Homily  at the Mass for  the BLESSING

of the RESIDENCE BUILDING

and OPEN HOUSE

The Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop of Tulsa
April 12, 2008

Your Excellency, Msgr. Conley, Bishop elect, Father Prior, my brothers and sons of Our Lady of the Annunciation, reverend Fathers and Deacons, and dearest friends, all, I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and present among us.

What an inexhaustible treasury is the Church's liturgy! What a wonderfully rich source of inspiration is the Church's traditional liturgy, in both its Ordinary and its Extraordinary forms.

Those who are willing to listen with their heart to the liturgy of the Church and allow its ancient forms and rhythms to enlighten their understanding of the world, will find in the liturgy of the Church a daily reminder that since all things exist under the shadow of the cross, all things are illuminated by the obedience with which Christ suffered.

The whole of the Easter Cycle reminds us that nothing now remains in the darkness of sin, for even death has been made radiant by the obedience of Our Lord's Passion.

What is revealed in that radiance is the mystery of our reconciliation, and not just our reconciliation, but the reconciliation of all creation, for everything that exists has been reconciled to the Father by the obedience of Christ. Even those things which have no life in themselves - bricks and sand and metal and wood, those very things which have been used to build this monastery - have been elevated by the Resurrection of Christ so that even inanimate things - reconciled now to their Creator - reveal the mercy and the pardon of God.

This mystery of the world's reconciliation is surely the faith of the Church, for it has been proclaimed in the life of every saint, taught by even' doctor, held inviolate by every virgin and attested to by the blood of every martyr. And it is our faith, too, for that is why we have come to Hulbert today, braving the threat of more rain and the inconvenience of these sodden fields and dripping trees, praying together in this crypt, while we guard in our imagination the building that will one day be erected above us.

We have come today so that through the Church's liturgy we might bless and dedicate a new monastery, sanctifying the work of its construction, and indeed - even hallowing the simple materials of its construction. We have come today to bless the new monastic enclosure, this great work of faith, so that each room and each cell might continually reveal to us - and to a hundred future generations - that all things are illuminated by the obedience with which Christ suffered.

And yet the readings which we hear proclaimed today confront our every expectation, for they speak neither of the resurrection (which might be expected on this Saturday of the Third Week of Easter) nor of the Temple (which Solomon built in Jerusalem according to a heavenly plan).

Instead the Church presents to us that saddest of moments when Mary, disconsolate at the foot the cross but obedient to the will of God, loses her divine Son and gains in return a universal motherhood, beginning with the beloved disciple and continuing until each of us is also gathered beneath the ample folds of her tear-stained mantle. The Church this morning offers for our contemplation the humility of Our Lady, who loses her Divine Son and embraces in his stead the son of Zebedee. The sinless Mother of God humbly accepts this sword, this next piercing of her heart, and becomes the mother of all of us who have been redeemed from sin by the obedience of Jesus.

In recalling for us this element of Good Friday's solemn liturgy, the Church does two things:

First, she opens our heart to receive with compunction the great grace which the Father desires to give us today by our participation in the ceremony of dedication. What is that grace? It is to learn through Christ - and by the example of his Immaculate Mother - that obedience can lead us to humility, and humility will win us the holiness of Jesus, if our humility is such that our hearts echo Our Lady's fiat: "Let it be done unto me according to Thy word."

Secondly the Church reminds us that the triumph of Easter does not undo the suffering of the cross; rather, Easter reveals the fullest meaning of Christ's suffering unto death.

If there were no resurrection, then the horror of Christ's suffering and the terror of the living God overwhelmed in death, would stand forth only as the price of justice paid, the punishment meted out for our sin to a hapless victim. But Christ's triumph over death discloses the infinite love behind that death.

Easter reveals that the cross is not about suffering, but redemption; not about punishment, but forgiveness and mercy. Easter, as the Church teaches us throughout these weeks, introduces us to the full mystery of the cross, the full mystery of Love which allows Itself to be wounded for sin's sake, scourged for those who will not repent, and nailed for those who feel no contrition or remorse.

The Cross has become our hope only because the resurrection has revealed it to be the wisdom and power of God's love. This is why St. Paul can write with such assurance, "The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Let me suggest to you today, that the life of the monk is meant to bring together, in the most radi­cal way imaginable, the two mysteries which the Church discovers in the Gospel of the Sorrowful Mother. By his life of obedience, paid out to his superiors in a daily ration of humility, the monk is freed to center his life in the Passion of Christ and thus lives a life illuminated by the obedience of Jesus.

For this reason, my brothers, I beg you: seek to recover each day the original fervor of your vocation. This means that each day you must accept the cross and embrace that day's sharing in the Passion of Jesus. Ask God at Mass for the Grace of allowing the Cross to become for you the tree of life, your undefiled marriage bed and the altar upon which you are offered in a liturgical sacrifice.

In the morning before your day begins, surrender to the embrace of the cross so that through the whole of the day you might rest with Christ in the will of the Father. And in the evening, when you surrender yourself to sleep, trust that because what the Father wills is love, you can always pray again, "Father, not my will but thine be done."

I wish to thank Father Abbot, Antoine Forgeot for having sent those original 13 monks as a gift from the Church in France to the Church in the United States. Moreover I want him to know how grateful I am that he sent you here, to the Diocese of Tulsa and to us.