Author: WalburgaBenedictines

Living Lighter: Progressing in Virtue

October 7, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

 Photo by André Escaleira, Jr. / Denver Catholic

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

You see the progression of good.  Virtue is a progression.  Throughout our lives, we strive to develop virtue, we develop to be faithful, we develop love.  That’s why we take time every day to make an examination of conscience.  “Where am I going?  What am I doing?  How am I treating things?  Am I being faithful?  Am I being obedient?  Am I steadfast in the community?”  Otherwise, we might progress in the opposite direction: downhill.  “Well, I don’t want to do that today.  Maybe not tomorrow either.”  And then it becomes, “I am just not going to do that.”  We can grow in an acceptance of doing less.

In the back of my copy of St. Benedict’s Holy Rule, it has the whole rule in a nutshell.  I always go back to this and read it.  It’s a great aid to making a good examination of conscience.

1. My son, willingly receive the admonitions of a loving father and put them into efficacious practice.

2. When you begin anything good, ask God by importune prayer to perfect it for you.

3. So live so that your actions profit you eternally.

4. By a life of patient self-denial we participate in the passion of Christ, hence also in his eternal kingdom.

5. We are all one in Christ.

6. Love the works of charity.

7. Obey for the following motives: because Christ is in your lawfully appointed superiors, because you belong to the service of Christ, because punishment awaits the self-willed, because a great reward is promised to the obedient.

8. Obey in the following manner: not for servile motives, not heartily, not negligently, not with dislike, not with unbecoming words.

9. An unguarded tongue leads to sin.

10. Humility consists in avoiding sin, not loving one’s own will, obeying one’s lawful superiors for the love of God, patiently bearing hardships, acknowledging one’s faults, being content with circumstances, not esteeming oneself more than others, avoiding singularity, curbing boisterousness, being aware of forwardness in conversation, speaking well, modestly, and humbly, shaping our exterior according to the exterior of Christ.

11. Prayer to be efficacious need not be long or wordy; it should however be contrite and fervent.

12. Be ready to pray when it is time.

13. If you care not to amend your evil ways, you are not worthy to remain with Christ’s disciples.

14. Be neither sordid nor negligent.

15. Be not inordinately attached to your possessions.

16: Never murmur against authority.

17. See Christ in the sick and act accordingly; and if you are sick yourself do not grow peevish.

18. Be aware of excess in food and drink.

19. Place God’s things always first.

20: Do everything at its proper time.

21. Idleness is the enemy of the soul.

22. Spend Sunday with profit for the soul.

23. Never do anything unbecoming in Church.

24. Do not be a slave to clothing.

25. Do your work carefully, always intending the honor and glory of God.

26. Beware of ever cheating others.

27. The greater the dignity, the greater the obligation of virtue.

28. Always aim for some spiritual progress.

29. Be polite to others.

30. Read this rule frequently.

31. Confide in God for help in your occupations.

32. Gladly do favors for others and take correction in the right spirit.

33. Let your zeal always be such as leads to a good and profitable end.

34. Read diligently the Holy Scriptures, the lives of the saints, and other spiritual books.

So, this gives us something to work on every day.  There’s always something we can do a little better.  And if we start heading in the wrong direction, we can count on God to send us warnings.  God sends us encouragement.  He knows we need a touch of encouragement.  He knows what will make us laugh a little.  You can see those who can laugh at themselves, and there’s such a tenderness—There’s a tenderness of heart even towards themselves.  There’s not that harshness.  If we can laugh a little bit at ourselves, all of a sudden there’s a lightness and we aren’t so hard on others, either.  As we grow holier, we should become lighter of heart, because we forget ourselves.  The heaviest person to carry is ourselves, and so try to remember that God wills for us to grow in holiness with a smile.  We will become lighter if we let Him carry us.

Our Father

September 11, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

We know how important the Our Father is, and that we are to pray it.  Saint Benedict specifically recommends that it be prayed in the Divine Office by the Abbot because of the thorns of dissension that may arise in a community.  I think the more you pray it, the more one feels its power.  We’re to pray “Thy Kingdom come.” Just think what would happen if everyone in the world said at the same moment, “Thy Kingdom come” and meant it.  Would He come?  I would hope so. And we pray, “Thy will be done.”  Wouldn’t it be nice if what’s done on earth is done as it were in heaven? There wouldn’t be a problem anywhere.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  All are offered the bread of life, if only they would desire to receive it.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  That’s telling us that no matter who you are, things are going to hurt you in life.  We’re not going to get out of it, it’s just going to happen.  Forgiveness is going to be needed.  That’s where we unite ourselves the closest to God, when we forgive, because God is the only one who can truly forgive.  We have the power to forgive by releasing it, not demanding that the evil that was done be put back on that person.  Instead, we want good for them.  By forgiving we release them.  That is a very holy thing, to not will evil when evil has been done.  It’s natural to think, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  But what does that get us?  We would all be blind and toothless, and we know that.

Then we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  The Church has what’s called, “deliverance prayers,” and people wonder what that means.  God says it right here in the Our Father: deliver us from evil.  That’s all it is.  We all want to be delivered from evil, and deliverance prayers are so powerful for just that purpose.

At the end of the Our Father in Matthew, we hear Jesus say, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you” (Matt. 6:14).  What a carrot!  He just hangs that out in front of us.  Well, that’s a good reason to start forgiving others.  Because we’re assured of forgiveness.  Then He says, “But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions” (Matt. 6:15).  This warning is coming from a Father who loves us, so that we will know and do what will help us to be forgiven ourselves.  This prayer has the best advice in the whole world, so try to pray the Our Father intentionally at least once a day.  We should truly let those words penetrate us, because through doing so, we are intimately united with Christ, who gave these words to us.  And when we pray, even when we get dragged off by distractions or whatever, return.  Always return.  Return and pray with great attention.  Because have you ever talked to someone who is all over the place and not paying much attention to you?  Do you really listen to them?  But when somebody is actually staring at you and saying, “Can you do this for me?”, there’s something about their attention, their focus, that makes you want to do it for them.  They really care.  Let us try to pray like that. 

 Photo by André Escaleira, Jr. / Denver Catholic

Called Forth by God + Video

August 14, 2024

A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB, during the week leading up to the Solemn Monastic Profession of Sister Maria-Placida, OSB on July 11, 2024, the Solemnity of St. Benedict

What a glory it is to be called forth by God, and not merely by man.  Our vocations are God-given, truly given by God, and that’s what makes them so great.  It’s not something we can do without His call.  During Sister Maria-Placida’s Solemn Profession, she will be called forth (literally, from the back of the chapel to the front, carrying her lighted profession candle!) by the bishop—and how beautiful that she responds to this call with a song.  She will come forth singing with joy for being called by God to this vocation.  So we look forward to this moment with rejoicing in our hearts, because it is such a great glory to be called by God.

Jesus has waited from all eternity for his particular relationship with you, and that place cannot be filled by any other.  No one else’s relationship with Christ is the same as yours.  Sit with that.  Nothing can give you joy like belonging to Jesus fully.

Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

All photos courtesy of André Escaleira, Jr. / Denver Catholic

An Eden for God

July 6, 2024

On July 17, we celebrate the 21st Anniversary of Mother Maria-Michael’s Abbatial Election. Below is a reflection she gave this year on the 35th anniversary of our community’s elevation to an Abbey, and it paints a perfect picture of our Abbess’ spirit: joyful, grateful, loving, wise. We are truly thankful that God has blessed us with such a wonderful shepherd.

Today we celebrate the “bar mitzvah” (in a sense!) of our Abbey—the day on which the Church elevated our monastery to an Abbey.  With this gift, we are able to make foundations, we have an Abbess, and we have the responsibility to lead within the Church.  We joyfully take on this responsibility to be faithful to the Church, to Christ.

I think of this place as a little Eden for God, and that we truly have an atmosphere of seeking God.  In Eden, God came every day to Adam and Eve in the garden.  Well He still comes every day to us in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist—You can’t get better.  

We are surrounded by beauty, and the greatest beauty is what each of you brings into the community.  That is the greatest beauty that God gives.  We truly should be a portal of heaven.  An Abbey should be a portal of heaven, a “thin place” where God pulls back the curtain between earth and heaven, so that people can come here and recognize that, and then take it home with them.  

I rejoice in seeing how the Abbey has grown, and how God is so powerful in this place.  It is not we, but He, who has done this; and what a glory that we get to be a part of it.  He has called us to be a lantern, a lighthouse, which the world needs.  We stand for Christ, and people know that when they come here.  They see us in our habits and know what where’re about.  Isn’t there a saying that the greatest sermons are not said, but walked?  Our great witness is to simply live our monastic lives with rejoicing and gratitude.  I can’t thank God enough for what He has done to make this house what it is, and for every Sister who has ever lived in it.  In your prayers, remember to thank God.  Above all, thank Him.  That is the greatest gift we can give Him, when you pray, “I recognize, God, Your goodness, and I thank You.”

 

Swimming in Mercy

May 29, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

In the book of Ezekiel, we hear about the “wonderful stream” that is shown to Ezekiel by an angel, which gets measured out several times and keeps getting deeper and deeper, until Ezekiel can no longer cross it because he would have to swim (Ezekiel 47:3-5).  We then hear how the river empties into the salt waters of the sea, which it makes fresh (Ezekiel 47:8), and that the source of these waters is none other than the sanctuary itself (Ezekiel 47:12).  This image reminds me of the line in the hymn we sing on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception: “Sinners, we honor thy sinless perfection/Fallen and weak, for thy pity we plead/Grant us the shield of thy sovereign protection/Measure thine aid by the depth of our need.”  Measure thine aid by the depth of our need.  Isn’t that the picture we get in Ezekiel?  The depth of sin in the world seems to grow greater and greater, but God’s mercy cannot be outdone.  If we ask, He will teach us to swim—in His mercy.  He will never abandon us.  Ever.  We can count on His mercy when we cry out, truly, from the depth of our being.  He will save us. 

The depth of our sin is never too great for Him.  After Christ’s passion and death on the cross, when a lance was thrust into His side and “blood and water flowed out” (John 19:34), the floodgates of mercy were opened.  And His mercy continues to pour out onto the earth, and it is ours for the taking.  But it is a choice to put out our arms to mercy, which is not always easy to do, because it requires so much humility to admit that we need it.  But if we think of ourselves as little children, crying, “Pick me up!  Save me!” because we can’t get over the chasm on our own, then we are among those souls who are open and ready to receive His mercy.  As we approach the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, may we all ask for this gift as little children, confident in the love of our Father, and His desire to forgive our every fault, and to carry us in His arms, very close to His tender heart.

Public Domain icon of Jesus saving St. Peter from downing
[Flickr / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license]

Veni, Sancte Spiritus

April 27, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB, as the Church prepares for the celebration of Pentecost and prays, “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” (Come, Holy Spirit)

Abbey of St. Walburga Easter Vigil Mass

After Christ’s Resurrection, we hear that wonderful story about how He prepares a meal for his disciples on the shore of the lake, and tells them, “Come, have breakfast” (cf. John 21).  After this, he asks Peter three times if he loves Him, and instructs him, “Follow me.”  You would think that this would be enough for Peter, but of course he takes his eyes off of the Lord and sees John nearby, and has to ask, “Lord, what about him?”  It makes me smile how patient the Lord is with Peter, and how He simply responds, “What if I want him to remain until I come?  What concern is it of yours?  You follow me.” 

There is such wisdom in considering this – that if we get so wrapped up in the lives of everybody else, we might just miss our own.  Sometimes we get down with comparing ourselves with others, thinking, “He is more loved” or “She is more loved,” and we believe we’ve been left in the dust. Our love should be above that. What really matters is that we love.  There is such happiness in doing that. What an incredible gift it is, and what a freedom. So rather than getting caught up with how much we are loved, perhaps we should change the question to ask how much we love?  Others’ love for us may come and go, but our love doesn’t have to come and go.  Our love can be stable.   The best advice is to love God, and everything about Him.  Peter was still turning around looking at everything else, but all he had to do was look at Jesus, and it would have been enough.  Let us learn from Peter’s experience – sometimes the Scriptures are there to help us learn from others’ mistakes so we don’t have to make the same ones.  So let us be at peace with whatever the Lord gives us in life, and be content knowing that we are beloved by God.

In this blessed time after Easter, as the Church receives another outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, I encourage everyone to pray a Novena (a prayer prayed for nine consecutive days) asking the Holy Spirit to pour His gifts into you in abundance, especially the gift of love – And believe that you’re going to get what you ask for.  God is the “Creator Spirit,” and just as He is still creating new wonders in nature (have you heard about the new ocean being formed in Africa?!), He is still creating and re-creating you.  I heard that Michelangelo would look at a block of marble and start chipping away, and only then see what was “in it.”  The Holy Spirit is within us, and sees who we truly are, and chips away at everything that is not us – if we let Him.  And the more He chips away, the more we become bearers of light.  That is so key to the work of the Holy Spirit: Light.  Light in every way.  We can pray with Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new spirit within me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (v. 12, 14).  God is joy – let Him fill you completely with His joy.  We can pray that every day: “Give me Your joy!  Uphold me!  Create me anew.  Help me to follow You, that I may belong wholly to You.”  This is the Benedictine vow of conversatio morum, our ongoing conversion.  I pray this for everyone, that we might all be born anew each morning.

Evil wants to destroy life, but God wants to bring life – the world needs our witness to the power of re-creation today.  And one of the most powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit is forgiveness.  “[Jesus] said to the disciples, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (John 20:21-23).  Every time we go to the sacrament of reconciliation, we receive this gift.  Where there is unforgiveness, evil has an open door.  If you want to experience the power of the Spirit, then forgive.  Priests have the power to forgive us sacramentally, but we too get to participate in this healing power by forgiving another freely, mercifully, like Christ.  It doesn’t mean that you will forget the wrongs done to you, or feel good when you think about the person, but forgiveness is an act of your will.  Choose forgiveness, that you may release the captives in your own heart, and also be freed yourself.

We hear in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8), and I would add to that – “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God everywhere.”  I hope that we are given new eyes to see God everywhere, and in everything, for that’s what it means to have a new heart.  To be created anew is to see everything anew.  Be new.  God says in Revelation, “I will make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).  Do you believe that?  If you do, it will happen.  As one of the saints said (I forgot where I read this), you will be like a house on fire.  A soul afire with divine love is like a house on fire – when it is burning, everything inside is thrown out the windows.  And so when a soul is consumed by the flame of divine love, it casts out all that is unnecessary, and concentrates on all that is eternal: only love. 

I would like to leave you with these two Scripture verses:

“Thus says the Lord GOD: From the four winds come, O breath, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life.” (Ezekiel 37:9). 

“The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily…and you shall be changed into another man” (1 Samuel 10:6)

Veni, Sancte Spiritus!


Come, Holy Ghost
send down those beams,
which sweetly flow in silent streams
from Thy bright throne above.

O come, Thou Father of the poor;
O come, Thou source of all our store,
come, fill our hearts with love.

O Thou, of comforters the best,
O Thou, the soul’s delightful guest,
the pilgrim’s sweet relief.

Rest art Thou in our toil, most sweet
refreshment in the noonday heat;
and solace in our grief.

O blessed Light of life Thou art;
fill with Thy light the inmost heart
of those who hope in Thee.

Without Thy Godhead nothing can,
have any price or worth in man,
nothing can harmless be.

Lord, wash our sinful stains away,
refresh from heaven our barren clay,
our wounds and bruises heal.

To Thy sweet yoke our stiff necks bow,
warm with Thy fire our hearts of snow,
our wandering feet recall.

Grant to Thy faithful, dearest Lord,
whose only hope is Thy sure word,
the sevenfold gifts of grace.

Grant us in life Thy grace that we,
in peace may die and ever be,
in joy before Thy face.
Amen. Alleluia.

Translation of the Traditional Latin Squence for Pentecost

2024 Easter Candles

March 31, 2024

Thanks to the hard work of our Sisters in the paschal candle department, all the pastors who ordered candles from us are now burning our hand-painted candles in their parishes. Three different designs were created by three of our solemnly professed Sisters this year, and these designs were painted on candles large and small by the eight candle artists in our community, including two of our postulants. Paschal candles are used during the Easter Vigil Mass to carry the flame from the Easter fire into the church, and from which every other candle in the church is lit, as a symbol of Christ the true Light enlightening the world and dispelling the darkness of evil.

A very blessed Easter season to all—He is Risen!

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
Upon those who lived in a land of gloom
a light has shone.

Isaiah 9:1

Obedient to Death

March 29, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

”The Last Sigh of Christ” by Julien-Michel Gue, 1840. Julien-Michel Gue, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Prayer is about listening to God, and obedience is about acting on what we hear.  Obedience requires that we be free enough in sprit to do what God asks of us.  We need to be free to do the will of God.  When there is right relationship, right order, in our lives, obedience is simple – If we just do what we’re told (unless it is a sin!), we will become holy.  Why do we sometimes try to make holiness harder than it has to be, by avoiding doing what we’re asked because we think there’s a better/holier way?  It’s only when our relationship with God is out of order that obedience becomes a problem for us – when our self-will becomes more important than serving God and our neighbor.  When we allow our inclinations that are not quite in order with God to take the first place, it puts a weight on us that makes obedience too heavy and hard to bear.  We get irritable.  We are unhappy.  It is painful.  But when our lives are brought back into proper relationship with God, and He can ask anything of us through obedience, then our peace is restored.

So the monastic vow of obedience is not a chain – it’s a ray of light.  It shows us the way to God.  It shows us the true path.  It gives us the way through the eye of a needle.  It allows us to practice every day what Christ did during His life on earth.  He who said, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me” (John 6:38), and prayed before His death, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), and then finally became “obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), has gone before us to show us the way.  You can give up all your possessions, your time, your talent…But if you do not give up your will, you have not yet completely surrendered your all to God.  Try offering Him your will, and your will experience the fruit of His promise: “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

When we profess our vow of obedience, we place our hands between those of our Abbess

King David’s Humility

February 27, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

During the season of Lent, we traditionally process from our noon meal to the chapel to pray the Divine Office while chanting one of David’s penitential psalms

I have to smile when I read about Nathan pricking David’s conscience by telling him the dramatic narrative of the ewe lamb, and how Nathan likened David to the wicked man in the story who ate the innocent man’s precious lamb, which “shared the little food he had and drank from his cup and slept in his bosom…[and] was like a daughter to him” (cf. 2 Samuel 12:1-15).  How dramatic!  But David was humble enough to admit that he had done wrong.  His conscience was very pure in the sense that when he knew he had messed up, he wasn’t afraid to say “I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”  That is so noble.  Admitting that we are wrong and sorry is something our culture doesn’t practice enough, in my opinion.  But when we bring our faults out into the open (like in the monastic custom of having a regular “chapter of faults”), it often takes away the bitterness we feel towards someone when we know that they are aware of their offences.  When you hear others admit their faults, you are more likely to feel for them and have compassion on them and try to help them, not condemn them.  It just takes courage.  It takes humility.  It takes not making excuses, but just owning up to the truth.  And living in the truth really makes you free.

David was a sinner, but he never turned his heart away from God.  David’s son Solomon, on the other hand, who was once told by the Lord that He had given him a heart so wise and understanding that there had never been anyone like him, and after him there would come no one to equal him (cf. 1 Kings 3:12), actually turned away from God when he grew older to worship foreign gods.  He did evil in the sight of the Lord, not worshipping God unreservedly, as his father David had done (cf. 1 Kings 11:1-10).  So the Lord said to Solomon, “since this is what you want” – and I think that is the most frightening word of all – “and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I enjoined on you, I will deprive you of the kingdom and give it to your servant” (1 Kings 11:11).  Solomon didn’t just fall; he wanted to.  Should you fall, get up quickly!  It can be good for you and keep you humble, if you respond like David did.  But to fall as Solomon, whose heart belonged at first so purely to God, and then to turn to demons…this is a true sorrow.  We have to pray for people in this situation today, because they never lose God’s love.  They just don’t respond to it.  If they would only respond, what joy they would give to God.  We have to pray that they see where they have gone wrong and trust in God’s word of mercy for them, not the lies of the demons that they use to try to shame them.  

As we learn from Solomon, it is so important to consider our desire.  What do we want in life?  What is it we want?  What is our deepest desire?  I think this is a good thing to think of, and to ask God to purify our hearts and help us to desire whatever He wants for us, so that we might be freed from anything that takes us away from Him and be ready to take His hands at all times, that we will be safe.  If your greatest desire is God, He will hold you.  

God gives you the grace every day to pick up your cross and follow Him.  But you shouldn’t look ahead at your whole lifetime of crosses – According to Luke, Jesus specifically says that we should take up our crosses daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23).  He gives you the grace for today.  You can’t look at tomorrow’s cross and feel comfortable, because you have not received that grace yet.  To pick up your cross daily is simply to desire to do God’s will.  It is to pray, “I accept this day, and I accept what it holds for me.  Whether the crosses be heavy or light, I will walk with Him.”  You know, when you love somebody you just want to be close to them.  Nothing else really matters.  When you love them, all you can think of is being close to them.  So if your cross is big or small today, He is carrying it with you, because He loves you.  He is saying to you, “Will you share My life?”