Amen Is the Same in Every Language

Reflections on universal liturgies after a weekend in Germany.

Kloster Huysburg upon our arrival on Friday evening

Each year, my sister Kate would rave about the annual retreat for her Berlin-based church choir. She sent photos of snowy mountains and stone steeples. Hiking? Singing? Monks? When invited to tag along this year, I booked the flight without hesitating.

Kloster Huysburg is a Benedictine monastery nestled in the hills of Germany, a few hours’ drive from the bustling city of Berlin. I wasn’t going in completely blind— I attended a silent retreat to a Benedictine monastery last year and found comfort in the predictable rhythms of monastery life: rising in the chilly dark, chanting the psalms, sipping coffee, quiet reading, more psalms, sunsets, incense, more psalms.

But what I didn’t anticipate was the experience of attending services spoken entirely in German. In the pews of Huysburg, I felt simultaneously wildly alien and oddly comfortable.

The service booklet for Compline

Chanting along with the monks is intimidating in one’s native tongue— much less in a foreign language. I stumbled over consonants, mumbled through prayers, and hastily bowed my head when it seemed everyone else was doing so. I was hopelessly lost.

I quickly clung to the one word I recognized: Amen.

The realization that “Amen” is the same in every language rooted me throughout my weekend. I started opening my eyes, grounding myself in the liturgies I knew to connect with the community with whom I worshipped.

The Liturgies We Share

1. Beauty. There is just something special about a pretty church. One doesn’t need language or theology to see that beauty points us towards our Creator, the architect of all beauty.

2. Nature. The older I get, the more I pause for tiny miracles in creation. As a group, we revelled in foggy sunsets, crunched over icy trails in search of a forest cave, and celebrated the miniature icicles coating each branch on our final frosty morning. We were just learning each other’s names and stories, but I don’t need to know your name before we squeal in unison at a sparkly frost.

3. Connection. The choir (that graciously allowed me to sing with them) is an international bunch, a mix of Americans, Brits, Australians and more. I discovered that some “churchy” things transcend space and time. I felt right at home playing cards, cracking choir jokes, laughing over a beverage (beer at night, coffee after the service)… The liturgy of coffee hour is timeless!

My new friends (the choir)!

My prayer for you is that in this world of fire and pain, of division and strife, you are able to seek out and cling to the liturgies we share with friends and with strangers. Amen.

We thought it would be fun in these newsletters to share random odds and ends we’re loving— that have nothing to do with our reflection. So I’ll kick us off!

If ever I’m in a funk, music and cooking cure me. Here are some songs and recipes I’m leaning on this winter:

• We Long to See You (Psalm 24) by Wendell Kimbrough

• Perfect Meatballs & Spaghetti (double the crushed tomatoes!)

• All I Need to Hear by The 1975

• King Arthur’s No-Knead Crusty Bread (I haven’t bought bread in years)

• Next Semester by Twenty One Pilots

• Red Pepper Orzo Soup from the SkinnyTaste Fast & Slow cookbook (if we don’t know what to make, we make this!!)

• Homecoming by Paul Russell

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

Ephesians 4:4-6

This was a recent passage of the week in my Benedictine study group. It seems like recently the Lord has been smacking me in the face with scriptures and signs pointing towards the unity of the Body of Christ— that our faith is not “between me and God”, but an experience of oneness.

xx Annie

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