When I finished my second year at McMaster University, I found that while I was having a great deal of fun in university, I was a very unhappy person. There seemed to be something missing from my life. For this reason, I went looking for some kind of meaning in my life. To find it, I spent a summer at a Cistercian Monastery that used to by near Orangeville, Ontario in Hockley Heights. There I met a man who would become a type of spiritual mentor for me. His name was Father Canisius Stemmler. At the time I went to Orangeville in the mid 1980’s, Father Canisius was already in his 80’s. Despite his old age, he had only been a monk at that time for about 35 years. The reason for this was that he had been a Jesuit for many years before he had entered the Cistercians. His varied past meant that he was a man of great spiritual learning, formed in both Jesuit spirituality and that of the Cistercian tradition. For most of the summer, I was assigned to work in the garden with Father Canisius and help to make the Christmas cakes that supported the monastery. It was probably the most educational summer that I ever had in my life. While working beside him for the summer, we would talk about almost every subject under the sun. It was as though I was given the privilege of constant spiritual direct for the whole summer.
One day, near the end of my time at the monastery that summer, I brought up a concern I had about how I could possibly grow in the spiritual life. After praying and living with the monks for the summer, I had become aware of how holy they were and of the fact that I was very unholy compared to them. My life as a twenty year old man was completely different from the life of these men who had lived in prayer for thirty, forty or fifty years. As I raised this concern with Father Canisius, he told me a story that had apparently been told to him by another monk when he was thinking about becoming a monk.
The story goes like this. There was once a monastery in Europe that was so famous for the holiness of its monks, that many other monks would often come and try and live in this monastery. Because so many monks were always coming to live there, the abbot could be very selective about the people whom he would let in. He made it a point to only let those applicants in who could truly enhance the holiness of the community and help it grow in holiness. One day two new applicants came to the monastery to enter. This day, the abbot who was aging, decided to interview the candidates with the help of his assistant, knowing that it would soon be up to him to decide who would enter the monastery.
When the first candidate arrived, the abbot asked him why he had come to join their monastery. This first monk told him that he had been the holiest monk in his whole community and that he was far more advanced in the spiritual life than any of the other monks in the monastery from which he had come. He went on to tell the abbot that he in fact had to leave his former community because all of the other brothers were bringing him down and getting in the way of his spiritual growth. He had come to this holy community because he wished to continue to grow in the holiness with which the Lord had so obviously blessed him. The abbot listened to him patiently and asked him a few questions about the monks in this holy brother’s former community. This holy monk described all of their weaknesses in great detail and when he had finished the abbot sadly said to him:, “My good brother, the reputation of this monastery is highly over-rated, I am afraid a holy monk like you will only find the brothers in this monastery as unworthy of your company as those in the monastery from which you have come. For the sake of all concerned, I encourage you to be on your way and find a community better suited to one as good as you.”
When the second monk arrived seeking to join the monastery, which was famous for its holiness, he too was introduced to the abbot and his assistant and asked the same questions. This second monk explained that all of the monks in the community from which he had come were extremely holy and good people who tried everyday by the grace of God to live their lives as best as they could. This second monk said, however, that he often felt that he was bringing his very good brothers down by his lack of holiness and very ordinary struggles. He had come to the monastery with the reputation for holiness because he thought at least these very holy monks, in the community famous for its holiness, would not suffer as much from his bad example. Their superior spiritual strength would allow them to withstand his bad example. The abbot asked the monk to describe what the brothers in his last community were like and he spoke joyfully about how much he loved them and how good they were. He said he was very sad to leave them, but was doing so for their own good. After listening for a few minutes to the monk who spoke so well of his brother monks from his previous community and hearing that he was aware of his limited human nature, the abbot said to him joyfully: “My good and humble brother, this is indeed the community for you. You will find true happiness here and grow in the spiritual life with great ease.”
When the day was over, the monk who was assisting the abbot with these interviews was very confused and asked why he had turned away the monk who said he was holy and accepted the monk who admitted he was weak and in need of God’s mercy. To which, as we know from today’s Gospel, the abbot answered that anyone who is so convinced that they are already holy will be so blind to the reality of their sinfulness that they will never grow in holiness and will be a curse to the whole community, because while blind to their own faults, they will never stop pointing out the faults of their brothers. Such a person makes everyone miserable. More importantly, said the abbot, God will never be able to help such a person because they are so blind to the reality of their deep sins of pride and they will be convinced that they are already perfect. In fact, my mentor Father Canisius added jokingly, the only people who he knew that were more miserable than a religious community that had to live with someone like this, would be a man or women who was married to someone who thought they were perfect. He said any one married to a holier than though man or women, who thinks they are gift to their partner, will suffer immeasurably. All you can do for such people, Father Canisius told me, is pray they survive the ordeal. As for the second monk that was admitted, the abbot explained that he was like all of the other holy monks in the holy monastery. He knew that he was not perfect and needed God’s grace to grow and saw the good in his brother monks who were also trying to grow in holiness. The abbot said that the most important thing that was needed for holiness was humility and the willingness to acknowledge our need for God’s grace and to open our hearts to his healing power. This is in fact why we start the Mass everyday with the penitential rite, by which we acknowledge we are sinners in need of God’s love and mercy.
One of the other lessons that Father Canisius would give me that summer was a method by which he had learned one could always stay humble and be aware of God’s presence in their lives. Father Canisius believed that the only reason people were not humble was because they failed to understand where they could encounter God in their lives and how much of what they had received was from God. Those who were blind to God’s presence in their lives, he said, could fall under the illusion that what they had accomplished in their life, and who they were, was somehow the result of their own doing. In order to be aware of where God was working in people’s lives, he recommended to me a practice which he had learned in his Jesuit formation, something called the Examen Prayer of St. Ignatius Loyola. Fr. Canisius believed, like many Jesuits, that if every Christian practiced this prayer everyday, they would find God’s presence in their lives and discover a sense of gratitude and humility that would allow them to grow in holiness. The purpose of the prayer is not to find one’s faults, but to look for God’s presence in our lives and to try to be more attentive to it each day. This prayer, he thought, was something a lay person like me, as I returned to university, could take ten or fifteen minutes a day to do. The form of it that I am presenting today is taken from a book by Timothy Gallagher and I have put it, with the title of the book, in this week’s bulletin. In order to enter into it, a person should find a nice quiet place to pray and follow the following structure:
The Examen Prayer
Transition: I become aware of the love with which God looks upon me as I begin this examen.
Step One: Gratitude. I note the gifts that God’s love has given me this day, and I give thanks to God for them.
Step Two: Petition. I ask God for an insight and a strength that will make this examen a work of grace, fruitful beyond my human capacity.
Step Three: Review. With my God, I review the day. I look for the stirrings in my heart and the thoughts that God has given me this day. I look for those that have not been of God. I review my choices in response to both, and throughout the day in general.
Step Four: Forgiveness. I ask for the healing touch of the forgiving God who, with love and respect for me, removes my heart’s burdens.
Step Five: Renewal. I look to the following day and, with God, plan concretely how to live it in accord with God’s loving desire for my life.
Transition: Aware of God’s presence with me, I peacefully conclude the examen.
The beautiful thing about the examen prayer is that it calls us to look at ourselves through the loving eyes of God and His concern for us as we search His presence in our day. Knowing that we are loved by God, we find the courage to admit the areas that we need His grace and are confident of His forgiveness and mercy as we attempt to live each day for His glory. Those who are faithful to such a humble effort of prayer can rest easy with St. Paul knowing they have humbly fought the good fight and sought the crown of glory that only comes to each of us through God’s grace. The person who is not willing to look at his or her life, and believes that he or she is already perfect, can never be helped by God’s grace, because like to Pharisee in today’s Gospel, they falsely believe they have no need of His help. Such a person is one who can never grow in holiness. That is the type of person who thinks everyone in the world owes them an apology and has an excuse for everything that they do.
This Sunday, as Jesus shows us His humility and love for us by giving us the gift of the Eucharist, let us pray that we might truly be able to open our hearts in humility to Him, so that we might be changed by His love. It is only in humility and openness to His grace that we can be justified for salvation.
Fr. Michael McGourty,
Pastor— St. Peter’s Parish— Toronto.
