Death of a Priest – Rev. Ralph Esposito

Fr. Placidus Eckart, OSB, a monk of Subiaco Abbey died December 14, 2009. The following paragraph came from a priest friend.

Rev. Ralph Esposito, retired diocesan priest, wrote: “Father Placidus without a doubt has impacted the lives of many people, mine included. He was not only a good friend and golf buddy, but a priest that I was always willing to try to emulate. To me he always had a keen sense of the nearness of God in the little things that often seemed not to matter at all but that proved to be exceptionally important.  He was a man of great charity and was able to bring God's presence into situations that many times most people thought were hopeless.  He taught me how to forgive especially when I knew that I was right and had been wronged. When we played golf he constantly reminded me that the fool really says in his heart there is no God when faced with the absolute goodness of nature, which he really loved. While we miss him, I am sure that he is now in heaven giving God a "mulligan."  I grieve yet rejoice with you.   

Perpetual Virginity – Fr. Mark Stengel, OSB

Someone told me of a personal problem with accepting the Church’s teaching regarding Mary’s perpetual virginity. Is this a doctrine of the Church, or just a traditional belief?

What should one do when one is unable to understand or accept a Church teaching?

My response below may be helpful to others (?)

I checked on the status of the Church’s teaching on the perpetual virginity of Mary. I was right in what I had told you provisionally. That is, this teaching is considered de fide, which means that it is an article of our Catholic faith that must be accepted by the faithful.

It has never been proclaimed as a dogma by an ecumenical council nor by a Pope (the two sources of definitive doctrinal decrees) as a separate dogma. However, it has been included in many doctrinal expressions of the faith, which regularly refer to Mary as “ever virgin.” This has been the teaching of the Church since the 400s. Also, this doctrine is considered an expression of the “sensus fidelium,” which means a belief that is held by consensus of the faithful. The people of God as a whole have held and maintained this belief from the beginning of the Church. This is taken to be an example of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church—in each member of the Church—guiding us to the truth and preserving us from error.

I, like you, do not understand this doctrine. I don’t see why it is necessary, why Mary and Joseph having other children and an ordinary family life would have taken anything away from Mary’s holiness or interfered with her role as the Mother of God. However, I am able to submit such feelings and lack of understanding to the judgment of the Church and the consensus of the faithful. I do believe that the Holy Spirit does guide the Church to truthful teaching. I may not understand a particular teaching or value it, but I can still accept it in faith. My task in such a situation is to remain humbly open to truths that I do not understand, and to study and pray for the Spirit’s guidance so that the doctrine I question may come alive and be fruitful in my life and practice.

I hope this helps. You don’t have to understand a doctrine intellectually, nor have an emotional feeling that it is true, in order to assent to something in faith. Faith can lead to understanding, and sometimes also to an emotional or felt acceptance, but please don’t think that you can’t have faith without the feeling. The man who approached Jesus on behalf of his possessed boy said: “I do believe; please help my lack of faith. (Luke 9:24).

Monastic Work – Fr. Richard Walz, OSB

St. Benedict opens his chapter on the daily manual labor with the short maxim: “Idleness is the enemy of the soul.” The arrangements which follow spell out the stated hours for work and those for lectio divina. For Benedict, the way to avoid idleness is through a good combination of both prayer and work.

The so-called “Protestant work ethic” of today played no part in the thinking of the early monks. Work had not been exalted to the status of man’s highest vocation and dignity as in Communist theory. But neither was work reduced to a piece of merchandise to be bought or sold.

Greek and Roman civilizations tended to think of work as “what slaves did.”

The Hebrews, on the other hand, were a working people. The pattern of work and rest was taken from God’s creative work and rest in the Genesis creation story.

St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians spoke of work. “If he is not willing to work, then neither let him eat!” He thought one should work in order to support oneself, but also in order to have something to help others.

The Desert Fathers and St. Benedict saw work as a good balance to prayer. A story is told about Abba Silvanus that when a visitor saw the monks working he commented: “Do not work for the food which perishes. Mary has chosen the better part.” Abba Silvanus gave the brother a book and sent him off to pray. At meal time he did not call him to eat. Later the brother complained why he was not called to meal? “Because you are a spiritual man and do not need that kind of food. We, being carnal, want to eat, and that is why we work. But you have chosen the better part and read the whole day long and you do not want to eat carnal food.” The visitor saw his error and repented.

For St. Benedict human labor has dignity; it is not a distasteful and burdensome thing, but rather something to be esteemed, an honor and a joy.

The Word – Br. Eric Loran, OSB

In Catholic religious services the reading of Scripture is ended with the statement “The Word.” The word of the Lord, of an Apostle, of a Prophet, or of whatever author, is usually announced at the beginning or at the end of the reading. This declaration of the authorship of the story or text dates back to the beginnings of monastic life in the Egyptian desert.

Monastic literature tells us that a disciple would go to an elder and ask for a “Word”. Some saying or word that he or she may live by; then take this ‘Word’ back to the cell or cave and attempt to live by it. This Word could be a type of prayer, a work or action to be performed. It may be something that the disciple is already doing or a totally unpleasant deed to perform. No matter. If the ‘Word’ given by an elder is difficult or easy, the disciple can know that if this course of prayer or action is followed, God’s blessing will be on the results.

These monks and other religious of the ancient Egyptian desert lived alone or in loosely knit groups. They all crafted some form of handiwork to sell and support their meager needs. While they were working at some craft with their hands they would recite and meditate on the “Words or Mantras” that the Elders had given them, thus gradually avoiding idle thoughts that may lead to desires of the flesh or restlessness and thoughts of leaving their chosen spot in the desert. The surprising result of all this praying and working while reciting the “Word” was that in addition to having peace in their hearts, after selling their crafts, there was surplus wealth to give alms to those poorer still who would come by their cells.

Links with History – Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB

Two recent deaths and a visit involving Subiaco alumni brought me into contact with earlier times at Subiaco. Greg Elsken, 93, of Little Rock died on November 6 and Bryant Barry, 98, of Tulsa on November 18. Both of these men were here before and after the great fire of 1927, an epochal event in Subiaco history. Another graduate of the era was Joe Schmitz, 96, who lives with his wife of 73 years, Louise, in a retirement home in Conway, Arkansas, where I visited them recently.

Joe Schmitz and Louise Eckelhoff grew up near Subiaco in Scranton and Morrison Bluff and knew the Abbey through their monk pastors from their earliest days. Louise’s brother became Father Lambert of Subiaco and later Corpus Christi Abbey. Joe came to Subiaco with his classmate William Lensing (later Abbot Michael) in the fall of 1928, nine months after the great fire. They were greeted by the stark vision of a main building which was only a charred shell of its former self. Joe graduated from the Academy in 1932 and married Louise in 1936. Joe gave me one of the wood design plaques he had crafted.

Greg Elsken was born in Subiaco in 1916 and grew up here, graduating from Subiaco Academy in 1935. His father, Conrad Elsken, had come to the U.S. from Germany with his parents in 1859, and would become a leader in Logan County, Arkansas. Conrad pushed the cause for the incorporation of Subiaco town in 1909. Greg was full of Subiaco lore and visited here earlier this year with his nephew, Joe Beck, to reminisce with the monks. Greg was the last surviving child of Conrad and Margaret Elsken.

Bryant Barry first came here from Fort Smith in 1914 when he was three years old to visit his uncles, who were students in the Academy. Bernard Hays graduated in 1914 and Leo Hays in 1915. Bryant said his most vivid memory of that visit is the cinder he got in his eye from the train on the way home, but he also talked about the large stones from the quarry being hauled up the hill by draft animals to be used in the construction of the south wing of the main building. Bryant returned after his 1927 graduation to become a monk in the Abbey. He made first vows as Brother Patrick and was sent for college to Conception Abbey in Missouri where he became ill. Abbot Edward Burgert advised him not to make his final vows since it seemed his health was not good enough. So he returned home and lived to be 98.

Loss of meaning – Nov. Jay Magin, OSB

Ne laudet dignos, laudat Callistratus omnes:

cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?

- Martial

Our age is inarguably a scientific one, marked by an unparalleled degree of technological achievement. When speaking scientifically a man can recite more facts about more things than anyone ever could. See that shining dot about the horizon just before dawn? That is Venus, the second planet from the sun; its equatorial diameter is 7521 miles; it is 67.2 million miles from the sun; its period of revolution is 224.68 days. That red dot over there? It is Mars, the fourth planet; it has a diameter of 4222 miles and orbits at 141.6 million miles every 686.95 days.

But in this flurry of fact, something has been lost - meaning.

In past times it was quite the opposite: man saw meaning everywhere despite a retrospective paucity of fact. That light in the sky before the morn was still Venus, but she was the goddess of erotic love and beauty. As her path in the heavens sometimes crossed the path of Mars, it was thought she consorted with the God of War, and thus the opposites of Love and War were found in an unstable, adulterous union - while Love could tame War, War often conquered Love. Those lights in the sky were found to mean something; they had importance.

Now that we moderns swim in a sea of facts, what do we do with them? Once, one could consider facts and assign importance to them based on merit and thus arrive at meaning. I suppose we still do this, but we like to think we don’t, for this is the process of discrimination.

You winced at that word, discrimination, didn’t you? I don’t blame you. Is the word ever used anymore except in a pejorative sense? Having discriminating judgment was once a culminating accomplishment, but to discriminate now we assumed restricted by law: when discrimination is employed, we expect legal action to follow in its wake to remedy its evil; this is the place the word has fallen to.

Many may possess the vague feeling that to tell the difference between things in any manner, to discriminate, is wrong, perhaps a punishable offense. To tell what is good from what is bad, what is important from what is not, what is worthwhile from what is worthless, smacks of elitism – another word, once referring to what is best, that now shares a miserable, pejorative existence.

Where do we stand, if no longer able to discern importance and meaning, no longer able to discriminate?

In order not to praise the worthy, Callistratus praises all:

To whom no one is bad, who is able to be good?

End of Time? – Br. Patrick Boland, OSB

Fr. Richard Walz OSB recently gave a homily about the end of times and the popularity of the movie 2012. I wonder sometimes what is the fascination with predicting the end of times, especially when there is such a long history of people failing to do so. Do some people really believe they have it figured out? I can respect making a movie about it. The end of time is a popular concern and destroying the earth via CGI provides limitless possibilities. – I particularly liked the scene in 2012 when the city of Los Angeles slid into the Pacific. It reminded me of line from an “All in the Family” episode, Archie Bunker said God was going to drop the whole West Coast into the ocean and it was “Saint Andre’s Fault.”

The homily was good for two reasons: I like movies, I’m probably an undiagnosed movie addict, and it made me reflect on the liturgical calendar. The liturgical calendar provides a rhythm to the year, as well as a theme during each season. All the major events of God’s revelation are acknowledged in one year’s time. Advent marks the anticipation of not just Jesus’ arrival on earth at Christmas, but also looking forward to his second coming. Lent prepares us for the Paschal mystery and Pentecost. Then Ordinary time reminds us that is where we are right now, counting the days/years to the end of time. The end of the liturgical year concludes with the second coming. The last Sunday in Ordinary time is the Feast of Christ the King, when we celebrate Jesus Christ as King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

Are we in the end times? Maybe. Do we know when the day will be? No. I do believe we have to “be prepared,” like the Boy Scout Motto. We have to live everyday as our last with love and service to others. There’s an old saying among married couples, “that you should never go to bed angry.” I think this is a good way to live married or not, live everyday in complete love, when you fail…before you go to bed…make up. Ask forgiveness from God for your day’s transgressions. This is part of the Divine Office in Night Prayers and easy for anyone to do. Have a Good Day; it may be our last…