Homily, 4th Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2017

Topic: The sheep follow because they know His voice

Films like Robin Hood, Batman and Superman all reflect the universal appeal of the hero figure. All these heroes have one thing in common: they live apart from the rest of us, on the margins of society, either outside the law or with a hidden, secret identity. We like our heroes to be different from us. It is part of their attraction and it's what makes them able to function as saviors, as hero figures.

The people of Israel too had a great hero: David, the shepherd boy who slew Goliath and eventually became Israel's greatest king. Shepherds, too, were outsiders. They lived apart from other people and so were often unable to fulfil all the religious demands of Judaism. They were second-class citizens. Like our own heroes, the shepherd lived on the margins of society.

Heroes are fine for children, but there comes a time when we have to leave our heroes behind to face reality and accept responsibility for our own lives. Some would argue that images like those in today's Gospel reading should be dropped as too childish and immature. Who wants to be compared to a flock of sheep? We are individuals, with freedom and responsibility, not sheep to be care for and protected. Ultimately, it is argued, we have to grow up and reject these very passive images: we need to learn to have an adult relationship with God

Whilst there may be some truth in this, it does not do justice to the imagery Jesus uses. Jesus does indeed compare himself to a shepherd caring for sheep - but the onus in what he says is very much on the sheep. It is the sheep who have to be able to recognize the shepherd's voice. It is the sheep who have to take care not to be fooled by false shepherds, and it is they who have to decide whether or not to follow the true shepherd. Jesus says:"I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full".

There are plenty of other guides out there, plenty of other ways to follow. But these do not and cannot lead to life, only to death. The choice is ours.

The "thieves" who steal and kill and destroy come in various guises. They may be the hollow promises of our materialistic society which offer happiness through more, or better, or newer things, but leave us empty, dissatisfied and poorer. They may be the false promises behind drugs, gangs or casual sex, which offer fulfilment but merely rob us of our dignity, our relationships, our self-respect. They may be the promises of the extremist ideologies of politics, nationalism, yes and of religion which more often than not crush the individual for the sake of the group.

Jesus doesn't make empty promises. He doesn't seek to cocoon us from reality, nor seek to offer a temporary fix from the harshness of life. He doesn't try to suppress the individual for the sake of security or promise riches and wealth to get our vote. He doesn't offer pie in the sky. He offers life, life lived to the full, not an escape from life. He offers meaning and purpose in life- "rich pasture"-and incentive for improving the world we live in.

The security he offers is not based on withdrawal from the world but on the freedom experienced in knowing that he is the one we follow. Not some hero who has managed to come through the world unscathed and all-conquering, but a shepherd; someone on the margins of life, who understands pain, rejection and loss. Someone who still bears the scars and wounds of humanity's cruelty, the Good Shepherd who did lay down His life for His sheep.

The image of Christ our Shepherd need not result in a childish, immature understanding of OUR relationship with God.  Rather it challenges us to get to know God and to walk in His way. We need to learn to recognize his voice by spending time in prayer, in listening to his words in the scriptures or in a retreat or day of recollection. We need to recognize Him in the sacraments (now in the Eucharist) and in the people and events of our lives (even to recognize His presence in the tragedy and massacre of the Columbine School shooting and in the inhuman cruelty of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. And it means learning to follow him, to identify with the outcast, the marginalized and the neglected, the victims of wars and tragedies. It will mean committing ourselves, learning to "lay down our life" for others: giving our time, energy and skills in the service of others, pursuing our call to ministry, to a religious or priestly life. It means taking part in the struggle to build a better world. If we truly follow Christ the shepherd, we can have no excuse for not getting involved.

Jesus the Good Shepherd is the only One who believes totally in our capability, the only One who knows us by name, knows our talents and encourages us to pursue them in our everyday life.

Fr. Volker Futter, O.S.B.

Homily, 3rd Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2017

I would like to leave you with 3 points in this homily which I will get around to eventually.

Regina Riley tells a familiar, true story that many parents can relate to.  How, like St. Monica, she had prayed for her two sons to return to the faith.

Then one Sunday morning she got the surprise of her life.  Her two sons came in and sat across the aisle from her.  Her heart was bursting with joy and gratitude.

Then she asked her sons what brought them back to Church.  And then her younger son related this story.

One Sunday morning, while vacationing in Colorado, they were driving down a country road and it was raining cats and dogs.  And then suddenly they came upon this old man, trudging thru the rain with no umbrella, he was soaking wet.  And he walked with a noticeable limp.  Yet he kept walking on down the road.  The brothers stopped to pick him up.

It turned out that he was on his way to Sunday Mass and the Church was 3 miles down the road.  So the two brothers picked him up and drove him to the Church.  And since the rain was coming down so hard and they had nothing better to do they decided to wait for him and take him back after Mass.

Then the two brothers decided they might as well go inside rather than wait outside.

As they listened to the Sunday readings and sat thru the Eucharistic prayers and Holy Communion something happened to both of them, something moved them deeply.

They told their mother it was like coming home after a long, tiring trip.

This story is verymuch like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and meeting up with a stranger, who was Jesus.

As one commentator said: “The road to Emmaus was West of Jerusalem.  These two sad and downcast disciples were heading into the darkness of the setting sun.”  St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Of all the passions, sadness causes the most injury to the soul.”  And St. Augustine says: “They were so shattered when they saw him hanging on the tree that they forgot all about his teachings.  They did not expect him to rise.”

If we allow sadness and discouragement to take over our lives, then we are allowing the devil to play one of his biggest trump cards and bring us down.  We are heading toward the setting sun, the place of darkness. We are heading in the wrong direction.

In the Easter Vigil this year at St. Martin’s monastery in Rapid City, during the renunciations I had the people turn and face west and hold out their hands, like this, to reject Satan and all his works and all his pomps.  Satan was believed to dwell in the west in the early Church and they were even told to spit to the west. But I didn’t think that part would go over too well.

But we all need to take a strong stand against the devil and to let go of sadness and discouragement in our life.  And not be like the two disciples walking away from the community, walking away from the rising sun in the east, from the New Jerusalem.  

But on this road into the setting sun, Jesus came into their broken lives, he opened the Scriptures for them to see that suffering is a necessary part of the life of a Christian if he is to enter into eternal life.  If he is to rise from the dead with Jesus.

So Jesus spoke the sacred and living word of the Scriptures to them.  That is the first point. And that is the first part of our Sun. Eucharist Listening to the Word of God.  Then he sat down and broke bread with them and they recognized him in the breaking of the bread.  And it is very probable that he said to them: “Take and eat this is my Body.” This the second point, the Bread of Life which we receive at every Eucharist. 

Pope Francis has some very encouraging words for us this on this  Emmaus Sunday of Easter. He says:  “The road to Emmaus is our own journey of faith: The Scriptures and the Eucharist are the two indispensable elements for encountering Jesus.  We too often go to Sunday Mass with our worries, difficulties, and disappointments…Life sometimes wounds us and we go away feeling sad, on the road to Emmaus, turning our backs on Jesus and his plans.”  So we distance ourselves from God and from our fellow Christians. But Jesus came into their broken lives and shared his Sacred Word and then he broke bread with them. Jesus changed their sadness and distress into joy.

And then the two of them quickly and joyfully returned to the community of believers in Jerusalem which was also rejoicing because Jesus had appeared to Peter. And this is the 3rd point.  Coming together as a community of believers every Sunday to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and to share our joy.  

So every Sunday we come together as a community to support one another, to listen to the Word of God spoken to us in the readings. And then we come forward to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We all should be like the two disciples in the Gospel today.  We should leave this table of the Lord rejoicing and return home ready to spread the good news to all we meet, more by example than by words.

Like the old man limping along the road to Church getting soaked in the pouring rain. He said nothing but he really brought those two young men back to Church.  And so can we.

Fr. Thomas Hillenbrand, OSB

Homily, 2nd Sunday of Easter - April 23, 2017

Homily 2nd Sunday of Easter A Schuyler Christ the King Priory2017
Joh 20:19-31   Acts 2:42-47   1 Pet 1:3-9

Focus: The Risen Christ is our Lord and God.

Function: The Easter Season is meant to help us believe in the resurrection.

Dear Sisters and brothers in the Lord,

We have celebrated Easter; and the feast continues for fifty days.  On Easter Sunday after the vigil I was energized and full of joy:  the light of the Easter candle was multiplied and St. Benedict Center’s chapel beautifully illuminated by many little lights that we had put around the Easter candle after the Exsultet; then the many Alleluias, and all the other symbols and rites.

Everyday life with its ups and downs goes on after Easter Sunday.  The purpose of the Easter Season, of us celebrating 50 days of Easter, is to train our eyes so they learn to see the new reality of the Resurrection more and more in our own lives and in our world.

In both the gospels of Easter Sunday and of today the Resurrection Event is surrounded by contrasts:  a sense of great loss and of fear and great joy; doubt and belief.

Today’s gospel begins by pointing out that the disciples were gathered behind locked doors “for fear.”  Jesus’ death had driven them into hiding.  Then the Risen One stands in their midst and suddenly, as they see Him, they are full of joy.

What caused their Easter joy?  Certainly Jesus’ presence, Jesus’ being alive.  And then also Jesus’ message.  He speaks words of peace and forgiveness.

Peace (Greek eirene) here doesn’t mean only the absence of war;  Behind it stands the Hebrew concept of shalom, which means universal well-being and wholeness.

A prerequisite of this shalom’s full reception is the forgiveness of sins: for the disciples to receive forgiveness from God and for them to extend forgiveness to other people.  Peace and forgiveness together open up the spaciousness of salvation,  shattering the confines of locked doors and doubt.

Thomas, who was absent during this first encounter with the risen Lord, does not believe the witness of the other disciples.  Like us, he wants tangible evidence.  Rather than touching Jesus, however, Thomas only utters a profound profession of faith.  His encounter with the risen Lord replaces the need for tangible evidence and opens up the space for faith, for salvation.  Thomas experienced the peace and the forgiveness that Jesus offers!

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, The Risen Christ is our Lord and God.  The Easter Season is meant to help us believe in the resurrection.  We also can experience His presence and in some quite concrete way see him and touch him.  Today’s first reading tells us how.  It describes various elements of the life of the early Christian community.

One of them is the Eucharist, the “breaking of the bread,”  In the Eucharist Jesus shows us his hands; and his side.  We commemorate his passion and death.  At the Eucharist, he bestows the Holy Spirit upon us.  In the Epiclesis, we call down the Holy Spirit upon bread and wine.  Here we touch Him.  After the consecration, we eat him into ourselves, so that he can transform us, so that our hearts become more and more like his.

Then there is the teaching of the apostles.  During the Easter Season, the Lectionary presents us with sections from all parts of the Acts of the Apostles;  We hear how, in spite of rejection and persecution, the message about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus spreads over the whole world known at this time. The teaching of the apostles came so evidently from God!  Humans were not able to destroy it.

Finally, there is the communal life.  We encounter the Risen Christ in each other.  Our ability to forgive a person who has hurt us is a gift of the Risen One; we receive it if we ask him for it.  Our ability to share our possessions with those who are in need—according to the example of the early Christians in Jerusalem—is a gift of the Risen Lord, too, and evidence of His presence within us and around us.

Certainly, it would be nice to trade places with Thomas and to share in this first, overwhelming experience of Christ’s resurrection.  If we, however, in a prayerful attitude, see and hear, note and perceive, especially during the next six weeks, we will get in touch ever more fully with this new reality; indeed, we, too, will encounter and touch the Risen One.

Amen.  Shalom!

Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Homily at the Easter Vigil, Sunday April 16, 2017

Homily for the Easter Vigil 2017 at Christ the King Priory/St. Benedict Center

Vigil readings: Gn 1:–2:2 • Gn 22:1–18 • Ex 14:15–15:1 • Is 54:5–14 • Is 55:1–11 • Bar 3:9–15 • Ez 36:16–28 • Rom 6:3–11 • Mt 28:1–10

 Earthquake! Earthquake and Easter go together today. Most of us could probably use a little earthquake right now to wake us up and get our attention. We have been siting and listening for a long time. ….God is so full of surprises. Dawn comes, a new day and what do we feel? An earthquake. Everything is splitting open, the old is collapsing, and the new is stepping out. The sound of the earthquake and stone rolling away, that is the announcement of Easter this year. But it is a new day, a new creation; the old has passed. After the earthquake we cannot go back. Life is not the same, for Jesus, for the women, for disciples. Dare I say, for us also?

The readings we have just heard are like photos in a family or community album. Each year on this night we gather to sit down and look at these pictures. We gather here to listen to the stories and poems about God’s ways in our faith community’s story. We sit and listen to the stories and words of the prophets and apostles. Every time we look at a family or community photo album, the pictures remind someone of another story, of another member of the family and community. Sometimes the stories are the same, sometimes they are not. A new memory is added. It is like that with the words and rituals of this Easter Vigil. Each year the same words are read but each year they sound new and different. Something in them is heard for the first time. Why? Because each year we have grown and experienced another piece of life since the hearing last Easter. This year a particular word hits us; it makes sense, more sense than ever before. God is penetrating into our hearts ever more deeply. Each year we hear these words and each year we become these words more and more. Or so we hope.

In the Easter Vigil we are offered our full dignity once again, from creation to covenant, to the fully new Adam in Christ Jesus. If the words we hear seem to have a home in our hearts, it is simply because they are about us human beings at our deepest level. These words are all about where God and the human heart come together. These words, stories, images from Scripture give meaning to our place in the world. They put us in touch with some very basic realities. So basic that to ignore these words is to court spiritual death in every way. The words we have heard give us back our humanity in a world that pulls us faster and faster into inhumanity, into violence, consumerism, a rape of the earth our common home and which we heard God created good!

We are drawn back into a love affair with God. We heard it in the Easter Proclamation: the things of heaven are wedded to the things of earth, the divine with the human. Tonight is a wedding night between God and us, his people. We are drawn into the power of promise, fidelity and love. These stories from the Christian album put us face to face with our tendency to wander off and listen to another story. But they also make us face our God who is willing to never be angry again, who is willing to gather up all the lost, who is willing to restore honor; who is willing to create a new family where the bond is not just our human blood but a blood that now has divine member within it. And even more, a divine member whose blood means life eternal for all who will believe. In the end, the stories we hear tonight and the images stirred up by prophet and apostle proclaim loudly and clearly that we are precious, of inestimable value; and because of that we find ourselves this night rescued, saved and made clean.  Every part of God’s word says that life lasts. They say that life endures because God has become involved in that life by entering into life’s worst moment, a violent death. And in that worst moment, he has turned it upside down and made life come out on top.

There is nothing we have heard tonight that says that our God will fail us. There is nothing here tonight but fidelity to the end, steadfast love for ever and ever. There is nothing here that speaks of an end without hope. Everything speaks of a change, of a new world, of a transformation of what is old. Everything here speaks of a God who is deeply personal, wonderfully intimate. If, as Baruch says, God can get the stars to respond in chorus to his call, how much more can he get us to respond, we who have a share in his breath, who are his image in the world.

After we have looked at the family album or those photos on our tablet or cameras, we close them and put them away. But we feel connected again to the family story. We may know someone better now than before. Our acceptance of a certain member has been enhanced. We don’t close the album and remain the same person as before. Tonight, we cannot gather around the fire, bring it inside and listen to stories told around that light without being changed, renewed. We have to feel ourselves re-connected, grounded, grasped by the wisdom that penetrates all things. We have to feel that we have moved one more step in the direction of a life without end. We have to feel the embrace of our Father who does not want to loose anything he has made.

Tonight we should know that what binds us to God is a covenant of love that leads us into peace. Tonight the original unity of creation is put in front of us again. We are at the beginning of life. We are at the first day when God said, ‘Let there be light.’ A light that shatters any darkness and there is only day. Tonight God becomes very personal, very loving. He says the name of his Son over a dead body, and life is stirred again. So much is life stirred that this life has the power and force of an earthquake. It shakes up everything. Believe me, a new chapter in the human story has begun. A new chapter in your story and my story begins with this dawn on the first day of a new world.

Christ is Risen, alleluia.

He is truly risen, alleluia.

Joel Macul, OSB

Easter Triduum 2017

THE EASTER TRIDUUM 2017
all Liturgical Celebrations at Saint Benedict Center

Wednesday, April 12

7:30     PM             Compline

Thursday, April 13               HOLY THURSDAY  
6:30    AM             Vigils and Lauds

12:00   Noon         Daytime Prayer

  7:00   PM             MASS OF THE LORD’S
                                    SUPPER

                               Adoration until Midnight

Friday, April 14     GOOD FRIDAY

6:30    AM             Vigils and Lauds

12:00   Noon         Daytime Prayer

 3:00    PM             GOOD FRIDAY LITURGY

 7:00     PM             Compline

Saturday, April 15   HOLY SATURDAY

  6:30AM            Vigils and Lauds                      

 12:00Noon       Daytime Prayer

   5:30   PM           Vespers

                                                                                                                 7:15   PM            Compline

Sunday, April 16       EASTER SUNDAY

5:00    AM                  EASTER VIGIL at SBC
     Breakfast following – all are invited  

From Daytime Prayer on: all at BMH

12:00    Noon              Daytime Prayer

 5:00     PM                  Solemn Vespers

 7:00     PM                  Compline

   CHRIST IS RISEN, ALLELUIA

Update from Fr. Mauritius.....

Abbot Primate Gregory Polan, OSB (from Conception Abbey) with Fr. Prior Mauritius Wilde, OSB

I have been in Rome now for a little more than a month. Everything is new to me. But I am excited and feel privileged to serve the People of God here in the center of the Church. The internationality strikes me. To see Christians from all over the world learning, studying, working for their home countries, is stunning. To be close to the tombs of so many wonderful saints is life-giving. I am lucky to live on the Aventine Hill. Pope Leo XIII gave the Benedictines this place as a gift with the intention that they run a school. We at Sant’Anselmo still do this.  There are almost ninety Benedictines from all continents who study monasticism, liturgy, philosophy and theology. The change from rural Schuyler, NE, to the metropolis of Rome was interesting. Though I was born and raised in a mid-size city, as a Benedictine I have been used to living in the countryside for more than thirty years. The Aventine is the perfect place for Benedictines in the city of Rome. As you walk up the hill, you feel more tranquility and peace. And still we are not far away from the Vatican. What do I like most in Rome at this point? The cloister of Sant’Anselmo, our liturgy chanted by the student monks, and the sweets you can buy in the pasticceria!

A view of Sant' Anselmo with St. Peter's in background

New Prior

Today, Sept. 23rd 2016, Abbot Michael Reepen, Abbot of our motherhouse in Germany announced, that our Prior Fr. Mauritius Wilde has been called to be the next Prior at St. Anselmo in Rome. Under the leadership of the recently elected Abbot Primate Gregory Polan, he will serve Benedictine monks from all over the world who live, study, and teach in this monastery.

As Fr. Mauritius will move in November, Abbot Michael appointed Abbot em. Joel Macul as the new Prior of Christ the King Priory. Abbot Joel is a monk of St. Paul’s Abbey in Newton, NJ, a monastery of our Missionary Benedictine Congregation, and will resume his office at the beginning of the next year.

We ask all our friends for their prayers in this time of transition and trust the God will bring about much good through these changes.

The community of monks of Christ the King in Schuyler

Prior's Message

When I moved here to Schuyler almost 6 years ago, as a German native I wanted to know where this place was compared to the latitude in Europe. The discovery I made was stunning: Christ the King Priory in Schuyler, NE, (41°30′32″N 97°3′16″W) is exactly on the same latitude as Montecassino (41°29′24″N 13°48′50″E) in Italy, which is the place where our founder Saint Benedict established his community in the 6th century. This monastery still in existence today is built on a mountain as a response to Jesus’ word: “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). It was very touching to me to realize that my confreres, over 80 years ago, chose exactly this place. Was it intuition, or divine providence? It is a beautiful coincidence in any case, to be on the same latitude as Montecassino, “in line” with our monastery of origin.

Schuyler                        Montecassino

After this discovery I wanted to know about our sisters in Norfolk, NE. They are our neighbors, friends, allies, combatants in Christ, from the beginning. Actually, they were here in Nebraska already 12 years before us. And again, a beautiful surprise. Their monastery is pretty much on the same latitude as Subiaco Abbey in Italy, the place where Saint Benedict spent three years in a cave as “his novitiate”. Today it is a Benedictine monastery located in the most beautiful surroundings you can imagine.

This connection between the “old world” and the “new world” encourages me that God leads us the way he wants to, even if we don’t notice at first. He plans everything with his gracious and merciful hand, and we – if we just listen to him – are graced to follow his plans and Jesus’ footsteps. May St. Benedict bless us here in Schuyler and our whole order of brothers and sisters around the world.

Fr. Mauritius Wilde O.S.B.

Bestowal of the Mission Cross

On July 10, monks, oblates, family and friends celebrated the upcoming missionary work of Fr. Paul Kasun in Colombia, South America. In a joyful celebration the mission cross was bestowed on him. Fr. Paul will work at St. Benedict’s Priory in El Rosal, Columbia, a monastery of our Missionary Congregation, for two years. After the Holy Eucharist Fr. Paul also shared experiences of working on his Ph.D. in Texas and Guatemala. Congratulations and prayers to Fr. Paul!

Prior's Message

Some people look at us monks with a certain sense of longing wishing they too could be monks or nuns themselves,  living in the silence and peace of a monastery at a serene place and in a beautiful community. Well, I think this is a good longing, because we all need peace in our lives and a supporting community. However, the real life in a monastery is not as romantic as we can assure you. We are all humans. As I entered the monastery 31 years ago, my mother was concerned that I would flee the world and talked with the Abbot. He smiled at her responding: Don’t worry; your son will experience the world…

Still, there are features in our Benedictine spirituality that help us on a day-to-day basis to stay in contact with the Lord. We monks are often asked about these tools, and we are happy to share them. Not only with our Oblate family, but with all guests who visit our monastery or attend a retreat at St. Benedict Center. In addition, I have just started a blog in which I share thoughts from the monastery that might enhance your spiritual life as well. The articles issued every three or four weeks are not long and easily digestible. So, if you want to have a look, go to www.wildemonk.net. It’s not as wild as the name would suggest, but maybe a bit. We all carry in us the archetype of a monk. This “monk in us” wants to live and be alive.

As we leave the Easter Season and enter the ordinary time of the Church year I wish you all God’s continued blessings and greet you on behalf of the monastic community,

Fr. Mauritius Wilde O.S.B.