Vol. LXIII, No. 4

News of our Apostolates for Friends of Subiaco

Spring 2006

"...likened to the Son of God, He continues a priest forever."
by Mr. Clare Wolf

Clare E. Wolf

Ed. Note: Mr. Clare Wolf, a pioneer in the field of Catholic lay evangelism, died this past January 6 at his home in Prairie View. During the 1960s and 70s, he was a highly-regarded speaker, teacher, and writer on theological topics in the Subiaco Deanery, in the Diocese of Little Rock, and beyond. He was a frequent contributor to The Abbey Message. In his honor, we reprint one of his articles of June 1962. Although written just before the Council, his understanding of the sacraments is fresh and vibrant, and his closing thought provides a striking Lenten/Easter image.

By making a sacrifice of Himself, Jesus Christ gave true and adequate divine worship to the Father on behalf of the whole human race. His sacrifice was an action performed wholly by Christ Himself. It was an action of Christ the Priest by which he gave to God the worship of God’s people. Similarly, Christ completed the divine exchange between man and God by personally transmitting the good things of God to the people he met while He was on earth. When the good thief repented of his sins and begged Christ to remember him when He came into His kingdom, Christ replied: “This day thou shalt be with me in paradise.” The penitent thief was justified by divine grace given to him personally and directly by the dying Redeemer. This was an instance in which the God-man personally and directly bestowed the sanctifying grace of God on another member of the human race. During His public ministry Christ discharged both of the functions of a priest.

But, the Christ of history is no longer visible among us. He has ascended out of our midst to the right hand of the Father. We do not see Him worshipping on our behalf, forgiving sinners, ordaining priests or administering any of the sacraments. Our view of Christ our Eternal High Priest is further obscured by the unique way in which the priestly work of Christ is carried on through the Church. When we assist at the Holy Sacrifice we do not have any doubt that at the words of Consecration the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, just as truly as they did when Christ Himself spoke the consecrating words at the Last Supper. Nor do we doubt that when we have contritely confessed our sins to the priest and he pronounces the absolving words over us, our sins are as truly forgiven as were the sins of Mary Magdalen or the penitent thief. But the man who stands before us at the Holy Sacrifice, who baptizes and absolves and anoints, is in every way a man like ourselves. He is another member of the human race. He is not the Christ of history. He is not the man Christ Jesus. And yet, when this man sacrifices, or administers the sacraments, he speaks and acts in every way as if he were Christ. He consecrates the bread and wine with the words “This is MY body … this is MY blood.” When he forgives the sinner, when he baptizes, when he confirms or anoints, he speaks as if he were Christ. His actions would not create any problem if he used the kind of words that seemed to say that he is acting only as an agent of Christ or in the name of Christ. But he does not make any pretense of being an agent or a representative of Christ the Priest. He identifies himself with Christ as if he and Christ were in some real way one and the same person.

We know by faith that these words and acts which seem in every way to be the words and acts of the human priest do accomplish the divine things they signify. The infant who is bathed with water and the words of Baptism is plunged into God and is raised up out of the water more a god than a creature. The bread and the wine become exactly what the priest’s words say they are, the flesh and blood of the God-man. The sins which he says he forgives are so completely annihilated that one might suspect that even the offended God has forgotten them!

We have here what seems like a contradiction; in fact, a double contradiction. On the one hand we insist that Christ is our Eternal High Priest-our only High Priest. We say that Christ has no successors and no vicars in carrying out His priestly work. He alone is the High Priest of the New Dispensation. We have no priest but Christ. But to all visible appearances, Christ does not offer the Holy Sacrifice or administer the sacraments. If He is truly our High Priest here and now, He must carry on the full work of a priest here and now. On the other hand, the sacrifices which we see offered and the sacraments we see administered are done by a man ordained to the performing of that office from among us. He is a human being like ourselves. He is the one who appears to be and who acts like our high priest here and now.

How can these contradictions be reconciled? How can the invisible and glorified Christ be our High Priest carrying on the work of a high priest here and now? If Christ is our High Priest, how can the priest who stands visible and active in our midst be genuine? Our inquiry could end right here if we dared to say that the ascended Christ now carries on His priestly work in the Church by using His invisible body to exercise in invisible priesthood. Some of our separated brethren have done something like that. They deny that a visible priesthood of men is necessary or even possible because they say their priest is the Risen and Ascended Christ.

In our understanding of this matter many of us have privately made a mistake almost as great as our separated brethren. We have tried to explain to ourselves how the priests of the Church are true mediators between God and man without robbing Christ of His position as Eternal High Priest. In order to do this we have explained the priesthood of the ordained in such a way as to make them only agents or representatives of Christ-men acting with the power of attorney. In other words, when they administer the sacraments their actions have the divine effects they signify only because Christ ratifies or approves them with a separate action of His own. The action of the priest does not cause or produce the divine effect. It only provides the occasion or designates the moment when Christ shall act and cause the grace or accomplish the Holy Sacrifice.

This explanation is really not an explanation at all. It only sweeps the question under the rug. It seems satisfactory to us only because we have not understood this basic fact about our membership in the Mystical Body of Christ, namely, that the whole purpose and effect of the sacraments is to deify man-to make man the kind of being that God is.

Three of the sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders, give us a share in God’s nature in such a way that because of what we are, we can do some of the things that God can do. Baptism gives us our first share in the nature of God. It makes us so much like Christ that the Father can love us in the manner in which He loves His Only Begotten Son. Because of what we then are, we have power and ability to return God’s divine love with a divine kind of love, and we are able, in eternity, to know and love Him and to be known and loved by Him in the manner in which God knows and loves Himself.

Confirmation increases our likeness to Christ. Having been confirmed, we are then the kind of being whose words and actions are filled with grace not just for our own benefit but for the benefit of others and for the whole Mystical Body. Holy Orders further increases Christ in the one who receives it. Ordination makes him the kind of being whose words and actions can cause grace in other members of the Mystical Body. Holy Orders makes the ordained so much like Christ that his priestly actions produce the graces and effects they signify; just as Christ’s spoken words and bodily actions produced their proper divine effects.

When we understand the effects of the ordaining sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders in this way, we don’t have to talk about agents and representatives of Christ the High Priest to explain how the actions of the ordained priest accomplish the divine things they represent. The ordained shares with Christ the nature of Christ the Priest. Without Himself giving up His High Priesthood, Christ shares with the ordained the things that make Him what He is-a Priest. Because the ordained is what Christ is, his priestly actions accomplish the divine wonders they signify, just as the heavy nature of the swinging hammer drives the smitten nail deeper into the wood.

The Abbot's Message

"If we are not looking for God's hand, we can easily miss the signs. We have to be paying attention."

Watch the Signs

God is constantly acting in our lives, but his work is hidden under camouflage. As Cardinal Newman said, “His hand is ever over his own, and he leads them forward by a way they know not of.” Only if we stay attentive and look closely will we get even a glimpse of the hand of God working in our lives. This is not by accident. The way to salvation is through faith, which means putting our trust in God. We could never grow in trust if the work of God’s hand among us were visible and unmistakable.

Mostly we are given glimpses through signs that come and go in our lives day by day. If we are not looking for God’s hand, we can easily miss the signs. We have to be paying attention. Usually we see the signs of God’s activity in looking back; rarely can we be confident about exactly what God is doing in the present.

Three years ago I went to Pine Bluff for the burial of my good friend, Frank King, a former business manager of Subiaco Abbey, who had died suddenly a few days before. My whole attention was on Frank and what his friendship had meant to me and to Subiaco Abbey and Academy, and on the family and friends with whom I would share the moment. I didn’t know there was more to my trip than that. I didn’t know until later that God was using Frank to put me in place to be available to act as an instrument in God’s plan for a third party. Frank had been a deacon, and we had often ministered together. I was going to mourn Frank, but that was only the part of the picture I could see. He and I were going to team up for an act of ministry again.

I had known from a recent request from Bishop Sartain for prayers for sick clergy that one of our priests was in intensive care at the hospital in Pine Bluff, very ill and even in danger of death. This was Father Bernard Keller, S.V.D., a wonderful priest and friend, pastor of St. Peter’s Church. I looked up the address of the hospital and planned to visit Father Bernie after Frank’s funeral.

The funeral Mass for Frank was held in Little Rock in the morning, and the burial was at Pine Bluff in the afternoon. After the service I made my way to the hospital and asked at the front desk for directions to ICU. “I guess you’re here to see Father Keller,” the receptionist said. “He’s very low.”

When I reached the ICU hallway and visiting area, several people turned and smiled and some I recognized came toward me. “It’s so good that you have come. We didn’t expect anyone to come all that way. He is in a coma but the family will be so glad you made it.” I soon understood that Father Bernie had been asking for a priest before he slipped into a coma, but the other Catholic pastor was out of town. He seemed to be hanging on until he could receive a blessing from a priest. The people had been calling around to find a priest and praying that one would come. They thought I had heard about it and had come because of that search. I had not heard about the search but had come, without knowing it, in answer to their prayers.

I went in to see Father Bernie who was indeed in his final struggle. The nurse told me there wasn’t much keeping him alive, and they thought he would have died before this. I blessed him and prayed with the family for awhile. Then I went back out to visit with his parishioners and friends. Several came toward me for a report. I had barely begun talking with them when the ICU nurse, who had come up behind me, touched my elbow and said, “Father, he’s gone.”

It broke upon me then that I had known only part of the reason I was going to Pine Bluff that day. I thought I had been in charge of my trip, but I was moving according to another plan. I felt very blessed and humbled to have been an instrument in God’s hands, though ignorant of what was going on until the moment it happened, to be the one chosen to help a holy priest pass from this life to eternity surrounded by those who loved him. I realized that Frank King had been as much a part of it as I, and that this was a special gift for both of us to be able to minister together one last time. It was a special reminder to me of how close God is all the time, taking care of us and walking with us even when we’re not conscious of his guiding presence.

Abbey Journal

January

Two newspaper reports sum up this year’s so-called Winter: dry and warm. In early March, it was reported that 2005 had been the driest year on record for Arkansas as a whole. Our area fared better, with a rainfall deficit of 12 inches. Other areas of the State were up to 20 inches below normal. Newspapers also reported that this January was the warmest ever. The combination led to extreme fire danger. Fire bans were in effect, and yet there were daily fires around us, mostly to the west. Brother Anselm tuned up the Abbey fire truck, and responded to at least two fires. A sheriff’s deputy drove up to warn about burning farm trash in a “burn barrel” in the farmyard.

Academy classes resumed on January 4. An omen of the hard grind to come until the next respite was the dreaded Saturday classes on January 7. An explanation was given, but no explanation for such an atrocity suffices for teenage boys, nor for teachers “in our very late 30s,” as a grizzled performer at a recent blues concert described himself. Mr. Clare Wolf of Prairie View died on January 6 at the age of 91. Mr. Wolf had contributed extensively to The Abbey Message in the 1960s and 70s, with a series of articles on sacramental theology, ecclesiology, and evangelism. He was a popular speaker, drawing recognition for the cogency of his thought and by the fact that his was a layman’s voice on these traditionally clerical topics.

Fr. Richard totaled up the Abbey Brittle numbers: 3273 two-pound cans! That’s over three TONS of candy!! When you know that the Abbey Brittle is produced in two-pound batches, and each batch is carefully stirred, watched, and snatched from the fire just at the peak of perfection, that figure is astounding. Fr. Richard gave special thanks to Food Service Director Jacob Carey, Brother Louis, Brother Thomas, and Brother Adrian. Others helped too, but these were the mainstays of the operation.

Brother Tobias reported that trapper Dennis Ahne had caught ten coyotes by mid-month. It’s somehow comforting-at least to this writer-that our lives here at Subiaco are still affected by the depredations of wild animals and that pioneer skills are still needed. Our own “mountain man,” Brother Joseph Koehler, trapped an otter at Cane Creek. He showed it off, took pictures, and released it. Brother Joseph is a former Franciscan and has a soft spot for all animals-to extremes. He is known to have placed an escape ladder in a commode, so that mice which fell in looking for water could climb back out!! We had been praying for rain, and our prayers were answered with an all-day cold rain on January 22, as about 40 Subiaco representatives-monks, students, and parishioners-marched for life in Little Rock. The crowd was reduced by the weather, but still around 3000 people braved the elements and went home with a greater sense of having done something to stand up for the value of life.

Mr. Michael O’Brien, Academy Dean, organized several events to celebrate Catholic Schools Week. On February 1, the entire school went on a pilgrimage to St. Mary’s Church in Altus, across the Arkansas River from the Abbey. Pastor Fr. Hilary hosted the pilgrims, Abbot Jerome celebrated the liturgy, and Fr. Hugh presented the history and pointed out the special features of this recently restored church. Fr. Mark’s Latin classes were glad of the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to read at least some of the many Latin prayers and inscriptions. Everyone agreed that a pilgrimage should be an annual event.

For a man almost 91, Father Paul has amazing energy. During the colder months, this energy goes into shelling pecans for the community. Brother Louis brings in the pecans from our own trees and other sources, cracks them, and delivers them to Fr. Paul’s door in five-gallon buckets. Fr. Paul had the policy of “next day delivery” long before Fed-Ex. Before Morning Prayer of the following day, the bucket is again outside his door, filled now with cleaned nut meats. Due to Fr. Paul’s diligence, a graph of per capita pecan consumption would definitely show a “Subiaco spike.”

Father Sebastian, in a Fort Smith hospital following vascular surgery, picked up a staph infection in his foot, requiring that he be kept in isolation for about two weeks. He is a gregarious man, and found this isolation, along with the infection, a very trying time. He returned to the Abbey Health Center by the end of the month, and is slowly getting well, he says.

Two candidates had passed muster in a January chapter meeting, and after a two-week home leave, were invested as Novices during First Vespers for the Feast of St. Scholastica, on February 9. These men are Kyle Kocurek, 25, from Caldwell, TX, and Greg Boland, 44, from Macon, GA. Novice Brandon Fasciane professed vows the next morning, becoming Brother Dominic. He had led us on for weeks about his choice of name, almost convincing us that he had asked for “Paphnutius.”

Brother Dominic Faciane, Novice Kyle Kocurek, Abbot Jerome & Novice Greg Boland

A large contingent from Subiaco (12) celebrated with the Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith their patronal feast day. We sang Vespers with them, enjoyed a happy hour, and then a delicious meal. The translation the Sisters use for Psalm 45 speaks about “cinnamon flowers.” I suppose a cinnamon tree does flower. Can a botanist among our readers tell me anything about the flower of a cinnamon tree?

Br. Adrian

Word came on February 15 that Brother Adrian had been selected as High School Tennis Coach of the Year, on the national level. He had won this award at the State level a number of times, but this national recognition is a major honor. Br. Adrian expects and demands a high level of commitment in his players, and is able consistently to bring out the best in them.

On February 16, we had record heat of 81°. Two days later it was sleeting with a high of 25°. Numerous events were cancelled. The students groaned about the cancellation of a late Valentine dance, and monks assigned to parish weekend duty got to stay home.

March, and Lent, began together this year, which seemed a tidy arrangement. Then we performed the atavistic ritual of putting ashes on our heads. It’s nice to have things neat and predictable, to be in control. The black smudge on our forehead accuses us: “Don’t be so cocky; you’ve got a ways to go before really turning from sin and living faithfully.” Abbot Jerome, in his Ash Wednesday conference, commented on the sort of Lenten “Bona Opera” (Good Works) that had been presented to him for his blessing. He approved of the down-to-earth quality of our resolutions. Monastic conversion-turning from sin and turning toward the light-takes place in the daily details of our life together, and usually not in some grand illumination.

Brother Jose’s Lenten decorations in the Abbey church are quite dramatic. At each “horn” of the altar, he has a large pot with the twisted, reaching branches of a corkscrew willow tree. Bare branches, along with the food restrictions, the absence of Alleluias, and the silence of the organ, are meant to increase our yearning for the life and fullness, the joy of the Kingdom. Shortly into Lent, the bare willow branches began sprouting tiny pale green leaves. These have slowly increased until now, in mid-Lent, each pot is a display of the force of life and growth. With light on the branches, and darkness behind, the new leaves seem to glow with an inner light. Br. José did not know the branches would sprout; it’s a very nice gift.

On March 7, Brother Francis and crew removed the pansies from the inner court flowerbeds. In other places on campus, pansies are a riot of color, responding to the mild days and late winter showers. Something went terribly wrong with the inner court ecosystem, such that most of the pansies were dead or dying. Theories abound on the reason for their demise: too dry, too much surface watering, too little or too much fertilizer, wrong use of pre-emergent herbicide, etc. I suppose we will never know for sure. We are waiting to see what will happen with the summertime flowers. In the meantime, the beds are getting a sabbatical.

It was simply too long this year between Christmas and Easter, so the Academy schedule introduced a “Late Winter Break” from March 8-12. Colliding air masses produced several violent storms during this break. Students canoeing on Lake Dardanelle got back to the dock just before one of these storms. Watching the waves break over the dock, they were quite aware of their narrow escape. The Academy buses returning from Memphis and Dallas ran just ahead of tornadoes which raked across the state that night. No matter what the date of Easter, most of March is always Lenten. Whether by human contrivance or divine providence, the middle of March includes major feasts, which provide “days off” from Lenten austerity. March 15 is Subiaco’s Foundation Day. Who could be expected to fast or abstain on his 128th birthday? Bishop Sartain gave a surprise dispensation from Friday abstinence on the feast of St. Patrick. The dispensation arrived on the 16th, not giving the kitchen enough time to find the corned beef and cabbage. Instead we had pepperoni pizza and some green bread, which was a lot tastier than it looked. Then of course came St. Benedict’s Day, March 21. The students were given a surprise free day, or nearly free. They had an assembly with a PowerPoint presentation about St. Benedict, and then attended the festal liturgy. The cold, wet, blustery weather of the previous three days continued on the feast. Abbot Jerome quipped, in his welcoming remarks at the Mass, that “we usually have this celebration in the Spring.” On Saturday the 25th, we celebrated the day on which the Bridegroom first became present to us-the Annunciation-and so of course we could not fast.

Prior David, Farm Manager Butch Geels, and Father Nicholas took ten Abbey cows to an Angus female sale at nearby Sugar Hill Farms. Several Subiaco alumni and friends were there to make sure the bidding on our entrants did not lag. The sale price of the Abbey cattle averaged above $3000, which meant a nice pay check for the day and a sign of good things to come as more animals go to market.

At month’s end, the air is filled with smoke as the Forest Service is finally able to conduct controlled burns. It had been so dry that timber companies has suspended the replanting of harvested areas, and could not possibly burn off the accumulated undergrowth. I’m afraid we’re in for some more smoky days as conditions are favorable for these burns. Speaking of smoke, the kitchen recently installed a new char-broiler, which produces a lot of smoke. This smoke vents to the north yard, but then tends to swirl around and find openings to come back inside. Several of us were ready to sound the fire alarm when the refectory was filled with steak-scented smoke. We traced it to the source, and now know to close all windows when the cooker is in operation.

Gather Us In

"What Luck!"

“Father in heaven, the hand of your loving kindness powerfully yet gently guides all the moments of our day.” (alternative opening prayer, 28th Sunday) Abbot Jerome’s article tells of God’s powerful and gentle hand guiding a moment in his life. Recently, a man told me of an experience as a teenager which still, some fifteen years later, convinces him that God is in charge of each moment. He had attended an outdoor Passion Play on a clear starry night. At the climactic scene, when the stone across Jesus’ tomb rolled aside, suddenly a very bright meteor flashed across the sky! He and the crowd gasped in awe, then considered whether this was somehow a contrived special effect, and then decided that it was God’s special effect.

A person of faith saw God’s loving hand at work; a skeptic seeing the same thing can label it a “coincidence.” Neither can prove their case. If it is God’s hand at work, it is “powerful yet gentle,” never overpowering human will. People of no particular religious persuasion or practice do see these inexplicable occurrences, and give secular names to the phenomenon: coincidence, synchronicity, déjà vu. All of us, believers and non-believers, live in this same universe which is either from and in God’s hands, or it is not. Albert Einstein once said “There are two ways of living: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” The sciences of logic and probability tell us that there likely are multiple sites amenable to life and intelligence scattered throughout our universe. Science also tells us that the distances involved make it unlikely that we will ever be able to know one way or the other. Our response can be either that of orphans cast adrift in the black infinity of space, or that of very special children who are pampered and cared for in a way that may well be absolutely unique.

The front page article by Mr. Wolf explains the “divine economy,” how we humans, touched by the gentle and powerful hand of God, become godlike. Then, like God, we are able to provide unexpected, “coincidental” flashes of truth, healing, goodness and beauty in our world. The recipients may attach a religious or a secular label, and that doesn’t really matter. St. Charles deFoucauld prayed: “Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures-I wish no more than this.”