Sunday 31 January 2016

Humble Cake


Random monastic fact of the week: on Saturday nights, we have dessert with supper, as supper occurs after First Vespers of Sunday and is therefore considered part of the weekly feast of Christ’s resurrection. 
Christ is risen; what better reason to eat cake?


So, as I was cook last Saturday, I set out to bake a cake. Not a difficult recipe—in fact, one that I last baked in middle school. But the 9x3” springform pan that the recipe specified was apparently no match for the magma-like force of my meringue-topped chocolate hazelnut cake batter, and my beautiful cake looked more like Mount St. Helens circa 1980 than anything Martha Stewart ever cooked.


But then it got worse. My bread, which I’d started fermenting two days prior, decided to deflate completely the moment shaped loaf met oven steam. My Pain de Campagne Honfleur turned out more like Pain de Pancake.

The capper on my cooking shambles came when my chicken stock, which I’d started in the morning with fresh bones etc., turned out not like the base for a rib-sticking, nose-dripping, delectable January stew—but like jello. That’s right: Chicken Jello.

As I was tottering around the kitchen with a long face and my misshapen cake, I ran into an unsuspecting sister—and proceeded to add “breaking silence” to my list of fails.

“Sister!” I said. “My cake…exploded!

She laughed, and said, “Well, we must all start somewhere. It is a beginning!” She paused. “But you are not a beginner baker. What happened?

I mumbled something about loaf pans, and inches, and magma. But then—thank-you, Holy Spirit—a realization began to dawn on me

“Maybe I need to be more humble,” I said. “Maybe God is actually helping me. This is humble cake.

“Ah, humility” she said. “In the monastery, that is a beginning!

I was thinking about what she said, and remembered a story from Benedicta Ward’s translation of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which the novitiate is reading in our monastic history class. The story is about one of the earlier events in the life of Abba John the Dwarf, who was born about 339 in Egypt. The story takes place when John is young and still living at home, before he moved to the cells at Scetis:

It was said of Abba John the Dwarf, that one day he said to his elder brothers 'I should like to be free of all care, like the angels, who do not work, but ceaselessly offer worship to God.' So he took off his cloak and went away into the desert.

After a week he came back to his brother. When he knocked on the door, he heard his brother say, before he opened it, 'Who are you?

'He said, 'I am John, your brother.

'But he replied, 'John has become an angel, and henceforth he is no longer among men.'

Then the other begged him saying, 'It is I.' However, his brother did not let him in, but left him there in distress until morning.

Then, opening the door, he said to him, 'You are a man and you must once again work in order to eat.'

Then John made a prostration before him, saying, 'Forgive me.'


The first food that John’s brother served him, after returning home, was not figs or grain—it was big dish of humble pie. John learned from that experience, and went on to become a respected spiritual elder, an Abba, of whom another Abba would ask, “Who is this John, who by his humility has all Scetis hanging from his little finger?” and who, even in his old age, said “I have not yet made a beginning.”

Looking at Abba John and the lives of the other Desert Fathers and Mothers, I have yet to even begin to make a beginning. But in the end, everyone left the refectory that Saturday with full bellies and clean plates—like Martha of Bethany, I’d been “worried and upset about many things”, and forgotten that none of them were the “one thing” necessary.

And my humble cake? With the help of one of my sisters, we’ve developed a new favourite pâtisserie—Mercy Trifle à la Monastère.

-- Bronwyn

Sunday 24 January 2016

We Shall Overcome

I have a song that I would like to share with you -- one that I've been singing softly in my heart as a little prayer during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18 - 25).  Here are the first couple of lines:

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday . . .

The determination and hope expressed in this beautiful African - American gospel song seems so apropos in light of the overarching purpose of this important annual observance.  Throughout this week, we are invited to not only celebrate our diversity as Christians, but also to be mindful of Christ's call for the unity of his church by praying and working toward this.  It's about deepening our commitment to overcome divisions.  Not just for a few days each year, but always!

This year's theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is: Called to proclaim the mighty acts of God, inspired by 1 Peter 2:9.  A variety of resources for distribution to Christian communities throughout the world have been prepared by an ecumenical team in Latvia, representing various churches and religious organizations, in conjunction with the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

In addition, another excellent resource for personal reflection and group discussion is  A Church in Dialogue: Catholic Ecumenical Commitment, which was published in 2015 by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), through its Episcopal Commission for Christian Unity, Religious Relations with the Jews and Interfaith Dialogue.

. . . Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall over come someday.


-- Sister Elizabeth Marie


Saturday 16 January 2016

Polar Bear Swim for the Baptism of the Lord

Last Sunday, we decided to borrow a custom from our Eastern brethren and inaugurate a new tradition here at Queen of Peacecelebrating the Baptism of Christ by going for a polar bear swim in the glacier-fed waters of Pilchuk Creek! 

Bundled in wool and lugging firewood for a post-swim bonfire,  Bronwyn, Sister Elizabeth Marie and Sister Dominic Maria set out for the icy waters. Aided by mutual encouragement (and maybe a little constructive peer pressure), all three took the plunge!

We admitted that Canada, and the Pilchuk, might be a bit colder than Bethany beyond the Jordan—but much fun was had by all!

Saturday 9 January 2016

Celebrating the Incarnation: A Preaching in Poetic Free-Verse


While gentle silence enveloped all things . . .
your all-powerful Word leapt from heaven,
from the royal throne.

Tonight
amid the fertile and forgotten edges of the story
in a cave, hidden
not in the hills but in the heart
we shall make room
for Love
 and savour the expanse

Putting aside all peregrinations
of mind and memory
we are, indeed, profoundly earthed pilgrims
who walk to a different rhythm
the pulse of mercy
serene labyrinthine-like cadence
surrounding us
with the courage that opens itself
to Light

Yes, tonight
enfolded in dazzling pre-dawn darkness
we shall stand
and feel the possibility anew
in the radical rupture of her “yes”

Now I am revealing new things to you
Things hidden and unknown to you
Created just now, this very moment.
Of these things you have heard nothing until now.
So that you cannot say, Oh yes, I knew this.

Listen!
Do you hear what I hear?
The one and only Eternal Word
startling
all sound into a slower stillness?
In Your Name
the colours of mystery
dance
a radiant procession
flashing forth Your holy longing
in us, through us, with us

Here comes from afar
the Name of the Lord
now, so near
an unstoppable flow
of grace upon grace
receiving, releasing, resting
only grant us to sing the emptiness You embraced

Beyond untrammeled margins
of river, raven, and valley
reside secret contours in eternal annunciation
womb touching womb
Elizabeth and Mary showing us
a timeless way of tradere
tenderness, compassion, and discretion
a tranquil vulnerability
that seeks to shelter all that is small

Within
this sacred space
between joyous leap and gentle blessing
do we not feel
in the playful resonance
an endless impress
the effects of our redemption?
Now I am revealing new things to you
Things hidden and unknown to you
Created just now, this very moment.

Yes, in this
kingdom-bliss
unseen
we reverb His fullness
ours is a lyrical lingering within the universe
like a reed that is blown
in soft accompaniment
to the metaphysical melodies of the troubadour
in hearing, violence is hushed
a quiet cradle song awakening us
in Your princely peace

O, come
be our Warmth, our Shelter
in this refugee night
breathe within us, a welcoming Fire
a magnificent stretch
holding taut
the untouched space
between silence and stillness
shining into the searing synthesis
of all hunger and ache
primordial and personal
 rocking each exiled phrase of expectation
into a new song
unending

Dear, dear dreamers
arise
shake the stars from your eyes
and tonight dwell with the nuance
for the narrative continues with the dawn
disrupting us, displacing us
as we take flight into a fresh land
of good news
in the grieved immediacy
of the present moment
where all is re-created
at once, in an instant
in a Word . . .

And the Word was made flesh;
he had his tent pitched among us,
and we have seen his Glory,
the Glory of the only Son
coming from the Father:
fullness of truth and loving-kindness
From his fullness we have all received
favour upon favour.


A sermon given by Sister Elizabeth
on the occasion of the Solemn Joyous Chapter of Christmas Eve, 2015
Queen of Peace Monastery 
British Columbia, Canada



Sunday 3 January 2016

Welcome


Happy feast of the Epiphany, and a very merry welcome to “Like the Cedars”—the blog of the novitiate at Queen of Peace Monastery in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.


If you look at our sidebar and links, you can find out more about our monastery, other nuns of the Order of Preachers and our Dominican family as a whole (plus, the 800th Jubilee of our Order!). Our goal for this blog is for our families and friends to keep up with how we are (yes, the nuns do feed us), to share some of the fruits of our contemplation and perhaps even to let young discerning women catch a glimpse of what it might mean to be “free for God alone” in the heart of the Order of Preachers and in the midst of  the Canadian wilderness.


First things first, though—why did we decide to call this blog “Like the Cedars”?


We were inspired by Psalm 92, which reads:

            The righteous will flourish like palm trees;
                        They will grow like the cedars of Lebanon
            They are like trees planted in the house of the Lord,
                        that flourish in the Temple of our God,
                        that still bear fruit in old age
and are always green and strong.

Novitiate—and the whole of life, really—is a school of charity, where we learn to grow in love of God, love of neighbour and even love of self as a person made and infinitely loved by God (that means you!). Planted in “the house of the Lord”, we hope to grow straight and true like the cedars of Lebanon—or, more aptly, like the giant Pacific red cedars which  flourish all along the northwest coast of Canada and America.


That leads to a second reason for our name. One day, in our monastic history class, we were talking about the Desert Father St. Anthony the Great. Pestered by some rather pompous philosophers, who inquired as to how St. Anthony coped without access to a library full of books, he replied, “My book, philosopher, is nature, and thus I can read God’s language at will.” Well, thank God that we have access to both books and trees! But as St. Bernard of Clairvaux says, “Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.” Living where we do, living the way we do, we see more trees in a day than we see people in a decade. In Laudato Si (paragraph 84), Pope Francis writes: “Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God.”


In that way, the Squamish valley cedars are part of our community—or we, part of theirs, as we walk among them, learn from them and seek refuge in their shade.


Finally, our monastery is gratefully located on the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation (Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw). The cedar tree played an integral role in traditional Coast Salish art and culture, and that is something we wish to honour.


Today is the feast of the Epiphany—the day when, after following a star, three wise kings entered Bethlehem to find Christ and his family. In traditional Christian iconography, St. Dominic is often depicted with a star above his forehead, and the people who knew him said that a radiant light shone about his face.


Here at Queen of Peace, when we look the North Star shining overhead after Compline, or the single morning star still lingering after Matins and Lauds, we are daily reminded to continue following and seeking the Light, just as our brother Dominic and the three wise kings did so long ago.