In a conference titled “What Formation Do We Need” given to the ‘Congress of Benedictine Abbots’, D. Mauro Giuseppe Lepori emphasizes that “being a monk and being a disciple are identities that coincide” (September 13, 2024). He says that when this relation doesn’t happen, “the result is a sad sterility.” ‘Always disciples’, a phrase he uses, goes hand in hand with the monastic vocation…Being a monk and being a disciple are not separate. Lepori goes further and says that “to form and be formed are the same thing.” How true this is for we cannot form unless we are formed…This experiential reality of being shaped and formed by the grace of God is endless. We are always in need of self-knowledge, of conversion of heart and mind. ‘Always a disciple’ means Christ is at the center; he goes ahead of us shining the light of the gospel each step of the way…and we disciples must be open to daily conversion to the ways of God.
In the gospel of this Sunday (Mk 10:17-30) Jesus has an encounter with a young man who runs up to him and asks a seminal question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life”? This is a fertile question; within such a living question is the answer. Jesus says essentially ‘renounce’, ‘sell what you have’ and follow me. And the young man could not do it…there were too many other things pulling at his heart and mind and he could not let them go. Jesus follows this encounter with a teaching to his disciples and to us: “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God”. He is speaking of the ’cost’ of discipleship. Wealth does not necessarily mean money; it can mean all those things that we give priority to over living from the core center of the gospel. Jesus then gives the image of it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than one who is rich, who has many things to divert them, to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples are astonished and ask who then can be saved? We too waver as disciples…There are many things diverting us day by day and so it is not easy to stay focused on our vocation, on the demands of the gospel.
Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar comments that the reading from Hebrews (4:12-13) “describes how God’s Word penetrates and judges our innermost attitudes, the attitudes that are most hidden from the world…. We cannot of our own accord ultimately penetrate our attitudes; but God’s Word sees everything lying ‘bare and exposed’ before it. We are accountable only to the Word, for only through the Word can we gain insight into ourselves” (p.244). Only through the Divine Word can we gain insight into ourselves. Do we invite the Word of God to penetrate and to reveal our attitudes at any given moment? What a movement of faith and humility this is as we open ourselves to the Divine Word of love. Seeing our innermost attitudes through the Divine lens is an experience of conversion, of change, of living our monastic vocation, of being a disciple, of openness to being taught by Christ.
What must I do to inherit eternal life? This is the living question for all of us. We stand in paradox: there are our many words filled with defenses, explanations, criticisms, reactions of all kinds, and still there is the silent word of God shining light, calling us forth into a fuller truth and love. Always a disciple: ready to be formed anew each day by the Word of love and truth. The choice is before us: to choose life is to renounce all that pulls us away from our vocation, and to allow the Divine Word to renew us inside and out.
Sr. Kathy DeVico, Abbess
Chapter Talk – 28th Sunday of the Year – October 13, 2024, cycle-B
