CISTERCIAN WOODS - December 10, 2002

December 10, 2002

We are neither as peculiar nor as special

As we would like to think

(Colman)

***

I’m just one of the many.

I’m just one of the human race.

This is what it’s like to be human.

Good days, not-so-good days.

Just like everyone else.

Why do I expect to be the exception?

(Daniel O’Leary, Travelling Light, p.55)

*** 

It is our suffering

that is the most basic element

That we share with others,

The factor that unifies us

With all living creatures.

(The Dali Lama)

***

Suffering and sickness

Is the great school of patience,

And it is a school that everyone

Will have to attend…

It is only very slowly

That we begin to recognise

The presence of God in our suffering

(Tony Flannery, Waiting in Hope, p.35)

***

When my sin, my personal problems and suffering get blown up out of all proportion, I have to remind myself again to place them in the context of the whole of human life beyond myself. And not just in the context of human life but all life. It’s a lesson Maura taught me years and years ago, one that has to be learned time after time.

***

Went to visit Brother Neil in the bookshop. He’s a great talker who appreciates a listener. In his former life he was an accountant and married with two children. 

His wife died when he was 70 years old and when a Vincentian friend suggested he become a priest and go to Australia, he didn’t like the idea at all, particularly the part about going to Australia. One day at Mass, on his way up to Communion, he was wondering if he had a religious vocation when the organ started playing a piece of music that was special to his father. He took it as a sign and came to Roscrea to see if they would take him. They eventually did, seventeen years ago.

***

Lionel is the man I met here in September when I came to see if I could spend these three weeks here. He’s from Wales, trained in history, and has been working here at the guest house for two and a half years in the role of caretaker, receptionist, waiter at tables. And, as a diversion, he prunes the pear trees in the monastery garden.

He is the male equivalent of Shirley, God rest her. So sincerely full of kind concern, polite and helpful. Being from Wales, there’s a good chance that he’s not Catholic and he doesn’t attend any of the prayers or Masses in the church here, as far as I can tell.

He had overheard a discussion on my surname at table today and later told me he’d read of a General Monson in the British-Indian army in India in the 1800’s, a man strongly opposed to Governor Hastings at the time. Lionel is qualified in history which he taught for twenty years.

Tonight he spoke lovingly of the men of the road who come to stay here from time to time, spoke of his sadness on hearing of the death of Derek in a park in Dublin a couple of weeks ago. How he wished he could have been able to help him more.

***

Fr. Bonaventure, from Co. Galway, says that I’ve fitted in very well with the monks - like a hand in a glove. He was very pleased to hear that I’ve always wanted to spend time here. Maybe it’s an affirmation of their vocation in a time when numbers are getting so small. The two younger members of the community arrived back from Oxford where they’re studying for the priesthood. They offer a positive sign.

Three of the community who I thought were around my age, or maybe fifty at the most, turn out to be 59, 64 and 66. They look so young!