September is the month dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Mary
Rule of Saint Benedict for the Week: Ch 6 - Ch 7:33 Humility Restraint of Speech
Every day I will bless you.
MARY, CONQUERER OF THE INCREDULOUS,
MARY, PROTECTRESS OF THOSE WHO FIGHT,
MARY, HELP OF THE FAINT,
MARY, QUEEN OF THY SERVANTS,
SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL,
PRAY FOR US.
Conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel.
(Ph 1:27a)
Welcome to the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time in the last week of the month dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Have you checked out the Litany of Our Lady of Sorrows yet? If not, there is still time. As seen above, I have invoked our Blessed Mother under a few of my favorite titles from the litany. Dear Mary, treasure of the faithful, please cover us in your protective veil and pray for us!
It was during First Vespers yesterday afternoon that I thought of Saint Benedict and his Holy Rule, specifically Ch 34. Distribution of Goods According to Need. What prompted my thinking was today's Gospel (Mt 20:1-16a). It is there that Jesus tells us the parable about the landowner and the laborers. There are many layers to the parable, and also several perspectives to look at it, and reflect on the effect of Jesus' words on our lives. One thing we do know about the passage is that at the end of a day's work there was a lot of grumbling about. You see, the landowner paid all the laborers the same wage, whether they worked all day in the heat, or showed up later in the day for just a few hours of work. "This just isn't fair," grumbled the first group. "We certainly worked much harder and longer than the others!" Putting things a bit closer to home, we might think of the colleague who was promoted over "me." "She is much younger and has only worked here for two years and look it, I have been here for 20 years!" Or at home, when Clotilde is incredulous that mom brought home a new pair of sneakers for Bonaventure who needed them and didn't bring her a new pair even though she didn't need them! And these sorts of things go on in a monastery too, and wherever humans are gathered. If it were not so, Saint Benedict would not have written Ch. 34. With wisdom and insight into human nature, our holy father Benedict put it this way:
It is written: Distribution was made to each one as he had need (Acts 4:35). By this we do not imply that there should be favoritism-God forbid-but rather consideration for weaknesses. Whoever needs less should thank God and not be distressed, but whoever needs more should feel humble because of his weakness, not self-important because of the kindness shown to him. In this way all the members will be at peace. First and foremost, there must be no word or sign of the evil of grumbling, no manifestation of it for any reason at all. If, however, anyone is caught grumbling, let him undergo more severe discipline.
Something else to consider is that we never know the whole story. For example, why were some of the laborers idle in the marketplace? It is easy to make assumptions. However, maybe some of the laborers were exhausted after being engaged in spiritual and/or corporeal works of mercy like comforting the sorrowful or visiting the imprisoned or the sick. Or maybe some of them were up all night working another job so as to "put Keds on the kids," so to speak. As a teacher of pastoral counseling taught me, "You may try to walk in someone else's shoes, but remember, you will never walk in someone else's shoes. " Thankfully too, Jesus loves all of us, whether we are full of energy or exhausted.
"To be a Christian," said Willi Graf (1918-1943), "is perhaps the hardest thing to ever become in life." So, united in faith and prayer, we pray to conduct ourselves in a way worthy of the Gospel, and that is a way of love, mercy, forgiveness, and abundant generosity, putting aside all assumptions, jealousy, envy, suspicion, and animosity. Dear Willi was right, this will keep us busy and is perhaps the hardest way to ever become in life. However, our reward will be great in heaven. It seems that Blessed Solanus Casey's words are always fitting: "Thank God ahead of time." And being thankful takes a lot less energy than grumbling.
About our beloved saints for the week, I gained insight on our relationships with the saints thanks to Lisa Lickona who writes regularly for the Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine: "After eight years of writing about the saints day in and day out," Mrs. Lickona wrote, "I find myself attempting less and less to imitate them. But I do want to follow them ... Following means beginning to get to the heart of what a saint is teaching us through their lives. It's less about copying someone else's life and more about immersing oneself in his or her way of being and way of seeing the world. It is beginning to see with the 'eyes of the heart' (Eph 1:18).* So why not choose one of our saints of the week and see how he or she may help you see with eyes of your heart.
Our voices for this week serve several purposes. First, I honor a dear friend and mentor of happy memory, Father Paschal Cheline, OSB (1936-2015), whose anniversary of birth is next month. And it was Father Paschal who said, among other gems, that reading a novel is a necessary part of the spiritual life. Novels help to bring one out of the day-to-day drudgery and get in touch with other people, many of whom have more complicated lives than we. Through the characters we meet, with their varied stories, we just might gain a widened outlook, a new perspective on things, and develop more compassion. Who knows. ☺ Always busy with a novel himself, Father Paschal would recommend good reading. I took his teaching to heart not only in my personal life, but also with students. I made a novel required reading for classes; I might recommend one, or the student was free to choose one. So, our voices for the week all come from a novel I just finished, passed to me by my dear sister, and now passed to you for your consideration. It is a work of historical fiction by Lynda Rutledge, West with Giraffes: A Novel (Lake Union: 2021). Here are the passages I marked (some rather long-winded like me lol), the first one brings a grin to my face.
At that, the Old Man whopped that poor fedora of his to the ground and stomped it flat, produced a rolling cuss I would have admired any other time, creative as sin and the length of a long spiral spit into the wind.
(p. 144)
Home's not the place you're from, Woody. Home's the place you want to be.
(p. 215)
The land you grow up in is a forever thing, remembered when all else is forgotten, whether it did you right or wrong. Even when it flat near kills you. Even when it invades your dreams and stokes your nightmares. Even when you run from it never to return, then find yourself headed straight back for it, and the best you can wish for is to drive through it with your head down and your wits about you, dodging the worst of it so you can get on with your young life somewhere else.
(p. 227)
I didn't know which would keep me driving-the lie or the truth. You can carry around a heavy load only for so long, and that goes double if you're only eighteen.
(p. 277)
The thing about knowing you are doing something for the last time is that it takes the joy right out of it. I've done lots of things for the last time in my long life, but didn't know it.
(p. 301)
We had left an hour before dawn again, By the time we were watching the moon set on one side of us and the sun rise on the other, we'd all fallen into a moving bit of peace. I'd felt a sliver of that peaceful feeling after we'd made it through the mountains. This time, though, it was long and lingering and soul-soothing deep. It seems now like the closest thing to praying I'd ever done. When I'd live a little longer and heard people talking about such things, calling it by spiritual names, I'd want to scoff but couldn't. In the years ahead, through the War and beyond, it was this quiet day moving through the unmoving land with Boy and Girl and the Old Man and Red that I returned to when I needed it most ... its peace passed any understanding, any attempt at words. You only get a few of those in your life if you're lucky, and some only get one. If that be true, this was my one. When I remember it, I'm not eighteen in the memory. I am whatever age its came to me, be it 33 or 103 ...
(p. 304)
There's no explaining the world, boy. How you come into it. Where you find yourself. Or who your friends turn out to be-be you man or be you beast.
(p. 310)
Cyrus smiled. "Well, now, I wouldn't go so far as calling him a liar. Nobody abides a liar. But everybody sure likes a good storyteller, don't they? Sometimes the best medicine is a good story.
(p. 332)
It's a strange thing how you can spend years with some folks and never know them, yet, with others, you need only a handful of days to know them far beyond years.
(p. 333)
Time spent with animals is added to your life.
(p. 334)
Time heals all wounds, they say. I'm here to tell you that time can wound you all on its own. In a long life, there is a singular moment when you know you've made more memories than any new ones you'll ever make. That's the moment your truest stories-the ones that made you the you that you became-are ever more in front of your mind, as you begin to reach back for the you that you deemed best.
(p. 336)
It's a foolish man who thinks stories do not matter-when in the end, they may be all that matter and all the forever we'll ever know ... And it is a selfish man who takes stories to the grave that aren't his and his alone. Shouldn't you know your mother's brave heart and daring dreams? And shouldn't you know your friends, even though we're gone?
(p. 339)
SAINT STEPHANIE,
OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM,
BLESSED EMILIE TAVERNIER-GAMELIN,
SAINT NICHOLAS OF FLUE,
SAINT FINBARR,
SAINT HERMANN CONTRACTUS,
SAINTS COSMAS AND DAMIAN,
SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL,
SAINT LOUISE DE MARILLAC,
SAINT WENCESLAUS,
SAINT LAURENECE RUIZ AND HIS COMPANIONS,
SAINT LIOBA,
SAINT MICHAEL,
SAINT GABRIEL,
SAINT RAPHAEL,
SAINT JEROME,
PRAY FOR US.
* L. Lickona, "Learning to Follow with Padre Pio and Mother Seton," in Seton Reflections, September 23, 2023.
Today's photo: The glow of this beauty illuminates this heart of leaf. The Lord is holy in all His works.
© Gertrude Feick 2023
