Oak Grove Abbey News

Ever since my first big plunge into monastic thinking several years ago surrounding the Order of the Cowgirl at the first Emergent Gathering, I have taken keen interest in the Rule of Saint Benedict. Rather than taking my cue from the "12 Marks of the New Monasticism" and things of this nature, I have been more inclined to take on the hermenuetical task of re-applying the wisdom of the ancients to our present situation as the budding of the Oak Grove Abbey has transpired.

The most direct application we have engendered from Benedict's Rule is his beautiful picture of hospitality as a receiving of every guest as Christ Himself. We aspire to do this in our frequent hospitality -- no so much with lodging as with meals, parties, deck dialogue, and common prayer. Our kindred spirit in cyberspace, A, recently blogged about hospitality. Through one of his commenters, I was exposed to this brief series of reflections on the contemporary application of the Rule to true Benedectine monasteries. There are a number of paragraphs throughout that I resonate strongly with, and I hope the rest of the Abbey-dwellers might link on over and peruse as well.

In addition to Ward's useful fleshing out of the concept of hospitality, I also liked very much his distiction between community and common life. His understanding of common life is far more descriptive of what the Oak Grove dares to be / become than the more abstract notion of community.

Finally, this quote seems terribly apropros for us today on a great number of levels and layers:

Monastic obedience is not a carrying out of an order, but a total giving of self to God through a monastic community. Such giving sometimes does involve pain and hurt because the individual cannot "march merely to his/her own beat." But then neither can a spouse in a marriage or a child in a family. Obedience within the monastery today rests upon the idea that the cenobium, the community, is a society of persons who, through mutual love, sanctify each other. Obedience is the Yes of community living.

Posted by gdwill at 9:07 AM | Permalink |

Vatican II can't find any hard evidence that the Crisp-twins really existed, but I dig their story nonetheless.

Kenneth Brannaugh, impromtu French cooking and homebrewed bier de garde added to the fun. Happy Crispin and Crispian Day!

Posted by gdwill at 6:14 PM | Permalink |

Born Dec 23, 1807 in Salient, Catalonia, Spain, Anthony Mary Claret was trained as a weaver. Hearing the call to serve God, he attended seminary in 1829 and performed mission work in his hometown as well as in the Canary Islands. Eventually, he established his own order and was named archbishop of Cuba. There he established a seminary, schools, hospitals, and anything else that would aid the poor.

His dedication to those less fortunate almost cost him his life. Throughout his ministry, he endured 15 assassination attempts.

During Queen Isabella's reign, he returned to Spain at her request to be the Queen's personal Confessor. He lived in an Italian hospice, caring for the poor while he served the Queen.

He died of poor health on Oct. 24, 1870. He was canonized in 1950 and is known as the patron saint of savings. (as in "a penny saved is a penny earned!")

Posted by Jolie at 3:03 PM | Permalink |

Michael is the newest resident of the Oak Grove Abbey. After moving to Austin from a brief stint in LA, we had a 2-week "courtship" period and then wholeheartedly affirmed that he should be among us. The ever-flexible Andy moved into Evan's room (where Jason lived until he got married [see previous entry]), and Michael went into Dave's room. Michael is a good dude, and hopefully you can get to know him over the blogosphere. Here's his site.

Posted by gdwill at 9:16 AM | Permalink |

I'm not sure how this little piece of information has neglected to be included in our blogtations for so long, but Jason and Tinamarie got married nearly a month ago! This was the second Oaken wedding in 2006. You may recall that Sean and Melissa were wed on New Year's Day. Similarly, Jason and Tinamarie hitched up on Rosh Hashana, the "Head of Days" in the Hebrew calendar.

It was a beautiful ceremony and celebration down at Jason's folks' home, surrounded by enormous oak trees and close friends and family. It was my honor to facilitate the nuptials as well as to provide a delicious homebrewed Belgian Trippel (it ain't bragging if it's true!).

Posted by gdwill at 9:00 AM | Permalink |

Posted by gdwill at 7:25 AM | Permalink |

I'm not exactly sure why, but we will be honoring Therese of Lisieux tonight at dinner. She died on September 30th, is listed this year for October 1st on Catholic Online, but is honored on the 3rd in the Celtic Daily Prayer Book. Also, I read a quote today from Dorothy Day mentioning "today is Therese's feast day and tomorrow's is for Saint Francis," which is still actually on the 4th (tomorrow). You follow?

At any rate, Therese is imminently popular for her wonderful embodiment of the Little Ways, a way of living she writes of as being a complete embrace of suffering and honoring God and others in tiny, undetected gestures of love and kindness. She did this so well that a sister nun in her convent, upon preparing for her funeral, remarked that there was nothing notable so say about her in eulogy! But her autobiography was nontheless dispersed widely to European monasteries, and within a few years she had become an enormously beloved figure among the common people of faith. She was canonized as a saint thereafter, and became promoted in 1997 as the most recent "Doctor of the Church."

She stands in remarkable contrast to so many bigger-than-life saints that bravely square off against pagan practices and evangelize thousands. Her meek and seemingly insignificant "widow's mite" of a life inspires hope and understanding for the rest of us aniwim of the world.

Posted by gdwill at 12:40 PM | Permalink |