THE BIG SUR COAST SIXTY MILES of MUSIC to the EYE Fr
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
New Camaldoli Hermitage SPRING 2016 THE BIG SUR COAST SIXTY MILES OF MUSIC TO THE EYE Fr. Bruno Barnhart’s reflection on Big Sur as “the growing edge of the world, the tip of history as it moves West.” page 3 IN THIS ISSUE 2 “New Heaven, New Earth, New Creation” 3 Lectio Divina 5 Fr. Bruno’s Reflection 6 “Follow the Light” 7 Vita Monastica 8 Development 9 Employee Spotlight 10 First-time Retreatant 11 Oblate Column 12 Activities and Visitors 62475 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA 93920 • 831 667 2456 • www.contemplation.com NEW HEAVENS, NEW EARTH, NEW CREATION Prior Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam We hear these scintillating words in the prophecy of Isaiah (Is 65:17-31), right near the end of the book: I am about to create new heavens and a new earth. It is no accident that the prophet uses the Hebrew word bara’ here for ‘create.’ This is the same word that is used in the first line MESSAGE FROM THE PRIOR of the book of Genesis: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth… The same power that was operative in the original As you can see, we have a new look for our quarterly newsletter. For creation is again at work in a new creation. But it’s important to note the last several editions, besides that one of the characteristics of Old Testament prophecy is that when the help of a few brother monks it points to a new age, it is not something other-worldly. It sees this and the ever patient Susan Garrison world transformed or, maybe better to say, it sees this world restored who does our layout, I have had to its original purpose, the purpose that God intended in creating it. the wonderful assistance of our Behold I create a new heavens and a new earth! oblate Deborah Douglas-Smith, who has served as a patient but Peter uses this same image, proclaiming that in Christ too we wait for a relentless grammarian on our sometimes dubious syntax as well new heaven and a new earth (2 Pt 3:13); the Book of Revelation ends with as soliciting other contributions. the same vision: I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven We have now been joined by other and the first earth had passed away (Rev 21:21). Could it be that they long-time friends: Chris Lorenc, who all mean this physical world in which human beings will be free from is a teacher and writer himself as suffering and sin, a place whererighteousness is at home (2 Pt)? Isaiah well as an oblate of New Camaldoli is wildly optimistic about it: the span of human life will be a hundred and his wife Debi, a professional years and if someone fails to reach old age it will be a sign of divine graphic designer. Besides our displeasure. It is not about the restoration of the Davidic monarchy or regular features, we have decided to focus on a theme based around about the earthly city, the geographical Jerusalem, or even about Israel our usual essay (in the past months itself, but the new Jerusalem, as Revelation says, coming down from contributed by Deborah, Pico Iyer heaven adorned like a bride. And when that righteousness comes about, and Paula Huston). This month’s when human beings are loyal to the divine will, then Nature itself will essay is an old article on the glories respond; it will be creation made new. of the Big Sur written by our Fr. Bruno in 1996 for Big Sur Magazine. There are so many echoes of this in the New Testament; besides the It highlights his poetic prose style ones I have mentioned there is certainly also Romans 8: the world itself as well as his penetrating vision and a hint of his wry humor. Chris will be freed from its slavery to corruption when we have experienced the supplied a foreword to the essay redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:21). and Pico an afterword. My own reflections on Isaiah and Peter’s Among other places, in the story of the healing of the centurion’s son vision of a new heaven and a new in the Gospel of John (4:43-54) Jesus is doing just that, redeeming earth. We are grateful for all the someone’s body, restoring this boy to wholeness and health, to his positive feedback and reception original purpose. But that particular scene is also wrapped up in all the newsletter has gotten, and kinds of other images that were so powerful for us in our readings very grateful for your contributions which make it financially worthwhile in the last weeks of Lent. The healing of the centurion’s son is Jesus’ as well as one small means of second miracle in the Gospel of John; the first was the wedding feast at outreach. The brothers and I Cana. And that miracle at that wedding in Cana, turning water into wine, wish you all the blessings of this was almost a kind of transubstantiation, almost a kind of alchemy. Eastertide as await a new portion of Spirit to wash over us and well up I’ve been reading a little about alchemy recently. Alongside the Christian from within. language of the paschal mystery, and the birth-and-death cycle of Baptism, alchemy—the medieval quasi-magical, quasi-scientific attempt Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam. to turn base metals into gold—has fascinated the Western mind for centuries. 2 ~ New Camaldoli Hermitage Rightly understood, the alchemical process can be a metaphor for the LECTIO DIVINA purifying purpose of our ascetical disciplines (like those of Lent) and remind us of the purpose of all our spiritual practices: transformation. Br. Bede Healey, OSB Cam What the alchemists thought happened to “base metals” like lead or copper, changed to silver or gold, can be seen as a metaphor for what “We read under the eye of God happens to the soul that yearns for God. until the heart is touched and leaps to flame.” If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: – Blessed Columba Marmion OSB, (on what happens in lectio divina) everything old has passed away; see everything “ At the time of this writing, the has become new! Hermitage community is, with all the Church, at the beginning of Holy Like lead, the soul is subjected to“ intense inner heat through the practice Week—preparing for Easter. By the of ascetic disciplines. That heat reduces the “material” of the soul to its time you read this, the Triduum will substrate condition, to its prime matter, which (according the Aristotelian have been celebrated, and we will all metaphysics) is the universal stuff underlying all substance. After be basking in the uncreated light of undergoing this disintegration or dissolution the soul comes under the the resurrected Christ. influence, in alchemy, of the philosopher’s stone or the elixir (which most people see as an image of the Holy Spirit). Then the soul begins to be I usually offer a reflection on a regenerated and transformed, until it becomes pure gold, a full vessel of particular scriptural passage in this divinity. column, but this time I want to offer a different perspective on this rich Aha! A new creation! process of embracing Scripture that we call lectio divina. Lectio divina is a whole-person experience. We read and ponder the words of Scripture, but there is more to the Word than just the words themselves. The mystery goes deeper than words– lying underneath, behind, inside them. There are powerful movements, pervasive insights that we can access by attending to the emotional and This is what we undergo in our own discipline, in our spiritual life, through bodily responses we have to the the grace of God in the sacraments and hopefully through the season of encounter with Scripture. Lent: after we have allowed ourselves to be stripped down to our naked selves, the spiritual life could and should lead us too to be transformed Our responses can range from or, maybe better to say, restored to our intended selves, the purpose that subtle to profound as we confront God intended in creating us in God’s own image, with new life breathed love, betrayal, resolve, painful into us by the Spirit of the Risen Christ. awareness of weakness, rejection, doubt, joy, hope, peace. Our quiet What does Paul say in 2 Cor 5:17? If anyone is in Christ, there is a new receptivity can allow these memories creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! and emotions to wash over us, and our whole-person responses help Including you and me. the deepest aspects of the Word become real and alive to us. Lectio divina is encounter; it is experience. On the far side of the words, too deep for words, God contemplation.com ~ 3 awaits us. Bruno Barnhart wrote “On the Big Sur as being “on first coming to the Hermitage.” And whether we’ve actually written that account or instead Coast” ten years ago. Chris Lorenc re- spoken it to friends is beside the point because even found and quoted from the reflection in when the accounts are written there’s a quality of oral a eulogy for Bruno. And when Pico Iyer literature about them. They’re mythic and immediate. On one hand they’re personal and idiosyncratic while read Bruno’s essay, he “felt as I did the on the other hand they arise out of a common sense first time I set foot in New Camaldoli: I’d of wonder.