Homily for the Simple Profession of Br Joseph Carron

Annunciation, 2011

 Br. Joseph, you are about to make your first vows. This is something good for all of us: that this splendid fellow from Birmingham – the city of our latest Blessed - should want to commit himself to a monastic life with us. It is an affirmation of us. It’s an encouragement. It’s a sign – you’re a sign – of God’s care for us, of his love for this community. He wants us, he wants our prayer and our brotherhood. And so we thank you, and we thank the Lord. And we welcome you with full hearts.
 You are taking vows today, for a first three years - the Benedictine vows of stability, conversion of life, and obedience. Let’s hear again what our Constitutions say about them:
‘By the vow of stability, the monk attaches himself to the monastery of his profession, makes himself a member of the family living there, and promises that he will never shake his neck from under the yoke of the Rule (cf. RB 58).
By the vow of conversion of life, the monk binds himself to lead the cenobitic life according to the Rule of our holy Father Benedict. In this way, by ascetic toil, he rids himself of worldly attitudes, in order to strive towards the perfection of evangelical charity.
By the vow of obedience, the monk obliges himself to submission of will towards his Superiors, in accordance with the Rule of our holy Father Benedict and the Statutes of our Congregation.’
 What do we come to the monastery for? I’m not going to be mealy-mouthed here. We come to the monastery to die. It’s as simple as that. Not to die physically – at least, please God, not for a good while yet. Not to be put to death by our brethren. But to die in the Gospel sense. Not under constraint, but voluntarily. 35 years ago this month, Fr Anselm and I made our simple professions. It was the feast of St John Ogilvie, and the Gospel reading was, ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains but a single grain, but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.’ We come to the monastery, our lives fall into the soil of our community and its life, and we die. We die, St Benedict would say, to our will (or wills), to our ‘own way’, as Fr Maurus used to say. We live under the judgment of another. We give ourselves to a community. And so we share, mysteriously, in the death and the rising of Christ. We die so as to live, to bear a harvest – with our brethren, in the Church – the harvest of the salvation of souls, Easter for the world.
We come to the monastery to die. It’s as simple as that. So, how do we die?
 Let’s not waste time. We die by obedience. ‘To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you are, renouncing your own will and about to fight for the true King, Christ the Lord Christ, by taking up the strong and bright weapons of obedience.’ Obedience is St Benedict’s greatest gift to us. It makes the Benedictine monk. This strong bright weapon makes him strong and bright. If he builds his house on anything else, it’ll be built on sand. Obedience is the means by which he will die, to his own false, cramped, infertile self. It’s his surrender. It’s the means by which he enters into the mystery of Christ, into his death and resurrection, into what is most intimate, most essential to Jesus. It’s the door to his Heart. And his Heart is a Son’s heart, the Son of the Father. And today, as the Son of God becomes a son of man, that filial relationship takes on, in a created and fallen world, the form of obedience. ‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’
 Obedience makes the monk. A monk can’t always be in his monastery, can’t always be with his brethren. He can’t always be doing lectio divina, singing Psalms, consciously thinking of the Lord. But he can always and everywhere, die noctuque, 24 / 7, be obedient. And so he can always be a monk, always with the Lord.
 Br Joseph, today, on this feast of the Annunciation, you’re entering the life-giving mystery of obedience. You are entering into it with Jesus and Mary. ‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’ ‘I am the servant of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me.’ It is their mystery par excellence. You’re receiving the best of all possible gifts. This isn’t making an absolute of ‘doing what you’re told’, as if that were life’s highest wisdom, or of ‘good order in the community’, as if that were everything. Obedience is far bigger than that. Obedience is what in us answers what’s outside us. It’s correspondence with reality. It expresses what we really are: animals with ears, ears capable of hearing the song of the whole universe, capable of hearing the very words of God himself. We don’t construct reality. We don’t make the world. We don’t invent life. We don’t create other people. We don’t decide our nature. These great things precede us. They’re given. They are a great ‘word’. Their sound goes forth to the ends of the earth. And the only right response of the human creature is to receive them, listen to them, respect them. In other words, obey. Monastic obedience – our obedience to the Rule, the abbot, the brethren – is one specific form of obedience. And if we embrace it, maturely, thoughtfully, steadfastly, prayerfully, something happens to us. It changes us, forms us. It gradually gives us back listening ears, opens our heart to things as they are, to reality and truth. It gives us back the original goodness of things and ourselves. We become human again. We find the place and the posture that is true for us. And so it gives us life. ‘And this will be a sign for you: the maiden is with child.’ The maiden of obedience gives birth to the child of life.
But there is more too. To go back to today. It is 25th March, the feast of the Annunciation. Until the 18th c., it was New Year’s Day. In a still older Christian tradition, it’s also the day of creation - the day when God spoke heaven and earth into being, and a creature - us - capable of hearing. And today the one same God and Father speaks his everlasting, pre-existing Word, his beloved Son, into the ears of a listening girl. And that young woman opens the ear of her heart and, so doing, opens the heart of a closed world. And Life himself comes in, ‘Emmanuel, a name which means God is with us’. Again, in another tradition this is the day Christ died – obedient unto death, even death on a cross. So, everything holds together. Through the obedience of Incarnation and Cross, Easter comes to creation. Obedience is Jesus and Jesus gives us God, his Father.
 Br Joseph, tomorrow perhaps you’ll be back to emptying bins. But today you are taking your vows. And something happens, an adventure begins. Today, you are saying, like Jesus, ‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’ Like Mary, you are opening the ear of your heart. Imitate Joseph, then, that splendid fellow from Bethlehem. Do not fear to take Mary to your home. Take obedience into your body and will. Love her with all your soul. Over the obedience of the monk, as over the womb of Mary, there passes the life-giving shadow of the Holy Spirit. A marriage is made, God becomes man, Christ finds the Church. Keep your vows, love obedience, and Easter will rise in your soul and the world around you.
          Fr. Hugh, OSB.