New Camaldoli Hermitage ADVENT 2020 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. –Amos 5:24 62475 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA 93920 • 831 667 2456 • www.contemplation.com ADVENT 2020 Thoughts from the Editor Lisa Benner, Oblate, OSB Cam. In This Issue I started practicing yoga in 1992. I was immediately drawn to it’s contemplative and peaceful nature. It was a good fit 2 Thoughts from the Editor for me. My teacher educated us on all the proper words Lisa Benner, Oblate, OSB Cam. and phrases as well as asanas and then would serve us 3 The Grave Sin of Racism chai after our sessions. She happily greeted us by exclaim- Prior Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam. ing “Namaste!” and she lovingly explained that this means “I bow to you” or “I bow to the Spirit in you”. I was touched 4 The Big Sur Vision of Contemplative Nonviolence, by this then and still am now as I regularly greet friends Equality and Peace with this term. Rev. John Dear To bow to someone, to show them reverence— to have 6 The Camaldolese Monks and Nuns, Polyglot and Multi-ethnic my spirit bless and respect someone else’s with a single Fr. Thomas Matus, OSB Cam. 7 Listen with Your Heart Fr. Steve Coffey, OSB Cam. 10 Update from the Development Office Jill Gisselere 10 Activities and Visitors 11 What the Monks Are Reading Good Samaritan (detail), Rossano Gospels, 6th Cent. word or gesture—it’s such a lovely idea. There is a sacred- ness to this gesture—its roots are deep and rich. And there is an equality to this ritual—to pay humble hom- age to one’s nature is holy. We all contain the same spirit blessing each other. If only it could be that simple. So many of us on this spiritual journey have come to understand the goodness and sacredness that each of us are! The Spirit of the Living God resides in each of us, and yet the long-term disrespect, ignorance and volatility, rooted in racism, that we continue to see in this country and around the world feels like a permanent fracture to Prophetic spirituality envisions the essence of this very gesticulation. a world in which justice and equality, peace and community In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus spoke about the parable of the Good Samaritan. The victim who had been beaten and are the norm rather than the left to die was ignored by several people until the Samari- struggle. tan came upon him lying in the road, and with compassion and mercy took care of his wounds and provided him a –Sr. Joan Chittister place of comfort and rest. Jesus ended this story with the directive to “go and do likewise.” Jesus didn’t specify to do 2 ~ New Camaldoli Hermitage contemplation.com ~ 3 it only for the rich or the poor, the Jew or the Gentile, the dark-skinned person or the light-skinned person, Jesus, The Grave Sin of Racism through these words, continues to send us out to do the Prior Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam. work of seeking justice and expecting equality. We are called to care for each other regardless of the color of our As prior, I get my share of negative letters, emails, and online skin or our gender. We, as Christians, are held to a higher comments. Several came in concerning the last page of our standard, I believe, one that honors equality and dignity of last newsletter, for having mentioned the Black Lives Matter all people because all of us are created in this gloriously movement and intimating that we were going to treat the beautiful image of God—divinely made and divinely loved. social situation in this upcoming issue. More than one This is when we get to the “Namaste” of things, to treat unhappy reader suggested that it would be better if we each other with justice and mercy and compassion and stuck to spiritual things. equality—this is honoring the Spirit within, there is no one greater or less. We are all in God. I promise you: I do not want to pick a fight. There is enough hatred and sarcasm out there already. But I immediately This newsletter is our dive into the exploration of this thought of our Saint Peter Damian, the biographer of Saint theme of justice and equality and the racial tensions that Romuald. He was not only a monk and a great promoter of the eremitical life; he was also a bishop, a cardinal, and a tough reformer. One of the issues he was warring against in the Church, for example, was corruption in the clergy. Some of the clergy retaliated by suggesting he and all monks ought to be forbidden from any apostolate, using the argument that monks—and especially hermits—are supposed to be dead to the world. So why are they meddling in ecclesiasti- cal affairs? Peter Damian answered that it was precisely for that reason—because they are dead to the world—that they had the liberty to act in the ecclesiastical field. They have no personal agenda. I want to adapt that a little and say that maybe it is precisely contemplatives—if they really have resisted being conformed to the world’s way of thinking but have submitted to the renewal of their minds—who have something to say about the problems that we face not only as a Church, but also as a race, as a world. “May Christ be heard in our language, may Christ be seen in our life, may He be perceived in our hearts” have persisted through the centuries. We are not interested in reiterating a CNN broadcast nor is this an attempt at a –Peter Damian (Sermo VIII, 5) New York Times op-ed piece. Your newsletter team, like many of you, are very aware of the turmoil and violence occurring daily these days, and we felt compelled to Speaking of contemplatives, I also thought about Thomas explore how this issue can be viewed from a different lens. Merton, the Trappist monk and writer who was immensely We aren’t trying to solve the bigger problems at hand; we popular among Catholics already by the 1950s. In the early acknowledge the levels and layers which are complicated 1960s he began writing seriously on peacemaking and and run deep. non-violence, as the war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement were both escalating. He was roundly criticized We have hand selected friends of the Hermitage to give for this by some of his readers, who were used to his more their views on this theme from a gospel, spiritual and pious and obviously religious subjects and thought these contemplative perspective. Our prayer is that you are other topics were inappropriate for a monk. (He was also inspired in some blessed way by the words on these pages. silenced by his own Trappist superiors because they thought these topics were too controversial in As we bring this tumultuous year to an end, we enter this the Church.) Eventually Merton would feel himself vindi- Advent season with hope in our hearts that God’s kingdom cated when Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris will continue to prevail. And let us be reminded of the changed the direction of Catholic thought in this regard. words of Amos, But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. And so, just as good Pope John changed the conversation in 1963, in our day and age has Pope Francis shifted, evolved, Namaste! and broadened our conversation about what it means to contemplation.com ~ 3 be pro-life. In paragraph #101 of his 2018 Apostolic The Big Sur Vision of Contemplative Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, the Holy Father starts out by affirming that Nonviolence, Equality and Peace Rev. John Dear Our defense of the innocent unborn … needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human I love how New Camaldoli gives you a bird’s eye view of life, which is always sacred and demands love for each things. When you look out at the Pacific in search of whales, person, regardless of his or her stage of development. you have to adjust your vision. That’s what monasteries do, what monastics teach—a bigger vision of our world, and And then he goes on to add that ourselves. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those One way to describe the systemic violence that afflicts us is already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the a global blindness that has robbed us of our imagination. underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly We no longer see one another as sisters and brothers, as exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human children of the God of peace. We can’t even imagine a world trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of without war, poverty, racism, guns, executions, nuclear rejection. We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that weapons or environmental destruction. We have lost our would ignore injustice... vision. I recently opened up the website of the United States But when I stand outside the church and look out at the Conference of Catholic Bishops and was delightfully surprised horizon, I see things differently. I feel more at peace, more to find on their homepage the banner title “Confronting myself. I breathe in the fresh air. It feels like learning to the Sin of Racism: The Ad Hoc Committee against breathe all over again.