CONFLICT: JESUS IN OUR MIDST
Life in a community can be challenging, but it is also incredibly rewarding. Living at SSJE with my brothers has been one of the most profound experiences of my life. In particular, life in community has taught me the value of conflict and how it is an unavoidable yet potentially meaningful and transformative aspect of life.
THE INTERVENTION OF KINDNESS IN A DISQUIETED WORLD
Kindness is the melding of compassion, generosity, and dignity. The English word “kind” comes from the same etymological root as “kin.” We are to live kindly with one another because we belong to one another. We are humankind.
ON THE VOWED LIFE, PT. 2
If you have made a vow that binds you for life, you know the threshold it opens: a new world of joy, because you gave yourself away. Discernment in the Church doesn’t begin with self-fulfillment, but with oblation—offering your life back to God for God’s glory. And in the vowed life, as often as she dies, she rises.
ON THE VOWED LIFE, PT. 1
In my monastery there is a red leather book where brothers of SSJE handwrite their vows on the altar. Every page is the same—and no two pages are the same. In that paradox, I learned what a vow truly is: an impossible promise made in trust that God will supply the grace to keep it.
