“We begin again.”

I have a vague recollection of a line something like this from a Star Wars movie, with Yoda calmly telling Luke to start again the lessons he has failed in as he pursues his goal to become a Jedi. But this quote is almost always attributed to St. Benedict. I haven’t been able to find those exact words, but St. Benedict certainly means to say that.

Again… the usual quote is, “Always we begin again.” We’ll see about always. The fact is this monastery with the school have been beginning again in September every year for 95 years.

So here we go again. Maybe we’ll get it right this year. Not that we didn’t get it right last year, but last year is over…done. The books are closed. We are beginning again and hopefully we’ll get it, do it right this year.

Thank God things are different this year. The worst of the pandemic is over (we hope.) We are back in the classroom, off of Zoom; we can sit together in the dining room; we can be all together in the Church and other places. We can sing! We can sit close to our friends. We can live like human beings again. This is true of most people and institutions now.

Yes, there is a reminder of what was and what could be again. We have to wear masks indoors for a while. The pandemic isn’t over until…it’s over.

It’s just like the spiritual life. Jesus saved us. We are Baptized. But sin still exists…the effects of original sin remain in us and around us like a potent virus. We can fall victim to our own weakness or to the weakness of others. Our spiritual immune systems are not perfect.

But if we do sin, unless we totally give in to it, always we can begin again. That’s what God asks… keep trying. One of the Desert Fathers was asked “What do you do in the monastery all day?” The answer was “We fall and get up. We fall and get up. We fall and get up.” That is still what we do in the monastery all day and night. God’s love and mercy are immeasurable and almost incomprehensible to us. Thank God we can always begin again.

I hope that is what you do. Keep beginning again. St. Benedict says at the end of his Rule, that it is a rule for beginners, not a rule for perfected experts.

St Paul says: Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus. 

(Phil 3:13-14) But as I have begun over again many times after failure, the most comforting words to me are “We know that all things work for good for those who love God.” (Romans 8:28) Even the pandemic.

I am writing this on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Jesus would have celebrated that. So I pray tomorrow, whenever that is for any one of us, we all make a new beginning. We all learned a lot from last year’s hard lessons. Now, onward and upward.