To make ourselves at home under all circumstances and able to turn everything that happens to account. Father R.M. Benson, SSJE
Are you going to submit to the yoke?
Some years ago when the Order of the Ascension was making changes to the Rule, I suggested dropping a quote under the section on governance. When the Order was forming in the early 80s Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz was experiencing a renewed popularity. Most of us had read it. Sections were being read every Sunday evening on public radio.
But in recent years, I had a sense that it no longer spoke to us. That it wasn’t relevant in the way it had once been. So, I proposed we remove it. Brother Scott Benhase, OA thought otherwise. He routinely read the Rule and found the passage helpful. Maybe it had something to do with having been elected Bishop of Georgia. I accepted his wisdom. The quote stayed.
The passage comes in the third section of the book. It is 3781. The world once again is about to enter into nuclear war. There are starships and extra-solar colonies. The Leibowitzan Order's mission of preserving the Memorabilia has expanded to the preservation of all knowledge. Brother Joshua is being appointed as the mission leader. Some from the Order are to go to another world. It is a plan for perpetuating the Church on the colony planets in the event of a nuclear war on Earth. The Order's Memorabilia will also accompany the mission. Brother Joshua isn’t certain about accepting the position and its task.
Here it is –
"If they chose me, I shall be certain. "
"Domne, I'm not -certain"
"You can croak anyhow, eh? Are you going to submit to the yoke? Or aren't you broken yet?
You'll be asked to be the ass He rides into Jerusalem, but it's a heavy load and it'll break your back, because He's carrying the sins of the world. "
"I don't think I'm able. "
". ..Listen, none of us has been really able. But we've tried, and we've been tried. It tries you to destruction, but you're here for that. This Order has had abbots of gold, abbots of cold tough steel, abbots of corroded lead, and none of them was able although some were abler than others, some saints even. The gold got battered the steel got brittle and broke, and the corroded lead got stamped into ashes by Heaven. Me. I've been lucky enough to be quicksilver; I spatter, but I run back together somehow. I feel another spattering coming on, though, and I think it Is for keeps this time. "what are you made of? What's to be tried?"
"Puppy dog tails. I'm meat, and I'm scared."
"Steel screams when it's forged, it gasps when it's quenched. It creaks when it goes under load. I think even steel is scared. Take half an hour to think? A drink of water? A drink of wind? Totter off awhile. If it makes you seasick then prudently vomit. If it makes you terrified, scream. If it makes you anything, pray. But come into church before Mass, and tell us. .."
", , .If they want me, honorem accipiam. "
The abbot smiled "You heard me badly. I said 'burden " not 'honor. ",
"Accipiam. "
"You're certain?"
"If they chose me, I shall be certain. "
Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz
In these days, I understand the passage in a new way. Scott was so right. The pandemic isn’t the end of the world (I hope). It isn’t nearly as awful as the Second World War. But it is hard. And parish priests have a new burden to accept.
The part of the passage that hits me most strongly is --
If it makes you seasick then prudently vomit. If it makes you terrified, scream. If it makes you anything, pray. But come into church before Mass, and tell us. .."
Ready but not fussy
Yesterday, on the Feast of the Ascension, we gathered on Zoom, greeted one another, had a bit of Chapter, and said an expanded Noon Office. After Scott read Luke’s account of the Ascension Michelle Heyne, our Presiding Sister, offered a short reflection. She began with a quote from Father Benson, SSJE on being a religious.
We must be as religious cherishing a habit of at once jumping into our place and finding ourselves at home in it, just as much at home there is anywhere else. ... The religious life is not to be a dreamy dissatisfaction with the present state of things, it is not to be a mere not knowing what to do next, because things about us are as they are, but it is the consciousness of being able to make ourselves at home under all circumstances and able to turn everything that happens to account. This is what the religious should be — ready; ready but not fussy. Fr. Benson, SSJE
The ordained have a focusing effect in the Body of Christ. Their presence draws our attention to and brings to fullness something true of the whole body. The parish priest is a sacramental action assisting the congregation in its priestly life and work by her very presence. Likewise, those in the religious life “reveal to the whole church something of its own true nature.” – a freedom …from conformity to the world …. from the anxieties and obsessions of time … to live in time with a greater spirit of freedom in the service of God … [to have] a life which overflowed into activity, not an activity supported by a life.”[i]
In his booklet on the religious life, A. M. Allchin quotes Fr. Benson writing about SSJE.
Our Society is not a society drawn out of the Church, but drawn together within the Church. And it is not drawn together as supplying something wanting in the Communion of Saints, but as the means to arrive at a recognition of that communion. The object of all religious societies is to gather up, and, as it were, focus the love which ought to animate the whole body of the church Catholic ... It is important for us to remember that the love which animates any society of this kind is derived from the great body of Christendom at large. There are special gifts of God intended to the Society, but only as it is a society within the Church.
So then, all religious orders, including the Order of the Ascension, are instruments of God for the well-being and mission of the whole church—for the Church’s “freedom in service.” And we accomplish that by “being able to make ourselves at home under all circumstances and able to turn everything that happens to account.”
Then, in this time of the virus, how might our Order help the whole Body be at home and turn what is happening to the benefit of those in the divine image?
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Become an associate of a religious order
[i] A. M. Allchin, “The Theology of the Religious Life: An Anglican Approach”, S.L.G. Press, 1971
The icon of Fr. Benson is from a larger icon "The Restoration of the Religious Life." Written by Christine Simoneau Hales It is part of a collection, "The Anglo Catholics."
Postings on the inner life and the virus
You know, and they know, that they are offering their lives
Intercessions and the virus Solitude.
The mystery of the cross Solitude in Surrey
We'll meet again God's not indifferent to our pain
Endures all things Becoming an Associate of a Religious Order
Spiritual vitality and authenticity The path of servanthood
Down into the mess Missing the Eucharist
In you we live Faith to perceive
Faith to perceive: In your great compassion
Turn everything that happens to account
We no longer know what to do The cares and occupations
Postings on Parish Development during the Virus
Power from the center pervades the whole To everything there is a season
Faith to perceive: Remaining inseparable Communities of love, prayer and service