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Serving God – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Marie de l’Incarnation
Whenever I pray with the life of a saint, I look at two things. The first is what the saint thought God was calling them to do. The second is what actually happened in their life. These two things don’t always overlap smoothly, yet somehow, saints always find a way to serve God.
Today we celebrate and pray with the life of Saint Marie of the Incarnation. When Saint Marie was fourteen years old, she told her parents that she wanted to join a Benedictine abbey. This was in France in the early 1600s, and her parents responded to her request by saying no and arranging her marriage to a silk worker. Saint Marie married and had a son. Tragically, six months later, her husband died. So in a short amount of time, Saint Marie had gone from a young woman looking to join the religious life to a teenage widow with a baby and her husband’s business to run. Certainly this was a wide gulf between what she thought God had been calling her to do and what actually happened. Read More
Living Water – Br. James Koester
Br. James Koester
Preached at the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, Boston.
The Third Sunday in Lent
There is a small porcelain figurine in a church sacristy that fascinates me. It depicts this encounter between Jesus, and the Samaritan woman.[1]
Jesus sits on one side of the well. He is tall, handsome, masculine, and has lots of shoulder length hair. He is deep in conversation with the woman. She stands, leaning over, with her elbow resting on the wellhead. She looks directly at Jesus. Her hair is loose and flowing, and her dress is falling off one shoulder. Her hand is under her chin, just so. She is enticing, alluring, and attractive.
What this figurine says about Jesus and the Samaritan woman is no mystery. It may be pure white, but the message is in technicolour: a seduction is happening.
But then, this is how the story has been told to us. Read More
Come and See – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
One question we Brothers get asked often is “why did you become a monk?”. We often get asked this question at Sunday talking meals just after we have taken a big bite full of food. I usually mumble my way through an answer with my hand covering my mouth talking about God and community.
The truth is I’ve been asked why I became a monk by guests, family members, Doctors, HVAC technicians, police officers, flight attendants, and a whole host of other professions and vocations. Of course I’ve asked myself the same question many times. I would say my personal favorite time being asked this question was when I was standing outside on the front step and a man walking his dog stopped, looked at me and said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but what made you want to do this?” The look in his eye was equal parts serious and curious, as if my answer would greatly impact what kind of evening he was having.
Deep down, whenever someone asks me why I became a monk, I just want to say, “come and see”. I want to open up my little world of monasticism to them and show them my experiences of God. I know that sounds incredibly corny, but it is true. I know that my words will never capture the lived experience of finding God, so all I can say is “come and see.” Read More
Responding to God in a Life of Joy – Br. Jonathan Maury
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Br. Jonathan Maury
“O God, you caused your blessed evangelist Saint John so eminently to receive the love of your dear Son Jesus Christ: Grant to us your servants that that we may evermore abide in that love, and accomplish your holy will. Watch over the Society of Saint John the Evangelist for good. Give your elect angels charge concerning us, and make your Holy Spirit to rule our hearts, that our lives may be holy, our prayers acceptable, our wants supplied, our words directed, and our work prospered, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The prayer just offered comes from the earliest days of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist. It is presently used to conclude the Chapter Office in which we hear and reflect on our Rule of Life, chapter by chapter, day by day. It is, I think, a fitting way to begin a sermon series in which our community’s elders meditate upon their developing response to the grace and gift of commitment through profession in life vows.
Listen for a moment to the introduction of Chapter 39 from our SSJE Rule of Life (1997):
“Jesus’ offering of his life on the cross was the supreme expression of his love for the Father, made in perfect freedom through the Spirit. . . . This free self-offering is expressed anew in our lives when, abiding in Christ, we find in him the power to surrender ourselves entirely to God, by taking the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience for life. When a brother vows to abide in our community until death, the whole brotherhood rejoices in the gift of freedom that enables him to make this commitment after years of testing.”
My path of commitment to life profession in religious vows began, I believe, with God’s call to existence and being, which I share with my Brothers, each of you present and all of God’s children. We were chosen by God in Christ before we were even capable of owning and choosing the gift of being for ourselves. The religious life vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience were preceded by God’s commitment to me in Holy Baptism. Through the outward and visible sign of burial in water and the inward and spiritual enlivening of God’s creative Spirit, we have all been sacramentally incorporated into the death and resurrection of Jesus by the loving purpose of the Father. Our commitment to God’s call and our desire to respond to that gift are themselves signs of God’s commitment to us as beloved children. My present commitment was born out of my parent’s response to God’s love in faith and trust by bringing me to the font of regeneration.
Commitment to religious vows in Christ, I am certain, arises from my need of God’s love at every moment to sustain me in being. The vows provide the framework for my own life through the common baptismal commitment we all share. The vows are the means by which God is shaping me in the unique image and likeness of his love which God has created me to be. Lived openly in the face of the Church and the world, both in my faithfulness and in my failings, the vows become the creative means by which God is revealing the image of Christ in me. “When He is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is,” as Saint John’s first letter promises (3:2).
In our Rule of Life we hear that “Father Benson has taught us that the call of God in the religious life is continuous, abiding and progressive. As profession brings to an end the period of probation, so it inaugurates a lifetime of developing response.” In light of this teaching, we elders of the community have been asked to testify to the wisdom of our experience and to our ongoing response to the grace and gift of vowed life.
My personal experience has been of ongoing, unconditional welcome and acceptance, just as I was when I joined the community and even as I am now. God’s commitment to me and to our everchanging community of men, I believe, has always been there drawing me to Jesus. Even I, one given to rebellion and self-assertion, one presuming to know already exactly how I was best suited to serve and love God, was welcomed and accepted into the particular fellowship necessary for my transformation. One wounded by addiction and romantic dreams, even this man, was challenged to accept being born again, “born from above,” to surrender my life to Christ in a community of mutual commitment composed of holy and fallible men. Joined to a company of those desiring to “see the kingdom of God,” years of formation in vows, are even now bringing me to submit to a “greater, higher power” than my helpless self. I continue to experience the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience challenging me to accept the molding and shaping of God’s fierce and unfailing love – despite my many resistances.
In this hope, my developing response has and continues to be a growing desire to live “a life hid with Christ in God,” as apostle Paul teaches, to be “separated from the world in order to be joined to the world” as a monastic. My at times flagging desire is to respond to God in a life of joy. My desire is for a life of faithful response in the following ways:
- in continued proclamation of the Good News through the ministry of initiation as a baptismal catechist;
- by solidarity with Christ in prayer and action as one on the side of people who are deprived and oppressed;
- in serving the needs of those who desire to learn how to pray and deepen their conversion to life;
- in becoming God’s fellow-worker, acting in love and intercessory prayer for the reconciliation of all things in Christ;
- in listening with and to those who seek intimacy with God in the ministry of spiritual companionship and guidance;
- in readiness to repent whenever I fall into sin through confession and prayer of reparation and amendment of life, fleeing the demons of selfishness, pride and arrogance;
- in offering and sharing worship in word and sacrament in the company of Christ’s friends drawn into our circle;
- in humbly accepting the God-given freedom by which doubt and questioning do not separate us from Christ or one another, but rather yield to faith and hope of things not seen;
- in dedication to cooperation with the Spirit and growth in the face of the challenges of aging and diminishment.
All of this only possible with God as my helper.
How shall I, how shall each of us baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, be made ready to respond today and every day to God’s call? We will surely come to know, as we need to know, though our commitment to one another and to God’s future forever losing ourselves in the wonder, love, and praise of Christ Jesus. Amen.
Filled with Wonder and Purpose – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Day
Merry Christmas, everyone! It’s such a delight to have you all with us today.
Christmas can be overwhelming. Joyful. . . and overwhelming. Decorations and lights everywhere you look; the smell of baking or, in the Chapel, incense and beeswax; bells and beloved carols; the taste of familiar foods at dinner; the gentle pressure of hugs with family and friends. We all have these sense memories that tell us, finally, yes, Christmas is here!
But Christmas, too, invites us to engage another sense – our sense of wonder.
I remember one night several years ago going to an observatory in Northern Virginia for a kind of astronomy “open house.” I didn’t really know what to expect. I sat waiting in line for one of the larger telescopes, a bit cold, a bit tired, a bit ready to be away from there. But when I put my eye to the scope . . . well, the planet Saturn was just there. Right there, rings and all, cold and perfect, right before my eye. It was . . . wondrous. I don’t really have a better word. It was wondrous to see this planet, this being, brought vast distances across the expanse of space and made present.
This is the kind of wonder with which we should look upon the enormity of the gift revealed to us today. Read More
Don’t Hide from God – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Martin of Tours
Tonight we celebrate the life of Saint Martin of Tours. Saint Martin lived in the fourth century and converted to Christianity as a young adult at a time when Christianity had only recently become legal in the Roman Empire. Martin went on to be a Roman soldier, then a hermit, then started the first monastery in what is now France, and finally became a bishop. His life was a series of pendulum swings between solitude and service. Read More
To Whom Are You Sent? – Br. Lain Wilson
Br. Lain Wilson
Reflection given at The Table, hosted by the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at the MIT Chapel, on the theme of vocation.
1 Corinthians 12:1-13
Psalm 139
Luke 4:16-21
When I began discerning my own vocation, I was stuck between pursuing ordained parish ministry in the Episcopal Church and the vowed religious life. Much of what I focused on and prayed with came down to questions broadly in the category of self-knowledge. What was I good at? What did I find enlivening, or draining? Where did I feel myself most connected in prayer with God?
Now there’s nothing wrong with this. These are important questions. But there’s more, and our readings tonight help to reframe these questions.
“Lord, you have searched me out; O Lord, you have known me” (Psalm 139:1). I really love Psalm 139. It’s the one I go back to time and time again when I reflect on my vocation. It reminds me that even when I try to hide, or run away, I am not hidden from God. And it reveals that in knowing ourselves—in all our self-knowledge—we discover that we have already been fully seen, known, and loved by God. We participate in God’s knowing—we are invited to see ourselves with God’s eyes as “marvelously made” and as one of God’s wonderful works (Psalm 139:14). Who we are is who God has created us to be—we can’t affirm that often enough.
Who we are includes all our giftedness: “All these [gifts],” Saint Paul writes to the church of Corinth, “are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (1 Corinthians 12:11). We are given our bodies, our intellects, our creativity, and our capacities not just for ourselves, for our own self-fulfillment, but as members of the Body of Christ. We have been gifted so we may use those gifts for others.
This gets at the core of the question you all have been asking this week: “What is God calling us to do?” If we take as given that who we are is who God has created us to be, and that what we have been given has been given to us to use for others, then what God is calling us to do is to find where our gifts and our deepest, authentic selves find their fullest and most joyful expression in service to God’s creation. The question “What is God calling me to do?” may be put another way: “To whom am I being sent?” Vocation and mission are two sides of the same coin. For us Brothers, a quotation from the fourth-century desert father Evagrius of Pontus gets at the same idea: “A monk is separated from all in order to be united to all.”
Jesus is our primary model here, in his reading from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Jesus will later point to this passage, and his fulfilment of it in his miracles, when John the Baptist’s followers later come to ask him who he is (Luke 7:22).
Now, this is all just a long way of saying what Frederick Buechner has already said so elegantly: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” So as you consider and discern your own call, your own vocation, I invite you to ask this allied question: To whom are you, the beloved of God, uniquely gifted by God—to whom are you being sent?
Follow Me – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Saint Matthew
Follow me. Those were the two words Jesus said to Saint Matthew when they first met. Follow me. Saint Matthew heard those words, got up from his tax booth, and followed Jesus.
Now in most situations, if a stranger comes to your place of work and tells you to follow him, it’s probably not a good idea to follow him. Yet, we know Jesus had a way with people. Jesus knew the hearts of humanity, and Jesus knew how to read a room. So when Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax booth, Jesus only needed two words to convince Matthew to leave it all behind. Follow me.
I would love to know what was going through the mind of Matthew when he first saw Jesus. I always wonder what kind of day Matthew was having. I mean we’ve all had our bad days at work when we think to ourselves I gotta get out of here. Read More
Our Common Vocation – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
In a time of oppression and division, of political violence and fear, of extreme wealth inequality, of competing claims to truth, of state power brought to bear on the least powerful, I imagine that hearing and praying psalm 150 could be as stark and striking an experience as it is in our own time.
“Praise God in his holy temple; praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts; praise him for his excellent greatness.” (Ps 150:1-2)
There are any number of psalms that we can and do pray—songs of lament, of abandonment, of joy—songs expressing all that is possible to express in conversation with God, all that is needed to communicate to God all that is in our hearts as we encounter a world that seems so wrong. Read More
The Call of Jesus, Then and Now – Br. David Vryhof
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Br. David Vryhof
The call of God comes to us in a variety of ways. Sometimes it seems to come from outside of ourselves; God “breaks into” our lives, perhaps quite suddenly and unexpectedly, to reorient and redirect us. Think of St Paul on the Damascus Road or of St Matthew summoned from his tax collector’s booth. At other times, the call of God seems to grow within us over a period of time. We can’t point to a single day or hour when God’s call became clear to us; we experienced instead a growing attraction to Jesus and a deepening desire to participate in God’s mission in the world.
How has God’s call come to you? Perhaps you had a life-changing encounter with Jesus, or perhaps the call manifested itself to you over the course of time. To what were you being called? And what convinced you to follow him? Read More