A Love Letter to the People of St. Paul’s Cathedral

                                                                        “It takes a village to raise a nun.”

                                                                                         Dean Penny Bridges

Last week at St. Paul’s Cathedral during Holy Eucharist I made my first monastic profession as a solitary Benedictine nun.  All were present:  you who were able to attend Holy Eucharist last Saturday, and you who were unable to attend; the Communion of Saints, those who came before us at St. Paul’s, and those who will come after us.  

I am very aware that this is our celebration — you have played a foundational part in raising a nun!  Our lives are forever interwoven, and for that I am filled with gratitude to God and to you.  

After signing the Act of Profession and being clothed with the veil, upon returning to the pew after the Peace, I felt powerfully washing over my whole being a commissioning from God to serve each of you.  

I am your servant, O Lord,

teach me to do your will.

Together we will see the unfolding of the use of the Little Monastery of the Way (my former home, which has become a monastery).  Individuals may come for the deep peace there.  Small groups may come for a Quiet Day or a conference.  A weekly Holy Eucharist will eventually be offered on a regular basis.  The monastic library is available.  God surely has more surprises in store!

Bishop Mathes, to whom I am in obedience as a solitary nun, is sending me forth now to spend more time with Religious Orders.  This month I will be with the Order of the Holy Cross at Mt. Calvary Monastery in Santa Barbara for a week for Holy Cross Day, then on retreat at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur for four days.  In October I hope to spend time with a Cistercian community, and in November with the Community of the Holy Spirit to learn Gregorian chant, and at the motherhouse of the Order of the Holy Cross in West Park, NY, as well as with another Cistercian community.  I will bring all that I learn back to you!

With love, gratitude, and joy from your sister in Christ,

Sister Karla Maria

(Photos from the Aug. 29th Holy Eucharist will be posted on the cathedral flickr page as they become available.)

24 Hours in Convocation: A postulant's story

24 Hours in Convocation with the Companions of St. Luke, a Dispersed Benedictine Community within The Episcopal Church

Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ - John 6:29 

It is just about 8:15pm. Compline has been sung and the Community processes out of the Oratory in silence. A single candle is left burning next to the Tabernacle in silent witness to the presence of Christ in a darkened and otherwise empty space.

Some gather for fellowship in conversation while others retire to their rooms for study or meditation. A deep quiet begins to settle around the community as the evening wears on toward 10:30 when observance of the Greater Silence begins and voices are stilled, for St. Benedict has instructed that “…after going out from Complin, let there be no more permission from that time on for anyone to say anything.”

“I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep;
 For only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” - Psalm 4:8  

Dawn arrives and I am wakened by birdsong, as I am every morning this week. Brothers and Sisters begin to stir and prepare themselves for the day’s work of prayer and study.

I leave my room and join the black-clothed figures walking past lush lawns beneath fully-leafed trees, shockingly green to the eyes of a Southern Californian, and enter a red brick building. It is 7am and the Community is gathered in silence outside the refectory until the Abbot silently bids us enter to break our fast. We eat in silence, alone, or by twos or threes or sometimes more, and prepare ourselves to begin another day of the holy work of prayer.

It is 7:45am, breakfast is done, and the Community waits just outside the Oratory until, prodded by a motion from the Abbot, we enter in an order set by seniority of time in the community: eldest to most junior, the most junior holding the door for the more senior. We are seated in silent reverence for a moment until, with a single tap of his ring on his wooden chair, the Abbot bids us stand, for St. Benedict has instructed that “…the sign having been given by the Superior, let all rise together.” And so, the Greater Silence is broken as with one voice when the Community speaks the opening phrases of Matins (Morning Prayer):

“Lord open our lips. And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.”

After the final Collect, we process out of the Oratory in silence, again eldest to most junior, to allow the sacristans, acolyte, priest, and choristers to prepare for the daily Holy Eucharist. It is 9:00am and the Community assembles in the Oratory for the celebration of sung Holy Eucharist, in a liturgy familiar to all of us from our typical Sunday services. We begin:

“Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.”

The peace is passed – a swirling mass of people intent on greeting each and every person present at the service. Holy food and drink is blessed and shared. The Eucharist is ended and we are instructed, as always, to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” We depart, this time in no particular order, to spend the better part of the next two hours in prayer, study and meditation, as each of us is called or required.

It is Noon and we are again gathered outside the refectory for a meal. The food is blessed by one of the Sisters or Brothers and we wait until the Abbot bids us enter. Unlike breakfast, the mid-day meal is full of conversation and the Brothers and Sisters of the Community are seated at full tables.

It is 1:00pm, lunch is over, and the Community assembles and processes into the Oratory, in order, to sing Diurnum (Noon Prayer). This is a short service – perhaps only 10 minutes in keeping with St. Benedict’s instruction that “…prayer ought to be short and pure, unless, perhaps it is lengthened by the inspiration of divine grace. At the community exercises, however, let the prayer always be short…”

It is just about 1:15pm and we disperse for the better part of the next three hours to rooms, gardens, benches, and footpaths for rest, study, prayer, meditation, and quiet time as we are called or required. Geese can be heard at the lake and some of us are pulled to its banks.

It is 4:00pm and once again the Community meets at the Oratory. It is the time of Vespers (Evening Prayer) when we sing of our love for God and our gratitude for his mercies and blessings of the day now drawing to a close:

“Now as we come to the setting of the sun, and our eyes behold the vesper light, we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

And

“Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.”

Vespers is one of the two longer Offices and we are at our work for perhaps half an hour, as we were at Matins. It is 5:00pm and time for dinner. We assemble in our accustomed fashion and enter the refectory when the Abbot instructs us, after the food is blessed by a Sister or Brother. We sit at full tables enjoying the company of our Brothers and Sister. On a special occasion there may be wine with dinner.

It is later in the week set aside for Convocation and it is a special night, for we are welcoming our new Bishop Visitor and thanking our out-going Abbot as he resumes his place as an ordinary Brother in the Community. So, tonight there is wine on the table and we raise our glasses in thanks to God and for the love of the fellows surrounding us.

The day is slowing its rhythm and we look forward to two hours of unstructured time, although many of us will spend the hours after dinner and before meeting to sing Compline in study and reflection on scripture or the day’s events. I choose silent reading and reflection in my room and marvel at my great good fortune to be at the beginning of my journey with this loving Community of men and women dedicating their lives to Christ and the love of God. God has indeed blessed me.

It is 8:00pm, and for the final time today the Community takes its place in the Oratory, this time to sing Compline, the last of the four Daily Offices of prayer, and as brief as was Diurnum. We sing the psalms and prayers with one voice and conclude with a tender, haunting hymn to the Blessed Virgin, Salve Regina.

“Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve;
To thee do we send forth our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy toward us;
And after this our exile,
Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.”

It is now just about 8:15pm. Compline has been sung and the Community leaves the Oratory in silence. A single candle is left burning next to the Tabernacle in silent witness to the presence of Christ in a darkened and otherwise empty space……

“The Lord grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. Amen."

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Harold Slatore is a Postulant in the Companions of St Luke (CSL). To learn more about CSL visit their Website, their YouTube Channel, or their Facebook Page.

St. Paul’s Cathedral offers Daily Morning Prayer (M-Sa) and Daily Evening Prayer / Evensong (Su-F). The worship schedule can be found here on the Cathedral Website or you may call the Cathedral Office at 619-298-7261.

Liturgies and Orders of Service for the Daily Offices can be found in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and online:

Daily Morning Prayer BCP Page 75 or here.
Order of Service for Noonday BCP Page 103 or here.
Daily Evening Prayer BCP Page 115 or here.
Order of Service for Compline BCP Page 127 or here.
Holy Eucharist: Rite Two BCP Page 355 or here.

Resources for praying the Offices at home:
The St. Bede’s Breviary
The Daily Office at The Mission of St. Clare

Episcopalians and the Religious Life

470 years ago, give or take a bit, Henry VIII dissolved the vast majority the monasteries, friaries, priories, and convents in England which, seemingly, brought an end to vowed Religious Life in England. One might assume, then, that the Church of England and its daughters such as the Episcopal Church would be missing monks, nuns, friars, and the like. One would be wrong.

Almost exactly 300 years after the disappearance of Religious Life in Anglican Christianity, during a period when the Catholic heritage of Anglicanism was being re-embraced, the first new religious orders for women were established in England (1841 – 1855) and for men and women in America (1842 - 1845). Anglican religious orders for men reappeared in England a few years later (1866).

Although some communities have disappeared over time and some houses within communities have appeared or disappeared, many of the original Anglican communities still exist. In fact, we seem to be in a period of revival for Anglican religious communities with the founding of new orders beginning in the late 1960s. The trend seems to be accelerating with the emergence of several new communities just in that last year or two and a growing movement of experimental communities, some recognized by the church and some not, some in the Anglican tradition and some not, which are being referred to collectively as a New Monasticism. Members of religious communities may be ordained or lay.

Some of us feel a call to a deeper relationship with God in Christ but don’t feel called particularly to ordination. For (some) people like us, Religious Life represents the fulfillment of that call. And, wonderfully, that’s available within The Episcopal Church.

Harold L. Slatore Is a postulant in the Brotherhood of St. Gregory, a Christian Community of The Episcopal Church.

A Benedictine Retreat

Dear Friends at St. Paul's,

I just came back from a retreat in Healdsburg, CA - a Benedictine Experience! Thought I'd tell a story about it ...

Visiting my spiritual director last year, I scampered around her bookshelves, peering at titles of tomes. A small, slender volume squeaked from the shelf, its title faded, "Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict" by Esther de Waal. Nudging it out of its hiding place, revealed a sort of cheesy 80's-style cover, but it passed the skinny-ness test.
"Not too long for my attention span, and not too heavy to lug back to San Diego!" I thought.

But more enticing were the purple and yellow highlighted passages in the book.
"Well, if she digested it - there must be something nourishing in there, and then there are Cliff's notes!" I chuckled to myself.

This book promised to shed light on another book that I had read and frankly, hadn't digested: The Rule of St. Benedict.

"Oh the Benedictines? They were before the split." my spiritual director said. Okay, I guess that meant PG-13 reading then.

So, I legitimately borrowed and lugged the book down to San Diego and read it over the next few months. Wow, the book was slender, but rich and dense - picture slice after slice of flourless dark chocolate torte. Delicious and lots of calories. It was a lesson in moderation; I had to learn to ration the intake, or suffer spiritual indigestion from snarfing too much in one go - in one end and out the other - the choice between nourishment or nada.

Listening with the ear of the heart, prayer and work, hospitality ...

What about the actual Way itself? Lucky for me, I got a call from my friend the spiritual director early this year, "There is this Benedictine Experience retreat - I think you would like it."

And so I went on this spiritual time-share - a week with a bunch of strangers seeking to live Benedictine spirituality at a retreat center called The Bishop's Ranch. As a scientist, this would be an interesting experiment indeed.

My first retreat ever, was last year and that was with a women's monastic community in Augusta, GA. That was like dropping into another world. During that retreat, I remember becoming acutely aware as the week went on and I could listen better, of the baggage and mess that I brought to the monastic liturgy. The sisters' hospitality shared their presence in space and time with the chaos that I brought. I brought myself as fully and consciously as I could. There was nothing I could do to lessen the ripples of unresolved spiritual mess that perturbed the chanting. Only God's grace could begin to heal the unresolved garbage of a lifetime for a person who had never been on a retreat to listen to God. It was a very intense experience, and meaningful, intentional, gifted silence was a door the opened for me there.

A key question for me in this Benedictine Experience retreat was, if I could intuit the effect of chaos in the monastic liturgy with a bunch of monastics, how would chaos bear out in a temporary intentional community where each one of us brought a diversity of chaos? I was like the woman who touched Jesus' cloak, looking for healing to happen, hiding in the crowd. Something would be healed, but what and how?

At times, we did fall off the trolley in the liturgy. Wow, we really did have a lot of chaos after all.

As this week went on, I began to love these strangers and their voices in a way that was beyond knowing anything about their story, their worldly accomplishments, or their ministries. I began to feel a deep gratitude for them, as they were, and their honest hard work at showing up every day to pray. And I could also begin to see and appreciate a part of me in them.

I experienced a change of heart. I started the week looking for chaos and a resolution which I had defined to be lack of chaos, as if chaos were somehow a "bad germ" and needed going away forever. I started the week thinking that the Way was about reaching a destination and then not needing to do any more work. The Holy Spirit colon cleanse was going to come through and fix everything once and for all. But as the week ended I realized that as I live, I need to continue to eat, and need to continue to be cleansed.

It's a lot of hard work to show up and be present to myself and those around me every day wherever I am. I can say that my experience of Benedictine spirituality with other seekers of God, was to experience the ordinary. And in the conscious, intentional experience of the ordinary in God, I can glimpse some of the extra-ordinary depth of meaning in God’s creation.

There’s nothing special in Benedictine spirituality, in the sense that there’s nothing apart or beyond following Jesus and living the Gospel. There's no absolute standard for how to live, who to be, or how to express piety - nothing to accomplish and be done with, and no static definition of enlightenment or perfection.

There ARE tools and examples of how to keep working hard at cultivating a life of being receptive to God's transforming action in my life.

There IS practice, discipline, and concentrated effort to bring as much of me and my messy life, in faith, to be in the Presence of God's community over and over again, where the Holy Spirit refines.

As the week came to a close, I became convinced that the time and space, whether together and apart, that we shared: in prayer, fellowship, study, meditation, silence, visioning the connection of the physical and the spiritual, chanting, singing, eating, sleeping- every aspect of life- could be a door to experience more and more the expansiveness, totality, and intimacy of God's love.

The choice is to be made over and over again, to be in relationship, to try to be receptive to the Presence and keep still instead of screaming and running away.
There is great encouragement, wisdom, and love flowing from other seekers who show up over and over again too.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you." (Luke 11:9)

There is the great Gift of Love that asks and waits for me to receive Love, as ordinary as I am, so that the extra-ordinary can be revealed to all of Creation.

Thanks be to God!

Helena Chan

That First Day

On July 1, 1958, Gresham Oregon was a small farming community of 5,000 people about twelve miles east of Portland, Oregon. That morning, at age twenty, I became a novice in the Society of St. Paul at our first Mass at St. Luke the Physician Episcopal Church in the town where the founder of our Order, Fr. Rene Bozarth, was Rector. After a simple breakfast downstairs in the parish hall, the brothers walked next door into our newly acquired nursing home that would be there after known as St. Jude’s Home.

Our founder chose St. Jude because he was the patron of incurable disease and impossible causes. Back then nursing homes were different than they are today. The first White House Conference on Aging wasn’t called until 1961 which led to licensing, and the beginning of the long term health care industry. Fortunately, Oregon was ahead of most states because it already had regulations and administrator licensing.

As we entered the home I was a bit overwhelmed with the odor, chaos and decrepit condition of the equipment. The first thing our founder, Canon Rene Bozarth, SSP, did was hang a crucifix inside the main entrance of the building for all to see. As we walked down the hallway an old man put his arm around his wife as they stood in the door way of their room. He said, “We’re going to be ok mother, the Church is here. We are going to be all right.”

I began my religious life as an orderly caring for my assigned number of chronically or terminally ill or developmentally challenged men. It was one of the most humbling and most spiritually significant experiences of my life. I can still remember the faces and names of some of those men.

Our first monastery was a simple three bedroom house a few blocks from the parish church and nursing home. The bedrooms were converted to a work room, infirmary, and guest room respectively. The small dining room was also our library. We made the double garage into a dormitory with plywood partitions dividing the space into six “cells” or little rooms with a heavy canvass curtains in the front for privacy. Each brother had a small, used army cot, straight back chair; a knotty pine chest of drawers, a writing table and a small metal wardrobe for all his worldly stuff. The garage door was sealed to keep out the rain and wind. But, anyone familiar with Western Oregon weather will know that is not easy to do in the winter. So it wasn’t unusual in the winter to occasionally step into a puddle or even an angle worm after a stormy night upon rising in one’s cell to the waking bell and prayer.

We rose in silence every morning (5:30 am) to the ringing of the Angelus, a prayer based on the Gospel of St. Luke and recited in monasteries morning, noon and at evening.

The next thing our founder did was give staff members a raise. He was a member of the Multnomah County Welfare Commission and had a passion for social justice, which was why we acquired the nursing home: to make a wrong thing right in the name of Christ. As the weeks passed, we replaced the worn out, despicable equipment and furnishings with brand new beds, mattresses, chairs and linens. It was quite a sight to see volunteers with pick up trucks hauling away junk from the back door while trucks unloaded new furnishings through the front door.

At the same time we had the opportunity to rent a small house and yard next door to the nursing home. That meant on our free time, the brothers cleaned up the yard and made it into a garden so residents could enjoy the fresh air and sunshine and views of Mt. Hood as well as a picnic now and then. By October the parish chapter of the Daughters of the King had formed a “Blue Lady” auxiliary of women and a few men who visited patients, helped them with personal needs and mostly became friends since many residents had no families or visitors. Some who lived at the home came next door to church on Sunday.

Little did I know that first day on July 1, 1958 as I sat exhausted on my bedside after Compline, I would be writing this blog more than fifty years after or have any idea the adventure God had planned for me, Barnabas and all the many brothers who became part of the Society of St. Paul.

If you would like to know more about the history of the Society of St. Paul click here.


Captions
Parish: St. Luke the Physician Episcopal Church in Gresham, Oregon was where the Society of St. Paul began on July 1, 1958. St. Jude’s Home, which no longer exists, was to the left across the driveway.
Rock: An outdoor Labyrinth Garden was dedicated in 2006 honoring the brothers and sisters of the Society of St. Paul and their ten years of ministry in Gresham. Click on image for a closer view.


The Rev Andrew Rank SSP is a Canon of the Cathedral

The Chapter and Vestry

Recently St. Paul’s People’s Warden, Carol Walsh, gave a report on the work of our Chapter, the governing body of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Ever wondered why our Cathedral board of directors is called a “Chapter” and not a “Vestry”, which is the name given such groups in most Episcopal parishes? In medieval Europe and England in particular, nearly all cathedrals were abbey churches or monastic foundations. The most well known and visited is Westminster Abbey. Another familiar place in England is Glastonbury Abbey, now a ruin. In every abbey and religious house there was a daily meeting of the monks presided over by the Abbot or Prior in which the brothers discussed their needs of the day. It always began with prayer and a reading of a chapter from the monastery Rule of Life, usually the one written by St. Benedict.

Because of the reading from the rule, the daily event came to be known as the Chapter Meeting and the group who met the Chapter of the monastery or abbey. In large Abbeys a room was set aside for the gathering and designated as the Chapter Room. In some abbeys a special room was built attached to the rest of the cathedral building and in others it was a space designated within, usually near the chapel or refectory (dining area.)

In addition to the daily meeting, there were special chapter meetings scheduled throughout the year. The Abbot could always call a chapter meeting in case of an emergency. Only monks with voting rights, usually life professed members, could attend and have a seat in the chapter room.

After the Great Reformation in England, in the Anglican Cathedrals the Abbot or Prior, often became the Dean, choral groups or Canons of the Cathedral filled the choir stalls once occupied by monks but the term Chapter persisted to identify the group elected or appointed to represent the congregation in legal and fiduciary matters and advise the dean or Bishop in the same way the monks of old advised the Abbot in the Chapters of the Abbey Cathedrals.

Most Religious Orders today who live in monastic settings, still have a daily chapter meeting which begins with prayer and a reading from their Rule of Life and a major Annual Chapter meeting at which all the members gather to conduct the business of the order, make major community decisions and elect leadership usually in context of the community’s annual retreat.

The Rev Andrew Rank SSP is a Canon of the Cathedral