Abbot Michael Brunner at opening Mass (Image: Hansen)

The following is a presentation Abbot Michael Brunner offered at a recent retreat for the Columban Fathers in Bristol, Rhode Island. The presentation began with the Gospel of John (6:57-70 – verse 70: Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”)

Jesus, the Holy One of God. You can be real close to him, and still be a devil. The theme of my conference today is holiness. I know you’ve already heard many things about that long before this. No doubt we all have different ideas about it, different ways we think of it and talk about it. I can’t claim to be an expert on it, and I’m used to speaking to high school students so forgive me if my words seem sophomoric. And forgive me if my words sound Benedictine. What little holiness I may have and what I understand about it largely comes from the Rule of St. Benedict and trying to live following it, a work of wisdom written in the sixth century that still holds true today. And forgive me if I sound a little Muslim. I was a Muslim for twenty years and it was Sufism, the Muslim mystical path, that convinced me of Jesus divinity and brought me back to the Church. All Christians are called to be holy, to be saints. Canonized saints are persons who lived heroically virtuous lives, who offered their life, their time, energy and attention for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are therefore worthy of imitation by us. Not too many of us will be canonized and not many of us are heroes, but we can offer our lives, time, energy and attention for others and be witnesses to Jesus Christ and the faith. And that may inspire some others to imitate us.

Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from Vatican II, in Chapter V, teaches us about holiness: All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity; by this holiness as such a more human manner of living is promoted in this earthly society. In order that the faithful may reach this perfection, they must use their strength accordingly as they have received it, as a gift from Christ. They must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things. They must devote themselves with all their being to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history. (41) The classes and duties of life are many, but holiness is one – that sanctity which is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God, and who obey the voice of the Father and worship God the Father in spirit and in truth. These people follow the poor Christ, the humble and cross-bearing Christ in order to be worthy of being sharers in His glory. Every person must walk unhesitatingly according to his own personal gifts and duties in the path of living faith, which arouses hope & works through charity.

Holiness – just try to find a coherent definition of it. Those two paragraphs are the best I could find. And if I had good sense, I should probably end this conference right here, but you would probably feel underserved. What anyone says about holiness is deficient, incomplete or even inapplicable to any one of us as an individual. When someone like me speaks of holiness, don’t find fault. Listen with the ear of your heart – that’s what St. Benedict says. Learn about the doors and windows through which others find holiness. John Cassian says: There is then no other fault which is so destructive of all virtues, and robs and despoils a man of all righteousness and holiness, as this evil of pride. None of us knows it all, and to be a critic of another’s holiness is to be destructive of one’s own. And destructive criticism is very much a disease of our times.

The Hebrew word for “holiness” is qōdesh, a word that highlights the realm of the sacred in contrast to everything common and profane. The adjective qādôšh, “holy,” refers to God and what belongs to him. The word first appears in Genesis in regard to the Sabbath, which God makes holy. Only in Leviticus does God say He is holy, and asks his people to be holy. God is infinite in his Holiness. But we are finite, and as such our holiness is an active aspiration rather than an achievement. Our English word Holy and Holiness comes to us from two sources – the Latin and the Germanic. The Latin, Sanctus, from which we derive Saint and sacred, derives from the Hebrew qādôš, set apart. Holy derives from the German - Heilig: sound, complete, healthy, whole, happiness; and that concept is reflected perfectly in the Hebrew word, “Taub” as in Genesis at the end of every day of creation it says: God saw that it was “taub.” Taub contrasts with the word “Ra”, broken. That tree in the garden, of the knowledge of good and evil, is knowledge of holiness and brokenness – evil. You can’t know one without knowing the other.

So, in scripture we learn that in the highest, fullest sense Holiness belongs to God alone (Isaiah 6:3; Rev. 15:4): Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” Holiness belongs to Christians as people consecrated to God's service, and in so far as they are conformed in all things to the will of God (Romans 6: 19, 22): You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (See Ephesians 1:4 ; Titus 1:8 ; 1 Peter 1:15 ). I love that Eucharistic Prayer 3 spells it out: You are indeed holy, O Lord; you give life to all things and make them holy. Holiness in Scripture, while associated with moral uprightness, is not chiefly about doing the right things. Rather, to be holy is, first and foremost, to be set apart from what is common. It is to be different or unique in comparison to this world and its ways.

Time, space, objects, and people – all these can become holy if they are consecrated, made to belong to God and used for His purposes. Time, seasons like Lent, churches, sacramentals: easy for them. It’s harder for people, for ordained ministers and religious. Jesus asks: So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48). The Greek word teleioi here means complete, having reached its goal, somewhat like the Germanic word Heilig, and that goal and completeness is something very different for man than for God. Be perfect. This command comes right at the end of the first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount (with the Beatitudes) and is followed immediately by another command (6:1): “take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.” The Sacraments provide grace, a share in God’s life. They are what God provides. He provides the telos for us. We are left to orient ourselves to it, conform to it. Our personal holiness is a work of gradual development. It is carried on with and through many obstacles and difficulties. And so, the frequent scriptural admonitions to watchfulness, prayer, and perseverance (see 1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 4:23-24) Be made new in the attitude of your minds and put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
 

Mass at Columban Fathers’ retreat

I was surprised to find that in the thematic index to RB1980, the authoritative translation of St. Benedict’s Rule, the word “holiness” does not appear. But it’s not that St. Benedict is oblivious to holiness. The Prologue says (P21): Clothed then with faith and the performance of good works (obedience & humility), let us set out on this way, with the Gospel for our guide, that we may deserve to see him who has called us to his kingdom (1 Th 2:12). To become like God – Holy – is by imitating Christ, the man like us who was also fully God. For Saint Benedict – the way par excellence, what the Rule is all about, is obedience; community relations; to work and to pray together. His rule has a 12-step program – the Twelve Steps of humility, which are about becoming perfectly obedient and self-less. The first step is the Fear of the Lord in thought, which we know is the BEGINNING of wisdom. St. Benedict’s parish in upstate New York, where I’m from, has these 12 steps spelled out on their website, with practical actions to develop each. The act for this first step is: Spare the life of a bug. Bonus points if it’s a mosquito. I think St Francis of Assisi would approve of that. Step 1 leads through all the others to step 12, genuine visible reverence. St. Benedict says: To have humility in his heart but also by his very appearance make it always manifest to those who see him. But St. Benedict knows that we all are seekers, not achievers. In the “Tools of Good Works” he warns: Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may more truly be called so.

Holiness is like happiness: there’s no direct path to it. It took me several years to discover this about happiness. All I wanted was to be happy, because I wasn’t. I was looking for a formula, an answer: Do this and you’ll be happy. A priest I knew then came back from a wedding of the daughter of an Indian couple he knew. It was an arranged marriage. The daughter met her husband two days before the wedding. He asked her: how can you marry him? Do you love him? She answered, I’ll learn to love him.” It was her choice. That struck me. Happiness is like that. It’s a choice, that if you choose to, you learn it; it comes to you through what you do. And so, holiness too. I was ready to understand that. First of all, it’s a choice, the first step. There are no short cuts. Baptism opens the door, but we have to walk through and live in the Father’s house to which it gives access. Reconciliation reopens the door if we have locked ourselves out and opens the windows if we just need fresh air. The ability to imitate Christ is different in each of us. Some have more, some have less; some are strong, some are weak. Some are healers, some teachers, some dispense forgiveness and mercy, some experience the agony in the garden, some carry the cross, and some are crucified. Holiness will look different in each of us, so we should not judge. But in the end, all will rise who follow the path. There’s a story of the Desert Fathers which had a big impact on me: One of the monks was asked- what do you do in the monastery all day? He answered: we fall down and get up, we fall down and get up. If one is ever going to come close to holiness, that has to be a necessary way to function. For me anyway. Maybe other don’t fall so much. So, we look to follow Christ.

Some sculptor was asked (it might have been Michelangelo): How was he able to create such life like images from a block of marble? He answered that he just chipped away at whatever did not look like his subject. That too has been a way forward: chipping away, although it takes a while to recognize those things in that marble block that is me that do not resemble Christ, or sometimes I’m too attached to the dissemblances and hold on to them too long. And sometimes, we even add more extraneous substance to our metaphorical marble block. George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire, the other is to get it.” It is the animal human condition that one is never satisfied with his situation; we tend always to seek new hopes and ideals. Yet, the satisfaction of one desire always seems to be followed by the arrival of new ones. But we are made like Christ, the image and likeness of God deep inside. But like an ear of corn, layers of husk and silk have to be peeled away to get to the good stuff on the inside. There are selves that have to be penetrated – stripped – to allow that our most real soul to flourish: body – emotions – energy (will) – mind.

The science of the selves in Sufism gives some insight into the practical growth into holiness. Each self needs to be transcended until one achieves a mystical union with God, who is holiness itself. There is the animal self, with its commanding ego. There is the self who hears the voice of conscience and tries to resist carnal and selfish desires. It’s a great mystery how one recognizes the falseness, the idolatry of the ego. It’s probably different for each of us. A great Sufi saint described what set him on the path. He was guided by a dog that he once saw at the edge of a pond. The dog was very thirsty, but seeing its own face reflected in the water, thought that its reflection was another dog and was so afraid of this “dog” that it could not drink. Finally, no longer being able to endure its thirst, the dog suddenly jumped into the water, whereupon the other dog disappeared. The saint said, “Having learned from so clear an example, I knew for certain ‘I’ was the illusion before myself. I vanished from myself and so I propose a dog was my first guide upon the path.” In other words, we are not the self we think we are; there is a better and deeper self in us, a holier self. And when we realize that, there is… the third self is the one who listens and receives guidance and inspiration from the Lord. There is the self who, freed from self-indulgence, finds peace and tranquility in a state of piety and obedience to the Lord; there is the self who accepts all that happens to him without any resentment or pain, and whether it is good or bad, his quies is not disturbed, and he is satisfied with his situation in life; there is the penultimate self, which is a mirror of Divine attributes; and finally the self which attains through Divine initiative mystical union. I think that third self – the mind – is the most difficult and dangerous in regard to spirituality and holiness. It is the most controlling and willful, the most subject to pride and subject to the illusions of knowledge. Like humility, if you think you have it, if you think you know a lot, you really don’t. It has certainly taken me off the path, but that’s just me. For others it may be emotions, or energy or the body. But It is harder for God to break through the walls we build with the bricks of what we think we know than it is for Him to break through the walls of our ignorance. Saint Paul reminds us: At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. At any rate, I think holiness demands we always be ready to change, that is what chipping away at what does not resemble Jesus means. Changing our precious opinions, or at least not acting on them; changing how we speak; changing how we treat others; perhaps changing how we pray. If we are open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we will change. Growth means change.

Prayer is communication with God. But communication is a two way street. St. Benedict says when you pray, let your words be few. Then be quiet and listen. If prayer brings us closer to God, then that closeness must bring change. Listening brings change. It is always change for the better. One can change for the worse all by one’s own self, prompted by pride. But God has the last word. Lumen Gentium says: holiness is one— that sanctity which is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God. Holiness is a work of the Holy Spirit. Not a gift – that’s something freely bestowed – but a work, which takes time and effort on our part. But the work is divine. Holiness requires our humble openness to the Holy Spirit working in us in many surprising ways. We each have plenty to be humble about, and we each have great potential for holiness. May we realize that potential more and more each day. May God draw us all closer to Him and to each other.