November 25, 2011

I'm standing at the lectern in church with the abbot and thirty three monks sitting in front of me rehearsing with them, the new translation of the Missal, coming in two days. I'm doing the priest parts: “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The halting, stop-and-start feeling of the first ten words is making me self-conscious. The monks, seated in their stalls, bent over the mass cards with the new words on them, listen intently. This feels different – really different. A change is coming. For monks it is especially felt. Monks celebrate mass every day and pray together seven times each day. We live in the liturgy. Now, like a big wind sweeping over a tiny farm house set in the middle of a vast prairie, something is happening to the liturgy. The monks bent over in their choir stalls, look like stalks of corn in a storm. A community of monks is bending their necks to winds of change that are only a symbol of the fluid nature of our human existence. But monks, are good at this because of our rootedness in the mystery that never changes and in our hearts there is a quiet joy. Where does the joy come from? Its source is the mystery that America celebrated yesterday. It is the mystery the whole world remembers in the celebration of the eucharist whose words we are now rehearsing. This is the mystery whose Word is the last word. Progress, contention, misunderstanding, reconciliation, prayer and wonder – it's all gift. Deep calling unto deep, this mystery is not many but one: it is thanksgiving.