spiritual

Abbatial Blessing @ Clear Creek Abbey

/ esteban / 1 Comment

[slideshow]

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the “Abbatial Blessing” of the 1st Abbot of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey.  The above photo slideshow doesn’t really do it justice.

This Benedictine monastery is located in northeastern Oklahoma, about an hour’s drive from Tulsa.  It is a monastic foundation of the French Abbey Notre Dame de Fontgombault, itself a foundation of Saint Pierre de Solesmes.  It was started about 10 years ago and just in February, I believe, they were raised to the status of an abbey and given independence from Fontgombault.  (I believe the proceeding was all accurately stated …).

The following description of the Rite is from the program given to those in attendance:

The Rite of the blessing of an Abbot by the Bishop is referred to in the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict and attested to a half century later under Pope Saint Gregory the Great, then in the eight century.  The Bishop surrounded by other Prelates, conferred on the new abbot his crozier and sandals.  In our day, the present Rite brings out the liturgical enrichment over the course of the centuries.

The blessing takes place during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, after the Gospel.  The Rite of blessing is composed of the presentation of the Abbot to the Bishop by two of his monks, a brief questioning afte the homily of the Bishop, and finally the solemn Blessing, which is preceded by the Litany of the Saints.  The Rite is concluded with the handing over of the Rule and the Abbatial Insignia (ring, miter, and crozier) and the kiss of peace, followed by the obedience of the new Abbot’s monks.

The Father Abbot concelebrates Holy Mass beside the Bishop.

As described, this is pretty much what happened.  The Mass was in Latin, according to the Benedictine tradition, as was to be expected. I don’t know how many people were in attendance, but the crypt Church was filled to capacity, with additional seating in the vestibule and outside as well.  The number was easily 700 or more and I saw many friends and other notable people from Tulsa’s Catholic community.

There was also another bishop attending as well as abbots from other monasteries in the US and France.

A particularly interesting part of the Rite was the interrogation of the Abbot-elect by the Bishop, prior to giving his official blessing.  I don’t know the origin of this, but here is the English translation of the questions asked by Bishop Slattery of the Tulsa Diocese, in Latin:

Holy Mother Church’s Ancient Tradition teaches and prescribes us to question him who has been chosen to lead his brethren in the name of Christ:  the Bishop himself must ascertain whether the new abbot is determined to fill his charge fittingly.  That is why, very dear Brother, following her wise guidance, I now ask:

Will you remain faithful in your monastic commitment to observe the Rule of Saint Benedict and will you incite your brothers to do the same, and lead them thus to the love of God, in the life of the Gospel and fraternal charity?

Will you teach your brothers by your constant dedication to monastic life, by sound doctrine, and by the good example of your own deeds rather than by mere words?

Will you lead your brothers to God taking to heart the spiritual good of those entrusted to your care?

Will you faithfully watch over the goods of your monastery with the duty of suing them wisely for the benefit of your brothers, of the poor and of the pilgrims?

Will you always and in all matters be loyal, obedient, and reverent to the holy Church and to our Holy Father the Pope and his successors?

May the Lord grant you these and all good things, and guard you always and everywhere.

The Prayer of the Abbatial Blessing follows after the singing of the Litany of the Saints.

It was a beautiful day and the lands of the monastery were very pretty at this early spring time, the tree just coming into full leaf and the redbuds and wild flowers in bloom.  I was very glad to have attended this special rite of the Church, something that I may never be able to witness again in the future.

Note:  The Mass and Abbatial Blessing took place in the Crypt Church of the Monastery.  Since it is only 10 years old, they have only completed construction of a portion of the monastery, which includes cells for the monks, the refectory, guest quarters, offices, and the crypt (basement) part of the church.  The main church will be built above the crypt church at some point in the future.  In one of the photos above, you can see some of the monks ringing the monastery bells, which are in a ground level building, awaiting the day when they can be installed in a proper bell tower.

The monks support themselves by the raising of sheep, cattle, and other farming activities.  Currently, there are 34 monks at the abbey.

Learn more about the monks of Our Lady of the Assumption at Clear Creek Abbey at www.clearcreekmonks.org.

There’s a terrific slideshow at the Diocese of Tulsa website, that you can see here.

Remembering Hershey

/ esteban / 2 Comments

Hershey

I am sad today.

I just spoke with my brother and learned that their 13-yr old border collie passed away in the night.  Her name was Hershey and she was an awesome dog.  Sweet, loyal and brilliantly intelligent as only border collies can be.

I know it’s not unusual to say this, but my family has always had a strong attachment to its dogs and Hershey was a particular favorite among all of us.  It was heart wrenching to listen to my brother express his grief for an animal that was definitely an integral part of their family.  My brother’s kids, two sons and a daughter, have not heard this news as I write this.   It will be terrible for them too.

St. Thomas Aquinas, I believe, said that all living things have a soul, but only humans have eternal souls.  It comes from our unique relationship with God and that we were made in His image.   That is an awesome gift that we all fail to fully appreciate.

Perhaps there is still a special place in heaven for those animals that touch our lives.  It is obvious that they have touched our souls at least as much as we have touched theirs.

Bye-bye Hershey.

Cathartic Cleaning

/ esteban

“I am not a hoarder!” he says, trying to be convincing.    Today is a big day for me.  I finally got rid of my old, still functioning, TRS-80 Model III computer.  I still remember the day in 1981 when I plunked down $999 at the Radio Shack store in Hobbs, New Mexico.  The beginning of almost 30 years of computing which has taken me around the world and back home again.

My friend Mark first showed me what a TRS-80 could do when we were freshman in the dorms at Oklahoma State. I’ve been hooked ever since.  Through the days of green screen monitors, 300 baud modems, dot matrix printers, arthritis causing keyboards, buggy software, computer viruses, Compuserve, AOL, MS-DOS, …    (For the record, I’m a Mac guy now, so most of those problems have gone away.  Ha!)

That Model III was a great machine for its time.  I even managed to write my master’s degree thesis on it.  Mind you, this was long before MS Office existed, but it still passed the scrutiny of the “ruler lady” in the Graduate College office who judged the formatting of my finished thesis.

So why am I now parting with this piece of Esteban-lore?  Because it is Lent.

Usually, during Lent, I try to do something penitential, such as giving up meat or caffeine, as a small reminder of Christ’s passion.  This year, I decided that I wanted to do something different.  Something more liberating, more freeing.

I am reminded of the man in the Gospel of Mark who asks Jesus about how to inherit eternal life. The Lord tells him to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow Him.  The man went away sad because he had many possessions.

I’m really not a hoarder, but I tend to hang on to things much longer than I need to.  I have been “planning” a garage sale for about 10 years but never got around to it.  I have the habit of keeping things for that “someday when I might need it.”

So, for this Lent, enough is enough.  I’m parting with many of the things that I’ve been carrying around like extra baggage.  Parting with my trusty old Model III, by donating it to Goodwill for recycling, was a first step that will make further donations easier.  It was a bit of personal history that was really meaningless in the big scheme of things.

It’s been rather cathartic, a cleansing of my physical estate, a prelude to the cleansing of my spiritual estate that will come during the remainder of Lent and the confession and solemnity of Holy Week, yet to come.

Join me!