Easter Blessings from the Benedictine Center

Written by Mary Elizabeth Ilg, Co-Director of the Benedictine Center

EASTER BLESSINGS from the Benedictine Center of St. Paul’s Monastery! May the power of the Risen Christ transform your lives and fill your hearts with peace and joy.

Several of us on the Benedictine Center staff have been participating in a special Saint Enda 100 Day Retreat for the past two months, offered to the Oblates of St. Paul’s Monastery and others by Sister Mary Margaret Funk, OSB of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, IN and Professor Kathleen Cahalan of St. John’s School of Theology in St. Joseph, MN. Since February, even before Lent began, we have received a voice memo early each morning in our email inbox about 9 minutes in length, where great pearls of wisdom spill into our ears through our Air Pods.

The retreat will conclude after these 100 days when we submit our specific prayer requests by email to a Sister in Ireland, who will actually visit the shrine of Saint Enda, and read these prayer requests from all 600 participants out loud. Saint Enda of Aran was a warrior-turned-monk, and is considered to be one of the founders of Irish monasticism.

Retreat topics and practices have included “renunciation of our former way of life,” as well as the renunciation of our afflicted thoughts. We started out with the question and an intention to live more wisely: What is it you seek now in your life? We learned about the Desert Fathers such as John Cassian and his teacher, Christian mystic Evagrius Ponticus (346-399 A.D.) who retreated alone into the Egyptian desert to encounter God. We asked ourselves what we needed to renounce to be more at peace, and focused on our inner lives “below the river,” where God is working in us. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God,” Sister Meg read from the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew and stated that purity of heart occurs “when you are on the other side of your afflictions.” She referred to something very thrilling I had not heard before but perhaps only glimpsed subconsciously after receiving the Eucharist for the past two decades: “…the sapphire blue light… the light of the Trinity.” Experiencing spiritual consolation of this nature can only happen when your afflictions are not activated and not “dominating your consciousness.”

The St. Enda retreat has brought us the joy of learning and newfound knowledge, and we are pleased to announce that Kathleen Cahalan will be returning in early November to lead our School of Discernment, following the highly enriching week we shared with her in March for the School of Lectio Divina.

One of our collective afflictions these days is the disturbing news of the invasion of Ukraine. As we implore God to end this war and bring an end to the suffering, violence and death currently being experienced by millions of innocent people, we enter into our own places of worship to light candles and pray for these intentions, perhaps stopping by the font to bless ourselves with holy water. The following is a prayer by Sister Meg Funk, which she sent to us in our voice memo on March 23, 2022 as part of the St. Enda Retreat. May God bless you and keep you and bring renewed safety and peace to our troubled world.

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Holy Water Prayer

Bless me,
ABBA/Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Believe in Presence
Know healing
Feel quickening
Sense Love

Bless me,

Immersed in waters
That purify
That protect
That perfect
That eject
All that is not of God

Bless me,

To sin not
To remember death
To remain calm
To be at peace

Bless me,

To prevent fear
To calm anxiety
To check aggression
To pause with poise

Bless me,

Touching this holy water
To my head
To my shoulders
To my heart
To bow
Brow to ground

Bless us,

We offer prayers
For those in need
For those forgotten
For those forced poor
For life not yet lived

Bless us,

Mindful of God’s mercy
Knowing

no wrath in God
no anger in Jesus
no separation from God
no separation from others

Knowing

absolved of sin
acquitted

Known

Before born

Bless us,

Already, but not yet
All will be well
All manner of things will be well
Will have our own experience that all will be well

Bless us,

With the wintry, wild winds of coldness
With wet, dormant stirrings thaw
With sun-drenched pathways beckoning
With falling leaves dancing
With dawn to dusking
With creatures creating
With breeze breathing

Bless us,

To know each other
Or is it
None other
Than the One

Blessed are we,

Watered, fed, foiled
Unwired patterns
Ignorance diminished
Glory becomes
Strange integers

Blessed are we,

Shriven
Yet, hard at heart
Toward those forgiven
Why, so driven?

Blessed are we,

With holy waters sprinkle
Bedroom into sleep
Kitchen into alter
Car into safety
House into home

Blessed are we,

As holy water

negates evil
hushes harshness
holds vigil
restores domains

Blessed are we,

Hearts heard
Pain received
Hurts held
Tears, made holy

Blessed are we,

Sick cured
Dying cared
Dead remembered
Coming ones welcomed

Blessed are we,

Cosmos spinning
Black holes whirling
Galaxies churning
Micros thinning
Wonder winning

Blessed are the ones for whom

Storms, fires, earthquakes, floods
Tornados, cyclones, typhoons, tsunamis
Scarcity, drought, war, ice, and snow
All brought low and
Faith, first responder.

Blessed are the ones,

Who know water, air, and ground
Our sharing profound.

Blessed are the ones,

Who’ve crossed over
Birth, a narrow passage
Death, a cold await
Yet, into Eternal Gate
Grace, Grace, Grace

 

- Mary Margaret Funk, from Renouncing Violence; 2018 Order of Saint Benedict; Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota.