Transcript of Abbot Clement's talk on Monday 23 December, 2002

        Since Sunday’s gospel is an example of the most powerful prayer uttered by a human being on earth, I want to focus on prayer again. The catechism in paragraphs 2,558 to about 2,565 give an introduction to prayer and in broad strokes; it is a question of encounter, it’s a question of covenant, and it’s a question of communion. In the example of the gospel of Mary’s prayer, we see that she comes with faith and encounters God. And the encounter, of course, is through an angel. And in that encounter she is expecting, of course, an answer and she gets an answer but she discusses it. And the angel says that she would be the Mother of the Messiah, she questions it from the stance of covenant. She’s already committed her whole life to the Lord and she expects that that would be honored. And, of course, the angel gives her the answer that she’s looking for and then, of course, she surrenders. And in that surrender, in that obedience of faith, then God’s great graces flows into her, the whole mystery of the Incarnation. 

        Some model of prayer: do we go to prayer with expectant faith? Do we believe that God listens and gives an answer? Of course, one of our problems is of to learn how to listen to how God answer’s our prayers. Because He can answer in many ways and He does. Sometimes He does it repetitively and maybe the third time you catch on to the message. For instance in the life of St. Romwald, he wanted so much to be a missionary and into Hungary. Every time he went in he got sick. So he was very generous and went in again. And then the third time he finally realized what God wanted him to do was to start a seminary, raise up monks in his own order and they would go and do the missionary work. So it took three encounters before he heard the answer to his desire in prayer. 

        So it’s the same with us it’s the question of learning to hear the answers God gives us and then, of course, the obedience of faith is a necessary element because it is in obedience of faith that God’s will is done in our life. We have many examples of the opposite in our world, even in the church. People get inspirations, for instance, the so called "future church" people have agendas and concerns, but many times their solutions are based upon their own will not based on obedience of faith. And yet here we see in the example of the Blessed Mother, in her obedience of faith, and the whole mystery of grace that flows, not only through Mary, but through the whole world takes place. And so our prayer is very important, not just for us, but for bringing grace to our whole world and to our monastery.