An Annual Retreat and the Questions of Life

            From Sunday evening, July 29, through Friday afternoon, August 3 the community was engaged in our annual retreat. Our retreat director was Abbot Paul Mark Schwan, OCSO, (pictured below right with Sr. Aileen Bankemper, our prioress) from The Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux in Vina, California. Fr. Paul was our first Cistercian retreat director and he was a delight and blessing to our
community.

            The title of the retreat was For what have you come? and Fr. Paul focused on some of the questions in the Rule of Benedict. He began by talking about the art of the question, particularly the questions God addresses to us in our daily living of the Rule. Each talk centered around one of the questions from the Rule:

•             What does the Spirit say? (RB  Prol  2)
•             Who is it who desire life and longs to see good days? (RB Prol 15)
•             What can be sweeter to us than this voice of the Lord inviting us, dearest sisters? (RB Prol 19)
•             Lord, who shall dwell in your tent or who shall rest upon your holy mountain? (RB Prol 23)
•             Do you not know that patience of God is leading you to repentance? (RB Prol 37)
•             How could you see a speck in your sister’s eye and not have notices the plank in your own? (RB 2:15)
•             For what page or what words are there in the divinely inspired Old & New Testaments that are not a most direct norm for human life? (RB 73:3)
•             Are you hastening toward your heavenly homeland? (RB 7:3)

            In each conference Fr. Paul’s unique approach was telling a story from the Gospels that he related to each question. He was good storyteller and didn’t try to draw direct parallels to the questions and the Gospel story. It was up to each of us to explore the Gospel and relate it to the question from the Rule. Sometimes that left us with more questions. As I listened I was reminded of the quote from Rainer Maria Rilke about the great questions of  life.

            Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves . . .       Live the questions now.

           Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the

              answer.

            Fr. Paul’s closing conference, entitled When does the journey end?, explored the Christology of the Rule and illustrated the centrality of Christ in the monk’s life.

            On Friday evening we had an informal discussion with Fr. Paul beginning with a brief video on the Cistercian life at New Clairvaux. We were impressed by the work of the monks’ hands—harvesting walnuts and plums for prunes. New Clairvaux also has a thriving vineyard which produces internationally acclaimed wines. The community has recently completed a capital campaign that allowed them to use stones from an 800 year old extinct monastery in Spain, brought to the US by William Randoph Hearst, to build a new chapel. Our discussion with Fr. Paul allowed us to understand the Cistercian life and charism better as it is lived in this young, diverse monastery. We now feel a connection with the monks at New Clairvaux and will always have an interest in their well-being and an affection for their abbot.

      Sr. Deborah Harmeling, OSB