Downtown Monks: HAPPY OLD YEAR

On new year's eve I usually sit down with my prayer journal to look back on the ups and downs of my relationship with the Lord over the past twelve months. This year, however, will be different because of this photograph that was emailed to me by a kind relative. It was found among the effects of my deceased godmother, Sr. Jean Holtz, SSJ:

Sr. M. Regina Holtz,F.S.P. / Fr. Albert Holtz,O.S.B.

This picture was taken at St. Mary's Abbey, Morristown, NJ, evidently on the day I took solemn vows as a Benedictine in October 1967. My sister, a year younger than me, is sporting her Franciscan habit.

So how has this photo from 55 years ago changed my end-of-year reflection? Simply this: I can't even imagine trying to make a list of everything I've done over those years. But I believe that it's possible to reflect not on what I have done over those, but rather on what GOD has done and continues to do for me.

St. Benedict of Nursia

In his Rule for Monks, St. Benedict demands that any new aspirants to the community “truly seek God.” He orders the entire life of the monastery toward this seeking: poverty and silence, stability and holy reading, caring for the sick and waiting tables; everything is carefully designed to keep us focused on our single-minded search for God. But long before Benedict gets to this demand about our "seeking God" he speaks about how the Lord is constantly seeking us, inviting us, and asking us to hear and obey.

Picture this old sight gag from the movies: The terrified Abbot and Costello are tiptoeing single file through a dark haunted house, eyes wide with fright staring straight ahead, in search of the monster. Soon the very ghoul they are looking for shuffles up behind them unnoticed, following his pursuers with hands poised threateningly over their heads. Bud and Lou are searching in the dark while being pursued by the very thing they're hunting for. This scene is a perfect image of the basic question built into everyone’s quest for God, namely, when all is said and done, just who is seeking whom?

Back to that photo from 1967. I might not be able to remember much about what I was doing and thinking at that time, but I surely can tell you some important things that God was doing and has been doing my life.

For starters, there's the gift of perseverance: Both my sister and I are still living the vowed life we committed ourselves to so naively over half a century ago. That is clearly a gift from a loving God. When I look at my personal history I can see God's hand at work at every turn. For example, the tragic closing of St. Benedict's Prep in 1972, and its resurrection the follwing year. Anyone looking at those events has to admit that this was due to God's awesome intervention, and not to the monks' efforts.