J M J T
The Carmelite Novitiate
OUTLOOK
Published Monthly by the Discalced Carmelite Fathers, Our Lady’s Hill, Waverly, New York
Volume III, No. 3 February 1964
Dear Friends of Carmel,
How true it is, “All good things come to him who waits..” We’ve waited a long time for the Holy Season of Lent. It’s here at least! Deo Gratias!
Now before you conclude that I have gone out of my mind (if you haven’t already done so), and decide to clap…that is, to have the men in the white coats clap me into a straitjacket, let me explain that opening paragraph. You see, once Lent has begun, there are only six weeks left till Easter, the day on which the nearly seven-month period of fasting, to which our Carmelite Rule obliges us, comes to an end. Well, six weeks compared to seven months seems like a mere fortnight. So…it’s quite sane and logical for us, now that we are well into this penitential season to rejoice.
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Around the end of January we received a large package from our Sisters of the Carmel of Traverse City, Michigan. To our surprise and delight, it contained a very handsome bird feeder. In her letter, Rev. Mother explained that they were inspired to send it along when, in the December OUTLOOK, they saw the pictures of our ‘curious visitor’. They thought the feeder (filled with food, of course) would be a sure means of attracting more of them to these precincts. Rev. Mother went on to say that this feeder was built right there at Traverse City Carmel. It represented one of three different styles designed by one of the Nuns. Ours consisted of a ‘shrine’ of St. Francis of Assisi mounted on a good-sized tray assembly. Carved into the front of the tray there appears the Latin inscription: Venite Aves et Coenate. (For those of you birds who don’t read Latin that means: Come and eat, Birdies!) The Nuns are making them in quantity and putting them on sale, hoping thereby to ring in some needed revenue Judging from the tastefulness of the design and the sturdiness of construction, I would say they should have no trouble realizing their hopes. Unless, of course, they decide to give them all away to their friends and benefactors. (Carmelite Nuns are so generous). If you would like to acquire one, order from: The Discalced Carmelite Monastery, Silver Lake Road, Route 5, Traverse City, Michigan, 49684. I will have a photo of ours included in the next OUTLOOK.
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The foregoing may sound awfully close to being a commercial, but I assure you it is not. I had to tell you about it because it is necessary background material for what I am now about to relate.
Remember the bit about the bird feeder in the January OUTLOOK? Well, when we received our beautiful new one through the mail, I felt it would no longer be necessary for me to tell the Brothers to take down their bird feeder from the tree trunk and remount it strictly for the birds. It seemed best to leave it out there to serve as a squirrel-feeder, and to place the new one in the enclosed garden, here, for sure, only the birds would have access to it.
But I had forgotten the Novices can read, and so, when we were all gathered together in their recreation room to fold the January OUTLOOK and prepare them for mailing, the comments about the bird feeder did not escape their notice. They did not let on, however, that they had seen it.
Anyway, a few days later, when we entered the refectory for dinner, we found a very diverting wildlife drama-taking place before our very eyes out by the tree to which the bird feeder has been affixed. It was now hanging suspended, like a trapeze, from the lowest branch of the tree. Two squirrels were scurrying around as if in a frenzy, searching all around the tree trunk for the missing feeder. In the meantime there were a goodly number of birds perched upon the feeder, avidly devouring its contents.
Before long, however, the squirrels had discovered where the feeder was located, and began making attempts to reach it. One of them went out on the nearest limb, which was still a good distance away, and made a circus leap out toward the feeder. The jump was perfect; he landed squarely on top of it, but his momentum had started it swinging so violently that he grew frightened and jumped off immediately. This happened several times. Finally, he had the presence of mind (or presence of hunger) to hang on; soon the thing had stopped swaying, and he was able to settle back on his haunches and nibble away on one tasty morsel after another.
The other squirrel did not have the strength, or the courage, apparently, to imitate his companion’s daredevil leap. But he also managed to reach the feeder by going out on the limb from which it was suspended and dropping down upon it from directly above. Our bird feeder had once again become a squirrel-feeder, and it was the birds’ turn to go scolding and chattering in a state of great excitement.
For sure, now, I thought, I would be able to revert to my plan of having a squirrel feeder out back and a bird feeder in the garden. Then I overhead Father Master telling the Brothers to mount the feeder on a metal pole a good distance from the trees, and smear the pole with grease. This they did, and the case seemed closed. We had a bird feeder out back once again.
Imagine our surprise, therefore, when the next day at dinner we looked out and again saw a squirrel perched upon the bird feeder. (He was a very slippery customer or else a college freshman.) I tried to get a picture of him, but he must have spotted me as I stood at the window adjusting the camera and scampered off, or better, slipped away. All afternoon I kept going to my window to see if he had returned, but to no avail. Undoubtedly that spunky squirrel did not think the price he had to pay to reach the feeder was worth it, namely, getting his coat all messed up. Undoubtedly, too, his brother squirrels had noticed his messy coat and decided he had been to a ‘greasy spoon’ restaurant and were not going to approach, either.
The case is finally closed, except that the birds spill a lot of food upon the ground around the base of the pole, and the squirrels do come and feed on that. As it turns out, nature found a way of satisfying them all.
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Before I relinquish this item, though, I do want to say that I was not entirely wrong in surmising that the Brothers were stocking the feeder with leftovers from our own table fare. On the day the swinging-feeder episode took place, for example, they had filled it with leftover homemade doughnuts. To our astonishment, it was this that was exercising an irresistible attraction upon the birds and the squirrels. They were so good that they attracted, of all things, a woodpecker! What an extraordinary recipe that must have been! Our furred and feathered friends were eating them with as much gusto as we had. As a result, I now stand in open-mouth awe of Brother Sebastian’s cooking prowess.
It appears once again, therefore, that I need not have worried that a Brother’s being expert in one line of work would have adverse effect upon his being assigned to something altogether different. Brother Sebastian is a professional barber, and he still does quite a bit of barbering in addition to his cooking. Had my theory been correct we would have found hair in our mashed potatoes and mashed potatoes in our hair. This is not the case. With all due reverence, I hereby paraphrase that famous line of scripture: The providence of God ‘extends from kitchen to barbershop mightily, and disposes all things sweetly’.
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From the spiritual point of view, the outstanding event in February was our annual community retreat. It must seem strange to many of you readers to learn that we are obliged to make a retreat each year, since, you might well expect, our daily application to spiritual exercises and supernatural realities would render a retreat unnecessary. But the truth of the matter is, we, too, have to fight the universal tendency toward depreciation and decay that plagues all creation. We need to renew the fervor that has flagged, tighten our embrace upon our ideals, and ratify again our decision to pursue in Carmel the will of God for us, our sanctity. These were blessed days, for we were obliged to set aside all but absolutely necessary occupations, and to give ourselves up to reading and praying in the presence of the Lord.
What made the retreat especially good this year was the retreat Master, our very own Very Rev. Father Thomas Kilduff, O.C.D., himself a former Novice Master. All his talks were gems: interesting, informative (very often of things we would have preferred not to know), inspiring, filled with humor that was in the best taste and at the same time sharply illustrative of spiritual truths. (I seem to be in a mood for commercials.)
If anyone of us has not vastly improved as a result of this retreat, it is because he is deaf. The effects should last for a while, too. Which reminds me of what I may have told you when commenting upon our retreat of last year. They tell about a fellow who said he hated to make a retreat because after it was over, it took him at least three weeks to get back to normal.
This year our retreat was timed to coincide with the retreat of the Brother Postulants who were to be invested in the Habit of the Order the day following the close of the retreat. Of the twelve lay brother candidates who entered last August, eight of them have persevered through the six-month period of postulancy, and seven of them were clothed on February 8th. I list their names here. The last named, the eighth, entered about a month later than the others and was clothed in the Habit on March 9th: Brother Paul of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Brother Christian of the Holy Family, Brother Denis of the Incarnation, Brother Peter of the Holy Family, Brother Andrew of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Brother Raphael of St. Joseph, Brother Noel of the Infant Jesus, and Brother Gilbert of our Lady of Sorrows.
The ceremony of investiture, with which their two-year period of Novitiate training officially and formally begins, was held at 6:00 A.M. It just happened that that was the most convenient time for all; we were not trying to drag them in before they were wide enough awake to know what was taking place. All the same, I could not help being amused, thinking that, since we actually do put the habit on them during the clothing ceremony, we (Father Master and I) were going to pull the wool over their eyes.
You see the seven pictured on the photo insert page, the large document Brother Noel is holding is a spiritual challenge sent to them by the novice Sisters of the Carmel of Indianapolis on the occasion of their clothing day. In it, each of the four Sister Novices wagers that she can outrun any one of our novices in a spiritual race, that is, in the practice of some virtue or ascetical practice. The stakes are high; the winner gets all the merits. But this kind of a bet is a sure thing; even the loser is a winner.
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We were the happy recipients, also late in January, of a really outstanding gift. The donor, a recent widow, who lives down in Elysburgh, Pennsylvania, offered us all the machinery that constituted her late husband’s woodworking shop. Naturally, we hastened to accept. At my request, brother Brendan compiled a list of all the items that were included in the gift, which I reproduce here: a large band saw, an 8-inch planer, a joiner, a three-speed drill press together with a complete set of drill bits, a 10-inch table saw, a disc sander, a bench type belt sander, a large vise, a bench grinder. All of them, with the exception of the vise, of course, are power-driven. I don’t know the going price for all this equipment, but I would not be surprised if it totaled two thousand dollars. When Brother Maurice has finished the additional wiring of the carpentry shop to accommodate all that machinery, and it is all installed, we should have the best-equipped woodworking shop in the environs.
The lay brothers seem to be tickled pink with all that machinery, almost like youngsters with a carload of new toys. It occurs to me that one way to keep them in line is to threaten to forbid them the use of the woodworking shop, should they act otherwise. The thought occurs to me, too, that as the brothers build things with this machinery, they will also be building the spiritual ladder, which will offer the donor’s dear departed husband a means of escape from Purgatory. May God bless them both!
Enthralling as it has been for us, on occasion the past few weeks, what with receiving nifty gifts and watching the saga of the squirrels versus the sparrows and chickadees, the work schedule has nevertheless been pursued without truce. These are some of the things we have been doing:
Since the first of the year, a great deal of painting has been done (I mean here in the monastery, I am not referring to the whole world.) A small group of Brothers have kept busy doing the unpainted areas that were not of prime importance. They did a few rooms in the basement, viz., the tailor shop, the bookbindery and sandal shop, and a utility room, which we use as a packing room and for mimeographing and addressographing. They also painted the pantry, the ceiling of the kitchen, the trash room, (that sequence is not supposed to trace out the route that some of our food travels), the remaining stairwells, a rear entrance room and the public confessional. Brother Thomas also took enough time off from his duties as assistant cook to lay the floor tile in the pantry and the rear entrance room. But for the past six or eight weeks, the bulk of the brothers (by that I mean most of them) have been collaborating on a special project, the remodeling of the chapel pews. They have dismantled them, stripped them of their old finish, and assembled in a more modern style in the natural wood. (You see, there is a lot of rubbing against the grain even in monasteries!). At this writing (it is already March), we have begun using some of them, those that were finished (no pun intended) a few days ago.
In the past few weeks, also, Brother Maurice has devoted a good part of his time to setting up and organizing the bookbindery. Eventually, we hope, the Brothers will have finished the inside work, and we want to have something on hand to keep them occupied. As it is, we have such a tremendous backlog of library books and liturgical books, whose bindings have crackled under the strain of long and rugged use, that we can keep them busy for many, many months getting them all rebound. We also have huge stacks of periodicals, spiritual and theological magazines, that we want to bind into volumes and place them in the library for reference work. We even contemplate (in this case it may only be daydreaming) earning a modest revenue doing bindery work for others, e.g., Pastors who want their parish record books rebound. If this last wish materializes, it will be good for the Brother’s morale, for they will know that their labors will be to the material as well s spiritual profit of the community.
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Hmm! I notice that up to now I haven’t done any complaining. I can’t allow that. I have to foster the illusion that we have a very rough life here on our Lady’s Hill. Unfortunately, there is really no cause for complaint at the present. So I will have to appeal to one that ceased to exist about the middle of February.
What had been a terrible nuisance was a circulation pump (part of our heating system), which had begun to malfunction last fall, when we turned on the heat. This pump used to work smoothly and noiselessly, but now it had begun to vibrate and make a loud, humming noise. As the winter wore on, the noise and the vibration grew worse, until finally it started propagating the disturbance along the pipes of the heating ‘zone’ (there are five such zones in the building) which it serves. Then the radiation units in the cells in that zone start to vibrate, rattle and clank. At times, very often at night, they would set up such a clatter we would be unable to sleep (besides being driven to the point of distraction).
Now amazingly, one way to quiet them for a while, was to give them a good swift kick. (It doesn’t take any imagination to know how this method was discovered.) So, fortified with the knowledge of this technique, we were able to retain our sanity (perhaps I should not include myself in that first person plural.) Hoping we would be able to see the difficulty through the winter, we decided not to have the thing repaired till the warm weather arrived.
But then about mid-February the pump went completely out of commission, and we were forced to have it attended to. For two nights those of us whose cells were part of that zone shivered and shook with cold, for it happened during the severe cold snap. But now everything is working perfectly again, and the rattling and clanking has gone the way of the tin-lizzies. Deo Gratias.
One interesting result is that when I run into our friends and acquaintances from down in the valley, and they ask me their usual question: “How are things up at the Monastery?” my answer includes a meaning that they don’t even suspect. I have been in the habit of telling them: “Can’t kick.” I am also amused to think that: it wasn’t what we were doing for kicks; it was what kicks were doing for us!
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Oh, oh! I notice I’ve taken up so much space thus far that I will have to make my spiritual commentary very brief. Now it is your turn to say “Deo Gratias.” You see, all good things come to him who waits.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4,1)
Every first Sunday of Lent, Holy Mother Church recalls to our attention that very important event in the life of Our divine Saviour, His temptations at the hands of the devil. As can be deduced from the story itself, this is one event at which the Apostles were not eyewitnesses, and the fact that Jesus Himself had to tell them of this episode adds to its significance.
Spiritual writers generally assert that Jesus willed to undergo these temptations because He would merit for us thereby the necessary graces to stand firm against all the assaults that the devil would direct upon the souls of men in the course of time. This is so, of course, but there is much more to it than that, most of which did not require the attention of the earlier writers, for in those times the people did not need to be reminded of certain facts, as we do now. For example, this story confirms our belief in the existence of the devil, which scientific moderns declare to be a myth, the invention of ignorant generations of the past to explain phenomena they couldn’t fathom. But he is, in fact, a malevolent spirit, the avowed enemy of mankind; the influence he exerts upon the thoughts and desires of men, and hence upon the course of history is very real and very extensive.
This event holds many valuable instructions for us who are aware and wary of the devil’s hatred of our soul’s welfare. We learn what those areas are in which we are most frequently tempted; we gain an insight into their nature; we get a glimpse of the technique he is wont to employ. Obviously, it stands us in good stead to know these things, for, as the saying goes, forewarned is forearmed.
One thing worthy of note: the devil seemed to be taking Jesus’ spiritual measure. The second temptation seems to be geared to a person who has attained a high degree of spirituality; the first is not so ‘high-powered.’ One reason might be that the devil likes to ‘separate the men from the boys’ as they say, and then concentrate his attacks upon those who are more advanced spiritually, the fall of one of whom brings much more harm to the Church than the fall of a multitude of those less highly endowed spiritually. But there is another good reason for the gradation in the subtlety of the temptations. If the devil can cause a man to abandon God for the sake of good things of a material nature, e.g., those things which cater to bodily welfare or pleasure, this is more of an affront to the majesty of God than were a man to forsake the friendship of God for the sake of good things of a spiritual nature: goods of the soul, spiritual realities, which are far more noble than material goods.
As for technique, the devil bases his first two solicitations upon a germ of truth. He asks of Jesus, substantially, what is not wrong for Jesus to do, namely, to declare His identity, to present His credentials: “If you are the Son of God, prove it.” The deception lies in this: The devil hopes so to anger Jesus, by doubting His identity (notice the appeal to pride, which the devil knows lurks hidden to some extent in the heart of every human being), that Jesus will fall into the trap of using the means suggested by the devil as a means of proving who and what He is. It is precisely here that He would act contrary to the will of God: He would use illicit means to achieve a perfectly licit objective. Another element of truth the devil made use of to disguise the evil lies is the fact that it is perfectly licit for Jesus to think about obtaining the food God wills He should take now that His fast or 40 days and 40 nights has ended.
In other words, the devil wants us to stand upon our dignity as children of God to seek exemption from the ordinary laws divine providence has established by means of which we are to supply for our ordinary needs: the sweat of our brow. To seek to do so in extraordinary ways is wrong. Likewise, neither are we to use the personal gifts and powers God has given us for personal aggrandizement only, just as it was not God’s will that He use His divine power to satisfy even his most basic natural needs.
The answer of Jesus shows also that the devil was trying to trick Him into accepting a false premise: namely, that a spiritual man, a child of God should expect, as a sign of divine favor, to abound in material goods and comforts, to be spared suffering, hardship and want. The words “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every words that comes forth from the mouth of God” signify that the life of the soul is to be preferred to the life of the body whenever they stand in opposition to one another (which is NOT always.) It is truth and the practice of virtue that nourish the soul. Both of these are contained in every word that issues forth from the mouth of God. Revelation comprises both doctrinal statements (truth) and laws. When we follow the laws we are practicing, implicitly, all the virtues. In this way our soul lives a vibrantly healthy life, even though keeping the law results at times in pain and deprivation for the body.
The second temptation is of the kind the devil aims at men he knows are spiritual, who see the fickleness and corruptibility of material things, who are enamored of spiritual realities: virtue, honor, truth, integrity, beauty, nobility, yes, even friendship with God. Again the devil questions Jesus’ identity. Again he appeals to pride, but a subtler, insidious kind, the kind St. John of the Cross calls spiritual. In doubting that Jesus is a highly spiritual man, one well-beloved of God and on intimate terms with Him, the devil again hopes so to anger Jesus that He will again fall into the trap, not of calling upon God to vindicate Him, which is all right, but into the trap of asking god to do so in an altogether singular, miraculous way, which IS wrong.
It is not wrong for a man who is close to God to call upon Him for special protection. It is an article of Faith that God does exercise a special providence over the elect. But it is not the will of God that we demand of Him a protection so tangible and so noticeable as to exempt us from being subject to the ordinary laws of nature, to be exempt from suffering physical harm. God vindicates His special friends by protecting them from spiritual dangers, and it is only in order to protect such a one from these that His angels will intervene to prevent his dashing his foot against a stone.
Another kernel of truth that we find in this temptation, as suggested by spiritual writers, is that this miracle would also promote most happily the accomplishment of the mission assigned to Jesus by the Father. Were he to jump down from the pinnacle of the temple into the crowded courtyard below, the people there would notice the intervention of angels, and immediately recognize Him as the Messiah. He would sweep them all, the entire nation, the Scribes and Pharisees included, into His camp. This pinpoints another danger that spiritual people are likely to fall into. They will think they have to accomplish astounding feats in the exercise of the Apostolate, to prove the Lord is with them. Thus they are likely to do utterly imprudent things, expecting God to work a miracle to keep them from losing face. We offend Him deeply when we require of Him dazzling displays of divine power to prove that we are saintlier than the rest of men. That this is a temptation to presumption, the downfall of the psuedo-spiritual, we have in the words of Jesus: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
After these two temptations, the third seems to be a real puzzler. There is absolutely no germ of truth in it. There is no deception. There is an explicit appeal to Jesus that He overthrow reason altogether and embrace falsehood outright. How did the devil ever think this would be successful against a truly spiritual man? Yet, because he used it last, we must admit it is his trump card. It has, then, a power that escapes us, escapes anyone except him who has within easy reach what the devil here offers: the chance to wield power over all the nations of the earth. This is something so dazzling that it completely blinds the mind to truth; or if it does not blind, makes it seem quite worth while to forego happiness in the next life for the summit of happiness here below. What the devil offers Jesus here is what he offered Eve in the Garden: beatitude, to be as gods. God is truly blessed because He is above all law and restraint. Better, He is a law unto Himself. He has it within His power to satisfy His every wish. What he wills is good and proper because He wills it. He enjoys a cult of adoration and praise. Others depend upon Him for their life and well being. His will is law to all rational creatures.
A man who reigns over the entire earth as its Lord and Master becomes a law unto himself. It lies within his power to indulge his every whim. All others depend upon him; all others are obliged to do his will. He is surrounded by a coterie of worshippers, admirers and flatterers, etc. Truly he is blessed; he is like unto God.
That this temptation exercises an irresistible appeal upon the human mind is evidenced by the fall of Eve, who enjoyed the gift of integral nature. She was created free of original sin; in her there was no weakness or ignorance. Still, to be as gods seemed so worthwhile to her that she willingly embraced falsehood in order to obtain it.
The words of Jesus warn us against embracing error for the sake of a taste of blessedness, that is in order to be a law unto ourselves. “The Lord thy God shalt thou worship, and Him only shalt thou serve.” Without Him every good thing turns to ashes at the very moment it seems about to surrender the treasure we so earnestly crave.
If, by the Lenten discipline, we detach our hearts from the good things of the body by fast, abstinence, corporal mortification; if we detach our hearts from the good things of the spirit by the exercise of prayer, true humility and earnest inquiry into the extent of our own sinfulness and unworthiness of the friendship of God; if we cling tenaciously and wholeheartedly to the law of God, which teaches us how to rightly esteem and employ all things so that they yield up authentic beatitude, then we shall have made a good Lent. But the way is steep and rugged. Jesus’ cross is to be our staff; His words will give light to our mind and zest and courage to our hearts.
Pray for us. We pray for you. May you have a Happy Easter. God bless you.
Cordially yours in Our Lady,
Father Bruno, OCD, Prior
[With permission of Religious]
[and Ecclesiastical Superiors ]
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Note to the Readers: This newsletter was written in the 60’s and Waverly Novitiate no longer exists, however, the Carmelites are always in need of funds to carry out their work. If anyone wishes to contribute to the cause of the Discalced Carmelite Friars, please send your donations to: “In appreciation
of Fr. Bruno's Works”, Mission Procurator, P.O. Box 270136,
Hartford, WI 53027.