Transcript of Abbot Clement’s talk, Wednesday, 29 May 2002
Retreat is coming very soon and I want to focus on it. In the retreat, in the end, we renew our vows. So I want to take this time to focus on this question: that God called us here. The Divine call. It is I think clear to most of us, if we have been following Scripture, that when God calls people He has a mission for them. You take Abraham who left his city of Ur and became the Father of faith for the Jewish community; Moses, of course, was called to liberate the people from bondage and the prophets were the signals of light and strength to the people, guiding them during the exile and so on. So I don’t think you have any trouble with that but I think sometimes we don’t look at it very personally that the Father really looks at us with love and calls us. The Pope has written the encyclical on consecrated life and he makes the image of transfiguration the place where the revelation of how we should look at our life is revealed and he does a good job, of course.
Now God takes that very seriously when we say, "I am here for you." So in the life of Sister Maria Gabriella, she was a Sardinian gal that felt called to monastic life. She became a Cistercian in Italy. She was in the convent, I think, only about three or four years. When she came, the convent was focused on it’s prayer life, it focused on unity. Ecumenism so they really celebrated the unity octave week. It’s January sometime. So they really celebrated it. And she decided to offer herself for the sake of ecumenism, so she came to the community, made her vows, she was just in her simple vows and at that particular period she asked the superior and the superior said talk to your confessor and so on. So she did get permission and made the offering. Within a month of that offering she got tuberculosis and within three years, died. And she offered every little bit of suffering for it and then of course the occasion for a tremendous amount of grace and impact on the ecumenism because of her. It went forward, went through a lot of obstacles wiped them all out and actually forty-six years later,1983 or so, she was beatified, made a blessed. So God takes our "yes" to Him seriously.
So I want to encourage you, first of all, to make you realize some of the benefits. We have Mass everyday here. And if you are in the state of grace and you have sorrow for your sins and come to Mass and receive Communion you receive a tremendous amount of grace. First of all the Blood of Christ wipes away any serious venial sin that you’re sorry for. Or any faults. Wipes it out. Secondly, He revitalizes you. You know, you read the fairy tales like I do the wicked witch comes and with a wand and turns people into stones. And then good magic comes and they release them and then all the animals and everybody’s released and they’re all happy and so to be vitalized is no small thing. And then of course, Jesus transforms us with his Blood. And He protects us from evil and He restores our la vive, our sense of salvation in us. All that happens if we come to Mass, and are not in the state of mortal sin. You got a mortal sin you have to go to confession. And you are sorry for your sins and you’re deliberate or semi-deliberate venial sins. This is what happens. So when I exhort you to reconsider getting ready for the retreat, I want you to realize that you are already in a position of really being empowered to make a good retreat.
But I would like to do one thing further. Since at Christmas times we exchange names, or we used to exchange names for gifts, I would like to do that for this retreat. I’m going to pass out, I have the box with the names of everybody, after Vespers, I will go around and offer you to take a name. I want you to pray for that person up until the end of the retreat. Up until the retreat you can ask something. I want you to pray in the morning and in the evening at least twice a day for that person. I’m not saying get on your knees and pray real hard, if you want to beat yourself, it’s ok but at least say, "Lord, Jesus, (if I get Brother Peter), let Brother Peter be drawn more deeply into your heart." That’s enough as far as I’m concerned. But at least twice a day. Then I want you to pick one day in which you offer that whole day for that person and fast. Now I only want you to fast if you get permission from either your spiritual director or your confessor. I don’t want you to do it merely on your own. If you can’t do it, it’s ok, just offer something else, but get permission for it. The obedience is more important than the actual fact. The reason that I say that is when I’m reading the lives of the Saints this is what I see. For instance, one time, Sister Faustina, St. Faustina, one of the previous sisters in the community appeared to her and asked her to pray for her to get her out of purgatory. So she went to her spiritual director and said, "I want to fast for this person" and the spiritual director said, "you’re not fasting you’re too sick." So she offered that obedience up. Well the person reappeared to her and said, "instead of being released from purgatory on Thursday, I was released on Sunday because of your obedience." So God does use us. And so I want you to pray for each other. Then once the retreat comes I want you to thank the Lord for the graces He had given that person till the end of the retreat. This way we will really ask the Lord to empower us as a community to do His work here at St. Andrews.