18 November
My last day in Melbourne, flying to Perth tonight. It has been a pretty full period here, lots of wonderful encounters for sure and also lots of moving around. Let me just list it all quickly…
I stayed at the Corpus Christi College, which is the seminary for Victoria and Tasmania, Wednesday and Thursday nights. As I mentioned, our oblate Deacon Jim Curtain, who had organized my trip and is the head of the oblates down here, is on staff there. He stays four nights a week. (It actually was his last week there as he is moving on to a new ministry next year.)
That was very comfortable, a nice quiet private room with the small community of seminarians and staff. I had prayers and meals with them, of course. Thursday I spent most of the day with my friend (and advisor) and our oblate Mark Hansen from Singapore, who was in AU for the retreat too. I needed to do some errands and we found a great healthy lunch. Friday we were off right away for the oblate retreat at a retreat house outside of town. We were only 12 in number, but it went well. Sunday night we stayed at Jim’s house a half a block from the Port Phillip Bay. There is a super promenade along the beach and, knowing I was coming back there on the following weekend, I did some recon to find running paths and coffee shops. Then back to the seminary, and a full week began, a little something every day. Monday, I had an interview with ABC radio for a program called Soul Search, that will be released as a podcast as well as broadcast soon. That was so much fun. Not sure why that is a perfect vehicle for me. I did bring along my guitar. The interviewer was very knowledgeable and asked all the right questions, about my own background and about interreligious dialogue. I kept saying, “Put a nickel in my jukebox and I might never shut up.” Tuesday, I did a talk at a local parish. I thought it was supposed to be about dialogue too, but it was actually supposed to be about contemplative prayer and meditation. I also presided and preached at the evening Mass first. The deacon there, Hubert, is another of our oblates. The talk went fine but during the Q&A most of the questions were about interreligious dialogue! (One of them was, with a little edge to it, “How many converts to Catholicism have there been among Buddhists and Hindus?” I simply explained that I did not know but that conversion was not the purpose of dialogue.) The parish, but for the accent, could have been in America, as a matter of fact it reminded me in many ways of the place across the street from my Mom, Resurrection in Tempe. A nice modern church, semi-circular, originally plain brick, but now loaded with lots of devotional stuff. I think the same phenomenon is going on in Australia as in the US, a return to a more devotional spirituality instead of a liturgical one. I wonder why that is? Maybe for the same factors that led to Donald Trump being elected president again? (I’m not kidding.) Wednesday was a fuller day yet. One of our oblates who has a blog wanted to interview me for that. And then a fascinating man who runs a spiritual center in the Yarro Valley, along with is wife and a benefactor, wanted to visit with me. Mainly it was because they had hosted Bede Griffiths in 1992, I believe, and had had a great experience with him. They brought me a transcript of the talk he gave which is super. Not surprisingly, Bede spoke about the tripartite anthropology and meditation. I shall borrow from it abundantly. It’s good to know all these years later that even though I don’t go back to Bede’s writing constantly, I am correct about my understanding of his emphases and have not strayed far from the path. And then that evening I did a talk for the Center for Contemplative Studies at Melbourne University. That was most interesting. I had been in touch with several of the staff several times in the past months, once via video call and then quite a few emails. They did seem a little nervous about my presentation, partly because they are hesitant to associate too much with Christianity, partially because they didn’t know me at all, perhaps. They were even sending me all kinds of ideas about how I should lead the meditation. I prepared my talk according to the topics they asked me to cover:
Cyprian Consiglio - Christian Monastic Wisdom Today
- Christian spirituality through lens of Christian monasticism and Camaldolese and Benedictine contemplative practices
- Contemplative practice/personal experience
- How inter-faith dialogue influences contemporary appreciation of and supports
the research and practice of different contemplative practice traditions
- Talk (20 – 30 mins.)
Audience Q&A (15 mins)
20-30 minutes to cover all of that?! I used five books as a framing device to describe my own spirituality: Bede Griffiths’ (or really Bruno Barnhart’s compilation of Bede’s writing) The One Light, the Bible, the Roman Missal (and Liturgy of the Hours) to establish myself in the liturgical tradition of Catholicism, the Rule of Benedict, and the Camaldolese Constitutions. I also described myself as “an eccentric among eccentrics,” a monk, from one of the smallest congregations in the Benedictine world, who specialized in East-West dialogue, and a guitar player on top of that, now Secretary General of DIMMID. With the disclaimer that I don’t claim to speak for all Catholic Christian Camaldolese monks, so “do not take me as an examplar, for better or for worse.” Again, a nickel in my juke box... I went over my allotted time, but not by much and no one seemed to mind. I had the guitar of course (but for nearly the first time in my life did not have a guitar pick!) and began and ended with song, and also led a meditation after the Q&A. It was held in a nice theatre with lights and a sound tech. Super professional, and again, I was totally at my ease. One of those nights when I came away saying, “I love what I get to do with my life.”
Thursday I had nothing at all to do! I told Jim that he would not see me all day. He said I was welcome to come to prayers and meals. I repeated, “You will not see me all day.” It was a great day. A morning at my desk, then a long walk (seven miles that day) exploring Melbourne on my own. Main points of interest were a good long sit at St Paul’s Cathedral, which I had already visited with Hans in 2016, and a long visit to the Art Museum of Victoria. They had a stupendous Asian section, mostly ancient art from India, Japan, and China. And also were pretty well-stocked with late 19th, early 20th century pieces––Pissaro, Picasso, Monet, Manet, Dalì––and some very modern pieces like Calder, Chagall. I think I prefer visiting art museums alone. A nice lunch downtown along the banks of the Yarro River and an early evening of hermit time.
Friday was a fine day. Jim had asked me to do a retreat day for the seminarians. It was their last day there; exams were over and the summer break was beginning. I was only too happy to do it. I based it all on the kenosis theme, talks I have done many times now, and also preached on Albert the Great. I think Jim was a little concerned that I might be too progressive for them, especially with all my interfaith stuff, but I told him, “Don’t worry. I’m just gonna preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I really love speaking to guys at that stage of formation, remembering how I enjoyed hearing new voices when I was there. And I really just love the gospel of Jesus. Period. I wait all day to say the line, “Brothers, there are no hidden messages here. Jesus really meant exactly what he said, ‘The greatest among you will be the one who serves.’ No way around it.” With so many young guys up by the shiny objects of clericalism––cassocks and places of honor––it is so important to point this out.
Then the work was done, and we headed back to Jim’s place at the coast for the weekend. I again had all Saturday to myself and tramped around with my backpack at the beach and a coffee shop all day, got a little sun-burned (it was good and hot), read a lot and napped. Sunday we went out to the Cistercian monastery Tarrawarra. We celebrated Mass with the monks, then the abbot, Fr. Steele, had us in for a private lunch in his guest dining room. (I thought we were going to eat with the rest of the monks.) Another old friend, Fr. John Dupuche, joined us as well. He is an expert in Kashmir Shivaism, and I know him since the Abhishiktananda Centenary at Shantivanam in 2009. I also visited his place here in Victoria in 2016. He has for some years run an inter-faith monastic house, where he has housed monks from various religions and traditions. Between the four of us, it was a very lively conversation, though am afraid John and I left the other two in the dark at times as I probed John about some of the subtler aspects of Tantra and other areas of his expertise. After that I had the great grace of an hour with Fr. Michael Casey who is an internationally known author in the monastic world. I wanted to ask him his opinion about the influence of East-West dialogue on monasticism. (He narrowed it down to specifically “Benedictine” monasticism.) I can’t recount all of what he said here. In a word, “not much” outside of a few guys doing yoga once in a while. I was thinking sadly of the lack of interest in the Christian ashram movement in India. It speaks so strongly to me! Is it only outside of Benedictine monasticism that a new way of being monk has evolved from out of the Asian influence? I was impressed by the fact that Fr. Michael was even more world-traveled, connected, better-educated, and experienced than I knew, having spent time with such other monastic luminaries as Jean le Clerq, and also having been with Bede Griffiths and Raimondo Panikkar in 1973 at the follow up to the Asian meeting at which Thomas Merton died. So, it was a real honor to spend time with him and I am still chewing on his insights.
I was telling Jim this morning a thought I have had several times in the past weeks. Concerning the two things I love, music and east-west dialogue: they tend to be side projects or hobbies for most monks if at all. Only a few of us are crazy enough to pursue either (or both) of them full time, to actually make a life out of them.
I am waiting for my ride to the airport and thus begins another week of ministry Down Under.
