Nathan's Friday Recap

17 February 2023 + Peter's Golden Birthday

My sound track for this week is Meditations - Chants & Piano by jazz pianist Tim Aloof, and Cantatorium under the direction of Father Robert Mehlhart. Heavenly. Give it a listen: Apple Music or Spotify.

Most days, including Saturday are spent in cell (just kidding—it is a LOVELY home), library, and chapel. This week I finished up a long chapter on the centrality of the community’s common table. Here is a sample:

Benedict’s Rule spends almost as much time writing about life around the table as he does about life around the altar. It is possible that our disordered desires are most exposed at both altar and table. It is in those same places that the healing grace of communion and community are offered. At the altar, Jesus enters under our roof, says the word, and our souls are healed. At the table, we enter under Abba’s (the abbey’s) roof, experience hospitality, and our shame is healed. Just as the altar’s askesis gives embodied space and time to the work of God, the opus Dei, in the community, so the table’s askesis gives embodied space and time to the fellowship and hospitality of the people of God. Prayer is to happen at fixed-hours. Meals are to happen at fixed-hours. The table’s “utensils and goods” are to be regarded “as sacred vessels of the altar.”^⁠1 The table’s cup is precious as the altar’s chalice. Sr. Aquinata Böckmann states beautifully, the intimate connections between altar and table,

Altar and meal table are inseparably connected; the meal is as much a celebration as the community gathered around the altar; the word of God is proclaimed in both places…Both celebrations have rituals, prayers, singing, and readings.^⁠2

Super Bowl Sunday, I went to worship at the Abbey Church in the morning and then right to the library to join in Trinity’s livestream. What a joy for me to step back and watch the Trinity family meet. I am so glad I am in the Trinity community. If I wasn’t a part of Trinity, I would want to be :) I watched the Super Bowl with my new friends, Bob and Molly. Both recently retired United Church of Canada ministers, Bob is a Syriac linguist and teacher. He is working in the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library—HMML. I was grateful to be invited over. HMML has digitized many ancient manuscripts from around the world, including quite a few that have been destroyed by ISIS in the last few years. Significant work.

On Monday I went to Saint Benedict’s Monastery (and college) in neighboring St. Joseph, MN. St. John’s was once the largest Benedictine men’s community, and St. Ben’s the largest women’s community in the world. At their height, they had over 2000 religious between them. I joined the sisters for evening prayer, and then went to a CSB-SJU Woodwind Concert in the Benedicta Arts Center. Beautiful. The highlight was meeting Sister Katherine Kraft (84 years old), who invited me for prayer, lunch, and discussion on community on Wednesday. Impressed with her insight, spiritual earnestness, and joyful countenance, I wasn’t surprised to find out (snooping online) that she was a professor of theology and sub-prioress at St. Bens.

Valentines day was lonely, but cheered up when Joy and I were able to share a candlelit meal by FaceTime. Plan B is better than nothing.

I love black licorice—that anise taste. I bought a box of tea, to drink after I’d consumed enough coffee. It is good tea, but has terrible advice. Like, “The only thing that can limit you is believing that you are limited. Become limitless.” That sounds like inspiration for burn out and moral failure. I say, “Embrace limits. Take a nap. Say ‘no’ when it’s healthy.” Put that on your tea bag.

I loved the daily texts today (Thursday, Feb 16) from Jonah 2.2 and Luke 12.2. Again, Geoffrey, Carolyn, and Kierra did a wonderful job on Ground Up Grace podcast. Here was my Shepherd’s voice for them:

Beloved, I see and I know. I hear, and I answer. Do not be afraid. Not just in general. But, right now. You don’t have to be afraid-now. If you are not afraid during every “right now.” You will never be afraid. You will be free. To be. Mine.

My response: I like being yours. Possessed by you. I am yours. You are mine.

Good news! It is Peter’s GOLDEN BIRTHDAY, and he and Joy are coming to visit me next week. So excited.

Tomorrow, I’ll see Johan and Sonja on, then preach at Shepherd of the Valley, where my friend Jeremey King is the pastor in Afton, MN.

I wrote a bit on transfiguration, ashes, and revival for the Friday Blast. If you haven’t read that yet. Here is the link.

¹ RB 31:10.

² Böckmann, Aquinata. Handl, Matilda; Burkhard, Marianne, trans. Burkhard, Marianne, ed. Around the Monastic Table—RB 31-42: growing in mutual service and love. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009. 269.