Dear Friends,
Once the Prophet Ezechiel had an impressive vision of a whole valley filled with dry, lifeless human bones (Ch. 37:1-14). God asked him, “Can these bones come to life?” Ezechiel, aware of his own powerlessness but filled with deep trust in God responds, “You alone know that.”
Donald Jackson, illuminating this passage for The Saint John’s Bible, presents us with the dry bones of our time. He shows broken glass from terrorist attacks, the eye glasses taken from Jewish people before they were gassed at Auschwitz, and the skulls of other genocide victims of the twentieth century. The junk car points to environmental degradation.
Above all this, however, he depicted the rainbow, representing God’s unconditional faithfulness to humanity. And the little golden squares of God’s working in the world even find their way into the scenario below. If we would look at the whole illumination we would see God’s words written across the bottom: “I will put my Spirit into you and you shall live.”
This Scripture passage and its illumination fills me with hope. We can hold out in prayer to God the victims of war, terrorism, abortion, domestic violence, and environmental destruction, the suffering of refugees and immigrants, etc., and the perpetrators of such injustice. We also can respond to God’s question, “Can these bones live?” with: “You alone know that.” We may trust that God’s Spirit can work even at these places of desolation and that He will show us how we can cooperate with the Spirit bringing resurrection and new life.
A good place for such hope-inspiring prayer is St. Benedict Center and especially our display of The Saint John’s Bible. Please spread the word about it and bring your own group or church for a retreat or just for a tour! Especially worth noting among the upcoming events of our program schedule is the one-day retreat on June 25 with our brother monk from Germany and best-selling author Fr. Anselm Gruen, OSB, on Sacred Rituals for Our Everyday Life. These rituals will help us let our faith shape our day-today living.
At Christ the King Priory, you will see a new face: Fr. Anastasius Reiser came from our motherhouse in Germany, the Abbey of Münsterschwarzach, to be a member of our monastic community. Welcome to Nebraska, Fr. Anastasius! - I am looking forward to seeing you again soon!
Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB, Administrator