Hermits of America

New CamaldoliCamaldole Hermitage • , • Volume 14 • Issue 2 • SummerTidings 2008

“Empty yourself completely … content with the grace of God.” The Brief Rule of St. Romuald

Photo by Rick Losser

Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. –Psalm 119:105 2 ~ Camaldole Tidings

Prior Knowledge – Father Raniero God Lives Deeply in Each of Us In the 14th Chapter of St. John’s technology is creating a desire within Gospel, Jesus tells us that if we love him women and men to seek stability and the and are true to his words, then the Father meaning and purpose of their life. This will love us, and then, he and the Father desire can also be felt and experienced will come and make as a void or emptiness in their dwelling with us!! Those who seek our the midst of the so-called – John 14:23 life and spirituality, “fullness” that society and This is similar through the vowed technology are offering. Individuals are oftentimes to the teaching of St. God to call men and women to the vowed life, through retreats reluctant to look within Augustine who tells contemplative life (especially here at New here at the hermitage themselves for answers for us that God is more Camaldoli) so that through their witness what they are seeking. And intimate to us than we or through our oblate many others may be awakened to and yet, deep within them there are to ourselves – God program journey with encouraged in their search for stability, is the answer, there is the is the most intimate meaning and purpose. And let’s be us into this primal pearl of great price, there is of who we are. So if grateful for our many oblates who embody truth that the meaning and quality of we want to know God, the contemplative reality of human life life that is always present then we must know our we and God in places and encounters that we in the and which no one can take self, for God lives deep vowed life will never be able to do. are One. from them. Namely, there is within each one of us. Loving God, deepen our within them this union with Deep within each one consciousness of your living within us, God, the contemplative dimension of their of us we and God are One. This is the so that from that graced being in Oneness life –of every human life. Camaldolese contemplative truth and dimension of with You, that is within us, we may live spirituality specifically points the monk every human life – and especially every more genuinely and generously our and nun to this inner journey. Those who Christian life. The pearl of great price is relationship with You, with others, with seek our life and spirituality, through the within us – we are called to become more ourselves. Amen. and more conscious of it. vowed life, through retreats here at the Not everyone is called to a vowed hermitage or through our oblate program contemplative life – to be a contemplative journey with us into this primal truth that monk or nun – but those of us who are, we and God are One. are responding to a particular call that So let’s pray for each other as we witnesses to, that calls attention to, that continue the ongoing discovery of God awakens others to the contemplative dwelling within each one of us. Let’s Camaldolese Tidings is published by the dimension present within their own life. pray that God will awaken all humanity Camaldolese Hermits of America for our friends, oblates, and sponsors. The busyness of our society as to the awareness of the contemplative dimension of every human life. Let’s ask well as the rapidly changing world of Publisher Father Raniero Hoffman, OSB Cam. Prayer Schedule Editor Brother Bede Healey, OSB Cam. Weekdays: Development Director 5:30 am Vigils Robert J. Allen 7:00 am Lauds Public Relations & Design 11:30 am Eucharist Susan Garrison 6:00 pm Vespers If you have questions or comments about this publication, please address them to: Sundays and Solemnities: New Camaldoli Hermitage 5:30 am Vigils 62475 Coast Highway 1 7:00 am Lauds Big Sur, CA 93920 11:00 am Eucharist (831) 667-2456 • Fax: (831) 667-0209 5:00 pm Vespers E-mail: [email protected] Camaldole Tidings ~ 3 Camaldolese Communications By Fr. Robert Hale, OSB Cam. Mountain Center, the Native This column wants to share with American Tribe, and . you Camaldolese happenings since our Several of us monks have offered last newsletter. “Communications” is quiet days to our Oblate groups in this etymologically linked to communion, period: Brother Bede in Pasadena, Father and that is what we hope to deepen by Daniel in Newport Beach, and I in Santa keeping you abreast of things. Obviously Cruz. Thanks so much to our Oblates who just some recent news items can be noted worked so hard in these various places to here, given limitations of space. But we’ll organize the retreats, reserve sites, provide Conference, reminding all of us that the try our best! refreshments, etc.! Holy Spirit is the source and energy of Raniero, our beloved Prior, and And thanks to our Oblates who the prayer and ministry of monks, and Brother Gabriel and two Oblate friends, have really worked overtime in sending indeed of all Christians. Father Michael Chris Lorenc (a real historian of our out the invitations and receiving the Fish participated in the Christian/Jewish/ th heritage) and Torrey Waag, participated RSVPs for the 50 Anniversary Oblate Hindu/Buddhist Seminar in an Oregon in the quarterly Four Winds Council that Lunch in August.. cathedral. brings together four significant centers Brother Emmanuel and Brother Our artist Brother Emmaus here of our in the Big Gabriel have participated in the very recent had a powerful diptych painting accepted Sur area: the Hermitage, Tassajara Zen Northern California Charismatic Renewal into a Pasadena Christian art competition, and his work ended up with the “Best in Show” award! See their website, www. Dear Monastics of Camaldoli, greatchristianart.com . Our weekly liturgical sheet The Saturday before Pentecost is the anniversary (in the liturgical year) of (beautifully wrought by Brother Emmaus) my becoming an oblate of New Camaldoli. Tomorrow will be a little more special is now posted online. One need just join than usual … it is the 10th anniversary of my oblation. I’m not sure I can find the the lively forum MonasticLife (and one words to describe how profoundly transformative these past ten years as an oblate may lurk) at http://groups.yahoo.com . have been. But I can say with absolute clarity, that the Camaldolese charism and Father Andrew and Father Arthur in how it is lived out in my particular life is the path that God calls me to follow. It is Incarnation Monastery are already a path that has taken me on a journey that I could have never predicted in advance, preparing for their September 2009 but one that has profoundly deepened my understanding of the primacy of love. pilgrimage for Oblates and friends to

our hermitages and monasteries in Italy. – Matt They have offered this several years now, and people find it very rewarding. For further information, e-mail Andrew Please remember us at [email protected]. Father Arthur when making is painting several canvases for his upcoming exhibit in October at the Ira or revising your will. Wolk Gallery in Santa Helena. Father Thomas at Incarnation has taught a course on monastic interfaith dialogue at the Our official name is: Graduate Theological Union. All three monks of Incarnation have offered quiet Camaldolese Hermits days and retreats at Santa Sabina Center in San Rafael. of America Our regular hermitage bell, elec- tronically run, was out of order for several days! A hermitage without a bell is really handicapped, but we do have our backup huge bell which is hand rung, and its Our federal ID # is: sonorous sounds have continued to call us 94-6050278 to church on time, where we have praised and given thanks to God, and also prayed for all of you! Please do pray for us!

4 ~ Camaldole Tidings Monastic Vocations for New Camaldoli Hermitage (As taken from the writings of Father Michael Fish, OSB Cam) As a monastic and contemplative community living in the Benedictine tradition, we place an emphasis on solitude and community. This is a balance that requires specific skills and a certain level of spiritual development. Our life is challenging and different than many ways of life in society. We accept candidates only under the age of 45, and find this to be better suited for our way of life. As a Roman Catholic order we encourage all candidates to be practicing their faith and active in their Catholic parish. Therefore, we encourage people to wait until their mid-to-late twenties before seriously considering our way of life. The monks labors include hospitality, re- treats, book store, writing, and original art, pottery and music. Many of the monks were called Photos by Rick Losser to monastic life as a second career. For- mer lay careers of community members Vocations are obtained from God thanks to prayer. I invite you include college and high school teaching, performing arts, engineering, clinical psy- to ask, with fervor and constancy, for new vocations to the chology, chemistry, construction and the priesthood and to consecrated life from the Master. United States Armed Services. Former religious careers include – Pope John Paul II in Austria, June 29, 1998 service as diocesan priests and as mem- bers of Benedictine, Franciscan, Salesian, St. John of God and Redemptorist orders. As a hermit our life includes an ever-shifting balance of work and prayer, solitude and communion. Depending on your life experience, we may seem more or less active than what you may be accustomed to. So this is an invitation to pray over your life in order to serve God and to consider if this is how he is calling you. For more information, go to our website: www.contemplation.com or write me: Father Michael Fish, OSB Cam. c/o New Camaldoli Hermitage 62475 Coast Highway 1 Big Sur, CA 93920 Camaldole Tidings ~ 5 Reaching Out to Foster Vocations By Robert J. Allen • Gather a list of major websites on religious vocations and • Identify single women or men, books pertaining to religious ages 18-45 who attend Mass communities. and appear to have a special • Suggest books to read that relationship with God might aid them in discerning • Pray daily to the Holy Spirit God’s will for them, as a means for guidance in approaching of deepening their love of God at least one person fitting this or helping them to gain further description and initiating a knowledge of the teachings of dialogue during the month the Catholic Church • “Listen” to this person with • Encourage them to seek out the “ear of your heart” (a phrase a spiritual director or a regular from the rule of St. Benedict) confessor so they have someone to his/her aspirations and share to guide them in discerning their how one can grow in holiness by vocation, whether married, lay or choosing a vowed commitment a vowed religious life. Photo by Rick Losser as a way of life. If God wants more vocations, we • Seek not the perfect candidate but rather • Remember to meet them on their will have more vocations. Our role the one who seeks to be more perfect in playing field, not yours. as Catholics is, not only to pray for following Jesus • Keep in mind that they are young and vocations, but also encourage our young • Use the gift of age to realize how, as have only seen the sunrise, not the sunset; people to consider the invitation to follow time passes, one gains wisdom; but it is so they have not experienced the whole Jesus Christ through a vowed life in the the fire of youth that God seeks, so have day. Catholic Church. patience • Give them resources to seek more Let us begin today to remember one • Look not at outside appearance (how information on vocations through another in prayer for our vocation. they dress) but how they address others. programs/vocation weekends sponsored • Listen to how they sing and praise God by individual communities in your area/ “Here I am, send me.” Isaiah 6:8 rather than how they communicate in Diocese. today’s language. Our Father St. Romuald We Camaldolese The abbey’s magnificent Byzantine of every Christian’s spirituality, because are , mosaics, still admired by pilgrims and they were so clearly evidenced in the and follow the Rule tourists, helped shape Romuald’s deep life of Christ. of St. Benedict. Eastern Christian spirituality. Shortly after Romuald then returned to Italy, So St. Benedict is making his vows he received permission founding and reforming monasteries our first founder. to follow a more solitary life, being and hermitages. Camaldoli, in the But we are a schooled by a holy hermit, Marino. There Tuscan mountains, was Romuald’s last specific branch of he met Abbot Guarinas of Cuxa, returning foundation, and it grew to become our the Benedictines, from a pilgrimage, who invited him and motherhouse. When in Tuscany visit us and St. Romuald his friends (including the Doge of Venice, there! is the founder Peter Orseolo!) to travel to his Abbey in Romuald’s desert spirituality is of that eleventh Catalonia. It was there that Romuald was expressed in his “Brief Rule” (which century reform. So maybe it could be able to integrate Benedictine communal many of our Oblates and friends know affirmed (granting all the difficulties of spirituality with the Eastern solitary and reverence). His very tender love the analogy!) that St. Benedict is our heritage, and became open to the heritage of Christ is summed up in one of his monastic grandfather, but Romuald our of monastic mission and martyrdom. exclamations in a moment of ecstasy, monastic father. This is expressed in our Camaldolese recorded by St. Peter Damian, his Romuald was born about 952 of a “threefold good” of Christian community, biographer: “O Jesus, dear Jesus, desire well-to-do family, and at the age of twenty Christian solitude, and Christian mission. of my heart, joy of the saints, delight of entered a Benedictine abbey in Ravenna. We believe these to be three dimensions the angels!”

6 ~ Camaldole Tidings

What charity is basically My uncle told me that concerned with you and about is if we give to your support of others others we are not doing he could sell me the than your gifts to them. just a good deed, but this best policy for the It is this wonderful self act comes from our soul. lowest premium if I giving that helps set By Robert J. Allen Life If… Charity must be how could tell him when them apart, because they we respond to God’s are here to serve God and In a recent TV ad for life insurance, abundant gifts to us. and how I would die… you through their prayer they played on the idea that they could His life insurance is for and work. take the “if” out of life, of course by eternity and is gained We have devoted taking life insurance out from them. I not by buying something, but by giving this issue to Vocations, not only for flashed back to the day my uncle told me something. Why do we give? Because we the Hermitage or priestly or religious that he could sell me the best policy for must, it is the act that helps us to extend life, but to all in order to empower us the lowest premium if I could tell him God’s love and through this we learn to to be more like Christ in all we say and when and how I would die. love God and one another. do…and the most important of these is If we had the faith of a mustard seed, Your support of the New Camaldoli Charity. The way we show our love for we could move mountains or if we don’t Hermitage is greatly needed and God’s gifts to us. love one another, we cannot love God. appreciated, but the monks are more

Accommodations Preached Retreats and Weekends – 2009 When Making a Retreat During the summer and fall of 2009, the following preached retreat weekends Two types of spaces are provided for will be offered at the Hermitage. retreatants; all are for single occupancy. The retreat house features a number of June 26-28: Yoga and Grace – facilitated by Thomas Matus, OSB Cam private rooms, each with a half-bath and personal garden overlooking the ocean. July 24-26: Art as Theophany (focusing on the paintings of Emmaus O’Herlily, There is also an area with two private OSB Cam) – facilitated by Robert Hale, OSB Cam. shower rooms and a common kitchen with various food items and where meals are August 28-30: The Marriage of East and West: The Vision of Bede Griffiths picked up. In addition to the retreat house, and Abhishiktananda – facilitated by Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam there are five trailer hermitages located along the hillside below the retreat house. September 25-27: Wisdom East and West – facilitated by Bruno Barnhart, OSB These spaces offer greater solitude and Cam. privacy. They include a full bath, small refrigerator, small counter-top gas burner November 6-8: God’s Creative Power in Darkness and in Light – facilitated for cooking, various food items for light by Andrew Colnaghi, OSB Cam, Arthur Poulin, OSB Cam, Toni Betschart, meals and a sun deck. Oblate OSB Cam. The main meal is picked up at the re- treat house kitchen. Please call the Hermitage Retreat rooms are generally reserved up Bookstore for reservations: to 6 months in advance, although cancel- (831) 667-2456. We ask lations sometimes free up space sooner. that you kindly register for Trailer hermitages can be reserved up to only one Preached Retreat 12 months in advance. Longer retreats are Weekend. If you would like to available in the trailer hermitages (two participate in another one, weeks is usually the maximum). then ask to be put on a waiting On the first of each month, a future list. month is opened for reservations; (August becomes open in February, September in March, etc.). Suggested donation for the retreat rooms is $70 per night; trailer Her- mitages, $80 per night. Camaldole Tidings ~ 7 Book Reviews Gift Shop Feature: Sculptor George Carruth By Fr. Daniel Manger, OSB Cam. The Camaldoli Gift Shop is pleased to announce that they now represent sculptor George Carruth. Jesus: Engaging Theology Catholic “He’s an American sculptor whose carvings are Perspectives, $19.95 By Gerard S. Sloyan ,STD, Phd remarkable and detailed,” explains BeBe, Gift Shop In this first of a six- manager. volume series, great Known for his satire and whimsy, “My desire is care is taken to give to provide original designs that not only plant a smile the most up-to-date on your face today, but provide a lifetime of plea- anthropology and sure,” Carruth says. linguistic evaluation His pieces are affordable and many are religious, of what the early BeBe adds. They can be displayed indoors or out- proclamations about doors. St. Francis Bird Feeder Jesus of Nazareth can tell us of both his historical presence and the post-resurrection encounters. The Jewish world of the time is explored with good development and attention to helping the reader keep a view to the remarkable event of Jesus. Sloyan leads the reader from the gospels and St. Paul’s accounts into some of the earliest questions that arose in the first, second and third centuries that eventually found definition in the Chalcedon and Nicaea Councils. Peace Angel The Open Road : The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, $24.00 To order, one of the works listed here, or for a com- By Pico Iyer plete list, contact the Gift Shop at: 831-667-2456. Pico Iyer quotes St. Francis Vaclav Havel toward the end of this most It’s not too early to plan. Don’t forget to order your brandy-dipped fruit engaging account of cakes or date cakes this holiday season, baked with the traditional recipe of the Dalai Lama from his family’s personal the monks. Order at www.hermitagebigsur.com . friendship that typifies the entire text, “Hope, is not the belief that everything will end happily ever after, it probably won’t. It is simply the belief that something makes sense, regardless of how things turn out, and even if that sense is not apprehensible to us.” Pico gives us a multifaceted reflection upon one of our present historical figures in a very personal and insightful into kaleidoscopic beauty of this wonderful human being the Dalia Lama. Visit hermitagebigsur.com and click on “Books” to order one of these. 8 ~ Camaldole Tidings Keeping the Hermitage Running: Brother Emmanuel Brother Emmanuel Wasinger is a constant presence the New Camaldoli Hermitage community. In charge of the Emmanuel maintenance of the roads and driver of is a the big machines, he is instrumental in wonderful, keeping the Hermitage running smoothly. “We’d be stuck without him,” prayerful says Brother Bede Healey. “He loves that man, and a manual labor, loves that work. There’s a peace about him, about how he does his real elder work.” He adds, “Emmanuel has a very in the contemplative approach to his work that he brings to his prayer.” community. That contemplative spirit is shown when Brother Emmanuel talks about his childhood. One of eight children born Standing in front of the Caterpillar. and raised in Bison, Kansas; his family grew wheat and had livestock. “We were cousin studying for the priesthood at the is wonderful. When he came to the pioneers in West Scott City,” he says. His seminary recommended the Benedictine Hermitage, almost 43 years ago, the living father, who was well educated, rented monastery to him. He attended seminary quarters were new. He has had a variety of land and broke sod from original grass to for one year then decided to be a monk. work including carrying the mail for 16 raise wheat. “The machines at that time His daily tasks included farm work such years. had steel wheels,” he smiles. as raising alfalfa and milking cows. “Emmanuel is a wonderful, He remembers the Dust Bowl of After 10 years, Brother Emmanuel prayerful man, and a real elder in the ’35. “Did you know,” he asks, “that the dust came to the New Camaldoli Hermitage community,” says Brother Bede. “He blowing began in October, went through in what he describes as “a very peaceful listens very deeply to Scripture and Christmas, and peaked during Easter on transition.” homilies that the monks give. Weeks and Good Friday, Saturday and Sunday? After “The scenery here is amazing,” months later he’ll remember and comment that, it quit and never happened again.” says the monk who before that, had never on something said from a homily,” says He noted that dirt from South Dakota was seen the ocean. “I enjoyed watching the Brother Bede. “He has an attentiveness to found as far away as the Gulf of Mexico. big ships pass by (in a time before trucks the Word.” Brother Emmanuel began his did so much transferring).” He also notes monastic life at Holy Cross Abbey in that the forest and weather in California Colorado in 1955. At the time there were 75 priests and 25 brothers living there. A

The fountain was built in the 90s and was designed by Fa- ther Louis Coddaire, who was Brother Emmanuel in front of that a monk here at that time. He is fountain in May 2008. Note the lad- a noted liturgical designer and The clipper on the back of this tractor is used to keep the der going up to the electronic bell. It currently serves in Northern trees and brush from growing over the road. was being fixed, as mentioned in Fr. California. Robert’s column on page 3.