To visit the abbey of St. Leibowitz

I have been steadied

Brother Scott, OA and I took the Promise [i] in the chapel at the General Theological Seminary in January of 1988. This morning he sent me a link to a wonderful article about A Canticle for Leibowitz. Everyone involved in developing the Order of the Ascension had read it in the 80s. It was so popular that NPR read a section of it once a week. When I was writing the draft of the Rule I included a portion from Leibowitz. It appeared on the last pages under “Governance of the Order.” Those of us that served as vicars of small inner city parishes knew a bit about what leadership often felt like. And there it was in the novel as the old abbot engaged the monk who was to serve as the order’s leader in a new world.

"Domne, I'm not -certain"

"You can croak anyhow, eh? Are you going to submit to the yoke? Or aren't you broken yet? You'll be asked to be the ass He rides into Jerusalem, but it's a heavy load and it'll break your back, because He's carrying the sins of the world. "

"I don't think I'm able. "

". ..Listen, none of us has been really able. But we've tried, and we've been tried. It tries you to destruction, but you're here for that. This Order has had abbots of gold, abbots of cold tough steel, abbots of corroded lead, and none of them was able although some were abler than others, some saints even. The gold got battered the steel got brittle and broke, and the corroded lead got stamped into ashes by Heaven. Me. I've been lucky enough to be quicksilver; I spatter, but I run back together somehow. I feel another spattering coming on, though, and I think it Is for keeps this time. "what are you made of? What's to be tried?"

"Puppy dog tails. I'm meat, and I'm scared."

"Steel screams when it's forged, it gasps when it's quenched. It creaks when it goes under load. I think even steel is scared. Take half an hour to think? A drink of water? A drink of wind? Totter off awhile. If it makes you seasick then prudently vomit. If it makes you terrified, scream. If it makes you anything, pray. But come into church before Mass, and tell us. .."

", , .If they want me, honorem accipiam. "

The abbot smiled "You heard me badly. I said 'burden " not 'honor. ",

"Accipiam. "

"You're certain?"

"If they chose me, I shall be certain. " (From Walter Miller’s, A Canticle for Leibowitz

Some years ago when Chapter was tinkering with the Rule, I suggested removing Miller’s writing. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was thinking it was too odd. Maybe I was thinking the Rule shouldn’t have the word “vomit” in it.

Brother Scott objected. He wanted it in the Rule. I went along with that. Scott was right.

My guess is that most of the newer Professed Members have not read A Canticle for Leibowitz. It is a strange book. I hope they read it one day.

I’ve often wondered what it was in the book that had such power for us as we formed a new religious order.

Each abbot in each age leads in his own way

This morning Scott sent me a text linking to Bethel McGrew’s substack article, “An Eternal Song: Remembering ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ “ She described the book this way.

“The three novellas are separated in time but united in space by the Abbey of St. Leibowitz in the desert of the southwestern United States. As a world shattered by nuclear holocaust groans through rebirth out of its second Dark Ages into its second Enlightenment, and from there hurtles inexorably on to a new apocalypse, the Abbey remains, as constant as the North Star. Each abbot in each age leads in his own way, with his own particular combination of fire and ice, grit and guts.”

It’s a lovely piece of writing. I’m grateful that Brother Scott shared it with me. I have even subscribed (free) to her substack. McGrew’s ending of the piece captures why Scott was correct when he wanted it to remain in the Rule.

I have been steadied

“I have gone back to the words Miller placed in an old abbot's mouth sixty-five years ago, and I have been steadied. I know only that when I have encountered that divinity which dwells under seal in the most ruined of souls, I have seen once more the peasant shuffling home at twilight, and I have been awakened. I know only that in my own striving to beat back the darkness of my own age, I have had occasion many times to visit the abbey of St. Leibowitz, and I have been strengthened. 

Like the builders of the chapel where Charles Ryder kneels at the end of Brideshead Revisited, its builder did not know the use to which his work would descend. The flame it carried was a flame not its own, but the ancient unquenchable flame of priests and martyrs, old knights and old prophets. 

It burned bright then. It burns bright still. It always shall.”

This abides,

Brother Robert, OA

On the Feast of Nathan Söderblom, Archbishop of Uppsala and Ecumenist, 1931

[i] "My promise is to seek the presence of Jesus Christ in the people, things and circumstances of my life through stability, obedience and conversion of life."