The AMERICAN MONASTIC NEWSLETTER
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The AMERICAN MONASTIC NEWSLETTER Published under the auspices of the American Benedictine Academy www.americanbenedictine.org Volume 48, Number 2 June 2017 An Interview with the Abbot Primate Inside this issue: At the international gathering of the Congress of Abbots in Rome last President’s Message 2 September, Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB, was chosen to be abbot primate. Abbot Gregory, a monk of Conception Abbey in Conception, Mo., had been Canon Law Column 3 abbot of his community since 1996. He replaced Abbot Primate Notker Wolf, who had held the primate position since 2000. The editor of this Coming Events 5 newsletter invited Abbot Primate Gregory to answer a few questions for his North American brothers and sisters. News 6 Can you tell us a little about what an abbot primate is and does? Essay Contest 7 The abbot primate is supposed to be a sign of unity within the Book Reviews 8 Benedictine Confederation and the CIB (the organization for nuns and sisters), keeping a pulse on what is happening in the Benedictine world. Medieval Congress 9 He is also our representative here in Rome to many different groups within the Vatican, ecumenical organizations, the other religious orders and Member List 10 congregations headquartered here in Rome, and the embassies related to where our order has monasteries. Also, he works as the chancellor of our Donors & Sponsors 11 university and oversees the development of various programs here at Sant’ Anselmo. Membership Renewal 12 What was your reaction to being elected to this position? The initial reactions to being elected were humble recognition before so huge a task and a sense of wonder at what awaits me and the order. Though I knew I was a candidate, it was my prayer that someone else would receive The mission of the American the call, but that was not to be the way things unfolded. It is extremely Monastic Newsletter humbling to know your brother abbots call you in the name of Christ to is to be an instrument a task that is beyond your capabilities. I found myself moving from one of communication and expectation to the next, and being prompted to what I needed to do next. It information for Benedictine was almost like 20 years ago when I was elected abbot of Conception Abbey, monasteries of North but now considerably more demanding. Those were the initial reactions. America and members of the American Benedictine (continued on page 4) Academy. President’s Message overcome than the residents of Misericordia Village, but eventually they come to see that giving birth to Dear Friends, their images is liberating and fulfilling. Like many of you, in the coming weeks I will be As I am writing this, tonight at the Art Institute preparing a new course for the fall semester. This in Chicago hundreds of people will be gathering year I have been asked to teach an honors section for the 20th annual “Artist in All” exhibit presented of “Religion and the Fine Arts,” a course I taught by the artists in residence at Misericordia Village only once before when the usual professor was on on Chicago’s north side. Sister Susan Quaintance, sabbatical, but that was 30 years ago. How the world OSB, wrote about Misericordia in one of her ABA of higher education has change in those decades! president’s letters last year. Although I no longer remember the details of In an era when people with developmental how I approached the course back in 1987, I know disabilities were warehoused and given only custodial it will bear no resemblance to how we engage in care, Misericordia has sought to develop the whole the experience this time. It will be an adventure person with love, dignity and a sense of purpose. and I expect to learn a lot from the students as we They are truly artisans of their “monastery” as can be explore the world of religion and the fine arts in our seen in this video (http://youtu.be/K6Xg7SYQsoM). magnificent laboratory, New York City. Christine Valters Paintner’s book The Artist’s Soul: May your own artistic adventures in the coming Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom months prepare you to focus on “Artisans of the has become my “sacra speco” as Macrina Wiederkehr Monastery” at our convention next summer. We suggested in the book’s foreword. I have also used have confirmed three speakers: Kathleen Norris, some of the exercises with my students in the past Martin Erspamer, OSB, and David Paul Lange, few years as they begin to discover the artist within OSB. We’ll have artistic adventures at both St. themselves as well. They have more inhibitions to Benedict Monastery and St. John’s Abbey and several surprises as well. More details will be in the next issue. We hope to see you there. Julia Upton, RSM ABA president [email protected] The AMERICAN MONASTIC NEWSLETTER Submit any announcements or articles to: Editor: Judith Sutera, OSB Mount St. Scholastica, 801 S. 8th, Atchison, KS 66002 Email: [email protected] MARK YOUR CALENDAR For all address changes, membership payments, or any other ABA business, please contact the ABA Secretary: The ABA Biennial Convention in 2018 Susan Hooks, OSB P.O. Box 577 Artisans of the Monastery Nashville, Ind. 47448 Email: [email protected] July 19 - 22, 2018 The American Monastic Newsletter is published three Hosted by St. Benedict’s Monastery times per year and it, as well as other ABA information, may be read online at: St. Joseph, Minn. www.americanbenedictine.org 2 CANON LAW COLUMN The Top of the Mountain other members of the community or with persons The Foot of the Mountain outside the community? Listening to others’ journeys has been a gift for No one is permitted to harm illegitimately the good me. But more than that it has been humbling to reputation which a person possesses nor to injure the right be invited into someone’s life and be trusted. I am of any person to protect his or her own privacy (canon sure that many of you have experienced this in your 220). monastic journey. Religious are … to approach the sacrament of penance The French Cistercian abbot, Andre Louf, once frequently (canon 664). wrote something like this: “We all come to the Observing the common life … (canon 665) monastery broken, and the monastic community And may God bring us all together to eternal life (RB exists to help us heal.” Yet, I wonder if we are 72). conscious of our need to be a community of healing? See Matthew 17:1-15, Mark 9: 2-8, 17-18, and Luke A sort of “canonical norm” of our ancient 9: 28-39 forebears of the desert was compassion, that is “to In the above texts, I have been led to reflect on suffer with.” How a monastic grew in compassion was the journey I have been blessed with as a monastic a mark of growth in the monastic life. These teachers and as a canon and civil lawyer. In my reflections, “spoke in direct and realistic language about the need what is both beautiful and painful is that monastic to ‘be with’ others in their sufferings, or even to ‘carry’ life is not merely a life on the mountain witnessing part of their burden,” says Douglas Burton-Christie the Transfiguration, but also a life at the foot of in The Word in the Desert. Is this not teaching us that the mountain. As Jesus and the three disciples left together we live also at the foot of the mountain? the mountain of Transfiguration, they immediately As Benedictines, we pride ourselves on good encountered a father asking for healing for his liturgies. But when I think of most monastic liturgies, epileptic child who was suffering greatly. I reflect that for the most part they are for times when One of the gifts given to me over these years has we are on the top of the mountain. Where are the been to be invited by so many monastics and other liturgies, and perhaps other communal events, that persons into the privacy of their lives, a privacy that heal the time at the foot of the mountain? At times, often revealed the pain and anguish. I remember as we encourage the sacrament of penance (canon 664) a new canonist encountering this when listening to and some communities have communal penance the life journey of priest-monks who wished to be services as preparation for individual confession, but dispensed. The pain and the anguish were shared with ultimately these are individual moments of healing such honesty. rather than communal healing. But pain and anguish shared was not always in I wonder if what is meant by “observing the such life changing situations. Other times, it was common life” so that “God may bring us all together a monastic sharing how ill-treated she/he felt by to eternal life” is that the community together is the the prioress or abbot or by another member of the sacrament of living with one another in suffering community. At other times, it was the journey of and offering one another healing and reconciliation. one who had transgressed some aspect of conversatio As a sacramental community of compassion, morum, and now was feeling naked because his healing and reconciliation would we not need to reputation and privacy were ruined. What could this share in liturgy our mutual suffering and then our monastic do? Often, the monastic would approach mutual compassion, healing and reconciliation: the with the hope that there was a canonical solution community confesses and the community forgives? to ease the pain or anguish.