Just kidding. I am not sure Father Cyprian has ever walked into a bar; not that he wouldn’t but I don’t think he has. I’ve been walking the country roads near Assumption Abby, in the Mark Twain National Forrest, with him for over twenty years. This Trappist Monk has been my spiritual director all that time. I was telling my therapist this week, yes I have one of those too, that I’ve journaled every visit to the abbey from lawyer to chocolate maker and everything in between. And the funny (not funny) thing is that when I reviewed old entries from long ago I see where not much has changed in my struggles. But then if I really look I also notice tiny little insights that have evolved into change. Cyprian entered New Melleray Abbey in Iowa in 1950 and was among the first monks to establish monastic life at Assumption Abbey near Ava, Missouri where they now make famous fruitcakes to support their way of life. Part of this conversation I had with Father Cyprian originally appeared in The New Territory magazine’s “Shop Talk” series this past summer. I’ve been in the company of many people around the world in my life but I am hard pressed to name another person in whose presence I’ve felt more wisdom, peace, and grace than Father Cyprian. I have made a lifetime vow to the abbey as a family brother, will one day be buried there, and look forward to the day when I can visit again and become part of the rhythm of community life in solitude.
Father Cyprian: Hello, this is Father Cyprian.
Shawn Askinosie: Father Cyprian, it’s Shawn.
FC: Good morning.
SA: Good morning. Is this still an okay time?
FC: Yeah, it is. It’s fine. We have a nice, drizzly day here.
SA: Yes. In fact, it’s kind of stormy here.
SA: Can you describe for someone who’s never been to Assumption Abbey, the place where you live?
FC: Well, we’re in a very scenic location, hills and hollers, wooded. And for people who are used to solitude or who’ve grown up in the country, they feel at home. For people who are mostly living in cities and the hustle and bustle of the fast life, it can be kind of spooky for a while until they get used to it.
SA: Why do you think that is?
FC: Well, people are different. People have different gifts of nature and grace. And partly, there’s a difference between solitude and loneliness. Solitude can be alone with God, and loneliness can be stuck alone with ourselves without God. All of that would go into the mix of a person’s first reactions and then gradually seeing if they really are at peace or at home at such a location.
SA: What a perfect time to be talking about solitude in the middle of this pandemic because people have been basically put in mandatory solitude.
FC: Right—
SA: … or loneliness whether they like it or not. Would you have any advice for someone who might be struggling with how to accept solitude as a grace? Any suggestions?
FC: Well, I think that you put it right that if we can see a forced solitude as a grace, a gift, and then it can become fruitful. But if it’s something imposed on us that we don’t want to do or don’t want to accept or don’t try to accept, it can be harmful.
SA: Well, speaking of solitude… And I’ve never asked you this before. I’ve asked you a lot of questions in 20 years. And I’ve been thinking about it, it’s been just slightly over 20 years that we’ve been walking around the grounds of the Mark Twain National Forest together. But I haven’t ever asked you, if you could take only one book into solitude if you were going on a really long retreat or to a hermitage (and that book, let’s say for the sake of our discussion is not the Bible or not the Breviary) what do you think that book would be?
FC: Well, you took the book away from me by saying not the scriptures. But I would take a book by Dom Columba Marmion. It’s called Christ in His Mysteries.
SA: Is that a new book or an old book?
FC: No, it’s kind of a golden oldie. It follows God’s plan of creation, salvation according to the liturgical year. It’s geared towards a personal relationship with Christ and union with God.
SA: In living this life, I’m sure that you’ve learned over the years how to live in community with family, with your brothers as friends and family and all of it. So could you maybe say something that you’ve learned, or one or two things that you’ve learned, from when you were 20 to now that as you reflect back, that maybe this is what you’ve learned about how to live in community and how to do that and have stability in this community? What do you think?
FC: Well, we learn early on that we are all essentially in the same boat. We’re all fallen children of Adam and Eve. And the paradox is that we’re also filled with the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit. So there’s that strange combination, paradox of strengths and weaknesses of goodness and woundedness. It gives a trust and it also requires a real trust in God’s presence and work in our community life. Also if you come to appreciate that with all the differences and challenges or whatnot, it is a real blessing to living within a community where there’s this constant current of life, of value, of essential unity that keeps pulling you in the right direction.
SA: Which direction would that be then?
FC: Well, I look on life as a journey of return to the Father, which is pretty much the way our Lord expressed his own life direction. He had that sense that He came forth from the Father into the world. So He was passing through the world on a journey of return to the Father. So that sense that we do come from God’s creating hand and we’re on this life journey.
SA: One of the things that I wanted to talk about in our remaining time is this notion of the Paschal mystery. And I remember when we first started talking, and you started spiritually directing me informally 20 years ago. And I was really struggling then with some health issues and depression, and you introduced me to this concept of the Paschal mystery. And I really, over the last 20 years, deepened my appreciation of that idea, that notion of that doctrine and its application to life. Can you explain a little bit about what the Paschal mystery is and why, in your opinion, it seemed to really resonate with me and perhaps other lay people that you’ve talked to over the years who might be struggling? Why does there seem to be such beauty in this idea of the Paschal mystery?
FC: Well, given the way you presented why does it connect or resonate with our human life, one way would be to say that it’s the way our Lord Jesus dealt with suffering. And that’s such a reality in every human life and greater or lesser, different forms. And there is always that challenge and mystery of suffering, and this is the way He dealt with it in His human life as a Son of Man, Son of God. So it’s He accepted it again to the shadow side of suffering, and He accepted it as part of God the Father, Creator’s plan and way of creation, salvation. He gave it value by seeing it or offering it as a reparation for sin, to make amends for the offenses against the Divine Majesty as a way of showing us, children of Adam of Eve and then adopted children of God, how we can find value and cope with suffering. It’s in identifying, in our own small way, with His own suffering and death, passion of His redeeming sacrifice.
FC: And then also identifying with His resurrection, the glory, the victory, which He brought out of His way of dealing with suffering and death. So that gives us that value of walking through the shadow side, the valley of shadow of death, and then entering also into the glory side, the fruit, the victory of good over evil. As I once said, we don’t fear those reasons that would kill the body but we live in the reverence of God who can bring eternal life out of suffering and death.
SA: Well, it sounds like it applies to the scripture reading I just mentioned for today, Jesus said, “So now you’re in anguish, but I’ll see you and your hearts will rejoice. And nobody will be able to take away that joy.” That’s kind of what we’re talking about, isn’t it?
FC: Right. And then He used such ingenuity in His parables that He used a woman, a mother and her childbirth experience, that fits so perfectly.
SA: We kind of skipped over… or I did by asking you about the Paschal mystery, so in a sentence, what is the Paschal mystery and why that word? What does it mean? What is that?
FC: It would be our Lord Jesus’ passion and death, and His resurrection and ascension and sending the Holy Spirit as the fruit of His own passion and death, resurrection. So it’s sharing that with us through His indwelling Holy Spirit.
SA: A person could literally spend a lifetime meditating, praying, reading, lectio divina about this Paschal mystery.
FC: Yeah. The thing is, that’s what I meant about the growing interest and lectio divina of scripture, it’s not a head trip. It’s something that we live out in real life, daily.
SA: Whenever I talk to see you and I say, “How’s it going?” You routinely say, “I’m flourishing.” I wrote about this in Meaningful Work. What do you mean by that?
FC: That in a sense I took that risk of jumping off the end of the world, seeking the gift of the obedience of faith.
SA: And that’s what you mean by flourishing?
FC: Yeah. There is a gift of faith God gives, a deep inner conviction that this is true and right. Jesus Christ’s way is the right way. He is true. And you take the risk of, again, living it out. And then more and more, over the long run, there’s fruit. You see, it works. It’s real.
FC: So as I get older, I moderate that flourishing. I say, “I’m relatively flourishing.”
SA: As you return home on that journey, I understand.
FC: Okay, right on.
SA: There are some days where I can say I’m flourishing, but there are also other days that I don’t feel like that. You’ve been walking that walk with me, and I was thinking last night that I’ve talked with you about every major decision that I’ve made in my life in the last 20 years. That spiritual direction has been one of the great constants in my life. And so I’m thinking when you do return home and I’m here, and I can’t talk to you like I’m talking to you now, what am I going to do?
FC: God will provide. It isn’t a person that’s kind of a super guru. It’s when we seek spiritual direction from another, we’re really going in the light of faith. We’re talking and seeking God’s will in a person who, in a very real way, represents Christ. Well, that’s part of the mystery and the wonder of the incarnation, that God comes to us through our human nature.
SA: Okay. I will believe that. Well, those were the questions that I wanted to ask. I guess I didn’t ask all of the questions that I said that I was going to, but these are great. And so I will keep you posted on this and-
FC: There’s one more thing that gave me pause to think about in those questions originally. I don’t know whether you want to include it in the article or not but-
SA: Yes, yes, go ahead.
FC: … we’ll talk later about it and you can decide. You said, “What about contemplation?” And I remembered an answer that I was a young monk, my father master or the spiritual director at the time, he was very interested in contemplative prayer. And so at one point he asked me, “Keep some notes of your prayer, let’s say for the next week. And I’ll go over them.” So he did, he read what I had written down. He read it and he kind of shook his head, and he says, “Well now, you don’t have the gift. You’re not the type.” Not in that sense experiencing an approach to prayer which is a contemplative prayer, my own way approach is in terms of contemplative life, seeing every person, everything that happens in the light of faith. And seeing God’s hand at work in the events in people’s lives, short term, long term.
FC: And then as I get older, I become more limited in what I can do and all that. And so exploring it, I read not too long ago about a professional ball player. He’d been in the minor leagues, did really fine, so they sent him up to the majors. After a year or two, it really wasn’t working out. So they said to him, “Well, now what are you going to do?” He says, “Well, I’ll just go back and keep playing. I love the game.” And I thought, well, that fits me nicely. Only for us of course, the game is not something, it’s someone.
That’s all I had on my mind.
SA: No, that’s good. I love that. Thank you Father Cyprian. I really, really appreciate it. And thanks so much for being willing to do this, and thank you for being in my life. And I hope that you’ve been able to have the person in your life when you were “growing up” spiritually that helped you the way you’ve helped me.
FC: Yeah. Actually this very long struggle of gaining the goal of the faith, the gift of obedience of faith, and then the challenges in growing through the years. There’s been a few priests, monks who have served very much that role for me. And God will provide because He’s got the right person at the right time for what you want to do and accomplish.
SA: Yeah, maybe I can help be that person for someone, too. Maybe-
FC: I believe very much in Lost & Found and Chocolate University and also in your family, especially first of all in your family. Oh, say, also —
SA: Yes-
FC: Don’t send me any of this. I don’t need to read it.
SA: Oh, I thought you were going to say, “Don’t send me the chocolate-covered cherries.” And I was going to say, “Too late, I’ve already done that.”
FC: Don’t forget that.
SA: Yeah. No, I did it. I did it the next day after we spoke. I sent it, so you should be receiving that shortly, and please tell me what you think.
FC: Okay, will do.
SA: All right. Thank you so much, Father Cyprian. God be with you.
FC: Okay, and with you, too.
Digging Deeper: If you’d like more where this came from I write about Father Cyprian and his role in my life in greater detail in my book “Meaningful Work: A Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling And Feed Your Soul” published by Penguin Random House.