Vigil of Saint Benedict, 2007
Many individuals who convert to Catholicism
do so because of the lives of the saints.
In these lives we find the integration
of thought, feeling, action, and belief
in the midst of real history,
through difficult and challenging situations.
It is in these situations that the light of God's grace shines
and the wonderful fullness
of Catholic faith and life is apparent.
Holiness is not an abstraction,
something that can be generalized,
mapped out in mathematical formulas.
Nor is holiness perfection.
In the lives of the saints, there is too much evidence to the contrary.
It is the Divine Love and Light shining
in the midst of real human beings,
in all their wonderful particularity,
human beings who are living with gaps in their understanding,
and weaknesses of body and character.
It is precisely in the wisdom tradition of monastic life
that we are called to holiness of life.
Saint Benedict says that his Rule is for beginners
but there is no doubt that giving ourselves to this pathway,
God's Spirit will do the slow and patient work of transformation.
It will not be in the way we imagined,
it will not happen on our time frame.
It will happen in God's way and time.
As Benedict so shrewdly warns,
"Do not wish to be called holy before you really are,
but first be holy
that you may more truly be so called" (RB 4:62).
When we make our vows,
we place the written copy on the altar and sign it.
They are part of the oblation, the sacrifice,
the "making holy" which the Eucharistic sacrifice is all about.
Christ, in the memorial of his dying and rising,
through the Holy Spirit,
takes the gift of our lives,
the gift that we really make of our lives,
and gradually, over the years, makes them holy.
As we celebrate this great feast,
we give thanks for the great mystery of which we are a part.
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
July 10, 2007
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