Suffering With Joy

Seeking God’s Will

July 23, 2010

Over the past couple of months I’ve been thinking of a dear friend, Father Philip Schuster, O.S.B., one of the monks murdered at Conception Abbey on June 10, 2002 by a gunman whose motives will forever remain unknown as he had no connection to any of the monks nor to the abbey and left nothing in spoken word or writing to say why he did it.

Lloyd Robert Jeffress got in his car with an AK 47 and a .22 caliber sawed off rifle and drove a couple of hours from Kansas City to Conception, Missouri to execute as many monks as he could find. Father Philip, age 84 and monastery porter, was shot in the torso and finished off with a shot to the head after he fell.  The bullet hole remains in the hallway floor.  Brother Damian, known as “the weather monk” was also killed.  Two other monks who entered the hallway from their offices were shot, gravely wounded, and recovered after a long time.  When Jeffress couldn’t find anybody else to shoot, he went back down the hall and through the same door to the basilica he had used to enter the monastery, and killed himself.  In the midst of mourning the Abbot re-consecrated the basilica the next day.

I made a some private retreats at the abbey with Father Philip and visited him there with my husband on our way north to see friends.  He had been the novice master of my pastor and he was just the person I needed at that time of my life.  On one of my visits, he gave me a copy of the book he wrote, Seeking God’s Will Through Faith, Hope & Charity, full of the simple wisdom about life only a very prayerful monk with vast pastoral experience could write.

Father Philip was everything a priest should be and solid as a rock theologically.  He set a good example for me in the spiritual life and I often think of things he said in our conferences.  One typical exchange between us happened when I was sitting in his porter’s office and we were discussing the rosary.  Father pulled an old, really old broken rosary out of his breast pocket (it came from a monk who died in 1927 and I have one just like it from the same monk) and waving it in the air said, “I love praying the rosary.  I don’t worry about getting all the prayers in.  Sometimes I just get a good meditation on the mystery and don’t worry about finishing every decade.” In other words, keep to the purpose of what you’re doing and don’t sweat the small stuff. Of the monk who blessed our rosaries so long ago he said, “Father Lucas hung every indulgence under the sun on these rosaries. I don’t mind that it’s broken.  Our Lady doesn’t mind if we pray on broken rosaries.”And Father Philip prayed on his so much he plumb wore it out.

If you boiled down the essence of Father Philip, it would be simplicity and faithfulness in conforming ourselves to God’s will.  He was kind and gentle, but very firm about obeying God’s laws.  He was utterly faithful to his monastic vows and using that old, broken rosary was a perfect example of his approach to the vow of poverty.  He clearly knew what was important and what was not.

Because life itself is threatened with such great intensity from so many sides these days, and peace of soul can be elusive for the person in the world, I decided to read a little of Father Philip’s book again every day and share some passages with you here.  This is a great book that never gets boring no matter how many times you read it. Father Philip was a gift from God to all, but especially to the tortured soul who needs to learn to suffer with joy, and I’m sure he brought many to God.  He lived what he wrote.

From Chapter Two: Faith:

“He who through faith is righteous shall live” (Rom. 1: 17).  In an age when personal freedom is so much stressed, it seems helpful and necessary to try to clarify our notion of faith.

Many of us were born into a Christian family.  Many of us, especially Catholics, were baptized as infants, or when we were very young.  I do not wish to see this practice changed.  I agree with it.  But it does have at least one danger.  We are prone to think that faith, like love, comes easily, naturally, without real effort on our part.  We assume that anyone who professes to be Catholic, and who goes to church, has a deep faith.  I challenge that notion.

It is true that when the child receives the sacrament of baptism, the virtue of faith is implanted in the soul, like a seed.  Whatever else that virtue may be at the time of baptism, it is an inclination, a force, that inclines us, helps us, gives us the attitude of one ready to believe, ready to be taught by God, relying simply on His wisdom, His fidelity, His goodness.  Relying on God who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

“Relying on God who can neither deceive nor be deceived.”  Wherever lies or deception of any kind exists, there is Satan who is the clever master of re-direction and re-definition. We see and hear this every day in the news media.  Something is forever being presented as something it is not and people rely on these deceptions to justify the unjustifiable. A fair question to ask is, am I ready to be taught by God, or do I habitually look elsewhere to be told what I want to hear?

Tags: Catholic Church, conversion, suffering

2 Comments to Seeking God’s Will

1. 

   I don’t recall hearing about that tragic incident. He probably had some kind of severe psychological disorder (otherwise, what possible motive could he have had?). But such a terrible thing…

   Thank you for sharing about that wonderful monk! Sounds like he more than lived up to his vocation. Too bad his life was cut short, as he obviously had more spiritual wisdom/help to impart to others.

   Evan
Evan on July 25th, 2010
2. 

   He told me several times that he felt good but that he was ready to go when God called him. He was really looking forward to heaven. In my book, he was a martyr because I doubt the two monks would have been killed if they had been anything other than Catholic.
barb on July 25th, 2010

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