Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
So Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Ah, this people has indeed committed a grave sin in making a god of gold for themselves! If you would only forgive their sin! If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you have written." The LORD answered, "Him only who has sinned against me will I strike out of my book. Now, go and lead the people whither I have told you. My angel will go before you. When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin." Exodus 32:31-34
He proposed another parable to them. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the 'birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'" Matthew 13:31-32
Piety
St. Alphonsus Rodriguez
Laybrother of the Society of Jesus
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
Study
We lost an important gardener yesterday. Fr. Raymond Geyer, O.S.B. passed away. He was a priest for more than six decades and celebrated the 65th anniversary of his monastic profession to Belmont Abbey in November 2008.
When I met Fr. Raymond in 1975, he was director of admissions for Belmont Abbey College. Of all the schools to which I had applied, Belmont Abbey College was the farthest from home. So my father and I drove 12 hours south from New Jersey to see the campus and get a feel for the school and its people.
Arriving after 6 p.m., we knocked on the door of the Administration Building and the smiling Fr. Raymond greeted us and welcomed us to campus with signature Benedictine hospitality rivaling that immortalized by Hopkins in the poetic tribute to St. Alphonsus Rodriguez. For all the years I knew Fr. Raymond since first encounter, rarely did I ever encounter the man when that ever-present smile was not on his face. The sight of the next person he would meet would always cause his eyes to dance with delight.
Fr. Raymond invited us to dinner at the monastery but we told him that we had already eaten. So he got us some fresh bed linens and drove us over to a dorm where a vacant room was provided to us at no charge. After Fr. Raymond made us comfortable, he went back to whatever business we had pulled him away from until the next morning when we got the campus tour.
Back then, little did I realize the psychology of the campus tour at Belmont Abbey. From the Admissions Office, we were ducked out the back door to the Admin Building, across a brick walkway. Fr. Raymond, of course, interjected that the bricks were hand-made by the original monks. My father thought I could use a few lessons in brick making and walkway paving I am sure. Then we were only steps away from the Abbey Cathedral – yes, it was a full cathedral at the time. In we went to see the famous stained glass windows and the baptismal font in the place that would become every student’s holy ground.
Between the Benedictine hospitality and the tour, Dad was hooked. No state university stood a chance in trying to compete with the personal attention that Fr. Raymond delivered and symbolized in everyone we met at the Abbey. Fr. Raymond set in motion the wheels which would convince my father to part with his son and his money and neither I (nor Belmont Abbey) were probably ever the same. That August, Belmont, North Carolina became my dwelling place.
In his lifetime, Fr. Ray probably made room in the branches of this bush for hundreds of students. Tonight, we remember how he added the yeast to our lives and opened up a path so we would find and follow the true God, not some false idol that we might erect in a fraternity house, corner pub, or athletic field.
There is probably some heavenly Admission Committee and today I am smiling at the thought of my father returning the favor of such hospitality as Fr. Raymond settles in to his new dwelling place.
Thank you, Fr. Ray. May your soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of the God, rest in the peace of the Christ you followed with humility, stability and obedience.
Action
What are you doing to plant mustard seeds and welcome new birds into an earthly dwelling place?
