August 29, 2005
Just a few years ago stories of beheadings belonged to a far-distant past. But the horrible brutality has regretfully become a reality again reported in the evening news in these early years of this 21st century. Saint Mark placed this account of the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist in his gospel between the account sending out the Twelve to begin preaching the good news and the account of their return to him after their first mission. Its placement suggests that the evangelist wanted to illustrate that the price of faith paid by John the Baptist would be paid as well by Jesus himself, by the Twelve and even by those who would call him Master of their lives.
The absolutely cold calculation of Herodias who had clearly planned well in advance what her daughter was to do and to ask for, the disgusting brutality of the presentation of the evidence of John the Baptist's martyrdom all point to the evil that the human heart is capable of performing and at the same time to the unflinching loyalty of the Baptist who pointed the way by his birth, his life and his death to the Christ who would overcome even death itself - to Christ whom he knew was the Savior of the world.
This may seem like a very unlikely feast on which to begin our academic year, and yet, as with so many revelations of God's presence to his people, there is a message for us that I would like to suggest is very consonant with our Benedictine heritage. At the opening dinner this year I spoke about the need for our personal and institutional commitment to prayer - and as a small assistance we are providing the prayer cards you received today in order to suggest some possible prayers at the beginning of classes and meetings and workdays. When I spoke to the newest members of our community, the class of 2009, on Saturday evening I spoke of the Benedictine value of obedience - that attitude and habit of attentive listening for the truth wherever it is be found and in whatever way it leads us to God; an attentive listening that is something so necessary to our growth in knowledge and wisdom.
Today, on this feast of the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, I want to suggest some ways in which two other Benedictine hallmarks can make a difference in our work together this year.
The first is stability. Most of you know that stability is one of the vows that we Benedictines profess. It means for us a commitment to this community and to this place until death. It means for us that we ask God to help us through our life together with the others of frail humanity, like our own, to seek him through day to day living with one another, assisting each other on our path to eternity.
But for all of us at a Benedictine College there is something more to this as well. It means that as an academic community we make a commitment to stay with the task of seeking wisdom. It means that we will embrace for however long we are here the constant search for God through our studies, through our prayer, through our interaction with one another. It means that we will find God where he is - in this place, with these people, with this work. There is for all at a Benedictine institution a realization that the ordinariness of life can produce extraordinary results. In a world that wants to move from thrill to thrill, we are saying that is not the way to any valuable results.
Our way is to focus on this work, to focus on teaching and research day in and day out, to focus on studying when it is satisfying and when it is not-because we know that only the commitment of stability of purpose will bring us the wisdom we seek and need. For members of a Benedictine college community, stability must mean more than fact that we monks are here for a lifetime. It must mean that every one of us is present to the daily work - even sometimes the daily drudgery of what we have undertaken. We are not slackers and we are not quitters, we are not those who give up at the first disappointment or disaster, or poor grade, or broken heart-no we at a Benedictine college are the ones who continue on, because we know what the goal is -the wisdom of God himself.
The next Benedictine hallmark that is so intimately connected with stability is discipline. While this not a popular word these days, the concept of discipline is something that every one of us knows about in many parts of our lives. Rather than something imposed from the outside, Benedictine discipline helps us to be autonomous, to be self directed in a way that we can choose what will help and advance us in the search for truth; and with the same self-discipline we can choose to leave aside those things that are frivolous, destructive, and sometimes even disrespectful of ourselves or others for the sake of something greater.
John the Baptist, the apostles, and Jesus himself knew the necessity of making choices-sometimes very difficult choices-that would in the end lead to God. We know what this means in our approach to learning-in fact we call the various areas of study disciplines because they require of us a certain attention to method, to evidence, to process, to reality. But we must learn and exercise this same Benedictine discipline also in service to others, in the arts, in athletic endeavors, in positive relationships with one another that bring each of us closer to the creator.
As we begin this academic year together, taking up again the great work of learning, let us do so very conscious of who we are and who we wish to become as a Benedictine College. We begin as a community of prayer, attentively listening to the voice of God who calls us to greatness and salvation, committed to stability of purpose to do what is required of us, disciplined in our choices and our relationships. Doing so, we become like the fortified city of which Jeremiah spoke in our first reading, a place where God is with us always.
May the fidelity of John the Baptist inspire us and the Eucharist we celebrate sustain us in our work during the coming year.
God love you all.
Father Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B.
President of the College