FRANCISCAN CORNER - JANUARY

On Oct. 19th, St. Margaret's held its Vestry retreat at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. We focused our time in prayer, meditation and discussion on what it means to be bearers of Light recalling St. Paul’s encouragement in Philippians 2:12-18 to “shine as lights in the world.”

Our dialogue focused on three questions:

1. What does it mean to be a Light in the world?
2. What distracts from our doing so?
3. What do we need to do together and apart to shine our Light ever more brightly? 

In his book, Light Consciousness, Dwight Kalita surveys scriptural references to “Light” found in the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the apocryphal gospels discovered in earthenware jars containing papyri buried in the desert sands at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. References to Light, encouraging the seeker to do all such things as will unleash “light consciousness,” the stuff of our true nature, have long been center stage. 

We are all called to live our lives as sons and daughters of the One Light, a call to practical mysticism. Scripture addresses the spiritual pilgrim’s dilemma of being in the world but not of it. Only one kingdom is real, the Kingdom of God. All others are inventions and conventions filled with illusion. Our life-long work is to shed unthinking reflexes and our habits of sorting people and things into tidy categories. St. Paul urges us to reach much farther, to “give up childish things” and step boldly into the gathering darkness like beacons of Light. 

Our faith rests on an enduring hope that issues from an eternal fountain of goodness. After each act of Creation, God said: “it is good.” To reach beyond the world of shadows is hard work. To get to the real heart of the world is the healing gift of the Son of Man, the Christ. Following the Wayshower, our footing is more secure on the path of realizing our truth as Sons and Daughters of Light.

The practical question is, how? We talked about Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr’s comment that all our rituals and practices are meaningless unless we are genuinely open to them and opened by them: trans-formed from the inside out. The “church” is where we live among our sisters and brothers, and from there we go out into the world. This is the exact opposite of being in the world and visiting the church on Sundays.

Living in the real Kingdom takes keen attention and, to use a word that has caught on these days, mindfulness. “Christics,” followers of the way of Christ, are called to simplify: to strip away the many layers of distraction and get back to what Zen masters call “beginners mind.” Jesus similarly challenged the disciples who asked: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” His answer was to “be again as little children.”

One royal road to this “Light Consciousness” is simple, unadorned prayer: using single words or phrases repeated in time with the breath. Another is self-emptying prayer, or the practice of “just gazing" without content, as was St. Clare’s practice. She would gaze attentively for hours at the Cross of San Damiano that hung in the convent.

An inspiring commonality among those light-bearers (or “phosters") that we call “Blessed” and “Saint” is that their relationship to the Divine was a palpable, full-bodied experience rather than an abstract or intellectual one. It was so much more than belief. It was a relation-ship that carried over into all connections within a vibrant and defining community of faith.

Becoming truly present is the key: to really and fully taste the consecrated wine and bread, feel the kneeler, the charge in the air, and what's happening in feeling and sensation. The Kingdom of God is here and now for those with "ears to hear," Mark 4:9.

We were blessed with time on retreat to reflect on these things and celebrate the gift of being members of our parish family. As a vestry, we committed to setting aside more time at monthly meetings for prayerful practice and spiritual learning. This is the right context for any discussion of the “business” of the church. 

As we lean into this sacred season of gratitude, with Advent soon to follow, may we seek after the Light all around us and in each other, and shine our own inner lights ever more brightly.

 ~ Br. Anton Armbruster, TSSF

 

"TRANSITUS" (NOV. 2019)

October is a unique high point on the Franciscan calendar.

Christians throughout the world celebrate the October 4^th Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi and the subsequent Sunday blessing of the animals. Lesser known outside of Franciscan circles is the profoundly moving and defining service of St. Francis’s death on the eve of his feast day, October 3^rd, the Transitus (from the Latin meaning the passage or crossing).

Just after sunset on October 3^rd, while reciting Psalm 142, “God is my Refuge,” Francis breathed his last. He had asked to be placed on the bare ground at the Portiuncular, offering his soul to Christ at the Little Chapel of St. Mary of the Angels where it all began. It was there, among the ruins of the chapel, that Francis is said to have had a vision. The icon of Christ Crucified came alive and said, three times, “Francis, go and rebuild my Church.” The apparition set his life’s course, which he followed from that point forward.

This year, I have been asked to facilitate the Transitus and Feast Day celebrations at St. Thomas’s Retreat Center in Lancaster, Pa. As Franciscans, we greet this celebration with a profound sense of love, peace, and blessing. We lovingly hold and contemplate the prayerful manner of Francis’s passing as he embraced what he referred to in his “Canticle of the Creatures,” as “Sister Death.”

We begin with a quiet day focused on the theme of “The Light Inside the Darkness.” What readily comes to mind is Francis’s comment that “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” 

We will slowly read Psalm 142 together and then, after time in silence, share our reflections on a set of questions about how the Psalmist speaks to each of us. With objects, images, song, poetry or recalled experiences in hand, we will meet in trio teams to share how light has emerged for each of us even in dark times of loss, uncertainty, failure, confusion, distress, and fear.

We will seek after the meaning of Francis’s notion of “perfect joy.” This experience goes well beyond the goals of mere contentment and happiness to find our way into Christ’s eternally outstretched arms. We open ourselves to the gift of surrender to the Holy Spirit.

St. Francis placed a premium on bringing sacred mystery to life. He realized this through physical dramatizations. A notable example was his invention of the Living Nativity with actors and animals in a reenactment of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. In that spirit, the Transitus evening celebration will involve a reenactment through dramatic readings and projected images. It will close in silence as we each take a blessed almond cookie, baked the same day, (a favorite of Francis that he requested as he prepared to die).

All of this is to experience the full body spirituality that Francis epitomized. Our faith is not an abstraction. If it’s real, our ritual and practices transform every aspect of ourselves (mind, body, and spirit). We are called to celebrate the Incarnation with every breath we take, with every color we see and marvel at, with all the textures and forms that surround us. All creatures, organic and inorganic, are brothers and sisters of light. 

May we each greet the Fall season with joyful attention to the beauty of transitioning. We watch for the cooling down and the slow passing of the leaves in their glorious displays of changing colors.

Peace and Joy.

  ~ Brother Anton Armbruster, TSSF

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OCTOBER 2019 - "JUST LISTEN"

Last month, one of my Franciscan brothers and I watched the three-hour 2012 film, “Mary of Nazareth.” In a word, the movie is breathtaking: beautifully filmed in the Holy Land, sensitively acted without sentimentality and presented in such a way as to celebrate the humanity of the Holy Family.

I was touched by Alissa Jung’s portrayal of Mary as a young woman of compassionate courage, joyful insight into even the smallest of things, and possessed of a radiant sense of being always at play in the verdant garden of our Lord. Intensely present yet unassuming and humble, Mary is shown as a woman blessed with insights unlikely for one so young at the time the angel announced that she was to become the mother of the Messiah. In the same vein, I am looking forward to seeing another recent movie entitled “Clare and Francis.” This film recounts the life of St. Francis and the Franciscan Movement as seen through the eyes of St. Clare. 

What has been moving in me for some time now, further inspired by the Mary of Nazareth film, is the need for an intentional rebalancing around the place of the feminine in our spirituality: the need for deeper interiority to offset the whirlwind of exterior movement in our times and in the church. A mother’s grace, dedication, and investment in creating a loving space in which to learn and grow is the foundation of the Gospel. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was an encourager of the Apostles and a central pillar of the early church. St. Clare, similarly, was the one whom Francis relied upon for sage council in difficult times. Her continuous prayer for the Franciscan movement was a force that drove Francis’s bold vision forward when obstacles emerged and when conflict arose among the brothers.

In the earliest days of the Friars Minor in Italy, there was a strong eremitical (religious recluse) tradition. Hermitages were built in a way as to provide for real community even though their inhabitants spent long periods of time in solitude.

The Poor Clare’s were, of course, cloistered. While tradition has it that this was not Clare’s original intent but her obedience to what was required, this is not the case. Her spirituality involved many hours of time in deep contemplation (e.g., gazing for hours each day at the San Damiano Crucifix that hung in the convent). St. Francis, similarly, spent as much as half of every year in contemplation and solitude as the ground beneath his itinerant preaching and mendicant ministry across the surrounding countryside the rest of the year.

So much of our lives is tied up in complicated schemes and knots of busyness and instrumental action. One client of mine recently said that his biggest regret is that there is “simply no time to think”. It was my mom who would remind me as a young boy to go out and play, to spend time with a good book, to eat slowly, and savor every moment.

Beneath all our striving there is an ocean of silence calling to us to come home for a visit. This is the feminine heart of our faith and it is too easily eclipsed by the patriarchal focus on productivity, proving one’s worth, achieving, accumulating and standing out.

I was asked by our Provincial Minister, Janet Feeders, to plan and emcee the 2022 Provincial Convocation with a team of tertiaries. I prayed a lot about it and came to a decision on the theme: “Through Her Eyes: The Lessons of Mary and Clare.”Two days later, Janet took me aside to share her further prayer on that theme. She wanted me to know that it felt truly inspired. She blessed me and shared her delight in having asked me to serve in this way: a mother’s kind of leadership!

I lean into September with an enlivened sense of mission around enunciating the voices of the sacred Mothers of the Church who call us to an ever-deeper interiority in advancing the Way of the Heart made manifest by our Lord.

 ~ Brother Anton Armbruster, TSSF

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JUST LISTEN! AUGUST, 2019

Silence is precious, necessary, a place where God speaks with special intimacy … and a very hard thing to find!

Madeleine Delbrel, author of Alcide, wrote: “Don’t try to keep silence, just listen.” Her simple and powerful advice rings so true. At one of our TSSF retreats, one of our brothers, used to deep silence and solitude, commented on how tough it was to settle down because of all the noise! He was bothered by the sound of traffic on the road about 100 yards away from the Center and from the highway a mile or so away.Suburban life is simply teeming with noise. 

A walk in the woods, while delightful and usually centering, cannot compete with the ring of man-made sounds wrapped all around it. The first word in the Preface of St. Benedict’s Rule is “Ausculta,” meaning listen! If we are to quiet the din inside our heads, we need the practice of being more often where it is truly quiet outside. With enough experience of the “desert” spaces and the truly away places, we can learn to bring that quiet inside.

I find inspiring one transliteration of a section of the Lord’s Prayer, taken from Aramaic, spoken language of Jesus, published by Neil Douglas-Klotz. It reads: “Grant what we need each day in bread and insight. Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt. Don’t let surface things delude us, but free us from what holds us back.From You is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.”

What is the cure for our post-modern diet of noise? In a word, it is mindful solitude. For whatever amount of time we can muster, as Benedict and Delbrel advise, it is about setting aside time to just listen, just sit, without reading (i.e., without even words of prayer). As I work to deepen my own rule of life, I am uncovering the very helpful counsel of the Oblate Rule of the Camaldolese Benedictine monks who place solitude, the hermitage, in a central place in their spirituality. Remarkable things start to happen when we push away all content except a simple desire to hear.

Applying this in practice, I have taken to listening to the sounds around me without trying to escape them and become more aware of the pauses between them. As we listen to music, too, it is the pauses, the rest notes, that work to shape the music. In meditating, one eventually hears one’s own beating heart. There, too, the invitation to a deeper dive into the well of silence is prompted by the empty spaces, the rests, between the heartbeats. 

Lying in bed, awaiting sleep one night recently, I listened to the sound of heavy rain outside. It abruptly just stopped as if the spigot were swiftly tuned off. In what seemed an especially loud silence, I fell asleep. I dreamt I was a passenger on a spaceship bound for the stars. I was late, it seemed, for a meeting that I was told was in the “Poseidon” room where I was expected.

I was anxious that people were waiting on me but, when I got there, after running from corridor to corridor, feeling quite turned around in a seemingly impossible maze, I found a buffet with a few simple foods to enjoy and people focused entirely on welcoming me. They were all smiles, intent on letting me know how genuinely glad they were that I had found my way. The dream then ended as abruptly as the earlier rain outside had stopped and just as swiftly as my time began on the flight to the stars. 

Poseidon, archetype of the oceans, the unconscious and deep feeling stands out for me in this dream. There was so little conversation, and yet so much generosity, undistracted presence and a warm sense of being “home.” So, it seems to me, that the end of all our listening is to find the peace in the silence and the love in the solitude where the Divine Heart is clearly setting the tempo and managing all the dynamics.

Happy listening!

~ Br. Anton Armbruster, TSSF 

 

I COULD JUST EAT YOU UP! - JUNE 2019

Have you ever said this to your children or grand-children? My own grandmother said this to me; it was always associated with hugs and kisses and a pinch of the cheek. While the phrase is a bit odd, I’d give anything to have her back with me to hear it again.

Well, I recently caught myself saying it to my grand-daughter Zoey. It brought back joyful memories of hours spent gathered around the kitchen table after Sunday Mass. We’d eat several courses followed by loud card games, spontaneous singing of Italian songs and wide-ranging conversation. Oh, how I miss all that!

Catching myself saying this to our “sweet” Zoey, (as sweet as delicious treats like cannoli and sfogliatelle), my thoughts turned to one of the results of our recent RenewalWorks survey. A significant percentage of our St. Margaret’s family do not feel spiritually informed by the celebration of Eucharist. I was struck by the con-nection between the consecration of bread and wine and my grandma’s reference to me as, well, food!

Her love was obvious. It was in her voice and in her perpetually joyful presence. Whenever she saw me, she acted as if it had been way too long since we were last together (though probably a matter of hours and never more than a week). As Roman Catholics in the 1950’s and early ’60s, Confession on Saturdays and fasting were expected (practices that I am renewing). We came to the Sunday meal more than a little hungry. In that context, Eucharist and Grandma’s expression is even more interesting.

At the Last Supper, Jesus expressed his deep longing to share the Passover meal with his Apostles. Jesus’ love was a total outpouring of physicality — a no holds barred self-offering driven by a deep, divinely inspired desire to love and be loved to the point of bodily unity. Coming to Eucharist hungry focuses heart, body and mind on our dependence on food to live and the reality that true love, agape, is divine nourishment — a perpetual enlivening of Christ in and among us.

The schism of the Western and Eastern churches in 1054 was, to a large extent, a split between our minds and our bodies. Eastern Orthodoxy has always placed emphasis on the full mystical union of the whole person with Christ. To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christians venerate icons as doorways to sacred mystery. In Medieval times, believers expressed a physical yearning to be united with Christ, a profound hunger to feel his presence. St. Clare of Assisi was blessed with the gift of joyful tears on having a vision of the infant Jesus in her arms.

The Way of Christ is the way of whole-person devotion. When love reaches its zenith, we are over-come with the inadequacy of words. All our devotional practices are intended for our conversion in Christ. They are meant to ready us to experience Eucharist with all our senses. When our hearts are filled to overflowing with joyful yearning, saying “I love you so much that I could just eat you up”makes perfect sense.

Grandma was an intuitive theologian. It only took me about seven decades to begin to understand it. Separation from God and each other is an illusion born of fear and a focus on external things. All the answers to the important questions lie in our hearts.

The day before Grandma died, I had slept at her home, as I often did on weekends. My grandfather awoke to discover that she had died beside him as they slept. I carry two unforgettable memories: the smile on her face as she lay there, seemingly just peacefully asleep, and my grandfather lamenting over and over: “She didn’t say goodbye.” Years before, grandma had predicted how Jesus would come for her and that, when He did, her joy would be complete. She even correctly predicted the year. Buoyed by her vision, her “bags” were always packed and ready to go. She told me that she saw Our Lord in a vision, standing at the foot of her bed, smiling and reassuring her. Her smile after passing confirmed for me that He had fulfilled that promise and it was surely a glorious reunion.

When I pray, I reflect on the strength of my physical longing for Christ, recommitting to staying alert for divine presence and the sounds of the Sacred Heart. Christ so loves us that He “could just eat us up” with that love. He invites us to do the same in remembrance of the greatest love of all.

Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr recently said, “The Eucharist is so perfect a sacrament that we would have had to invent it anyway had Jesus not instituted it!”

Peace and Joy,  Br. Anton Armbruster, TSSF

 

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MAY 2019 - Someone’s at the Door

On Good Friday, after returning from a simple service at an Episcopal Church in Florida that we’ve not visited before, I returned home in fast-changing weather. The skies were menacing, and rains were likely not far off. The daylight was cut short and the wind started to pick up. 

The neighborhood was very quiet, quieter than usual. Not much seemed to be going on. I went inside and got settled. Just as I was going to sit down, we heard a loud knock and our security camera at the front door went off. It was late, so I checked the camera first and saw no one. Maybe it was an animal on the roof, or an animal in the crawl space (something we’ve had happen before in the house in Massapequa).

A little time passed, and it happened again. This time, the knock was even louder, seemingly more insistent, and it clearly was at the front door. Weird!

Once again, the camera was triggered, but showed no one. So, I finally went to the door to check. Opening it, there was simply no one around. Everything seemed calm and so the mystery continued. Turning back, now facing the front door, all became clear.

We had hung up a wooden plaque on the door that said, “Happy Easter”!

Apparently, occasional strong gusts of wind shook the wooden plaque and it struck the door sounding like a quite purposeful knock. Okay, both of us felt a little foolish with our imaginations conjuring up a prowling animal, someone playing a joke or an unwanted salesperson. Nope. It was just the wind. Or, was it?

Well, sure, it was caused by the wind moving a dense wooden sign. But, then again, I believe in synchronicity: meaningful coincidences that, on their face, mean nothing more than the obvious but signify somehow a larger, invisible movement.I stopped believing in coincidences long ago. So, the timing of it all, the Good Friday service and prayers of Compline with the rest of the Triduum ahead, all converged in my heart with one significant result:

Yes, someone wasknocking at the door. He’s been knocking for a long time and he will keep on knocking until the doors of my heart swing open with unhesitating welcome and love!

It all sparked some quiet and prayerful meditation.

Now, at the moment of his death on the Cross, tradition has it that the temple veil (separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple where people gathered) was ripped in two, top to bottom (Matthew 27: 50-51a). No longer was there a divide between the prayerful and the place where God dwelt. No longer was the Holy of Holies open only to the high priest. Heaven and earth were one in Christ and at his passing, we were joined with him to the Father for all eternity!

Maundy Thursday is among my favorite Holy Days. It brings back the Cenacle (upper room) where Jesus celebrated his Passover with the Apostles. He prepared, first by washing their feet. He longed to celebrate this Passover with them and offered himself in loving service. Divine hospitality was henceforth a mark of one who follows the path of Christ! 

In the depiction of the Last Supper, Michelangelo interprets the moment immediately after Jesus predicts betrayal. He shows the Apostles clustered all together in groups of three. In group two, we see the full picture of our humanity, its grandeur and its frailty. We see Peter (the “Rock,” yet the one who would deny him three times), John (who swoons, a symbol of full devotion and love) and Judas Iscariot (with the spilt salt on the table in front of him, the betrayer). These frames of mind are part of us all. Jesus knows our hearts, and though we have our times of forgetfulness, and doubt, distraction, anger and ego-driven motivations, Jesus’ love is unconditional, and he expects us to love in precisely the same way!

So, yes, Jesus was knocking at our door as he does every day. He is inviting our self-knowing beyond all fears, illusions, delusions and confusions. The signs of his calling to us are everywhere if we only take time to watch and listen for them. 

In any event, I give thanks this Easter for the lesson of the wind on Good Friday that asked me, quite pointedly, if I was home!

 ~ Br. Anton Armbruster, TSSF

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2019 ARCHIVE FRANCISCAN CORNER

APRIL - "SEA FOAM ON A DEEP OCEAN"

“ ... darkness was on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  Genesis 1:1

Linda and I cruised the Western Caribbean with our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter in March, making sure to book an aft balcony so we could watch the sea and by day and the stars by night. The turbulent waters of the ship’s wake were strangely soothing and have always had a special allure for me. I wondered at the dark depths of the ocean while transfixed by the chaotic foreground of foaming waters churned up by the ships’ great propellers. 

That very image, teeming activity and movement on the surface of an otherwise silent ocean, could be a metaphor for our lives. For me, this Lenten Season has been a quiet search for what lies hidden, wrapped in silence and timelessness. Rather than hectic excursions as we island-hopped, I was content just to be on the ship, sailing – doing nothing except watching cloud formations, islands in the distance, turquoise water, playing delightful, silly games with Zoey, and drinking in the miraculous canopy of stars. All of this wonder was enriched by morning and evening prayer, with the Canticles and the Psalms as companions adding depth, punctuation and resonance.

Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr’s online course, “The Franciscan Way: Beyond the Birdbath,” was well-timed with our cruise and my intention to look more closely to find God in everyone, everywhere, and in everything without exception. St. Francis intuitively discovered the unity of all being, and expressed this in his “Canticle of the Creatures.” When every breath we take is a prayer, we come closer to what Jesus knew - the profound intimacy of a direct experience of the Great Lover. After the Resurrection, Jesus promised to “be with us always.” He is in the light all around us, in the air, pervading everything with his loving presence. Being fully alive to his miraculous presence in the here and now is to live in imitation of Christ. We are the “Imago Dei.” In God’s image are we made.

Lent is our time to get back to that essential truth and peel away the many layers of distraction. It is all about making room for Christ to fill. Richard Rohr speaks often of an “alternative Franciscan orthodoxy” that places primary emphasis on incarnation over redemp-tion, original blessing over original sin. God, in the first act of creation, created light out of nothingness (the void), and declared that it was good. The chief sign of true conversion in Christ is joy. All matter and energy emerged from light-goodness. At the core we, too, are light.

May we do what stars do and may our Eastertide be filled with arising! 

Peace and joy,

~ Br. Anton Armbruster, TSSF

 

MARCH - "VERGES AND INTERSECTIONS"

One of the weird features of highway engineering in Florida is the sudden and quite unexpected merges. You are driving along in the right lane and it unceremoniously (without signage) merges left. One road near us does so twice in quick succession and invariably sparks some colorful language and less-than-Christian gestures.

The irritation of these surprising highway “gotchas” notwithstanding, the frequent encounter with them down here got me to thinking. Because we’ve come tonow expect the unexpected, we are ever on the lookout for the verge or the merge and the need to switch lanes. The image is growing on me as the stuff of parable. Intersections are places of concentrated atten- tion or, at least they should be. Energy rises as separate flows converge.

Our lives are full of these moments, but we swiftly look to settle back into the expected, the straight, and smooth way. But, there is real excitement at the boundaries!

If I look for them, I start to see more and more of them: dusk (on the verge of night), first light (on the verge of day), puzzlement (on the verge of insight), twilight (on the verge of sleep), a first gust (on the verge of storms), and total silence (at the threshold to holiness). Prayerful science is actually defined by boundary conditions and what isemerging is a grand reunion: back into the arms of the queen of the sciences, theology, but seeing her as if for the first time. What fun to read about theories and insights by scholar-poets living at the intersections.

So, next time you approach a merge, praise God for the little awakenings and beckonings. In the meantime, let me just say, Florida highways are more than a little bit insane!

~ Brother Anton Armbruster, TSSF

FEBRUARY 2019
Singing the Praises of Creation