[A Homily of Fr. Matthew Kelty, O.C.S.O. for the 6th Sunday of Easter (A),1993: (Jn 15:9-17)]
 
 

About fifty years ago a group of Fathers, Brothers and Sisters who had been spared Japanese war atrocities because of their remote locations, decided to escape certain death by walking to the Highlands from the coast of Papua, New Guinea -- a formidable venture, difficult and hazardous.  Like walking to Cincinnati, or better Chicago, by way of wandering native trails, through dangerous country of heartless ravines, rivers, gorges, up into a mountain valley of six or seven thousand feet altitude.  A large group of natives went along to carry what was needed.  Granted they would have taken only what was essential, it is remarkable that the nuns also took along an iron, a large heavy piece that had a little door at the back that opened to an inner chamber where you inserted hot coals to heat it.  This because they were nuns, and though they trekked in trousers and shirts, they were determined that when they reached a Highland post, they could take out their habits and wear wimple and coif, starched and ironed, as an elemental necessity.  They saw their identity expressed most emphatically in what they wore.  So the U. S. Army photos taken when they reached safety after several months, showed them in blue denim work habits, but with starched white linen very evident.  Women of spirit.  One is reminded of the Jesuits in early America in the forests in black cassocks, in the canoes.  And the friars in the Southwest in brown.  "Blackrobes" and "brown robes" the Indians called them.  No mistaking them for trappers or scouts.

We approach the departure of Jesus to His Father.  The 36th day.

A moment's reflection can awaken only amazement that the whole of our faith, our theology, our spirituality, all that was to become the Church at Pentecost, was entrusted to a handful of people, basically the Apostles.  All in their hearts and minds.  And astonishing is the first thing they did, the first action they took: they elected one among the group who had been with Jesus through His ministry to complete the Twelve that had been lessened by the departure of Judas.  They chose Matthias.  Somehow they thought it not only appropriate, but essential that there be a basic body of Twelve that would constitute leadership in community service in the Gospel of Jesus.  Not merely a matter of administration and even pious memory, but in some way a necessary identity.  This came first -- before a word was written, an altar erected, a hymn composed.

We might be hard pressed in determining what would be essential in our own eyes for our identity as monks.  It probably would be close to the mark if we saw choir and altar, chapter and refectory as elemental and we would set out first to arrange for, should we be of a sudden cast adrift, a small group on our own.  And soon to follow would be a cowl, something to make clear to our own eyes more than the eyes of others, who we are.

It is one thing to stress that the contemplative life is an interior business lived anywhere in any context and there is some truth in the matter.  But the human is not merely an interior being.  In no time at all, interiority is externalized.  We cannot operate in any other way for love.

When the central station of the north coast of New Guinea was warned by the U. S. Air Force that it was going to be bombed, the large group of missionaries there had to abandon an enormous complex from Cathedral on down to housing, schools, workshops, wharves and what else.  One wonders what they took with them to the hills.  One thing is certain: altar and the makings of Mass would have been prime -- the makings of prayer.  There was little else they could do as they saw fifty-years work go up in smoke --it burned four days.

It is good sometimes to think what is important.  The complex that is Gethsemani is a marvel in many ways -- a splendid gift of God and of those who preceeded us.  Yet it is not impossible to know what the heart of it is.  And if it truly be a contemplative monastery, contemplation is not a visible entity.  It is expressed in people and where they live, what they do, and what they have.  If the whole be large and costly, we know well enough what it all means, what it is for.

If Sisters needed an iron to be Sisters, there are things we need to be monks, even if we had to carry them with us into the hills.  The whole Church was present in the small gathering that received the Spirit fifty days after He rose from the dead.  All that the Church is today and will be until the end of time was present there, even if only in embryo.  If we as humans are no less marvelous for coming from so tiny a seed that contained us all, so the Church -- the glory of God made manifest in sign and symbol.

God grant we may long continue to sing in choir, celebrate the mysteries, gather in chapter, and break bread together in the refectory in God's grace, for our good and the good of all.  Amen.