Threshold - Fall 2003

Let my Whole Being Praise the Lord
Micaela Randolph, OSB

In one of our brochures there is an invitation for people to “come and pray in our beautiful Romanesque chapels, share in the spiritual and intellectual resources of our sisters and, most importantly, experience worship with our monastic community known for its reverent and beautiful liturgies.” Rooted in this conviction, our liturgy, our work of God, is truly a work of praise and thanksgiving drawing us, and all who come here, into the mystery of God-with-us.

When guests first step into one of our chapels, there is usually silence followed by awe, amazement and maybe even envy. When retreatants join us for our chanted Liturgy of the Hours and experience the rhythm of the Hours throughout the day, they begin to relax and resonate with that rhythm, finding healing and rest for themselves. When friends come for jubilees, profession days, funerals and other special celebrations, and experience the environment of hospitality and a celebration of life using music, flowers and ritual, and the care with which the sisters attend to these, they are grateful and find nourishment.

Because we come to know and experience life and meaning through our bodies, it is important that we engage in our liturgy as fully as it is humanly possible. Our monastic spirituality is, therefore, incarnational. It is about living life here and now in the presence of a loving, nurturing God. Benedict reminds us that our minds must be in harmony with our voices (RB 19: 7). It is our work, our main work in the monastery. And it is by entering into this “Work of God” with our whole being, body and soul, that we are carried beyond ourselves into something greater.

By entering as fully as possible into the liturgy we grow in an awareness that there is more than meets the senses. It is like having transparent vision, knowing that all of reality can lead us to the mystery of God. It is through full participation in God’s created world that we are called beyond it. Created matter does matter!
Because created matter does matter and can become the vessel through which we are touched and drawn into God, it is important to give our whole selves, and all we have, to this important work. It is out of this framework that we reflect on our “reverent and beautiful liturgies” here at the Mount.

What we see and do, what we sing and the gestures we use, all these bodily activities and the many others that we take for granted: bowing, walking in procession, using holy water, dancing, kneeling, sitting and standing, all are graced moments which are to draw us into a deeper prayer, into deeper reflection, awareness and gratitude. These actions have as much to do with the internal state of being as they do with the external visible communication. It is both a giving and a receiving. It is both a sharing of the soul made visible and, at the same time, forms us and draws us more deeply into the liturgical moment.

Looking more closely at the word “gesture” and where it comes from might help us understand more clearly the importance of the use of our bodies and all created matter. The root comes from gestare, which means “to bear.” That definition, linked with “gestation,” helps us to see that gesture takes its life from within and gives birth in bodily expression. “Our voices are to be in harmony with our hearts.” Gesture then is the flowering of what has been given and practiced over time within the inner journey of the person. True liturgical gesture, then, is always true worship.

An important book for me, entitled Move and Be Moved, by Anne Lief Barlin and Tamara Robbin Greenberg places responsibility on us for our own practice of discipline through which we become more more clearly transparent and true, and through which we are able to participate in more “reverent and beautiful” liturgies. This book helped me understand that, even as our inner life determines our external movement and gives meaning to it, it is important to realize that practicing certain movements or gestures leads us to grow in attitudes and beliefs within us. “You want to be compassionate? ACT compassionately.” “You want to become more generous? Practice by ACTING more generous.” Move and eventually we will be moved!

So to participate in “reverent liturgies,” we act reverently, we handle “all things as vessels of the altar” (RB 31). To participate in “beautiful liturgies,” we arrange the flowers, we practice our singing, we prepare the altar, we practice the procession, and we go over the ritual.

Every liturgical moment becomes one “grand gesture” which communicates our life of faith, our vulnerability, our willingness to risk being broken open and surrendering to the mystery of God-with-us!