Fighting Temptation

A meditation on the first Mass reading from November 10th (Wisdom 2:23-3:9) by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

The first reading from the book of Wisdom is just a treasure chest. It says, “God formed man to be imperishable. The image of His own nature He made him, but by the envy of the devil, death entered the world/ and they who are in his possession experience it.” I don’t think it’s our imagination that when we come closer to God, it seems like everything goes wrong—every temptation runs head strong at us, whatever it be. Evil seems to know where to tickle. I believe that sometimes it’s just because of the envy of the devil: we are in the image of God, and the more we grow in that image, the more evil does everything to stop us or even just to take our eyes off of God. Evil says, “Well here let me plant this thing that I know really bugs you right in your face.” And it does bug us. It gets our whole attention, gets us upset and angry, and we lose sight of where were going. So in some way it’s good and it’s bad. It’s good because it tells us we are heading in the right direction (otherwise evil wouldn’t bother with us), but we need to fight temptation.
The reading goes on, “For if before men indeed they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality. Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed because God tried them and found them worthy of Himself. As gold in the furnace He proved them and as sacrificial offerings He took them to Himself.” It says that He tried them and found them worthy—well everyone else tried them too, along with God! That’s the sacrificial offering He took to Himself. A sacrifice requires death. If it’s still living and kicking, it’s not sacrificed. But that’s what has to happen. Something dies and God takes it to Himself because it was an offering. Living with a view of offering things up is important. It’s not an old fashioned way of living. To truly take that and have that mind set is really a means of holiness for us because it does draw us to God; because we’re giving the things that we love. What is it to give your old trash away? To give the things you love and to offer them to God as a specific offering is dear and sweet to Him, as sweet smelling incense. Often other people can really try us, but we can’t focus on what the other person is doing to us. Evil will give up on us if he only pushes us closer to God. So if the things that are really bothering you, you continually offer to God, eventually evil will say, “This isn’t working. This is having real bad repercussions.” Just remember that. We have to take seriously that temptation is going to be in our lives because God will try us. The thing we can do for each other is to pray for one another and to have a compassionate heart. We don’t know how hard somebody else is fighting just to do what they’re supposed to do. That is a sacrifice, but it will bear fruit.

Striving for Perfection

A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

Sometimes we're so impatient to be perfect even with our own selves. We want it done yesterday. Part of our own stability and perseverance has to do with the fact that we have to be stable in our perseverance. We have to go through it and not expect perfection so quickly. It's humiliating to be humble. It's in our nature to be want to be done with it so quickly that we don't have to deal with it anymore. And yet don't we find that when we think we've conquered our faults, out of the blue they pop up again?

When you find you're having a difficult time trying to change something in your life that you know you should change-- be patient. Don't give up quickly. If you see it creeping up again, simply persevere in your asking for help. Don't become discouraged. Only become discouraged if you don't care anymore. If you care, God will provide. And sometimes He doesn't allow it to go quickly for us, simply so that we can prove our love.

It's not in our looking good but in our desire to keep persevering through the difficulties, that we are pleasing to God. We have to learn not to worry if we don't look good in the eyes of the world. It doesn't matter what the world thinks. It's by far better to be stable and correct in our own ways.

What Are You Looking For?

A reflection on the first Mass reading for October 16, 2009 (Romans 4:1-8) by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

When we heard the letter of St Paul to the Romans yesterday, that last sentence struck me: “Blessed the man whose sin the Lord does not record.” If the Lord is so gracious as to not record the sins of a man, can we be as gracious to ourselves? It’s good to repent and to know our sinfulness, but when the knowledge of our sins consumes us and we’re so busy recording everything we’ve done it weighs us down. And then we start recording others’ sins to alleviate our own sense of guilt.

The only way to stop that negativity is to start recording all that’s good. Start making a record of the good things you do. Start focusing on that. If we look for the good it will lift our hearts and the atmosphere we live in. We know that if we look for the bad we will find it. So equally, if we look for the good, we’ll find that too. That can be a lot of work; but it’s worth it. What are you looking for? What you look for you will find.

If you look for the good, you encourage the good. If you look for virtue you encourage virtue. If we lighten our own load, we will move along lighter.

Childlike Trust

A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

On October 3rd, we celebrated the feast of Blessed Columbia Marmion.* What strikes me most about him is that in every situation he was in, (and we know that the latter part of his life was very difficult as he was having to move his monks during World War I), he never once doubted that Christ was in the midst leading him. Isn’t that what we’re hearing constantly in the Gospels—that childlike trust in God? I was thinking about that clarity of children. I remember my sisters would tell me that they had to be very careful about what they said around their children because the kids got it quick, they knew exactly what was going on. I think that was because their hearts weren’t cluttered with themselves. They had a perception that was clear and pure because they weren’t so cluttered with their own opinions, nor with all the worries. Worries sometimes clutter our perception. But Jesus says, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Give me those worries, I’ll carry them. Keep your perception clear by letting me be God for you. You don’t need to be God. I’ll be God.” I think those are really the best ingredients for a holy life. Let God be God and we’ll be the children; and we’ll simply follow His lead.

*Blessed Columbia Marmion (1858-1923) was a Benedictine Abbot in Belgium and became noted for his spiritual direction, writings, and retreats.

Being Content

A reflection on the Mass readings for September 18, 2009 (1 Tim 6:2c-12; Luke 8:1-3) by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

In my reflections this morning, the word ‘contentment’ kept coming up. I first thought of this word in relation to what St. Benedict says in Chapter 7 of our Holy Rule where it reads: “The sixth degree of humility is that a monk be content with all that is mean and poor and in all that is enjoined on him esteem himself a sinful and unworthy laborer saying with the prophet ‘I have been brought to nothing and I knew it not. I have become as a beast before you and yet I am always with you.’” Anytime we compare ourselves it’s our own undoing. We will never be content when we compare because it’s always seeing the grass greener on the other side-- no matter what it is. If you’re wearing a sweater and someone else is wearing another, you can’t see your own as the other one must be nicer. But for one to be content, one really has to stop thinking of oneself-- to be selfless in what we’re doing.

This life is not easy but if we’re living only for ourselves it’s not going to get better. The ego grows by staring at it. To be content with what we have and what we do is really the key to living a life in peace. What I heard in my lectio today I found really “telling”. When I do my lectio I try to take a word from the First Reading of Mass and from the Gospel reading and put them together and see what they do. And today’s was really thought provoking as my word from the First Reading was, “be content,” and from the Gospel, “accompany Him.”

A Missed Opportunity

A reflection on Exodus 32 by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

I was reflecting on the scene in Exodus when Aaron is pressed by the Israelites to make a golden calf. What I think went wrong with Aaron is that he missed an opportunity of prayer. God wasn’t asking only Moses for a relationship. Aaron was just as responsible for a relationship with God. This relationship would have enabled him to God the Father when there was a problem, when there was trouble. There was a missed opportunity of hearing the voice of God. Instead he succumbed to fear as if God wasn’t there to protect him.

We have all been there in our own lives. You become the best mechanic when something breaks and there’s not mechanic around. Or when the community’s cooks are all sick you discover that you can make great sandwiches. If you aren’t stretched you don’t realize what gifts you have. We have to discover that God puts them there for us. But we do have to ask Him for help. And I think that’s the key, we have to ask. If we don’t run into those difficult times we won’t grow.

It all has to do with our relationship with God. Where do we go when there’s trouble? Do we fill ourselves up with many, many things so that we don’t have to face the problem? We first see the signs of running away when we find that we aren’t too eager to go to the chapel or we aren’t too eager to meet God in prayer. When we find ourselves doing that, the first place to run is to prayer.

Trust God. We don’t do anything on our own. Actually we’re kind of useless on our own. With God we can do all things, we can suffer all things, we can bear all things. Without Him, we’re empty. He’s the fullness that makes all things possible.

The Eight Beatitudes

A reflection on the Gospel reading for Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (Luke 6:20-26), by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

The Beatitudes always have something new to say to us. In the Gospel it says: “Raising His eyes to His disciples, Jesus said, ‘Blessed are you who are poor for the Kingdom of God is yours.” You and I can ask ourselves, “How poor am I?” Do I really depend on God for all things or do I hoard some things just in case He doesn’t come through? I think it’s good to be prudent in life, but not to be so prudent that we leave nothing up to the Providence of God. To live that way is very important. We hear about this dependence on God in the Dialogues of St. Gregory (on the life of St. Benedict). The cellarer tried to save some food to make sure the monks had some and St. Benedict told him to give it all away. The next morning there was an abundance of food at the monastery door. This teaches us how to give fully of ourselves. Don’t hoard away a little of your own being. Pour yourself out in community, in family life. Then there will be an abundance at the door of your heart.

Later, Jesus says “Blessed are you who are hungry for you will be satisfied.” Well what do you hunger for most? What are the things that you desire at all times? If it’s that Christ be all in all, then you will be satisfied.

“Blessed are you who mourn for you will laugh.” This is a spirit we carry within us. Are you quick to have a smile for somebody? Are you quick to greet another? We only hand on what we have within us. And if Christ is in us we only hand on Christ. That’s it.

Letting Go of Self

A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

In the Gospel we hear Jesus say, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies it produes much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” So often we hear people say “I want to be fulfilled.” But what does that mean? I want my ego to be full. When we lay down our lives and no longer look to see that we are full, when we look totally to Christ, we will lose our lives, but in truth we gain it totally for eternal life.

We can all know this in our heads, but how can we practice it in reality? St Benedict says that we should always look for the good of another first. When we do this we lay down a little bit of ourselves—that’s a little seed scattered. If we keep doing that, at the end of our life we’ll have a field of wheat.

I read somewhere that a martyr said that if you’re going to die for Christ you have to keep your eyes on the present moment exactly and not look too far ahead because it would scare you. That’s why they continually repeat the name of Jesus or some other prayer so that they’re not thinking of what it’s going to cost, but rather keeping their eyes on the goal. And so for us in everyday life, as we try to fulfill our own lives, if we keep thinking about ourselves then we’re constantly saying “I want, I want ,I want, I need, I need, I need.” While these wants and needs may be very valid, the extent towhich we keep thinking about them is the extent to which we have to fill them (and it goes to infinity). Rather, when we hear our ego clamoring: “Hey pay attention to me, you aren’t look at me long enough,” we should say, “That’s right, I’m going to look at Christ.”

That’s the only way we can let go of ourselves. We have to continually turn back, to convert to Christ. That’s a lifetime’s worth of work, but it begins with each moment.

Christ is All in All

I have a prayer that I received when I entered the monastery that some of you may recognize. From my own experience this prayer one that simply becomes one’s life. You pray it when you’re young and then you become that prayer as you get older. There’s a whole different way of looking at it in the different stages of life. It’s about a continual letting go . It’s called the “Suscipe of St. Ignatius of Loyola”:

Take Lord and receive all:
my liberty, my memory,

my understanding, and my entire will.
You have given all to me, now I return it.
Give me only your love and your grace O Lord,

that is enough for me.
Grant me only these, Lord Jesus, and I shall desire nothing more.

I do believe that as we grow in the spiritual life there comes a day when we can honestly say that we desire nothing more than to know His will and to see Him. I think that’s pure gift, because we all have desires, we all have somewhere hidden ambitions that get uncovered throughout our life. And we discover how empty they are and how full He is. When we kneel before Him, giving all to Him and we receive all, that really is enough. It really is enough.

Conquering Self-Will

A reflection on the first Mass reading from Thursday, July 30, (Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38) by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB.

Earlier this week we heard in the reading from Exodus at Mass: “Moses did exactly as the Lord had commanded him.” (Ex 40:16) I was reading something the other night that said that God couldn’t give the Ten Commandments today it would have to be the five suggestions-- because first of all, man wouldn’t listen and secondly if God told him he had to do it, it would be the first thing he wouldn’t do. God would have to make the suggestions for him as if it was the person’s own will and would say “O, that’s exactly what I was thinking!”

Nobody likes to be told what to do. We’ve so softened ourselves today. Self-will has become a god. One of the fruits of self-will is complaining. Self-will, St. Benedict says, must be eradicated. It will lead us totally down the wrong path and obviously not one of obedience. All of it begins with the ego-- fulfilling my desires. And yet we’re supposed to be seeking God and His desires. Do we really want to hear what God has to say? Or are we more willingly to tell God what we think He should be saying—informing Him of what would be the better way to do things?

We can all get caught in this. From ancient days, we’ve had to struggle. We’ve had to struggle with the good and the bad. However, when we desire to do the good more and more it will eventually overcome… if we keep trying, if we persevere. The Rule of St. Benedict gives us the key, the means to accomplish this perseverance—we must prefer God to ourselves.