Our Order was founded on March 21, 1098
when St. Robert and about 21 of his monks of the abbey of Molesme left their
monastery to found the New Monastery of Citeaux, the first house of what was to
become over the centuries the worldwide Cistercian Order. Significantly, this date was both the feast
of the Transitus of St. Benedict and, in that year of 1098, also Palm
Sunday. So, we can imagine them singing
as they left Molesme the antiphon that years ago Fr. Gabriel at choir practice
said can be called the Cistercian Theme Song: The Christus factus est,
Christ became for us obedient unto death, sung over and over during the Holy
Week trek to Citeaux. Both the feast of St. Benedict and Palm Sunday provided
the themes of humility, obedience unto death, and paschal exaltation that are
contained in that Antiphon sung on their new journey in Christ: a journey
toward the School of Love-- where monks would be able to experience the
contemplative expansion of their hearts in an overflow of the inexpressible
delights of love in the Kingdom, beginning in this life.
The decision to move from Molesme and the
foundation of Citeaux were, in the words of our friend Dom Mark Kirby, “conceived
in compunction.” We see this in the
description of the deliberations of Robert and his companions that is found in
the Exordium Parvum, the earliest chronicle of Cistercian history written about
the year 1119: (quote) “For while still at Molesme, these men breathed on by
the grace of God, among themselves often used to speak of, complain about,
grieve over the transgressions of the Rule of the most blessed Benedict, Father
of monks, seeing that they and other monks had promised by solemn profession to
obey this Rule, yet had by no means kept it.” This grief over their own
transgressions of the Rule, this being stung to the heart by their own lack of
truthful living is a classic aspect of Benedictine and Cistercian spirituality
and of Christian spirituality in general for even as the Cistercian Order was
founded in 1098 on an experience of compunction of heart so also was the
Universal Church more than one thousand years earlier on Pentecost. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Pentecost
speech of Peter, Michael Driscoll writes, uses “the notion (of compunction) to
express the supernatural shock that leads to conversion, translated in the
Vulgate as compuncti sunt corde.” “Peter stood up (on Pentecost) and
proclaimed to them: 'Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God
has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.' Now when
they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other
apostles, 'What are we to do, brothers?'”
This was precisely the experience of our founders—they were cut to the
heart, filled with compunction, by their transgressions of the Rule of Benedict
and asked, “What are we to do, brothers?”
In recognition of the remarkable
integration of what were the separate male and female branches of the Order,
today, we must ask, “What are we to do, brothers and sisters?” Remember today's
Gospel: “They were completely overwhelmed and exclaimed to one another,' Then
who can be saved?' Jesus fixed his gaze
on them and said, 'For man it is impossible but not for God. With God all things are possible.'” On Pentecost, two thousand years ago, Peter
answered “Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. For the promise is made to you
and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will
call.” Likewise, our Cistercian Fathers repented of their mediocre way of life
at Molesme and went forth into the baptism of fire, which was life in the
wilderness, the desert of Citeaux. There
they lived, the Exordium states, “So that, directing the whole course of their
life by the Rule over the entire tenor of their life, in ecclesiastical as well
as in the rest of the observances, they matched or conformed their steps to the
footprints traced by the Rule. Having therefore put off the old man, they were
rejoicing to have put on the new.” The
joy described here reminds us of the description of the disciples' experience
of communal life after the grace of Pentecost: “They ate their meals with
exultation and sincerity of heart praising God and enjoying favor with all the
people.” The normal outcome of true
compunction of heart is this joy we see in the texts about our early Cistercian
ancestors and about the first community in Jerusalem.
The
sharp beak of the Holy Spirit tears open our hearts—punctures them-- so that
the divine dove can then snuggle into our hearts and transform us as we follow
St. Benedict and our founders in taking the Gospel as our guide and preferring
nothing to Christ. What better way is
there for us to honor the three holy founders of Citeaux than to allow the
compunction of heart that all of us feel in one way or another (morally,
spiritually) to open us to the action of the Holy Spirit in renewing our lives
as monks. Having put off the old, may we
rejoice in having put on the new person we are in Jesus Christ.
Photograph by Father Emmanuel. Today's homily by Father Luke.