FROM ABBOT CHARLES
Christmas Greetings from Prince of Peace Abbey!
Although the snow is not falling here, nor seldom does, I am certain that many of us recall the cold, white stuff that enhanced so many of our Christmas customs. The walking to Midnight Mass through the newly fallen snow and hearing it crunch under foot has been indelibly printed on my memory chip. Of course I was only a child then and didn’t realize all the difficulties and complexities of life but it did seem that living was so much simpler.
I guess the world was at peace then to the degree that it has never been since. Today the number of “hot spots” of armed conflict and terrorism continues to increase. However, violence is nothing new and has been used as a means to solve conflicts ever since Cain spilled the blood of his brother Abel.
Jesus came to show us the new way of humility and forgiveness and even furnished us with His power and His very life, so necessary in finding peace. However, even His blood was spilled for us. And after all these centuries we still walk the fine line between an uneasy peace and complete anarchy. But hopefully this season of peace may make a difference in a world that appears to be set on selfishness, vengeance, and violence, if not, complete self-destruction. It is incumbent on us to cooperate with God’s grace so as to be peacemakers rather than remain mere silent, regretful observers. If peace reigns in our hearts it will find its way to the surface and influence those with whom we come in contact. As evil is contagious, so is good. It is up to us to determine which one will be victorious in the end.
At this very moment in Jerusalem, where the Prince of Peace met His violent death, there is a Benedictine monastery— Dormition Abbey— which offers a neutral haven where many young Christians, Jews and Muslims meet together in prayer and fellowship. The peace-seeking youth of that part of the world understand too well that the present practice of vendetta and retaliation only escalates violence and can never bring peace.
We know that God’s grace is working at this monastery too. And as bleak as the future of the world appears, there is much hope because of the growing number good people who make their way here or are known to us. However, their names and photos will never be found in newspapers or on the nightly news. It they were, there would be far less despair in the world.
Let us all call upon Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to renew again in our hearts the love of God and of neighbor, without which, true peace can never be attained.
Blessed Christmas
and a Holy New Year!
Abbot Charles, O.S.B.
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IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME, THE FULLNESS OF DIVINITY APPEARED
[One of the readings for the “Divine Office of Readings,” or “Vigils,” during the Octave of Christmas— it is from an Epiphany sermon by St. Bernard of Clairvaux.]
The goodness and humanity of God our Savior have appeared in our midst. We thank God for the many consolations he has given us during this sad exile of our pilgrimage here on earth. Before the Son of God became man his goodness was hidden. For God’s mercy is eternal, but how could such goodness be recognized? It was promised, but it was not experienced, and as a result few believed in it. Often and in many ways the Lord used to speak through the prophets. Among other things, God said: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. But what did men respond, thinking thoughts of affliction and knowing nothing of peace? They said: Peace, peace, there is no peace. This response made the angels of peace weep bitterly, saying: Lord, who has believed our message? But now men believe because they see with their own eyes, and because God’s testimony has now become even more credible. He has gone so far as to pitch his tent in the sun so even the dimmest eyes see him.
Notice that peace is not promised but sent to us; it is no longer deferred, it is given; peace is not prophesied but achieved. It is as if God the Father sent upon the earth a purse full of his mercy. This purse was burst open during the Lord’s passion to pour forth its hidden contents— the price of our redemption. It was only a small purse, but it was very full. As the Scriptures tell us: A little child has been given to us, but in him dwells all the fullness of the divine nature. The fullness of time brought with it the fullness of divinity. God’s Son came in the flesh so that mortal men could see and recognize God’s kindness. When God reveals his humanity, his goodness cannot possibly remain hidden. To show his kindness what more could he do beyond taking my human form? My humanity, I say, not Adam’s— that is, not such as he had before his fall.
How could he have shown this mercy more clearly than by taking on himself our condition? For our sake the Word of God became as grass. What better proof could he have given of his love? Scripture says: Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him; why does your heart go out to him? The incarnation teaches us how much God cares for us, and what he thinks and feels about us. We should stop thinking of our own sufferings and remember what he has suffered. Let us think of all that the Lord has done for us, and then we shall realize how his goodness appears through his humanity. The lesser he became through his human nature the greater was his goodness; the more he lowered himself for me, the dearer he is to me. The goodness and humanity of God our Savior have appeared, says the Apostle.
Truly great and manifest are the goodness and humanity of God! He has given us a most wonderful proof of his goodness by adding humanity to his own divine nature.
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OUR LADY OF EINSIEDELN
The church at Prince of Peace Abbey is formally entitled “Our Lady of Einsiedeln Church.” Before reading anything more here about that title and its history, it would be helpful to know how to pronounce “Einsiedeln.” An English-language rhyme for it would be “píne-needle.” That’s not a perfect rhyme, but it may be as close as any other English words could come.The name “Einsiedeln” comes from the German word for hermit, einsiedler. Einsiedeln is the name of a Swiss monastery and town that sprung up in a forested valley first colonized by hermit monks.
Just inside the main entrance of the monastery church of Einsiedeln, Switzerland, is a freestanding chapel enshrining a wooden, painted statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding the Infant Lord Jesus. At Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, Our Lady of Einsiedeln Church includes a side-chapel enshrining a hand-carved wooden copy of the Swiss statue. The original seems to have been made around A.D. 1440.
The statue’s sculpted hair is combed and lies close to the body. The carved dress is pleated, belted at the waist, and drapes in soft folds covering the Madonna’s feet. In her right hand she has a scepter signifying her queenship and goodwill. The Child she is carrying with her left arm has his right hand raised in blessing, and in his left hand he holds a bird. The bird reflects an ancient apocryphal legend that the Christ Child played with clay, shaped it into a bird, and miraculously brought it to life. The statue of Mother and Child was originally painted in flesh tones, but was blackened over time by the smoke of candles and oil lamps.
At Prince of Peace Abbey, the statue of Our Lady of Einsiedeln stands on a black stone pedestal bearing the Greek word Theotokos, “Godbearer,” and the Latin words Regina Monachorum, “Queen of Monks.” The Latin title plays on the idea of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a royal patroness for a hermit-monk, since einsiedler is the German for “hermit.”
Although the present statue in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, seems to have originated around A.D. 1440, existing historical documents reveal that massive pilgrimages to Our Lady of Einsiedeln were already long-standing custom before A.D. 1311. The Chapel of Our Lady of Einsiedeln in Switzerland seems to have first been called the “Chapel of Our Lady” after A.D. 1286. Before then, it had been called the Chapel of the Hermits, since it stood on the spot where the hermit, St. Meinrad (who died in A.D. 861), had built an altar, and hermits after him had built a chapel.
The Chapel of Our Lady of Einsiedeln, Switzerland, has a long history as a place of conversions and miraculous healings. It has known the visits of everyone from emperors to peasants. St. Nicholas of Flüe, St. Dorothy of Montau, St. Benedict Joseph Labré, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Peter Canisius, St. Joan Antide Thouret, and Pope St. Pius X have sought Our Lady’s intercession at Einsiedeln. She received the devout visit of Pope John Paul II in 1984.
Although largely unknown by Americans, the Chapel of Our Lady of Einsiedeln is the national shrine of Switzerland, and is a famous pilgrimage destination among Europeans. Due to its central location in Europe, other historic and famous pilgrim roads across Europe intersect in Einsiedeln; since the Middle Ages many pilgrims on the way to or returning from Santiago de Compostela, Rome and the Holy Land passed through Einsiedeln to visit Our Lady’s Chapel there. Even today more than half a million pilgrims visit Einsiedeln yearly.
The Solemnity of Our Lady of Einsiedeln is July 16.
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ABBEY COAT OF ARMS
The Solemnity of Christmas is the patronal nameday of Prince of Peace Abbey. The First Vespers of Christmas repeatedly invokes peace and refers to Christ as Rex Pacificus— meaning “King of Peace” or “Peaceful King.” Depicting a crown over the waves of the Pacific Ocean, the shield in our coat of arms is a pictorial play on the words “Prince of Peace”.
The Church Has Norms for Coats of Arms
A diocese has a right to a diocesan coat of arms that does not change as bishops succeed each other in the diocese. However, every bishop has a right to his own personal coat of arms distinct from the diocesan coat of arms; and an abbot may have a personal coat of arms distinct from his abbey’s coat of arms. There are items that belong in a diocesan coat of arms that are not permitted in a monastery’s coat of arms, and vice versa. Likewise the elements permitted in an abbot’s personal coat of arms are not the same as those of a bishop. Neither our first abbot, Abbot Claude, nor our second and present abbot, Abbot Charles, has a personal coat of arms.
When the Holy See elevated our monastery to an abbey in 1983, we assembled a coat of arms for our abbey, but without following Church norms.
Miter?
An abbey itself may include a white miter above the shield in the abbey’s coat of arms, but it is not required, and its inclusion is not common. However, an abbot himself is prohibited from including a miter in his personal coat of arms.
A Veiled Crozier
Interestingly, modern Church norms forbid the crozier in the personal arms of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. Instead, those persons are to use a jeweled processional cross behind their individual shields. A bishop’s cross has one horizontal bar, while that of an archbishop has two. A cardinal’s cross has two bars if he was an archbishop at the time he was made a cardinal, and only one bar if he was a bishop at the time he was made a cardinal. An abbey’s coat of arms and an abbot’s personal coat of arms are not to have a processional cross, but are to have a golden, veiled crozier behind the shield. At one time in history, the actual crozier of an abbot had a veil hooked to its knob to distinguish the abbot from a bishop. The crozier in an abbatial coat of arms still must have a veil hooked to the knob of the crozier. Therefore our coat of arms as we have had it from the start has been wrong, since it includes an unveiled crozier. The veiled crozier is the essential sign that a coat of arms belongs to an abbey or an abbot. The bottom of a heraldic crozier is to be pointed, since that is historically how croziers were made.
Artistry?
Our coat of arms was originally drawn with direct copies of items from various sources. The crown came from a “Three Kings” cartoon in one of our Office books. The ravens came from another source, and the other items (shield, miter, crozier) from yet other sources. The result is a hodgepodge of styles. In terms of artistry, our original coat of arms is poorly done; in terms of Church heraldry, our original coat of arms is incorrect. Nonetheless, our shield (the essential element of any coat of arms) is within the norms of the Church.
Our shield is divided vertically down the center. The technical term for this is “partitioning the fields per pale.” A “pale” is a vertical line or post.
The right side as one views the front of a shield is called “sinister,” from the Latin for “left,” since that is the left side for a man holding his shield in battle. Conversely, the left side as one views the front of a shield is called “dexter,” from the Latin for “right.” Our shield has two ravens in sinister, symbolizing St. Meinrad Archabbey and Einsiedeln Abbey. Ravens figured in the lives of St. Benedict and St. Meinrad. On our shield, in dexter (the place of honor), the gold crown represents the Prince of Peace (Rex Pacificus, as in the First Vespers of Christmas), and the blue waves signify the Pacific Ocean that is within view from inside our abbey church.
In a corrected and new rendering of our coat of arms, the stylized wings of the ravens recall the deep sleeves of a monk whose arms are raised for singing the Suscipe (“Receive me, Lord”) at profession of vows. The ravens in the shield are looking towards the crown and the ocean, just as we monks face simultaneously the icon of the Prince of Peace and the Pacific Ocean as we sing the Suscipe when professing our monastic vows in our abbey church.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
FROM THE CHRONICLES OF PRINCE OF PEACE ABBEY
August 13. Brothers Noel and Gabriel attended the graduation ceremony of our Br. Paul who worked in a hospice program for his seminary project.
August 15. The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bro. Mario celebrates his patronal nameday.
August 23. Abbot Charles attended the St. Joseph’s Academy Eucharistic procession from St. Mark Catholic Church to the new location of the Academy.
August 28. Abbot Charles and Bro. Philip travel to Anaheim to run a booth for our monastery at a Catholic convention.
August 30. Bro. Michel returns to Mt. Angel Abbey Seminary to resume his studies.
September 6. Abbot Charles, Bros. Blaise and Joseph travel to Lakeside, California to attend the 60th Wedding Anniversary Mass for Gene and Irene Larson. Gene was the superintendant foreman on most of our building projects.
September 10. Fr. Abbot Charles travels to Rome for the Worldwide Congress of Benedictine Abbots.
September 14. Bro. Daniel holds the first Oblate meeting for the fall season. He will be instructing Oblate Novices.
September 17. The first anniversary of the death of Abbot Claude.
September 29. Brothers Raphael, Gabriel and Michel celebrated their patronal nameday.
October 1. We hosted a banquet for our Oblates in the continuing celebrations of our monastery’s fiftieth Anniversary.
October 11. Our benefactor and oblate, Mary Marsitto, passed away this afternoon. She and her husband provided nearly all the plants for our monastery during the first half of our history.
October 13. Wildfire at Camp Pendleton burns within two mile of our monastery.
October 25. Abbot Charles and Bro. Daniel attend the 25th Anniversary of the Brother Benno Center.
November 7. Bro. Philip participated in a Vocation Awareness day at the Norbertine High School in San Pedro.
November 9. Dr. Derry Donnell, president and founder of the John Paul the Great University in San Diego, gave a talk at our regular Oblate meeting. Fr. Johannes, O.S.B., from Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem, also spoke. His monastery is founding an international Peace Academy on Mount Sion.
November 12. Our monastery celebrates the last event of its 50th Anniversary year. San Diego diocesan priests and deacons as well as the wives of the deacons were invited guests for Vespers and a banquet in our retreat house.
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THE EPIPHANY HOMILY OF ABBOT CHARLES
“We have seen His star at its rising and have come to do him homage.”
The now-famous star is just one more display of light associated with a theophany. The word theophany, meaning manifestation of God is similar to Epiphany, and that is, to make manifest to a magnified degree.
The concept of light has been most important from the first verse of the first book of the Old Testament. “Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep.”
God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
Another theophany came with light when Moses saw the bush burning brightly.
Yet another was the pillar of fire at night that guided God’s people through the desert.
After the light of the star guided the Magi to Jesus, who is the light of the world, (light manifesting light as it were), then the same light continued to shine through the Transfiguration and finally at the Resurrection.
The light did not stop there. To St. Paul (this is still the year of St. Paul) the revelation of which he speaks in the Letter to the Ephesians, was made known in a brilliant display of light.
But as all terms that deal with God, there is the reality of a level that goes deeper than human language can explain.
We speak of light, the light that comes to us from the sun, from electrical bulbs, etc., but the Light of the World shines not for our human eyes but for the eyes of our faith, the eyes of our hearts.
And light always dispels darkness. The darkness of doubt, the darkness of confusion, the darkness of sin.
These are strange terms for a people who only believe in what can be described in human language or proven by physical experimentation.
So we celebrate the Light of the World manifesting Himself to the WHOLE world, not merely to a chosen few. That reality is displayed by the Magi coming from nations other than Jewish. They recognize something – someone- of great importance and they believed.
Now, BELIEF is the only requirement. Although Jesus came to save the whole world (“This is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for ALL– so that sins may be forgiven.”) His disciples did not completely comprehend that until Peter baptized Cornelius and his whole household without first making them Jews.
And Paul’s whole vocation was to go to the Gentiles – the non-Jews – to bring the light to them.
So we can look back (with 20/20 hindsight) to Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Jerusalem – Jerusalem, the symbol of the heavenly city. He says, “Jerusalem, Rise up in splendor, your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds the peoples, but upon you the Lord shines.” That is from the 60th chapter of Isaiah. Which is the full bloom of the many references to the anticipated salvation and how it is to be made known.
The prophet sees gifts that will be lavished upon God’s city, brought by caravans of camels, the best only way of transport then..
Basically, there would be a superfluity of wealth. Again the physical being used to describe the spiritual. Tangible gold, symbolizing the spiritual salvation, found in a renewed relationship with God. This salvation can only be described in other worldly terms, which make not sense to the unbeliever.
What other deeper truth or mystery can be found in the story of the Magi?
The one word GIFT.
And interesting study would be how the gift differs from the giver. Where does one stop and the other begin.
Obviously, we have just left the season of gift giving. The reason that we give gifts is because of today’s gospel passage. They brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold fit for a king. Incense only offered to a deity and myrrh to foretell his death and to be used on his own dead body.
When we love, when we appreciate, or when we wish to repay, we give gifts. When we look below the surface we see that a physical gift is primarily a symbol of giving of self. “I wish that I could give you myself but I can’t, so I give you a token of me.” There are signs and symbols – and we all use them and need them. The Eucharist overflows with symbols.
When you come to Oceanside, you see a sign that spells O-c-e-a-n-s-i-d-e. The sign in not Oceanside but merely and indication that you are entering a geographic location termed Oceanside. But yesterday we had some clouds appear in the west. The clouds were a sign of rain but they also caused the rain.
The Eucharist is a such sign of God’s presence among us, becauset it also causes His presence to be made manifest.
The bread and wine are gifts from God’s providence to us. We bring those gifts of bread and wine, that God gave us, and we offer them back to God. But God doesn’t take them. He Himself enters into them on a level deeper than the physical or tangible and offers them (Himself) back to us
That is where the gift IS the giver. And He is asking us to give ourselves back to him on the same level – to the same degree that He has given himself to us.
But here the gift and the giver are not only blended into one, the giver and the receiver are now one.
So proper reception is as vital as proper giving and proper generosity.
How would you feel if you gave someone a gift and they refused it or misused it or discarded it? To receive generously is as important as to give generously. To receive lovingly is to encourage the giver to be even more cooperative with God’s grace to be generous.
But is there even a deeper message to gift-giving today?
Benedict XVI, our present Holy Father, gave a masterful presentation on the first day of this year on this very topic. Gift-giving and generosity.
He begins by speaking of Christ’s indescribable generosity to us in the negative. Mind you, the Holy Father’s deep concern for the whole Church must transcend national boundaries and international boundaries and even ignore them when his children are on both sides of those man-made boundaries. His message for the Day of Peace is that peace can never be realized as long as there is poverty in the world.
In a stroke of genius he introduced a Christ-centered approach to eliminating poverty in terms that can be easily understood today. He asks us to fight poverty WITH poverty. One of the evangelical counsels is poverty. That is, the freely chosen simplicity that combats the desire in everyone to possess – and even possess more than is necessary.
He says there is a poverty that Jesus made noble by the way he was born, how he lived his whole life and even how he died. Jesus, not only wished to become man but to become poor. The poverty of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, besides an object of adoration for Christians, is also a school of life for man.
So there is voluntary poverty that offers dignity and there is a forced poverty that offends God and violates justice.
The Holy Father continues, “Misery cannot be efficaciously fought, if there is no attempt to make equality, reducing the unevenness between those who waste the superfluous, and those who don’t even have the necessary.”
Our responsorial psalm (72) “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” Continues with, “For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out. He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor. The lives of the poor he shall save.”
We know that what is happening in this country (and is being felt around the world) IS a Direct result of the desire to over possess--run wild. Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves and us too.
It is caused by greed. Greed is not against the law, in fact, the law is there to protect it and the greedy.
Just as lust is not against the law. The law protects it.
Avarice is not against the law, in fact every advertisement you see or hear is meant to enflame the desire to have what others have, to covert their possessions or whatever else they flaunt.
So today we are not only acknowledging the fact that God is made manifest, made one of us, (became man, so that we could be given divinity), we are also made aware of HOW he came and HOW he lived, so that His gift to us may be transformed into our gift to him. So that our lives may be Eucharistic.
Have we seen His star at its rising and have we come to do him homage?
