Brother Gregory Received Back as Fully Professed Member

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The following is Br. Luke's sermon, preached in celebration of the profession of Br. Gregory.


Sermon 122 1
Feb 3: Is 42:5-12; Heb 7:11-19; Lk 2:25-38 Encounter

We all know what a bear hug is. To some it’s a warm embrace, to others it’s suffocating or even harassment! In greeting people at home, on social occasions, and even here at the Kiss of Peace or at coffee hour, we may embrace each other. And how different that can be from one person to the next! Is it three kisses on the cheek, or two or one or just a handshake or maybe a pat on the arm? The choreography of meetings can be a many-splendored-thing, an ordinary and unmemorable occasion or an embarrassment.

Today we celebrate the meeting in the Temple between the child Jesus Christ and the aged Simeon. Others are there as witnesses: Mary and Joseph and the prophetess Anna, but the principal encounter that only St Luke [and no other Gospel writer] describes happens when Simeon takes Jesus into his arms. I would not be surprised if Jesus also held onto Simeon. So we might call it a mutual embrace. But this isn’t just about human embrace; this is Simeon’s encounter with God in a very special way.

Simeon has been waiting his whole life for this encounter. He has been assured that he would not see death until he has seen the Lord’s anointed one. And when this happens he blesses God and then speaks the words that the church uses as the Canticle of Simeon:


Now you may let your servant go in peace Master, as you said you would. For my eyes have seen the salvation you prepared for all people: a light to enlighten the nations and to give glory to your people Israel.


Simeon has recognized the Christ and sees the broader implications. The meeting is personal, the embrace is tender, and the message is for all people. He waited for the one who, as the Letter to the Hebrews says, is “…the hope that brings us close to God.” [Heb 7:19].

Today we also celebrate an important event in the life of our community and in the life of one of its members: Brother Gregory. Today we receive Brother Gregory back into New Skete as a fully professed member. He was originally professed in June 1999. In a sense, Brother Gregory’s pilgrimage to this day is analogous to that of Simeon. For most of his adult life, Br. Gregory has been seeking God in religious community. He was with the Augustinians in 1970, then with the Hospitaller Brothers from 1975 and the Brotherhood of St Gregory from 1982 until he began exploring the possibility of joining the Monks of New Skete in the 1990s. And even after leaving New Skete in 2001 he continued to live a vowed religious life. And as early as 2005 he began to explore the possibility of returning to New Skete. Then the wait began.

Br. Gregory in Prayer

As with Simeon, we can know our intentions and we can hear the call from God, but the graced moment is not always ours to determine. But when all the circumstances seemed to be right, Brother Gregory returned in January 2012 to begin living with us for a period to become reacquainted with the lived experience of monastic life at New Skete.

Much has changed at New Skete since 2001 and Brother Gregory has also changed. That is the reason when a former member returns a period of reintegration of at least a year is recommended. During this time Brother Gregory re-engaged with the community’s life in all its aspects: worship, private prayer, work, study, formation and recreation. As this process unfolded Brother Gregory was then brought into community meetings and discussions. All of this anticipates today’s ceremony, like Simeon looking forward to the meeting with the Christ.

The ceremony itself is like the mutual embrace of Simeon and the Christ child. Here it is the embrace by the community of Brother Gregory, welcomed back into our midst, and the embrace by Brother Gregory of the community and all that monastic life entails. And insofar as we strive to live this life according to the profession we make, God embraces us all. And this is a mutual embrace too for to live this life is to live in anticipation of the reign of God, now and for eternity.

Brother Gregory, we are blessed to have you with us again on this journey: Welcome back!


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