GIDEON AND US

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A couple of days ago I received the nicest card from a high school classmate. After congratulating my on the fiftieth anniversary of priestly ordination, he wrote "but really even greater is your major contribution to the success of our high school. Nobody back in 1972 gave the school a chance for revival; the amount of work that was involved and the amount of money needed seemed insurmountable problems. But you guys dreamed it and you did it."

Needless to say, his note made me feel very grateful -- to him for having taken the time to write it, and to God for doing the impossible through us.

Early in 1972, the dozen monks who were left in Newark after the closing of St. Benedict's Prep and the departure of more than a dozen fellow monks for another monastery, took a leap of faith: with almost no money and even less idea of exactly what we were getting ourselves into, we issued a press release stating that the Newark Benedictines were planning to open a small school for boys in the buildings that once housed the now defunct St. Benedict's Prep. Thank God, as you know, our dream came true beyond our wildest imaginings. Although to be honest I didn't have any dreams about the future, I was just helping our community to do what we saw was the right thing. 

Coincidentally, I had just been reading the story of Gideon in the Book of Judges. You'll see how appropriate it is. Gideon had been called by God to assemble an army and attack the Midianites:  

Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the troops that were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was north of them, below the hill of Moreh, in the valley. The Lord said to Gideon, "The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, "My own hand has delivered me.' Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, "Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.' " Thus Gideon sifted them out; twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained. Then the Lord said to Gideon, "The troops are still too many; take them down to the water and I will sift them out for you there.” (Judges 7:1-4, RSV Trans.)

Using various tests, the Lord finally whittled the number of soldiers down from the original 30,000 to just 300. Then, satisfied, the Lord told Gideon, “Now you can go into battle because when you win, you’ll have to give me all the credit.” And that’s, of course, what happened.

Gideon and his 300 men

Over the years, that’s turned out to be the way we've operated: a small group, a shrinking group in the monastery, actually, until the last five years or so, going on with the work and trusting the Lord to do for us what he did for Gideon. Fairly often people will compliment me, “You monks, just a dozen of you, have done such a wonderful job there at St. Benedict’s: All these beautiful buildings, graduates going to great colleges, and so on.” I agree that God worked through us, but it wasn't us by ourselves -- clearly that would be impossible, it could never have happened. God has arranged it so that the victory clearly belongs to him!

Let us join our voices to those of Gideon and his soldiers in praising the Lord for his goodness.