Transcript of Abbot Clements’s talk, Monday, 6 May 2002
First of all I have some good news the people that own the St. Luke’s complex are going to unveil Wednesday, here at the high school, a $78 million dollar project to the whole place and it’s not going to be low cost housing either it’s going to be quite an interesting project and they’re pretty confident about. They’ll take maybe five to six to seven years to do the whole thing. Plus of course, the possibility of the extension of the boulevard, not a freeway, down to the end of Buckeye.
I’m going to focus a bit on our liturgy, both the Liturgy of the Hours and Sacrifice of the Mass for a couple of conferences. I don’t know, until I feel I’ve covered everything I want to say. And of course I appreciate feedback too.
So let’s have show and tell first. I passed these out because they’re very significant realities. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020503.html This particular web site is powerful you notice for May 3rd they had the cone nebula and the whole thing from top to bottom is a seven light year period or distance. What’s interesting, of course, is stars are born here. Which means the forces and the powers are not tornado level they are nuclear. And you know the whole Old Testament says that the power of God is expressed in His Spirit. So this is kind of graphic image of the power of the Spirit in creation. It’s going on right now and this is only one bitty thing in the whole billions of galaxies that are going on right now. If you turn the page of course you’ve got the night scene of the whole world, they probably took it in series of snapshots from the Hubble at night. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html And of course you can see the light. Now if you take a look at the Mediterranean which you can see, the boot of Italy, and then in the corner is Palestine in that little place God became man in the power of the Spirit. Overshadowing by the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Mother conceives Jesus and under the power of the Spirit, Jesus lived His life, died and rose in the power of the Spirit.
Of course we know that God’s actions are all three persons but if you read Ephesians, Chapter 1, you see that particular passage stresses that it’s in the power of the Spirit that Jesus rose from the dead and then of course we sing in the Liturgy that the Spirit was poured out over the whole world. And the whole world rejoices so from that spot the Holy Spirit is poured out over the whole world. And where do we have access to this great mystery of God’s action? Well, right in the Liturgy. Not just the Sacrifice of the Mass but the Liturgy of the Hours. And of course the church has been aware of this for centuries. And the two basic efforts to be open to the mystery, the mystery of God’s infinite goodness, His power to transform us, His capacity to bring us everything that’s good, true and holy is available to us. And in the monastic tradition exterior/interior prayer was a concern. And so what was the first tradition? The first tradition, very strong and needs to continue, of course, which Fr. Michael goes crazy trying to do this all the time with us, is to make a union between the exterior prayer and the interior by making us do things smoothly and nice grouping together and also to enable us to go past our thoughts, past our imagination and quiet down and come to be receptive. It’s the whole mode of Lectio applied to the Office. And of course when a word will touch us, then of course, then we are graced. The second one, of course, is desire. That comes out the Fathers of the Church, who does the best? Of this is of course St. Augustine. It’s not only St. Augustine. Already in the monastic tradition that’s also there but through trying to stay in the presence of God by praying, "Oh God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me." it stirs up desire. Why? Because when you have your desires focused on God, then you open yourself up to Him and of course, then you are graced again. And if you remember in one of the sub-captions in one of our Psalms it says, "the desire is awakened to the degree that we have put away sin." If you just listen to today’s first psalm, "that we long to live in the presence of God." and then "Lord show me your face." So what does this show us right in the very beginning of the discussion of the liturgy whether the Hours or Mass, what’s our conception of God? What kind of faith do we have?
The God of the universe who’s doing the stuff out there in galaxies by no small amount I can address as Father, as friend, as the indwelling presence the Holy Spirit in my life. This is the first question, what kind of faith do you have and what’s the actual relationship that you have going with the three persons of the Trinity? The second one is that we need both these methods! What Fr. Michael tries to do to us even when he corrects us and we’re too proud to accept his corrections but the fact is he does a good job and he reminds us, to help us do the first method. To dispose us so that we would be receptive to a word that God wants to address to us so that we would open up. The second one is desire but desire is related to both the awareness and removal of sin. We should be able to say, "Lord Jesus I can’t live without you." And you know what is a big secret, God can’t live without you either. That’s how genuine His love is. So when we come to the liturgy, whether Liturgy of the Hours or Mass lets try to open ourselves up to our faith and our traditions. They’re here. It’s a question of putting them in to practice and keeping them at the level that they can become fruitful because God’s whole purpose is not to keep redemption to Himself but to bring us into the fullness of His love and grace.