a quarterly newsletter
Camaldolese Monks, OSB
New Camaldoli Hermitage
Summer 2014 • Vol. 20, Issue 3
62475 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA 93920 • 831-667-2456 • www.contemplation.com
Brother Gabriel and Father Thomas Celebrate 50 Years
Brother Gabriel Kirby was born in
1930 into a distinguished Catholic family
of Los Angeles. One of his late sisters was
a Good Shepherd sister, and another is a
Carmelite nun. He received a BA in Geography, and completed everything for an
MA except for writing his thesis. He then
traveled extensively, at one point he traveling through Kenya, Africa, hitch-hiking
wherever he could with a 40 lb. pack on
his back. Gabriel then came to the Hermitage in 1962 when the community was just
beginning, and made his first profession in
1964. Through the years he has served the
community in so many generous ministries, including sacristan and secretary to
the Chapter, doing the town trip for many
years, washing and ironing altar linens and
audio recording. Brother Gabriel is an artist who has delighted many with his gifted
paintings in oil and water color, his deeply
religious poetry and other spiritual writing, music, and photography. Gabriel was
one of the first monks of New Camaldoli
to participate in the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal, and still participates annually in
the major Charismatic meetings in California. He likes to point out that he sees
no conflict between that and his contemplative monastic life. In honor of his 50th
anniversary he just returned from a pilgrimage to Italy where he participated in
the International Charismatic Convention
in Rome with his Carmelite sister, where
they both met with Pope Francis. He then
visited our Camaldolese communities
of San Gregorio in Rome, the Sacro Eremo and Monastero of Camaldoli and the
tomb of Saint Romuald in Fabriano. We
know Gabriel to be a humble and faithful man devoted to the Lord in prayer and
scripture, and it is a joy to worship and
minister with him daily here at New Ca-
Father Thomas Matus and Brother Gabriel
Kirby outside the chapel at New Camaldoli.
maldoli. Brother Gabriel said of himself
that becoming a monk was the last thing
in the world he ever wanted to do, but
God changed all that in an instant. Now,
he says, it is the last thing he will ever do
– “unless God is still full of surprises.”
Father Thomas Matus was born in
Hollywood, California in 1942, and his
parents raised him to be, to use the modern parlance, “spiritual-not-religious.”
But in 1951 he saw the movie “Quo Vadis,” and afterwards felt a strong need to
be baptized, and was so on Easter Sunday in 1952 at a Baptist Sunday School.
Thomas discovered monasticism and
contemplative life by reading the “Autobiography of a Yogi” in 1954 and was
initiated into Kriya Yoga in 1958 while attending college as a Music major. But in
1960 he realized that the Catholic Church
was to be his guru and so he received
the Sacraments of Christian initiation in
1961. Shortly thereafter Thomas visited
the newly-founded Camaldolese Hermitage, which he entered the following year.
From then on Fr. Thomas has had a storied
career as a Camaldolese monk. He lived
for many years at the Monastery of Camaldoli, but has also resided in India and
Brazil as well as California. From 1967
to 1972 he studied ecumenical theology
at Sant’Anselmo in Rome; from 1972
to1976 he was at Fordham University,
where he wrote his Ph.D dissertation, the
well-known and beloved Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition. He was then back
at Camaldoli where he began composing
music for the Italian Camaldolese Psalter,
and taught Hindu and Buddhist monasticism in Rome. During this era he also
made his first of many trips to India. He
was back at New Camaldoli in the early
1980s where he began work on the English version of the Camaldolese Psalter.
He served on the General Council of the
congregation from 1999 to 2005, and also
served two terms as a consultant for the
Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. After that he made several trips to
our community in Brazil, shoring up that
small presence, and since 2006 he has
been full time back in the US, residing at
Incarnation Monastery, Berkeley, teaching courses on history, spirituality and interreligious dialogue at the Jesuit School
of Theology. Fr. Thomas is also often back
with us in Big Sur, of which he himself
says, “Every grace and gift that came to
me since I entered then have been thanks
to my vows at New Camaldoli Hermitage.”
dd
2 ~ New Camaldoli Hermitage
Norbert: If You Love Me You Will Feed My Sheep
Prior Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam.
I have a special affection for Saint Norbert, partially because and spent several years alternating between hermit and preacher
I was ordained on his feast day (June 6th), but also because he is a (a form of life that might look very tempting to a Camaldolese
fascinating figure born in a fascinating era in Church and monas- monk!). It’s like two out of our three-fold good—solitude and
tic history. In my favorite book on monastic history (Medieval evangelization­­—but he was missing one thing––community. It’s
Monasticism by C. H. Lawrence), Norbert is written about in the one thing to be a charismatic wandering preacher or a visiting
same chapter as our Saint Romuald, entitled “The Quest for the celebrity; it’s a whole other thing to live a life of charity next
Primitive.” This was an era in the Church, the first centuries of door to someone for 20, 30, 50 years, and sit next to them in
the 2nd millennium, when a great many reforms and experiments choir each day when the act has worn thin. Norbert was given
were happening in monasticism. The Church’s liturgy only rec- the chapel at a place called Prémontré in France and soon enough
ognizes Norbert as a bishop, but he was a hermit, a preacher, a disciples gathered around him, both lay men and women as well
wanderer as well as a canon, to prove yet again that there are all as clergy. Norbert formed them into a group of hermits and
kinds of monks!
preachers, very much in his own mold. And so the order of Pré For many years now I’ve been parmonstratensians grew up, named, like us,
ticularly fascinated with the dynamic be- When we make ourselves available after the place. The life he designed for
tween the active and the contemplative to the Spirit, there is a chance
them was a combination of community
life, the opposition and even the false that we will be taken where we do
life organized around the ideal of ascetidilemma that we often place between
cal poverty with a ministry of evangelinot want to go and asked to do
the two in Christianity. I’ve been readcal missionary preaching. This is before
something
that
we
did
not
have
on
ing a series of articles from the 1950s by
the days of the mendicant orders, and in
our Fr. Benedetto Calati entitled simply our five-year plan.
a way Norbert was prescient of the Fran“Vita attiva e vita contemplativa”—“The
ciscans and the Dominicans in his longActive Life and the Contemplative Life,” in which he is trying to ing for both evangelical poverty and evangelization. Eventually
show that from the beginning of our own Camaldolese tradition Norbert was called on to be the bishop of Magdeburg back in
it was assumed that there was really no opposition between the Germany, and became more and more absorbed in missionary
two, as long as we always return to the source, to the contem- activity. It is his successor Hugh de Fosses who is credited with
plative. And he traces the lineage of Blessed Rudolf, the first being the real architect of the order. But whereas Norbert based
prior of Camaldoli who wrote the early Constitutions, and Saint his original concept for himself and his disciples on the Rule of
Peter Damian of Fonte Avellana back to their sources in Saint Augustine, Hugh leaned a little more heavily on the Cistercians,
Augustine and Saint Gregory the Great. This is not to say that especially the customs of the great abbey of Cluny, meaning less
there is no place for the purely contemplative life, but to say that on the pastoral aspect and more on the monastic.
even we contemplative hermit monks still need to be reminded It’s sometimes said about Mother Teresa that she had a vocafrom time to time, as do all Christians, that no follower of Jesus tion within a vocation. Well, Norbert himself seemed to have a vois exempt from following both of the two great commandments, cation within a vocation within a vocation: from canon to hermitto love God and to love neighbor. And we hear it again in the preacher to monk to bishop. We, corporately and individually, are
Gospel reading that we had on the feast of Norbert (Jn 21:15-19), always looking
which this year fell on Friday of the 7th Week of Easter: If you for convenient The quarterly newsletter is published by the
love me, feed my sheep. If we love God, then we must manifest categories
for Camaldolese Hermits of America for our
that in charity. We had been hearing for days and days from the our vocations: friends, oblates, and sponsors.
final discourse of Jesus in the Gospel of John; then suddenly we contemplative/
switched and were listening in on Jesus’ conversation with Peter active, Rule of Editors: Father Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam.,
Brother Bede Healey, OSB Cam.,
on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection. It’s as if Benedict/Rule
Deborah
Smith Douglas, Oblate OSB Cam.
two days before the end of the Easter season we get our march- of Augustine––
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Relations
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ing orders. No follower of Jesus is exempt from this: If you love but it doesn’t
me, feed my sheep! Tend my flock! For someone like Thomas always work out
If you have questions or comments about this
Aquinas the highest form of life isn’t the contemplative life or that neatly. As publication, please address them to:
the active life, but action that flows from contemplation; con- Walt Whitman
New Camaldoli Hermitage
templation should always resolve itself in some kind of apostolic said, we contain
62475 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA 93920
zeal.
multitudes.
In
(831) 667-2456 • Fax: (831) 667-0209
E-mail: [email protected]
In some way Saint Norbert is emblematic of the dynamic some way our
or visit us on the web at:
tension between the active and the contemplative lives. He start- own charism of
ed out as a secular canon in the cathedral in Xanten in Germany, the
three-fold
www.contemplation.com
but fled from the comfort and benefices of that life into solitude, good—commu-
www.contemplation.com 3
Norbert – Continued from page 2
ity, solitude and evangelization­­—is a kind of universal archetype,
and that is what makes it so attractive. You see it at work in the
Norbertines too in their first hour. Practically speaking, though, it
is always very hard to hold it all together, as Prémonstratensians
had a hard time, as we Camaldolese have historically had a hard
time holding even just the tension of the solitary and the communal life together. Perhaps that’s because it’s so easy to see any
of these three elements as ends in and of themselves––solitude,
community, or evangelization. But the end isn’t any of those: the
end is absolute availability to God; the end is to be filled with the
Holy Spirit; the end is not my will but yours be done. And that
too is pointed out in the same Gospel passage at the Sea of Galilee: ‘When you were younger,’ Jesus says to Peter, ‘you used to
dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old,
you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.’ John tells us that this
signified the kind of death that Peter would die; yes, but not necessarily physical death. When we make ourselves available to
the Spirit, there is a chance that we will be taken where we do not
want to go and asked to do something that we did not have on our
five-year plan. That’s a very real kind of death too. I remember
Richard Rohr’s teaching about Jonah in this regard. We can try
to go where we think we should go or where we want to go, but
be careful! We might just get tossed in the sea and swallowed by
a whale, and that whale will spit us up where God really wants
us. And that “sign of Jonah,” too is of course a sign of dying­­—
and rising. Sometimes we have to die to our plans in order to
do God’s will. Look at our Saint Peter Damian, who exuberates
about the glories of the eremitical and monastic life in honor of
Saint Romuald, and then ends up as a cardinal and a reformer.
When he is challenged as to why a monk, who is supposed to be
dead to the world, should be telling secular clergy what to do,
he says that’s exactly why: because we’re dead to the world!
And there is this wonderful quote of Abbot John Chapman that
I ran into, of all places, in Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, that I find very humorous: “I wish I could join the solitaries of Caldey instead of being the superior and having to write
books. But I don’t wish to have what I wish, of course.” That’s
a death too, a martyrdom of sorts, the community belonging that
sometimes calls for sacrificing one’s own plans and will if it’s
what the Spirit wills for
the greater good. Not my
Prayer Schedule
will but yours be done.
Weekdays:
With Saint Norbert,
5:30 am Vigils
we pray for the grace to
7:00 am Lauds love Jesus so much as to
11:30 am Eucharist
be willing to be carried
6:00 pm Vespers
off even to where we do
Sundays and Solemnities: not want to go, to what
5:30 am Vigils
we do not want to do,
7:00 am Lauds
that our life with Christ
11:00 am Eucharist would bear fruit in char5:00 pm Vespers
ity and evangelical zeal.
from the pages of…
Vita Monastica
This is excerpted from an article
that appeared in 1947 in our
Italian journal on the monastic
life. In it don Anselmo Giabbani
is quoting and commenting on
chapter 44 of “The Book of the
Eremitical Rule” attributed to
Blessed Rudolf, Prior General of
the Camaldolese Congregation
from 1152 to 1158.
Silence is the
purification of the soul, the
Art by Michela Petoletti
shining of the mind, purity
of heart. Then the evil forces
are quiet in us, then sin stops
prevailing, then lack of moderation no longer rages in
the spirit, when grace is affirmed in us in the continual
exercise of virtue and in the daily fidelity to the strong and
constant action of the Spirit in our soul. At first, no: it is
the raging of human activity dominated by sin that agitates
us and prevails, and then there is no silence of the flesh
and the mind even if there is some exterior silence. “But
what good is it to keep quiet with the tongue, if one’s life
or conscience is in tempest? What good is there in keeping
silence with the mouth and having a tumult of vices in
actions or in the mind?”
The contemplative life is fullness of life: fullness
of divine life in which the soul participates, fullness of
virtue, fullness of holy works, an exercise of supernatural
works with the thought, with the will, with the heart. The
hermit who does not possess this fullness of spiritual life
might be able to live in the hermitage and call oneself a
“hermit” but will not really be a hermit. Silence that does
not have this positive content is insignificant silence, dead
and deadly! Deadly, that is, because capable of leading to
death, of killing a soul by isolating it from those actions
which could occupy it in a holy manner, isolating it from
society that could instruct it, from the contact that could
enrich it spiritually…
Monastic and eremitic silence is not a privation
of words or a negation of works; it is rather the prevailing
in the soul of supernatural action by the mysterious work
of the Holy Spirit. Contemplation supposes and requires
“silence of work, silence of the tongue, silence of the
heart” or, rather, a training in the virtues. Otherwise
solitude turns into an occasion of sin and flattens itself into
a shapeless and insignificant life.
4 ~ New Camaldoli Hermitage
Universal Longing Reminds Us of Truth
Editors’ note: we will be
publishing extracts from
this and other essays by
Pico Iyer and other friends
of the Hermitage in coming issues of the newsletter.
In this first extract, Pico
describes a universal longing we all share, perhaps,
regardless of our tradition
and location, for places
that remind us of what is
true beyond our limited vision and experience.
“Chapels”
When I look back
on my life, the parts that
matter and sustain me, all
I see is a series of chapels. They may be old or
young, cracked brown or
open space; they may be
lectures or afterthoughts,
hidden corners of a city or
deserted spaces in the forest. They are as variable
as people. But like people
they have a stillness at the
core of them which makes
all discussion of high and
low, East and West, you
and me dissolve. Bells toll
and toll and I lose all sense
of whether they are chiming within me or without.
The first time I was
asked to enter a New York office building—for a job interview twenty-eight
years ago—I gathered myself, in all senses, in St. Patrick’s, and knew that it would
put everything I was about to face (a company, a new life, my youthful ambitions)
into place. It was the frame that gave everything else definition. Ever since, I’ve
made it my practice to step into the great
thronged space whenever I return to the
city, to remind myself of what is real,
what is lasting, before giving myself to
everything that isn’t. A chapel is the biggest immensity we face in our daily lives,
feet.
So much of our time—
my time at least—is spent
running from ourselves (or
hiding from the world); a
chapel brings us back to the
source, in ourselves and in
the larger sense of self (as
if there were a difference).
Look around you. Occasional figures are exploring
their separate silences; the
rich and the poor are hard
to tell apart, with heads
bowed. Light is diffused
and general; when you hear
voices, they are joined in
a chorus or reading from a
holy book. The space at the
heart of the Rothko Chapel
is empty, and that emptiness is prayer and surrender.
In 1929 the BBC decided
to start broadcasting “live
silence” in memory of the
dead instead of just halting their transmission for
two minutes every day; it
was important, it was felt,
to hear the rustle of papers,
the singing of birds outside, an occasional cough.
As a BBC spokesman put
it, with rare wisdom, silence is “a solvent which
destroys personality and
gives us leave to be great
– Photo by Debi Lorenc
and universal.” Permits us,
unless we live in a desert or in the
in
short,
to
be
who we are and could be
vicinity of the Grand Canyon. A chapel is
if
only
we
had
the openness and trust. A
the deepest silence we can absorb, unless
we stay in a cloister. A chapel is where we chapel is where we hear something and
allow ourselves to be broken open as if we nothing, ourselves and everyone else, a
were children again, trembling at home silence that is not the absence of noise but
the presence of something much deeper:
before our parents.
Whenever I fly, I step into an airport the depth beneath our thoughts.
chapel. The people there may be sleeping, A chapel is where you can hear somereading, praying, but all of them are there thing beating below your heart.
because they want to be collected. When
I go to San Francisco, I stay across from
Grace Cathedral, and visit it several times
a day, to put solid ground underneath my
Adapted, with permission, from an essay
by Pico Iyer originally published in Portland Magazine, in its Winter 2010 issue.
contemplation.com ~ 5
Lectio Divina: A Sapiential Approach to Scripture
We are not looking for academic knowledge in our practice of Lectio Divina, but a whole
new way of knowing, of encounter. Our Fr. Bruno is famous for naming it a “sapiential” approach to scripture. Note how in this section from his book The Future of Wisdom Bruno nurses
out a new meaning from this well-known Pauline text. (CC)
Sapiential theology has not avoided the flight from Incarnation into super-structures, ascending ladders, conceptual containers, and mediatory dualism. The antidote for this hereditary
malady has been ever near at hand in the New Testament: in the life and teaching of Jesus and of Paul.
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor 1:17-25)
Christian wisdom reduces itself to Jesus Christ – this bodily human being who is divine – and his cross: the physical death
of this human being at the center of humanity, history, and cosmos. The mystery of Christ in its actuality is known as one finds
oneself at the central point of the cross—and Paul vividly describes his life in this place of the cross.
Wisdom is loving faith, and Christian faith is the dark knowing of embodied light, of incarnation. Wisdom, as faith, is
union, identity with Christ. (from The Future of Wisdom, 51-52)
Al-Mujib*
There was a time I asked
For specific things, lithe
As we all are in the long
Prime of inexperience
Then I asked for what
You thought might be good
As if good and thinking even
Enter your vast, unknowable knowing
Now I ask for silence
Stillness, space, submission
To hear the unsayable simmer
To sense, since that is all we can do
Its quiet sinewing into being
– Aaron Maniam
*In Islam, al-mujib is one of the 99 attributes
of “beautiful names” of God found in the
Qur’an, meaning “Fulfiller of Promises.”
– Photo by Debi Lorenc
6 ~ New Camaldoli Hermitage
Our Camaldolese presence in California now stretches from
Berkeley through Big Sur all the way down to San Luis Obispo
with the beginning of this new phase with the Monastery of the
Risen Christ. Please remember our brothers of these two communities which are affiliated with New Camaldoli. At Incarnation
Monastery, Fr. Andrew Colnaghi is the prior administrator with Fr.
Thomas, Fr. Arthur, and Bro. Ivan Nicoletto who is on an extended
stay with us from Italy. In San Luis Obispo, Fr. Daniel Manger is
the prior’s representative, along with Fr. Ray, Fr. Stephen, and Bro.
Michael.
Ordinary Time at Incarnation
Fr. Andrew Colnaghi, OSB Cam.
Our days at Incarnation Monastery have been characterized by an abundance of hospitality. The liturgical celebrations for Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost were all
extremely well attended by guests and oblates.
With the cycle of Pentecost, we now enter into the time
of the Spirit and the slower pace of Ordinary Time with its
beautiful, eternally green color. Berkeley itself is very quiet
with the absence of students. We are using this period to renew
ourselves and to create a more low-keyed rhythm of life.
Our oblates recently organized a picnic after Sunday Eucharist to honor Leonard and Rosanna Capozzi, who were
married on June 26th. On June 14, we also enjoyed a Silent
Day of prayer led by oblates Marty Badgett and Billy McLennan. This was our largest group to date with 21 people in attendance. We now look forward to our pilgrimage to Camaldolese
Italy in September.
These are the two houses that make up Incarnation Monastery: on the left is the spirituality and retreat center, on
the right the monks’ residence.
Please consider remembering us
when making or revising your will.
Our official name is:
Camaldolese Hermits of America
Our federal ID # is: 94-6050278
– Photo by Debi Lorenc
News from
Monastery of the Risen Christ
Fr. Ray Roh, OSB
It has been six
months since Fr. Daniel
joined us to assist in the
transition of our monastery to the Camaldolese
Congregation. Under
his leadership, we are
making good progress.
All of us have spent
some time at the Hermitage, starting with
my two weeks in January. Br. Michael spent a
month and a half there after that to do ongoing formation.
Fr. Steve spent the month of May doing two days a week of
teaching for those in formation. Over the Easter Triduum, all
of us were blessed to spend those days with the Monks at the
Hermitage.
Here at the Monastery of the Risen Christ we have started
to have several events for the public, including a workshop by
Fr. Jim Nisbet on the Song of Songs and a packed house for a
workshop on non-violent communication.
Plans are in the offing for a July 5th All Oblate Day for
the oblates from our monastery as well as the Camaldolese
oblates. Fr. Steve is working to bring our oblates back together, hoping for an eventual merger with the Camaldolese
Oblates. More events are coming up and will be announced on
our website.
Thanks to the generosity of several donors, and the work
of volunteers, our three hospitality suites are ready to go.
Some needed plumbing work has to be completed before we
are finally up and running. Information on booking hospitality
rooms for personal retreats and other information on the Monastery of the Risen Christ can be found on our new website
monasteryrisenchrist.com. Our Bookstore and Gift Shop is
now open with a new look with lots of books and other items,
though the times are still restricted. One can gain access, however, by stopping at the main house.
We now have a nice hiking trail up the mountain and
some seating there to enjoy the view. We appreciate people
stopping by and letting us know they will be hiking. The
monks here, along with the oblates and volunteers, have been
working very hard to beautify the grounds. We all are striving
to make our monastery viable again. We are grateful to Fr.
Daniel for his leadership and hard work, and to Fr. Cyprian
and all the monks at New Camaldoli for their love and support. We welcome you to our daily Mass at 11 AM and, if you
as so inclined, to our other prayers services. Our Chapel is
open from 6 AM until 6:30 PM each day. Come and join us!
contemplation.com ~ 7
We’ve started a new initiative at New Camaldoli called Ora et
Labora: Contemplative Immersion Program. It is geared toward
the several young men who come our way and want to stay with
us and make some sense out of God’s call for them. Our idea
is that immersing oneself in the rhythm of the monastic life is
itself a formative experience. The men who have been through
the program so far have found it extremely enriching, and have
also been an exceptional gift to us. If you are or know of a young
man who might be interested please contact Brother Ignatius,
[email protected]. The following article was written by
one of the recent participants.
fraternal love in action. The unmistakable bond of brotherhood
among the monks and the human realness of their efforts to build
a common life are a sign post for the Kingdom. New Camaldoli
offers a concrete and sincere example of a way to respond to
Christ’s love.
I am deeply, deeply indebted to the hospitality and openness
of the monks, as well as to the generosity of the benefactors who
made the program possible. Now, my challenge is to “pay it forward,” to bring Camaldolese Benedictine spirituality to my life
in the world, to apply the lessons I’ve learned. My time on this
mountain has been sheer gift: pray that I can pass it along!
Ora et Labora Reflections
A Celebration of Camaldolese Spirituality
In Light of Evangelii Gaudiam
Hunter Link
Benedictine spirituality has a beautiful way of synthesizing the outer and the inner life, summed up in the motto: “ora
et labora,” Latin for “pray and work.” My desire to understand
this synthesis drew me to apply for the newly created Ora et
Labora program at New Camaldoli. Over the last few months, I
have had the incredible privilege of participating in the lives of
the monks, and experiencing firsthand the day-to-day realities
of the Camaldolese Benedictine monastic vocation. One monk
aptly termed the program an opportunity for “temporary monasticism.” I came to learn about the monastic vocation and was
humbled by what I found.
True to the Benedictine motto, I prayed with the monks,
chanting the psalms with them every day. And of course, I
worked, doing everything from housekeeping to cleaning the
chapel to preparing meals. A highlight was Holy Week, when I
was asked to assist in the rich liturgical celebration of the Triduum. This was the culmination of my time here, a concrete realization of work and prayer flowing together in one stream. The
monastic ideal of constant prayer is achieved if you approach
polishing the chapel floor, rehearsing for Easter Sunday Mass,
or reciting the psalms at 5:30 in the morning with the same inner
attitude of love. Easier said than done!
The program also included a light course of study, with readings ranging from The Rule of St. Benedict to modern psychological texts on the spiritual life. Importantly, the Ora et Labora
program is not a vocation discernment program: I entered with
the understanding that I wasn’t formally discerning monastic
life. I found this extremely helpful. Since I wasn’t constantly
evaluating the community for long-term compatibility, I was free
to simply be and let the depth of the monastic rhythms wash over
me. Of course, the opportunity for more intentional discernment
is always available, as the novice master was sure to remind me
as we washed dishes together.
I could fill several spiral-bound notebooks about the lessons
I’ve learned (right now, I’m at three-and-a-half): a deeper appreciation for liturgy, a new understanding of healthy monastic
solitude, the necessity of a daily prayer practice... The most important take away for me, however, was simply the joy of seeing
The breeze was cool and the sun shone brightly, high in the
Los Gatos redwoods, as 50 oblates and friends rekindled old
friendships and made new ones during the annual New Camaldoli Oblate retreat from May 9-11, 2014, at Presentation Retreat
and Conference Center.
The retreat included a keynote address by our prior, Fr.
Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam, on the New Evangelization as
seen through the lens of Camaldolese Benedictine spirituality.
Fr. Cyprian engaged the Oblates with reflections on the need for
a spirituality based upon the Resurrection. He recounted the necessity of beginning to live as if we inhabited a new heaven and a
new earth and to live as “Resurrection people in between Easter
and that final day when God will be all in all.” Fr. Cyprian called
us to be a people of “hope in action” while we wait for Lord’s
Second Coming as we are now Jesus’ hands and his feet and
are called to be his light for the world! In specifically monastic
terms, he spoke of the inner face and outer face of our distinctive
spirituality and how we are called to live out both ideals in the
primacy of love as either professed monks or as Oblates.
The main focus of the retreat was continuing the work that
was begun in 2013 at the Asilomar Retreat and Conference
Grounds. Working groups met on Saturday afternoon to identify
3-4 new initiatives that coincided with the needs that had been
identified last year: Youth and Vocations, Outreach, Management, and Oblates.
Continued on page 8
Members of the Steering Committee with some of the monks include
Bro. Bede, Phil McManus, Wendy Walsh, Valerie Sinkus, Fr. Michael,
Ziggy Rendler-Bregman, Fr. Cyprian, Fr. Raniero, and Mike Mullard.
8 ~ New Camaldoli Hermitage
Activities, Events and Visitors
• April 10-20 had a visit from one of our Indian confreres, Fr.
George Abraham who was recently appointed novice master of
Shantivanam, the Ashram of the Holy Trinity, our Camaldolese
community in South India.
• April 30 New Camaldoli hosted the Four Winds Council, a
quarterly gathering of our community with our friends from the
Esalen Institute, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and Pachepas
Native American Center, to share spiritual practice and advocate
for the wilderness.
• May 9-11 was the 2nd Annual Camaldolese Gathering and
Retreat at Presentation Center in Los Altos, CA. (See article for
more details.)
• May 30 to June 14, in honor of his 50th anniversary Bro. Gabriel flew to Italy where he attended the International Charismatic Convention at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, and then
visited our Mother house at Camaldoli with a side visit to the
grave of Saint Romuald in Fabbriano.
• June 3-8 Fr. Raniero gave the opening talk for the Chapter
for the monks of the Episcopal Order of the Holy Cross in West
Park, NY, and stayed on as a “listener,” giving feedback throughout the Chapter as well.
• From June 14 until July 26, Bro. Ignatius will be away at
“summer school”! He will attend the Benedictine Juniors’ Workshop at St. Vincent’s Archabbey in La Trobe, PA, and follow that
with two classes as part of the Monastic Institute at St. John’s
University, Collegeville, MN.
• June 19, the Feast of St. Romuald, we had a grand celebration for the 50th anniversary of vows for Bro. Gabriel and Fr.
Thomas! Our brothers from Berkeley and San Luis Obispo came
as well as several guests.
• June 23 we took our Recreation Day up at Mount Madonna
Center for a tour, a good vegetarian lunch and a presentation on
their solar power installation.
• June 27-29 Fr. Michael Fish led a preached retreat, “Camino
III: The Inner Journey.”
• July 4-6 Fr. Cyprian with Gitanjali Lori Rivera is leading “A
Retreat for Musicians.”
• July 5 there will be an Oblate meeting at the Monastery of the
Risen Christ. Fr. Stephen and Fr. Robert will be co-leading the
day, and oblates from both Risen Christ and New Camaldoli are
encouraged to attend. Please call 805-544-1810 for more information and so they have an idea of the number of attendees.
• July 14-18 Fr. Columba Stewart, OSB, the well-known monastic scholar from St. John’s, Collegeville, will be with us as
he is most every summer and give a series of conferences to the
brothers.
• July 21-25, Fr. Robert will be offering a retreat for the Episcopal Community of Solitude at St. John’s in Collegeville, MN.
• July 21-26, the Collegeville Composers Group, responsible
for the Psallite series of liturgical music published by Liturgical
Press, will be meeting for a working week here at New Camaldoli.
• August 1-3, Fr. Thomas Matus is leading a retreat here called
“Realizing God.”
• August 15-17, Fr. Cyprian, Bro. Bede, Fr. Raniero and Bro.
Cassian will be leading a discernment retreat for young people
between the ages of 18 and 30. (Scholarships are available!)
• September 3-11 we will be have our community retreat led
this year by Fr. Luke Dysinger, OSB, of St. Andrew’s Abbey,
Vallyermo.
• September 29-October 5 Frs. Cyprian and Raniero will be
at Camaldoli for the Intercommunity Assembly, attended by our
priors and formators from all over the world.
Please visit our website for information on our
weekend retreats at www.contemplation.com.
– Photo by Debi Lorenc
A Celebration of Camaldolese Spirituality
- Continued from page 7
The Outreach Working Group developed new opportunities
to share the charism of New Camaldoli in the wider world and
at the same time strengthen the Hermitage support network. The
group explored ways of making the Hermitage more accessible
to those not able to make the journey through the use of technology such as social media, online classes, talks, blog posts. The
Oblate Working Group creating ideas to strengthen the oblate
formation program and increase the number of retreats, while
the Youth and Vocations Working Group investigated ideas to
increase the outreach to youth and young adults. In a sign of
underlying unity, the working groups found that there was much
overlap with the ideas brought forth from each group.
Overall, the weekend was filled with typical Benedictine
hospitality, from the Friday evening “Happiness Hour” and
meals shared with laughter and conviviality, to the liturgies presided over by Fr. Michael Fish and Fr. Raniero Hoffman. Fr. Fish
also delighted us with a warm and welcoming talk on Friday
night to set the mood for the entire weekend. Fr. Robert Hale
demonstrated his gifts of hospitality by acting as monk-liaison
for the Oblate Working Group. Brother Bede Healey acted as
monk-liaison for the Management Working Group and preached
the homily at the Sunday liturgy. Special thanks go to Bede for
having the vision and drive to act as overall coordinator of the
Steering Committee for our Oblate retreats and Working Groups.
Next year, our Annual Oblate Retreat will be hosted at La
Casa de Maria, a retreat center in the Santa Barbara/Montecito
area. The dates are tentatively set for May 29-31, 2015. We look
forward to meeting you there!