Performing the Work of God during the day

A time of grace in my life, I spent as a Benedictine monk in Pecos Benedictine Monastery, Pecos, New Mexico (2005-2007). In my period of Novitiate there I learned about the Rule of St. Benedict. In Chapter 16 of the Rule, St. Benedict tried to reflect on the question: How the Work of God is to be performed during the day. In reading the Rule, each one of us first reads it as a Lectio Divina. One of the important moments in Lectio Divina is to ponder on a word or a phrase. In this particular chapter, as I spent some quiet time praying over it, I underlined the Bible verse, "Seven times a day, I have given you praise." (Psalm 119:164)In performing the work of God, the first act is to praise him. And what is praise? According to a comment on this chapter, "Praise is the joyful overflow of a heart filled with gratitude and delight." Psalm 119 and the spirit of praise in it recalls us to our center, who is God Himself and His Kingdom within. The number seven is a sacred number which in jewish mind is perfection or completion. As Benedictine monks we take time to pray seven times a day and we are aware that in our recollection and singing of the psalms it is our common act of embodying both the perfection of our persons and the glory of God. In our worship of God together and with those who join us we witness how mighty and how loving is the God who was and is and will be. At the end of the Lectio Divina on this, I wrote my Prayer/Response and I gladly share it with you:

A joyful song stirs
from within my heart's portals
sounding forth
bursting of awe
wordless echoes
tearless cries
brightness of lights
of my soul's awakening
from a slumber
and fatigue of yesterday's
bleak, stormy, restless nights.
So this morning
I sing my song of praise
to you my Lord
and I delight
in giving thanks
for this new beginning,
so peaceful in its unfolding
so gentle in its embraces
so calm in its assurances
of your never exhausting love!
My soul praises you
Mighty fortress in my weakness
Flowing river of my dryness
Solid rock of my defences
Full moon of my quietness
Golden valley of my playfulness
White mountain of my emptiness
Oh Holy Presence of my world,
blessing, sanctifying this moment
at day's beginning
all praise to you now and forever!

- B. Sagra

Tribute to Crystal - Patricia Jepsen (Chuse)

A Personal Tribute to Crystal

Sometime in July 2007 I was in Pecos Benedictine Monastery, preparing to go to Ghana, Africa for a mission assignment. I received a group of visitors one afternoon, Crystal, Elizabeth Hunt, Ann Carpenter and Fr. Joseph, a visiting priest from Ghana with them. They saw my name and my Ghana destination posted in a bulletin board of the local grocery store in town and they all decided to come and visit me. During that first meeting with Crystal, she said that while waiting for me to appear in the visiting room of the monastery she was browsing over the Retreat Schedule and took another notice of my name there. At that time I was scheduled to give a retreat on Ways of Contemplation according to classic and modern mystics. She said she was struck by that and expressed her interest to pursue further discussion with me on a personal level about my teaching on that topic. Then came the invitation to join them for dinner at the Mother's Sanctuary School in Glorieta, New Mexico. During that dinner we came to know more about each other and shared some more notes on the Higher Christ's Consciousness, focusing on the mystical traditions. After that, I received a call from her that she is going to visit me at the monastery to talk over something just between the two of us. I agreed and we found ourselves sharing deep and highly profound spiritual things as we took a walk by the Pecos River along walking pathway at the back of the monastery. That walk with Crystal by the river was a "Kyros" - a God moment for both of us. Only during this recent transition of Crystal to the much Higher Realms of the planetary dimension of the University that I am beginning to understand the significance of the holy conversation we had during that summer afternoon. Of all questions, she asked me about the mysticism of pain and suffering. I responded from my own spiritual background as Filipino missionary, Benedictine monk and a member of an ecumenical movement called Focolare Movement. The first thing I said to her was about the Dark Night of the Soul theology of St. John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite reformer & mystic. I told her that at one point in his poem on pain and suffering, St. John of the Cross exclaimed about the night which is not night at all but has been transformed into light, "Oh (night's) darkness which is not dark (but light!)" I also told her that each soul who seeks God has to pass through a "thicket of suffering" according to St. John of the Cross as part of the purification of the senses in order to be worthy of the "nothingness" required in meeting God face to face. Then I told her about the theology of Chiara Lubich, the Foundress of the Focolare Movement on Jesus Forsaken and the comment made by Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical for the New Millenium. I explained to her that one of the last seven words of Jesus just before he died on the cross was, "My God, my God, why have you forsakened me?"(Matthew 27:46) Chiara Lubich had a powerful experience of spiritually espousing Jesus Forsaken and dedicating her whole life towards living and loving only Jesus, who died and rose again. In view of that theology Blessed Pope John Paul II commented that the cry of Jesus, was both a human experience of total abandonment and a divine experience of total surrender. At that very moment when Jesus cried out, "My God, my God why have you forsakened me?", according to Blessed Pope John Paul II, he experienced the deepest human anguish and fear in the midst of a great suffering. At the same time, it was also a humble cry of total surrender of one's whole being to God. In other words, Jesus felt totally abandoned, yet also totally abandoning himself to God out of the last beat of total prayerful surrender to God of his heart. I told Crystal that this is always the case and experience of every pure human experience of pain and suffering. Each one has to go through the "fire" of suffering in order to be a genuine "gold" for God. I also told her that the way to experience suffering and let it become one's very way to see God is through a total surrender of oneself and everything to God. During the series of meditation teachings and classes which followed and I joined with the core group of the university from Glorieta, New Mexico and when it was relocated for a short time in Mt. Shasta, California, there were times when Crystal will point us back to that conversation I had with her by the Pecos river. Tonight, as I write this, my Inner Voice is telling me that all the way then, Crystal knew was she was about to plunge into during the final days of her life just before her transition, a real intense, quiet and totally surrendered pain and suffering. When Ann Carpenter, Crystal's nurse and companion at the university house in Kanab,Utah, told me over the phone that Crystal has been diagnosed with a cancer, I was not at all surprised. I know that a golden soul like Crystal is meant to go that way just before the "final curtain" is lowered down for her stint here with us to come to a swift close. The last time I saw Crystal was just moments before she and Ann Carpenter traveled to Kanab, Utah. I saw her sitting on a chair outside the house she rented for one year in Mt. Shasta, California. I saw her face so bright, but deep in her eyes I also saw her greatest anguish and pain. I know now, that during that last moments of Crystal, she has only one song, a song of total surrender to the next plan of God for her life. As I recalled these events and experience of Crystal as my personal tribute to her and the Universityof Melchizedek for the grace of being them all the way from Glorieta, New Mexico until their last day in Mt. Shasta, California, I cannot help but also sing my new song of praise and thanksgiving to God for earning the trust, love and care of Crystal for my soul during her last moments as Teacher and Guiding "star" for the University. Tonight, I know Crystal's star is eternally fixed and I can only glance and believe she is still very much present with us as we continue to spread the teachings of the University of Melchizedek, especially through her classic books, The God Self and Living the God Self manuscripts and making it more available and more understandable to those who seek the truth it brings and the transformation in one's life it can accomplish. My personal thanks to the Board of Directors and to Susan Hunt, Elizabeth Hun and David Chuse for taking this initiative to write a Tribute to Crystal. I hope to see and read more tribute on Crystal by those whose lives were touched and transformed by her. Then we can collate it to a book form for the continued teachings of the University. This Personal Tribute to Crystal is humbly and gratefully written and marked with the Seal of the University of Melchizedek.

 - B. Sagra

Just Changing House of Faith

Over the past two weeks
I have changed house of faith
but still remained
in the same faith neighborhood
among fellow christians,
followers of the Son of Man,
The Word made flesh,
The resurrection and the life,
Jesus Our Lord and Savior.
When I wrote about this online
someone asked, "Why do you leave
the church of our forefathers?"
My reply to that is,
I did not leave the church
nor the faith of our forefathers,
I just changed my house of faith
but I still live
in the same neighborhood of faith.
During my last interview,
before my reception
to the Episcopal Church,
I was asked how do I feel
and how do I reflect on this
change of major significance
in my present life.
I said, for me, it is not
a feeling that I have left behind
something or I feel sad about it.
It is a feeling of seeing
a new widening horizon
in my personal journey of faith
as a christian believer.
I feel the joy of sharing
the gift of my life and faith
to this new family I belong now
and of gaining more insight
and more vision into what it means
to live according to the footsteps
of Jesus Christ in our time today.
The call to christian discipleship
is an ongoing lifetime call.
Life any life's journey or adventure
there are lots of changes and surprises,
some very simple but others remain a mystery
in all their complicated twists and turns
of events and decisions,
of possibilities and ventures of faith.
I rest at peace with this thought,
God our Father, in Jesus Christ His Son
and in the power of the Holy Spirit
is not yet through with the work
He has begun in my life
and I humbly bow my head
and say, "Thy will, not mine,
be done, O Lord, today and always!"

The Art of Listening

In the art of listening
Love is the best ear
of the heart.
In the midst and distraction
of the noise around us
and the noise within us
how can we both listen
with the ears of love
in our hearts?
Listening is an art
of hearing
not just the words
in the voice
but the silent voice
in the words!
We can only understand
when we take time to listen
without self induced
prejudice, pride or
preoccupation of other things.
Listening is an art
of being singlehearted,
mindly focused
and soully attuned
to the cry for care
and loving attention
from the one we listen to.
Marriage is the best field
and friendship too
for the practice
of the art of listening.
Here is a hypothetical question
written in a poster
authored by God,
"If you cannot understand
my silence,
how can you understand
my words?"
In talking to each other
we need spaces between our words
to allow the other to listen
the meaning behind each uttered word
and in the silence that follows still
the hearer can understand
the roots and causes
why such word is said.
A spoken word
is a multifaceted symbol
of a satellite of realities
in one's soul within
and one's life outside.
I can only master
the art of listening
when in my own life
I create spaces of silence
to listen and pray
and hear God's voice
"You are my beloved...
Don't be afraid...
I am with you always...
Today, you will be with me
in paradise!"

Choices

This very moment
I can make
the art of a good choice
I choose to be
what God destined me to be
I choose to deny self
take up my cross
and follow the footsteps
of Him
who went around
doing good
resisting evil
by the power of God's Word
having no place to call a home
He found a dwelling place
in the hearts of those
who believe He is the Son of God.
His word is gentle
and His heart is singled, focused
only in doing the Father's will.
He learned loveand respect of women
from Mary who gave birth to Him
in a manger and reared Him up
in purity and meekness as her son.
When His moment has come
to offer Himself as atonement for our sins
He willingly drank the cup
of suffering.
He was counted as a criminal
mocked and spitted on the face
nailed to the cross and died
so that the sins of many will be taken away
including yours and mine.
Oh my soul
what are you waiting for?
Can you bear the sight of Him
who is God - Love Eternal
in the greatest agony
and self giving and still be cold
to make your own self offering
for others?
My hands are numbed
my heart is still
and my soul at peace now.
I have made my choice
to love only Jesus Forsaken
and be the love he gave
especially for my wife and family
and for those He will call me to love and serve.

Sources of Joy and Strength

Do you know where to find
real sources of joy
and strength in life?
Have a drink
of a good cup of coffee
or tea
or talk a little walk
with your dog
why not take a bike ride
or simply sit on a meadow
life is not really for runners
but it is for those
who care to slow down
and read something worthwhile
to redirect the mind
to what is true, noble
and beautiful
prayer is a balm
for a tired and wounded spirit
eases everything
the art of breathing
normally, just being alive
and aware with poignant
unnotices life's moments
why not celebrate
the love in your heart
and be worthy of it
in its truest sense
love is the mystery
that keeps being unraveled
by simply loving
and being loved.

Rest awhile

"Let's go off by ourselves
to a quiet place and rest awhile" (Mark 6:31)

When the body does not want
anymore what to do next
due to too much fatigue
... rest awhile

When the emotions are so intense
and almost come to breaking
into paralyzing despair
... rest awhile

When the soul is perplexed
and ridden with fears
of unknown future things
... rest awhile

When the world is shocked
and shakened by wars
and humanity is bereft of peace
... rest awhile

When one's heart is weary
and gets the pangs of sorrow
for being so far from the beloved
... rest awhile

When one's faith is tested
almost to the limits
of human endurance to uphold truth
... rest awhile

When one's hand is tempted
to take another work load
in the busy world of doing
... rest awhile

When the journey of life
becomes too hot as in summer
and the goal is still beyond reach
... rest awhile