Mary van Balen

(Originally published in the Catholic Times, May 13, 2012 © 2012 Mary van Balen)

“How do you manage Liturgy of the Hours?” I asked a friend who is an oblate of a Benedictine abbey.

“I don’t get to it everyday. I do it when I can. Often, I just read through the Psalter.”

That conversation came to mind when I was discouraged by my inability to fit more of the Hours into my daily life. So, I pulled a Psalter from shelves in my study. A gift from a Trappist friend, the old book had been rebound in the monastery with a plain burnt sienna fabric and blue end papers. Father Maurice’s name is written across the top with pencil in his beautiful calligraphic scrip along with a small cross and the year: 1965.

The Grail translation, new at the time, like the translation of psalms found in the Jerusalem Bible, is made from the Hebrew. As I held the book and read from the yellowed pages, I imagined Fr. Maurice sitting in the chapel at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, chanting these ancient hymns day after day, year after year. I thought, too of my friends at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, and the time I spent with them praying the psalms throughout the day.

Sometimes, reading the more violent ones, I have wondered why they remain in liturgical collections. I have heard others voice that concern and remember a story shared by a monk at St. John’s. At one time, they were considering the collection of psalms used in their prayer. Someone suggested removing the more violent ones. Why pray war songs, songs that include dashing children against the rocks or slaughtering one’s enemies?

A monk of great stature in the community objected. Violence is part of Old Testament history. Indeed they are part of our history. “Remove those,” he said, “ and the Psalter just collapses.”

Our world today is not so different from the ancient Hebrew one. Using drones to kill our enemies makes their deaths and those civilians who lose their lives, euphemistically called “collateral damage,” invisible but no less gruesome. Read More 

Today I rediscovered this old photograph taken of me by John Howard Griffin on my visit to Thomas Merton's hermitage. I sat and held the photograph and remembered a glorious October day when my sister, Elizabeth, and I traveled to Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky with friend, Fr. Maurice Flood, to spend a day with John Griffin at Merton's hermitage.

I had long been a fan of Merton's work, having read many of his books on prayer and contemplation as well as his famous autobiography, "The Seven Story Mountain." John Griffin was also familiar to me as the author of "Black Like Me," a book that was required reading in my high school. The book remains an amazing account of Griffin's encounter with racism in the South where he traveled after darkening his skin to pass as black.

When I met him, he was suffering from diabetes and from effects of the chemicals he had taken along with treatments to blacken his skin. Despite his poor health, he was working on a biography of Merton, entering into the prayer and spirituality that filled the place. The hills were full of autumn color: trees, New England asters, tall wispy grasses, and wild flowers. I sang outside, my own song, October Days. John fixed a wonderful dinner (see my blog post A Good Friend) and we shared conversation and song late into the night. Read More 

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN -MOON,VENUS, JUPITER OVER COLLEGEVILLE INSTITUTE

After writing about the Kepler Mission, I remembered an article my Trappist friend, Fr. Maurice Flood, sent to me years ago. It was from the July 1994 issue of Sky & Telescope and told the story of Trappist sisters at Santa Rita Abbey in Arizona who shared the love of contemplating the night sky. One in particular, Sr. Sherly Chen, a graduate of Yale, shared her thoughts with author David H. Levy.

Levy was struck by the connections between science and religion as he listened to the sisters, experienced their prayer, and gazed with them at the clear night sky. I remembered that Chen had shared a poem she had written after considering the distance starlight had to travel to be seen by her that night. I found the article and poem in my old office:

Light

which left the Pleiades
2,000 years ago
arrived just when
a Mayan's eye
peered upwards
through the stone shaft
of the Temple of the Jaguar Sun.

Other rays

began their earthward Journey
before I even existed
to meet my eye
in the expanse of desert sky
after Vigils.

Grace

sets out from God
before I need it
rushes light-years toward me
meets me at the very moment I fall.

When it arrives
I am there.

 Read More 

LINKS Redwoods Monastery Holy Cross Abbey The Abbey of Gethsemani Books by John Howard Griffin
PBS special "Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton

Today is the birthday of a good friend, Father Maurice, or as I knew him first, Hugh. Hugh is a Trappist monk and priest who is chaplain for a small community of Trappistine nuns in northern California. While at Gethsemani, Hugh worked with Thomas Merton, helping at his hermitage and welcoming guests that came to spend time with the famous monk, writer, and poet. Merton had thoughts of founding hermitages in Alaska, and Hugh had plans to accompany him when he returned from a conference in Bangkok. He did not return. Merton's unexpected death by accidental electrocution in his room was devastating for many including then Brother Maurice.

He took a leave to discern what direction to take and that is when we met. I sat behind him at a parish workshop and decided that I had to meet this intriguing person with a very short haircut (not in vogue at the time) who wore white socks and sturdy black shoes. It was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted forty years.

Along with a mutual friend, we drove to the Black Hills, camping our way west to pray on Harney Peak where the Oglala Lakota holy man, Black Elk, sought his vision. We visited the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations and marveled at Badland vistas.

I rode his motorcycle and enjoyed looking at the sky through his handmade telescope. Hugh introduced me to the Abbey of Gethsemani where I once spent an incredible evening at Thomas Merton's hermitage, the guest of John Howard Griffin, author (of among other titles, "Black Like Me"), photographer, and gourmet cook. John was working on a biography of Merton, but he took time to prepare a wonderful dinner on the hermitage’s two hot-plates and took pictures far beyond monks’ betime as my sister and I played guitars and sang the October night away.

Hugh decided to return to the monastery and later became an ordained priest. He became a friend to our children and it was on the grounds of Holy Cross Abbey in Virginia where each of them got behind the wheel of a car for the first time, driving with Hugh through the windy roads of the monastery.

On his yearly visits back to his home monastery we usually manage a visit. Besides that, phone calls and letters keep us in touch. When I was at the Collegeville Institute last year, Morgan Atkinson, director of the PBS special, "Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton,” and editor of the companion book of the same title, came to Saint John's University for a screening of the special and to answer questions.

I called Hugh.

"Are you in this special?"

He laughed. "Well....Yes."

That was all I needed to know. I enjoyed the special and while waiting to talk to the director I heard a man ask him if he had any connections at Redwoods Monastery.

"I would really like to get in touch with that Father Maurice. His comments really spoke to my heart."

I smiled, tapped the man on the shoulder and offered to put him in touch with my friend.

Friendship is a gift. One that lasts over forty years is unusual in a time when school and jobs keep people moving. Today I give thanks for Hugh, Fr. Maurice, and the friendship that, with good health, promises to last another decade or two.  Read More