We Are All Valuable And Loved

A place was to be filled.  One of us was all ready, was asked and accepted the invitation.  In the invitation was found affirmation of one's humanity and thus dignity.  

Every Sunday at the hermitage we ask a guest to read the second Scripture reading at the Mass.  We gladly welcome our brothers and sisters not only at the table where we all receive the Eucharist.  We invite them to recite The Word they are about to receive in the Eucharist.  They are welcome to receive Him on their lips and proclaim Him with their lips.  

This past Sunday a monk asked a retreatant who identifies as transgender to read the second Scripture reading.  Since I do not have that individual's permission, I will not use that person's name.  

In any event, that guest walked up to the ambo and in the reading, recited Saint Paul's directive.  I refrained from issuing any accusation, condemnation or excommunication against this person.  Instead, I let Saint Paul speak for me, as this guest read Saint Paul's words, urging us: Love your bodies, "for no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church."*   

We ask the second reader to go with the monk who read the first reading to the altar: the guest who has read the second reading brings either the bread or the wine up to the altar along with the first reader.  

This past Sunday we asked our second reader to help bring the bread and wine to the altar.  As with any other guest, we included this person as one of our beloved siblings.  

Right after Mass, this retreatant who had served as second reader went into the bookstore.  This grateful servant explained to the monk in the store how different this particular Mass had just been from worship services in other places.  At other churches, this beloved child of God sadly was thrown out, ejected from church, discarded and disregarded, unheard and unappreciated, dehumanized and demoralized.  

Sharing this rejection, opening up wide, becoming so vulnerable, this valuable gem of a person was on the verge of tears.  The monk who had been listening tenderly encouraged the shedding of tears.  

Tears can express a dignity recovered.  Tears freely flowed as this precious, unique and exceptional human being, having been included, welcomed and encouraged to speak, felt respected, valued and loved.  

* Ephesians 5:28-29 

Give Them Something To Eat Yourselves

God feeds us.  We become more.  Through us God feeds our neighbor.  

We see pain and feel it.  God feels it.  

We cry out, praying to God.  God hears us.  

We can get stuck crying out.  We are empowered to do more.  God wishes more done in us.

We call out.  Yet God seeks more from us.  We seek food.  God wants us feeding each other.  

In today's Gospel, we hear that, when Jesus received the news that John the Baptist had been beheaded, 

he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”
But they said to him,
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Then he said, “Bring them here to me,”
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to Heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied,
and they picked up the fragments left over—
twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men,
not counting women and children.*  

The disciples realized the need of the crowds.  The disciples asked Jesus to send the crowds away so they could go get something to eat.  The disciples saw, but with their physical senses and functions, rather than with the eyes of faith.  The disciples did not realize how Jesus wished to feed the crowds.  The disciples did not realize Jesus wanted to feed them as well as the crowds.  

Jesus proceeded to multiply the five loaves of bread and the two fish, so that the thousands were fed with what at first seemed to be so little food.  In the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, we see a prefiguring of the Eucharist, of Jesus' giving of Himself, His sacrifice of Himself.**  

When the disciples asked Jesus to send the crowds away, He told the disciples to give the crowds something to eat themselves.  Jesus wanted to feed the crowds through the faith of the disciples.  

In our faith, we feed each other.  When we embrace our faith, God works through us.  Jesus could have said to the disciples, "Give them something to eat: yourselves."  

When we give of ourselves, we feed our neighbor.  When we offer ourselves as sacrifices, we join our sacrifice with the sacrifice of Jesus.  In the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of the Body of Christ.***  

When we partake of the Body and the Blood of Christ, we become what we receive.****  When we receive the Eucharist, we become Eucharist.  Having become Eucharist, we can be Eucharist to each other.  Jesus, in us, feeds our neighbor through us.  

As we embrace this mystery, we consent to the growth of the faith in us.  As we see with the eyes of faith, we invite God to work through us.  

Jesus was not telling the disciples not to bother him, to give the crowds something to eat themselves since He was not going to give the crowds something to eat.  Nor was He going to simply give the crowds something to eat.  

Rather Jesus wanted not only to feed the crowds with food, but feed the faith of those present.  He was beginning to tell us that we feed each other when we give of ourselves.  

Right now many people are starving, some for food.  Others are starving because they feel discouraged or hopeless in the face of the challenges that the coronavirus has brought, social distancing, lockdown, loss of income, inability to pay bills, including rent, lack of money to buy food, not being able to visit sick family members and friends.  

In your faith, in the faith that God has given you, you can help provide the hope that some need.  Through your faith, you can strengthen the weak, those who are collapsing on the way.  You can be given; you can be Eucharist to your neighbor.  God can give life through you.  

* Matthew 14:13-21

** The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1335.  

*** The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1368.  
**** Saint Pope Leo the Great, Sermo 12 de Passione, 3, 6-7, PL 54, 355-357.  

Truly Becoming Ourselves: Making Simple Vows

Today I became who I am.  Today I declared my true self.  

I couldn't have done this on my own.  Grace has gotten me safely this far.  
I've kept asking for grace.  When we ask for what we need to do God's will, God gives it to us, so grace has kept coming.  

How do we get grace?  I can tell you that Jesus listens to His mother Mary: she asks for the grace people need to do the will of God, and so people receive the grace of God.  

At the wedding feast of Cana, Mary told her Son Jesus that they had run out of wine.  He performed a miracle, turning water into wine.*  

Jesus can turn water into wine in us, since through Him we are transformed according to the will of God.  He is The Way, The Truth and The Life.**  Mary has kept leading me back to her Son Jesus, who Is The Way to The Father.  

One of the many ways Our Blessed Mother Mary has tried to lead us back to her Son Jesus was when she appeared in Fatima, Portugal, beginning on May 13, 1917, exhorting us to pray the rosary for peace, to repent of our wrongdoing, and to make sacrifices so as to bring people to God who don't know Him.  Each year on May 13, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima.  

Today, on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima, here at the hermitage the Mass began at 11:00 a.m.  When the Mass began, the other monks and I processed from the back of the church, past the icon of Mary and Jesus, 

to the front of the church.  

In the first reading of Scripture today here, we heard that 

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption.  As proof that you are children, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"  So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child, then also an heir, through God.***

In today's Gospel reading, we heard that 

While Jesus was speaking, 
a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, 
'Blessed is the womb that carried you 
and the breasts at which you nursed.' 
He replied, 
'Rather, blessed are those 
who hear the word of God and observe it.'****  

Right after the Gospel reading, I walked from my seat to stand before Father Cyprian. There, in recognition of, and in gratitude for, the grace that Mary has obtained from her Son for me to do the will of Our Father, I took the middle name "Maria" as I addressed Father Cyprian, "With the help of God, I, Martin Maria Herbek, have studied your rule and lived among you as your brother for the time of probation.  Father, I now ask that I be allowed to dedicate myself to God and to His Kingdom by making monastic profession in this community."  

During Father Cyprian's homily, commenting on today's Gospel reading, focusing on Our Blessed Mother Mary since today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima, Father Cyprian echoed Saint Augustine.  He noted that Saint Augustine had pointed out that Our Blessed Mother Mary was blessed moreso because she kept The Word of God so well than because she physically gave birth to Jesus.  

After the homily, we proceeded from the seats of the church, into the rotunda where the altar is.  

There Father Cyprian and I stopped at the entrance to the rotunda, where he asked and I affirmed my desire to live according to monastic profession of vows.  

Father Cyprian then extended his hands over my head.  He prayed that the good work that God has begun in me may bring God glory and further His plan for redemption of us.  

Then I proceeded to the altar, where was the book containing the simple vows, that is, the first vows, of every monk who has ever made profession of simple vows here at New Camaldoli Hermitage.  Out of that book, I read my vows of stability, reformation of life, poverty, chastity and obedience, which are to last for three years.  

I signed my name, Martin Maria Herbek, to the vows.  

Then another monk, a dear mentor, Father Isaiah, who had just witnessed my pronouncement of the vows and my signature, signed the book as one witness.  

Next another of my fellow monks, another model for whom I am grateful, Father Raniero, who had also just witnessed my profession of the vows and my signature, also signed as a second witness.  

I then picked up the book, open to the page we had just signed, and I slowly turned until I made a complete circle and had shown it to everyone present in the rotunda.  

Then I proceeded back to Father Cyprian at the entrance of the rotunda.  Up until that point in the Mass, I had been dressed in the robe, belt, scapular and hood I had received when I became a novice monk one year ago, but which I have been wearing for the past year with the belt tied around the robe, with the scapular on the outside; then, at that point in this Mass, Father Cyprian untied the belt around my waist and retied it outside the scapular.  

Then he placed a cowl over my head, and I put my arms through its sleeves.  

I was presented with a copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict as well as a copy of the Camaldolese Constitutions.  

Mass proceeded.  My offering of myself in my vows, remained on the altar with the offering of the bread and the wine, as we did this in memory of Jesus, as we prayed that Our Father's will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, 

as we received the fruits of Jesus' sacrifice of Himself for us, as we received in the Eucharist the Body and the Blood of Christ.  

And thus, in this monastic community, here at home, I became a simply professed monk.  

You see now.  I am him.  Who Are You?  

* John 2:1-11 
** John 14:6 
*** Galatians 4:4-7 
**** Luke 11:27-28