Caedfile's Blog...SBF: 1956 - 20??
Where we have been...
Where we are going...
Someone once asked Mother Teresa, “How do we know the will of God?” Her simple, yet profound answer: “By what happens.” When we started in 1956, we figured the Lord put us here to found a new kind of monastic community that would outlive us by eons. “Monks think in terms of centuries,” George often said. “That’s why they so often build in concrete.”
Fast forward 56 years: There are no concrete churches or dormitories here. The three crosses we envisioned looking out from our Gothic concrete church sit in the tall glass windows of our Prayer Room. But they are made of used 2 x 4’s from our old one-room house. Our Prayer Room itself, is made from American Pine and cedar siding, and is about the same size as that old house -- 20 x 20-something. So what is “the will of God” for St. Benedict’s Farm?
We are quite sure it is not to found a religious community here of 100 or so that will outlive us. So we are about the business of setting up a Trust to outlive us by 12 years. Our Trustee will be charged with publishing the seminal material crafted by our Founder, George R. Gannon. Also we have 4 albums of original Christian music, plus a little spiritual writing by myself and LaClaire. We are confident the Lord God will make use of these things according to his all holy will. And this will be “good for the Church and profitable for the Kingdom.”
On the other hand, God’s will for Mother Teresa was to found a community of immense proportions. As it was written of Abraham, so of Teresa: “When he was but one, I called him, I blessed him and made him many.” Just 6 years before SBF saw the light of day, in 1950, a former Sister of Loretto founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. When this woman – Mother Teresa – died in 1997, 4,000 Missionary Sisters of Charity were lodged in 610 missions in 123 countries! They minister to the poorest of the poor, the dying, Aids patients, the abandoned, untouched and unloved. Such is the will of God for them; and we praise him for it. - Brother Caedfile
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We urge you to continue to read and pray with us the daily Mass readings from Scripture. These may be easily retrieved at the Catholic Bishops of the united States website, as posted at Today's Readings. Doubleclick on the day's calendar date and the readings will appear. As always, we enjoy sharing on the Word of God, from whatever source. To share something with us, send email to John of SBF .
I put a favorite passage under scrutiny… New Wine...
Best put in Fresh Wineskins!
Mark 2:22
Jesus told them, “Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
There are two primary “senses of Scripture,” the literal and the spiritual. Many “spiritual” interpretations are also valid. However, uncovering the Literal Sense is always a good place to start when we wish to “move on” to the Spiritual Sense. What do we mean by the Literal Sense? It is the primary meaning intended by the Author.
Our wineskin text has always intrigued me, especially to delve into its spiritual applications. Betaking ourselves first to the Literal Sense of the passage, we believe we can say ‘new wine’ is the God-Life Jesus brings us in his person. It follws then, 'fresh wine skins' constitute the Community of Believers who accept that entrance to the Kingdom is by faith in Jesus, not by observance of the Law of Moses. Perhaps those many Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus, thought, “If that is so, the Law is diminished and demeaned, and further, we will have nothing to do!” Our jobs, our “position,” is threatened; Jesus must die!
That being said, we wish to “apply” the text in different settings, to obtain spiritual nourishment for ourselves. Using the expression ‘new wine’ alone, what might that have been for Jesus? How about the humanity he took on himself in the Incarnation? He had never before been hungry or thirsty, tired or in need of sleep! Now he needed all these things and a whole lot more. He could be sad or glad, down and depressed, or high and on top of the world – all ‘new’ experiences for him for sure.
For Abraham, ‘new wine’ was living contact with God Most High, coming into a relationship with the Lord that would induce him to leave his kinsfolk and his father’s house “and come into a land that I will show you.”
For King David, it was giving up his heart’s desire to build a proper house of cedar for God in return for a promise, that the Messiah would spring from his loins and erect an everlasting Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven!
For the Hebrew heroines Judith & Esther, it was risking their very lives to prevent the face of God from being belittled and the People of God from being exterminated!
For Saul the Pharisee it was giving up his intoxicating persecution of Christians to become, not only one of them, but their champion.
For Christian martyrs, back then and even now, new wine is their holy and courageous passion to exchange a pitiful clinging to this world for a triumphant march into the next.
Think for a minute, how might you describe ‘new wine’ the Lord has given you to drink? Here at SBF, we praise God for leading us to be a community of both men and women -- ‘new wine’ for Religious Life, to be sure.
Emmanuel! Jesus Present
In our Sunday Liturgy
In the first place, ferment generated by this writing led to moving the language of our liturgies from Latin to the vernacular …that is to say, the language of each locale! One cannot overstate the importance of this. It opened up the word of God for Catholics in remarkable ways. Before, we felt like spectators; now we are participants.
In Section 7 of the Constitution, we recall four different ways Christ is present in each Sunday liturgy. He is present in the celebrant who leads our worship. Jesus is present in the word of God, proclaimed in the lections – that day's Scriptures – and the homily. By the same token, we believe Jesus Christ is fully present in the Eucharist -- elements of bread and wine transformed into his body & blood. Finally, we are assured of the Lord's presence in our midst as we pray and sing, as he promised, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
From the document itself, we read:
“Indeed, in this great work which gives perfect glory to God and brings holiness to men, Christ is always joining in partnership with himself his beloved Bride, the Church, which calls upon its Lord and through him gives worship to the eternal Father. “On Sunday the Christian faithful ought to gather together, so that by listening to the word of God and sharing in the Eucharist they may recall the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God who has given them a new birth with a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The Lord's day is therefore the first and greatest festival, one to be set before the loving devotion of the faithful and impressed upon it, so that it may be also a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations must not take precedence over it, unless they are truly of the greatest importance, since it is the foundation and the kernel of the whole liturgical year."
"Like golden apples in silver settings
are words spoken at the proper time."
Proverbs 25:11
This space will be devoted to the presentation of ideas and exhortations
found in George's 35 correspondence folders. Hoping to craft these 'golden apples'
into a book later on, we offer them here as gifts of help and assistance
to the Body of Christ.
Opening File-Folder 17 SBF Founder’s correspondence -- 1970
SBF: Back to "Normal"
(1) The Thaw over LaClaire coming is completed Selection 1: Time Heals All Things December 25, 1970: Our Christmas Newsletter Background: Judging from the peaceful correspondence between SBF and Houston this year, we can call 1970, “The year the thaw was completed.” We refer, of course, to the rift between us and the Gannon household in Houston, and Sister Huberta in San Antonio, over LaClaire coming here. Sr. Huberta, a long-time, revered leader at Our Lady of the Lake Convent in San Antonio, had introduced us to Sister Amabilis. She then felt partly responsible for her coming here as "LaClaire." LaClaire's decision caused the horse feathers to fly all the way from Houston to San Antonio. The hullabaloo had begun with our circulating "The Love Paper" among the sisters. All in all, the conflict lasted 5 years, 1965 - 1970. Besides there being no inflamed correspondence in FF-17, our Christmas Newsletter describes a busy, peaceful, "normal" year here. Three cheers, everyone! A 20-foot Black & White photographic mural we made this year celebrated this walking together of men and women celibates in the same household. The picture shows the arm of a man and the arm of a woman reaching towards each other, fingers almost touching. Appropriately, this picture rests atop this newsletter, with its emphasis on Community. We are quite sure ‘the thaw’ was instrumental in our selection of the theme of Community. The photo is our "Parting Shot" this month, at the bottom of this web update. We quote below from the personal copy of our Newsletter George sent to his Mother, with hand-written margin notes. Another year and another birthday for Jack (Dec. 19). We’ve been very rushed of late. But managed to get 4 pictures accepted in the photo show of the Jewish Community Center! A new, prospective member arrived day before yesterday – if he stays awhile you’ll want to meet him. We are also due to have a college boy from N.J. visit in January in connection with his college studies. He’s studying ‘Contemporary Christian Communities.’ How’s about that! Love to Aunt Ruth; I hope her head is healing well. The Lord be with you all. – George A young man who is looking for a modern community once said to us, “I don’t want to get married because I don’t want to get tied down.” Marriage does indeed “tie you down,” but then so does any other community worth its salt. If you are not willing to get ‘tied down,’ you can’t very well get ‘tied up.’ Without a stable commitment to something or someone above and beyond yourself, there simply cannot be genuine community. Jesus intends his Church to be a real community. “A new commandment I give you,” he said, “that you love one another as I have loved you.” Here at SBF we seek to share our lives fully with one another in Christ. Primarily, we seek – each of us – the face of God, and it is out of this fundamental dedication, as suggested by the reaching arms mural, that the community of St. Benedict’s Farm arises. Editor: After listing our household guests, our work at St. Patrick Church and other ministries, we come to the “nuts and bolts” of making a living, a modest accomplishment for sure in those early days. Listen… Our dairy is growing, and with the usual ups and downs, continues to provide us with a dependable income (for our dependable creditors) …and making a headcount, we find we have a total of 60 (cows, heifers and baby calves) in the herd. About half of these are milking. All of our cows are bred artificially, and John and Mary Margaret are handling that chore this year. *1 Last summer, when there were six of us here, we voted to haul our own hay, this chore usually being “farmed out” to professional haulers. We bought a creaky old bobtail truck, setting out at sunrise – resting during the heat of the day – and getting back after it a few hours before sunset, and when the smoke cleared there were 6,000 bales stacked neatly in the barn. It took a lot of salt tablets, watermelon and ice cream, and before the last bale got in the barn we were all sagging a whole lot worse than Tubalcain (our truck). Editor: Note #1 , artificial insemination -- Originally a professional technician from American Breeders Service inseminated our cows. Somethims we took the cow to him, sometimes he came to our farm. At a Livestock School in Kansas, George learned the art himself, then taught Mary Margaret and me, John. When we got into the Registered Beefcattle business, I did all the AI chores. Another big job we undertook in 1971 was to overhaul our 1959 station wagon and our 1960 pickup truck. As a postscript to this news, we wrote, “We never go anywhere without our tools and a jug of water for our temperamental radiators.” Editor: Besides a deepening involvement in our St. Patrick Church, and in Waelder Scouting, we became very fond of Mr. I. E. Clark of Schulenburg, who soon had all of us immersed in Community Theater. Here is an account of that pastime: We have taken part in the first two theater productions of Backstage, Inc. of Schulenburg: Gammer Gurton’s Needle, in which George played Judge Bailey, and in the recent production of Hansel and Gretel, with George as the Papa, LaClaire as the wicked Stiefmutter, Mary Margaret, stagemanager, and John, light director. George had to grow a beard for this part … [and John would likewise, a year or so down the line, in his role as the grandfather in No Time for Heaven.] Backstage has a wonderful spirit, and we have enjoyed immensely the wonderful people we have met, in and through this group. Conclusion: In the middle of this panoply of news we wrote, “The year 1970 has been rich and full.” A statement, in fact, we could write and affirm about 50-plus years here at St. Benedict’s Farm, in the Adam Zumwalt League of northeastern Gonzales County. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Selection 2: 1970 Guests, Correspondents & Co-Workers Editor: The scope and vigor of our life at SBF in 1970 is reflected in the variety of individuals who lived or visited here, as well as those we corresponded with or worked with. Most of these are identified in short letters of George to his mother, May 1 and Dec. 30. Most proved to be long-term guests -- varying from an original Haight-Asbury hippie to a woman intent on founding a religious order. We describe them more fully below. Just a note to tell you about the arrival of our newest member at St. B’s Farm, whose name is Rich R of Connecticut *1. He is a former seminarian (two years) in a Kentucky diocese where he had come to work among the poor of Appalachia. Later he worked as a volunteer with a Catholic missionary parish in Kentucky. He has been with us since the middle of April. Doubtless you will be wanting to meet him sometime when you can get down our way. Also we are going to have a guest of extended duration come May 9 in the person of Dorothy Chapple *2, a Catholic Pentecostal as she describes herself. Dorothy wants to start a hermitage and seeks help from us in learning the ins and outs of making a living in the rural setting. We also got a serious inquiry a couple of weeks ago from a Trappist brother *3 of 15 years-standing who is getting a dispensation and is looking for another type of religious dedication somewhere between the strictly cloistered and the completely activist types. How will we feed them all? Nevertheless it is nice to see that the Lord can make use of our efforts. At present we are six – and soon maybe eight. Is the snowball beginning to roll? Haymaking is now being interrupted for a spell by rain. By the end of next week, however, it should be in the barn or lost for good. May 5 we all go down to Victoria to join Fr. John Orr *4 in a collegiate ‘Come Alive.’ Got to run. Come see us and set a spell. LaClaire’s brother *5 and sister in law and aunt spent the night last week end. The Lord be with you. Notes :
(2) An Interesting List: Our 1970 Guests & Co-Workers
……. In Jesus, George
*1 Rich R -- A young talented vibrant young man who seemed “a perfect fit” for membership in our community. When he was asked to haul hay with us on an upset stomach, however, he changed his mind, departing SBF almost as soon as the hay was in the barn.
Editor’s conclusion: George also wrote 1970 letters to two former SBF residents, Ed Haas and Juan Carlos Hinajosa. When he came to us, Juan was going through a colorful transition from Haight-Asbury hippiedom to deep Christian discipleship. A profound, sensitive person, he went on to obtain a doctorate in Pastoral Ministry. After serving the Church in Austin, Juan joined an agency in Chicago doing medical ministry in South America.
We met Ed Haas back in the 1960’s walking US Highway 90 in a shaggy beard and Franciscan robe. A layman just matriculated from the Air Force, Ed felt called to radical Christian ministry. Eventually, he re-located to his boyhood home in Louisiana, where he has spent a lifetime publishing works with a scientific flair, in defense of the Catholic faith.
In Jesus Christ -- 'Neither Male nor Female'
It was a positively amazing experience. From a four-foot x five-inch tube emerged this 20-foot black & white photograph! With only the dim aura of darkroom light, we taped the photo mural paper to the wall, turned our enlarger on its side, and projected the negative onto the wall. We rolled the 4-foot paper up with some crinkly sponge like material in betwixt and between to provide separation from the photo chemicals. Out came this wonderful work! Mounted on a split 3/4 inch plywood, it became as imposing a photograph as I have ever seen. Featured on our 1970 Christmas Newsletter, the image speaks of the bold call and response of the Lord God to St. Benedict's Farm to become a community of both men and women celibates, seeking God together as Catholic Christian monks. As we write this, we have just passed the Feast of St. Anthony of the Desert. We think this "Father of Monasticism" must approve and applaud this new way of seeking God on this terra firma. Amen ...and Praise Him from whom all blessings flow!
Pancho, the Talking Donkey, says: Come back soon, ya hear!
Pancho
In honor of the PBS Detective of yesteryear, Brother Cadfael (say 'CAD-file'), we have adopted his persona for our blogs. Brother Cadfael also reminds me of my very favorite monk of yesteryear -- the Venerable Bede (672-735). Fr. Bede loved to study, teach and write about the word of God. He was a celebrated historian; his book on the Church in England is still being read and studied. He was interested in the natural sciences. This humble monk never travelled very far from his Northumbrian, England Monasteries of Sts. Peter and Paul.
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