my surprise, however, that was not God’s plan for my life.

In what I planned as a final act of discernment, I divided up my spring break into several days with the CFRs followed by several days with the Benedictines at Saint Vincent Archabbey. In my days with the CFRs while I watched the postulants receive their habits as they became novices, I tried to picture myself in their gray habits. Despite my best efforts, I kept seeing myself in a black habit instead. Then as I participated in the Mass when the novices made their first vows, I tried to imagine myself kneeling there and making vows with the friars, but I kept seeing myself in the Basilica at Saint Vincent instead. Slowly an inner tension had formed during my visit to the CFRs.

In the discomfort of this inner tension, I was moved to make an act of surrender and I told the Lord that I wanted to do whatever He wanted me to do: “If you want me to go to Saint Vincent, I will go to Saint Vincent.” At that moment I was flooded with peace and all the tension was resolved. That communicated a clear message to me in spite of my preference to become a CFR at that point. But the spiritual consolation in that prayer of surrender moved me deeply and my mind quickly embraced the idea of becoming a Benedict at Saint Vincent Archabbey. A last vestige of my stubborn self-will pondered asking for the name “Francis”, but my surrender was complete when I opened to a Benedictine name and quickly remembered the name, “Boniface.” I had learned about St. Boniface during my time in Germany and remembered that he was a missionary Benedictine monk and the Apostle to Germany.

Following my visit to the CFRs I spent a few days at Saint Vincent and told the Abbot about my desire to enter the monastery. He was surprised, because I was still so newly baptized (I was Catholic for only one year at that point) and he wisely put a damper on my zeal saying that he would discuss it with the Council of Seniors. Even at that, I was not discouraged. In fact, it was a further confirmation for me because I discovered in that experience that I actually had total trust in whatever the Abbot, under consultation with the community, would discern was God’s will for me. There was a grace of obedience at work in my heart in that experience and I was already anticipating the way that God would work in my life through my Abbot. In the end, the community decided to accept me, as an exception to the general rule, only 15 months after Baptism. I entered the monastery on July 1, 1998 and I received the habit and the name Boniface a few days later.

Why a Benedictine?

In this article, I set out to explain my personal call to the Benedictine life. I have described the steps to becoming Catholic and discerning my call to Saint Vincent Archabbey, but I have revealed little about the Benedictine charism or why I believe that this is the charism I was called to embody and live out for the rest of my life. Although it sounds trite, I can say that I became a Benedictine at Saint Vincent Archabbey because I believe God called me to that. I did not become a Benedictine because we have a college or a seminary or a large community or regular liturgical prayer or a beautiful Basilica. I had some organic, human connections that brought me to the community and I believe that in prayer God called me to join that community and give my life to Him there.

As a novice I could not have described in detail what drew me to the Benedictine community at Saint Vincent Archabbey, other than prayer and the grace of God. After twenty years in the community, however, I can now see more clearly why God called me here. The initial desire that rose up in my heart is indeed the one that was able to unfold at Saint Vincent in the most beautiful way, namely “to share the gift of prayer.” Although I had translated that into “evangelization” and I have found many opportunities to evangelize, ultimately my desire was always to share the gift of prayer. I believe that was also God’s desire for me and that is why He brought me to Saint Vincent Archabbey. As a Benedictine monk in a very large and active monastery I have had abundant opportunities to learn prayer and share prayer, especially through teaching and spiritual direction.

The Benedictine life is oriented towards learning to pray. St. Benedict gives the main criterion for monastic life: “The concern must be whether the novice truly seeks God…” (RB 58:7) Fundamentally, to learn to pray is to truly seek God. The monk develops a living, personal relationship with our God who is Himself personal, in fact tri-Personal. That relationship, which is the basis for everything else, stretches across time into every moment of the monk’s life. This constant loving awareness of the presence of God could be seen as the principal theme of the Rule of Saint Benedict: “We believe that the divine presence is everywhere…” (RB 19:1). The rest of the rule arranges the life of the monk to become more responsive to God’s presence in everything he does.

In other words, the monk learns how to do everything in relationship with God. He learns how to turn his life into constant prayer. That begins with concrete prayer times as Saint Benedict makes clear in the next verse of the Rule, “But beyond the least doubt we should believe this to be especially true when we celebrate the divine office” (RB 19:2). The divine office (the liturgy of the hours) is the heartbeat of every monastery. Additionally, Saint Benedict prescribed long periods of time (up to four hours a day, as it is still practiced in more contemplative monasteries) to the practice of prayerful reading called “lectio divina.” The liturgy, lectio divina and the monastic culture of scheduled activities bracketed by prayer are the primary means for growing in prayer.

Additionally, there is a special apostolic emphasis on hospitality. This comes from the unique Benedictine vow of stability. Stability leads to the sanctification of a place and the inevitable draw for guests to experience that holy place and its praying monastic community. Saint Benedict comments in the Rule that monasteries are never without guests (RB 53:16). Furthermore, the guests at monasteries are generally those who want to share in the grace of the monastery and so we call them retreatants. The natural ministry to retreatants is teaching them to pray as a group through retreat conferences and individually through spiritual direction.

For these reasons, teaching prayer became part and parcel of my life at Saint Vincent Archabbey. As my monastic life developed, this ministry extended beyond the walls of Saint Vincent, and I began to offer retreats and spiritual direction in more diverse places and for a wide variety of people. The most recent development in my monastic journey has been to write books on spiritual direction and personal prayer and to offer spiritual direction formation for a wide range of people through our Seminary’s Institute for Ministry Formation.

I did not understand everything that God was calling me to when He drew me, through prayer, to the Benedictine monastery of Saint Vincent Archabbey, but what I have discovered and lived out has been more fulfilling than I ever dreamed possible. I am deeply grateful for my Benedictine vocation.

Fr Boniface Hicks OSB

For you? For some? For many? For all? Is Catholicism for everyone?

In the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we profess our belief each Sunday in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” The word “catholic” in Greek means “universal”. Our initial impression, then, would be that the “Catholicism” is for everyone. There are some modern factors that cloud that impression, however. One confusing factor is the relativism that is so prevalent in our culture. One who ascribes to relativism believes there is no absolute and thus no universal (i.e. catholic) truth or morality and thus no universal religion. This might be expressed as, “Whatever you think is good and true–that is good and true for you. Whatever I think is good and true–that is good and true for me.” Another confusing factor has recently appeared in the heart of Catholic worship, in the Eucharist. For forty years the words of consecration, the very heart of the Eucharistic prayer, were translated into English as, “this is the cup of my Blood, which will be shed for you and for all…”. Now at Mass we hear, “this is the chalice of my Blood, which will be poured out for you and for many…”. Should we take from this change in the Eucharistic Prayer that the relativists are right, that Catholicism is not truly universal, but only good and true for some?

Pope Benedict's teaching on “pro multis”

Fortunately, Pope Benedict teaches us beautifully on this point. We will consider his explanation given in a letter to German-speaking bishops on April 14, 2012. The entire letter is beautiful, clear and worth reading. I would like to draw out a few points here that can help us in our understanding and living the Catholic faith.

Revelation always requires an interpeter

The first point is that the literal translation of the Latin pro multis is “for many”. Why then was it translated for so many years as “for all”? Pope Benedict explains that a style of translation was embraced after the Second Vatican Council that catered to a concern for the common person's understanding. The text, in Latin, had been remote from people's understanding, but if only presented in a direct translation, the implementors of the new liturgy feared the text would remain remote. Thus, to aid in the understanding of the liturgical prayer in modern languages, the translators incorporated interpretation into the translation. So, as an example, while it was not a problem that the words of consecration were pronounced in Latin as pro multis, there was a fear that if the words were translated directly into English as “for many” there would be a misunderstanding about the Church's theology. Instead of entrusting the task of interpretation to the Church's ministers (bishops, priests, catechists, parents), the decision was made to incorporate the interpretation into the translation.

This is the first key point Pope Benedict helps us understand: the need for interpretation is always a part of revelation. That is why God ordained teachers (Peter and the Apostles and now their successors, the Pope and bishops) and guaranteed that they would provide an authentic interpretation (not even the gates of hell will prevail against the rock of Peter). Pope Benedict expresses it in this way,

Not even the most sensitive translation can take away the need for explanation: it is part of the structure of revelation that the word of God is read within the exegetical community of the Church – faithfulness and drawing out the contemporary relevance go together. The word must be presented as it is, with its own shape, however strange it may appear to us; the interpretation must be measured by the criterion of faithfulness to the word itself, while at the same time rendering it accessible to today's listeners.

A corollary to this point is that we must keep growing in faith. This shows the need for ongoing formation. When there are things we do not understand, it is our responsibility to seek an authentic interpretation by looking to the Church's teaching. We can start with the Catechism and the documents of the Second Vatican Council. We can ask our parish priests who can explain things for us in terms of the teaching of the Magisterium (the Pope and the bishops). We can look for explanations in the writings of the Popes which can easily be found on the Vatican website. It is the Church's responsibility to provide an interpretation and the individual Christian's responsibility to seek it out and make the effort to understand it. This is part of the structure of revelation.

“For many” still means “for all”

Pope Benedict goes on in his letter to the German bishops to help us understand whether the change to “for many” indicates that Jesus did not die for all. He writes,

Did the Lord not die for all? The fact that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the man for all men, the new Adam, is one of the fundamental convictions of our faith. Let me recall just three Scriptural texts on the subject: God 'did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all', as Paul says in the Letter to the Romans (8:32). 'One has died for all,' as he says in the Second Letter to the Corinthians concerning Jesus' death (5:14). Jesus 'gave himself as a ransom for all,' as we read in the First Letter to Timothy (2:6).

Certainly Jesus Christ died for all. Cardinal Francis Arinze gives a further explanation on this point in his letter dated October 17, 2006, sent to the US Bishops,

The expression 'for many,' while remaining open to the inclusion of each human person, is reflective also of the fact that this salvation is not brought about in some mechanistic way, without one’s own willing or participation; rather, the believer is invited to accept in faith the gift that is being offered and to receive the supernatural life that is given to those who participate in this mystery, living it out in their lives as well so as to be numbered among the 'many' to whom the text refers.

Here Cardinal Arinze makes it clear that Jesus died for all, but it is up to us to accept the gift of salvation.

For you!

Pope Benedict teaches us more of the beautiful meaning behind the phrase of Jesus, “for many”. It should be noted, first, that the account of Jesus's words at the Last Supper are different in Matthew and Mark's accounts in contrast with Luke and Paul. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus says, “for many” while in Luke and Paul He says, “for you.” The Roman Mass combined these words into “for you and for many.” When we read “for you” we do not understand that the Precious Blood of Jesus is shed only for the Apostles who were present at the Last Supper. Rather we see the personal way Jesus applies His Precious Blood to them. Likewise, the saving power of His Precious Blood is still applied to each one present at the Eucharistic Liturgy, who can hear those words personally addressed them. We can each stand at the foot of the Cross and rightly hear Jesus tell us that He is pouring out His Blood for me.

Pope Benedict then turns the love of Jesus spoken to each one personally at the Mass into a challenge. Jesus says, “I pour out my Blood for you and for many but it is your responsibility to ensure that it reaches all.” Pope Benedict expresses the challenge in this way,

How the Lord in his own way reaches the others – 'all' – ultimately remains his mystery. But without doubt it is a responsibility to be directly called to his table, so that I hear the words 'for you' – he suffered for me. The many bear responsibility for all. The community of the many must be the lamp on the lamp-stand, a city on the hilltop, yeast for all. This is a vocation that affects each one of us individually, quite personally. The many, that is to say, we ourselves, must be conscious of our mission of responsibility towards the whole.

We are not few but many!

Finally Pope Benedict uses the “for many” to encourage us. Sometimes we do not feel like “many” we only feel like “some” or “few”. Especially as our church communities dwindle in size, we must take up the responsibility to extend Jesus's life-giving death to others, but we must also remember that we are part of “many.” Indeed, St John reports in the book of Revelation that he saw, “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb…” (Rev 7:9) We must remember that even when only a few are present at Mass, we are always in the presence of many, even a multitude of saints who have gone before and are united with us in the Church.

Indeed, Catholicism is not merely for a few, for some or for many–it is for all, a universal religion that has the power to transform and elevate all that is authentically human and unite it with the divine.