ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Aware that the scribes and Pharisees have for some time now been plotting to kill him, unwavering in their conviction that they are in the right, Jesus chastises them for saying “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have not joined them in shedding the prophet’s blood.”  Whenever we catch ourselves thinking, “If I had lived at such and such a time or place, or had been in such and such a situation, I would never have…(fill in the blank)," we can be sure that we have gone astray. We have somehow lost sight of the fallen human nature we share with everybody else. Aware of our need for the divine mercy, let us acknowledge our sins. Photograph by Brother Brian. Meditation by Father Timothy.

"I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom." She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" She replied, "The head of John the Baptist." The girl hurried back to the king's presence and made her request, "I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist." The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head.   Mark 6 Afraid to embarrass himself in front of his guests, a drunken King Herod accedes to Salome's evil request. Jesus' cousin, the son of Elizabeth's dotage, who spoke the truth so fearlessly, the man whose preaching even fascinated Herod loses his head because of jealousy and foolish social pressure. We pray that we may always keep our wits and our wisdom and never ever act out of jealousy or embarrassment.

Once again this morning we listen with Peter as Jesus whispers this hauntingly beautiful question to each of us, “Who do you say that I am? Who am I for you?” Perhaps when we come to understand ourselves as sinners desperately loved by Christ, we can say with Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. To whom else shall we go? All I want is to know you, Lord Jesus and the power flowing from your resurrection. Everything else is rubbish. You are all that I desire. You are my love, my fortress, my stronghold, my rescuer, my rock, the God who shows me love always and everywhere, moment by moment."

The Lord’s ways are simply not our ways of doing things. God likes to switch things around. Just imagine if God were only fair.  Jesus goes to Jerusalem where he himself will be consumed by the jealousy and hatred of leaders, who refuse to see clearly that he is of God. They will spit on him and scourge and crucify him. But from the cross he will not condemn but forgive them. We might imagine what Jesus could have groaned from the cross - “This is so unfair.” Unfair indeed, but he never says anything of the kind. He never reproaches us. Instead while all the while trusting in his Abba’s love, he says only “I thirst;” he forgives his torturers, gives us his Mother, promises Paradise and cries out to his Father in desperation and trust. And finally he gives over his spirit, empties himself for us. God in Christ gives himself away to death and so reverses everything. Death is foiled. Our freedom is assured. God’s mercy triumphs; God gets to do things his way. Jesus swallows all ...

  The day laborers in today’s parable were the lowest class of workers in Jesus’ day. They lived on the edge, always “at the mercy of chance employment; always on the brink of want.” And so unemployment for even one day would mean hardship for a man, his wife and hungry children. And the setting? It’s probably the grape harvest when the fruit had to be picked, before a coming storm or over-ripeness would make it all useless. This explains why the landowner keeps going back looking for help. He’s desperate to get the crop in. Even at about five o’clock with only an hour or so of daylight left, he goes back to the town square to hire. He can use the extra help even for a short time. And so we hear about five sets of hired day laborers. And our landowner has promised each one whatever is just as payment; this is probably one denarius, a decent day’s pay at the time.    So it is that in the final scene when the foreman doles out the pay, that we are witnes...

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, Poor banished children of Eve; To thee do we send up our sighs, Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, Thine eyes of mercy toward us; And after this our exile, Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. For centuries it has been the practice of monks to chant t he  Salve Regina  at the conclusion of    Compline just  before they retire. We are told that the Cistercians have chanted the Salve Regina daily since 1218. We trust in Mary's care and intercession for us, we belong to her. Today we celebrate her as queen of heaven and earth, our path and gateway to all that her Son is for us. Illustration of the Virgin and Child from a 12th century Cistercian  m anuscript.

Saint Bernard constantly places before us the major events of the life of Christ, and writes: “He was incomprehensible and inaccessible, invisible and completely unthinkable. Now he wishes to be comprehended, wishes to be seen, wishes to be thought about. How, do you ask? As lying in the manger, resting in the Virgin’s lap, preaching on the mountain, praying through the night, or hanging on the cross, growing pale in death, free among the dead and ruling in hell, and also as rising on the third day, showing the apostles the place of the nails, the signs of victory, and finally as ascending over heaven’s secrets in their sight.”  Nat BVM 11. Bernard tells us that the invisible God wished to be seen in the flesh and to live among humans as a human, so that he might recapture all the affections of humans and little by little, lead them to spiritual love. Christ Jesus uses our attraction to his human existence to take our disordered affections and desires and reconfigure...

O Pelican of Mercy! O  Jesus  Lord ! Unclean am I, but cleanse me in your Blood; Of which a single drop, for sinners spilt, Is ransom for a world's entire guilt. In the image above we see the "pious pelican," traditionally a symbol of the wounded Jesus, since according to legend the pelican is the most loving of creatures and pierces her own breast to feed her young.  As we celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, our great Cistercian father and teacher, we ponder these words from his Sermon 61, On the Song of Songs :   Where can the weak find a place of firm security and peace, except in the wounds of the Savior? Indeed, the more secure is my place there the more he can do to help me. The world rages, the flesh is heavy, and the devil lays his snares, but I do not fall, for my feet are planted on firm rock. I may have sinned gravely. My conscience would be distressed, but it would not be in turmoil, for I would recall the wounds of the...

Overheard this morning in the cloister.  One young monk off to morning work, pauses to help a senior monk,  who  expresses thanks for his assistance.  The younger whispers, "Teamwork makes the dream work." They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other (Rom 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another. No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else. To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers; to God, loving fear...    from Chapter 72 of The R ule of Saint Benedict.

“ Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” When I look at the various situations and circumstances of my life, the joys and sorrows, the ups and downs, the hopes and disappointments, the struggles and accomplishments, I realize that I really want to believe that the Lord is somehow present to me in and through them all. I really want to believe that the Lord speaks to me through all the events of my life. And I don’t think I am alone in this desire. My guess is that we all want to believe that our life and existence are somehow more than the particular circumstances that unfold throughout our lives. We want to know and experience that God is really with us through it all. We long for something beyond the particular circumstances. I’m talking about believing through the circumstances rather than in the circumstances. When we believe this way the circumstances no longer limit or confine us but become portals of God’s intimate prese...

As Father Aquinas reminded us yesterday, we are very often like the disciples. We too often seek reassurances from Jesus, "If it is truly you, tell me to come to you across the water." Our faith is not strong enough. Jesus encourages us, "Take heart; it is I. Have no fear." What could be more reassuring? Once we realize who is calling to us, we may be embarrassed at having been alarmed. Didn't we know? Jesus always assures us that he will save us and protect us.

Having sensed the Lord’s loving presence in the “tiny, whispering” of the ordinariness of our lives, we long to hide in the “shadow of his wings.” He comes near to us, stretches out the hand of his mercy and assures us, “Come to me and do not be afraid.” Why do we doubt? Why is our faith so tiny? The Son of God Most High has made his dwelling place within us. And nothing at all can separate us from him. Photographs by Brother Brian.

We continue our reflection on the words of Rowan Williams. He concludes that in the monastic life "...the world can be seen at one and the same time in its wholeness and in the light of a presence that is everywhere and nowhere. And it points to worship as the culminating and fulfilling form of self-dispossession or self-giving. It is about joy in the routine and everyday – not simply a persistent human happiness but a pervasive confidence that God’s beauty is there waiting for our homecoming. It certainly is not that monastic communities unfailingly exemplify all this; only that this and this alone makes sense of the monastic life as a ‘sharpening of the focus’ that exists in all Christian life." God's beauty awaits us, beckons us; let us be attentive always. Photographs by Brother Brian.

The author Rowan Williams will characterize the monastic life as follows: “A humanity serving God in steady engagement with the material world and in mutual giving and receiving…a humanity shaped by Christ.” He goes on to remind us that the monk’s life is "incarnational," always lived in and through Christ Jesus. As Williams writes, the monastic life is: “always modeled on Christ’s human life (and) open to the divine at every moment; it is not that God the Word deigns to take up residence in those parts of our lives that we consider important or successful or exceptional. Every aspect of Jesus’ humanity and every moment of his life is imbued with the divine identity, so that if our lives are to be images of his, they must seek the same kind of unbroken transparency.  Likewise, Jesus lives out in his humanity a complete dependence on God as Father, the eternal dependence of the Word on the divine Source, and is thus also capable of living a hu...

Signaling the end of the summer, flocks of Canadian geese have already returned to rest and and feed in the Abbey fields on their way north.  An ancient Roman legend tells of the Capitoline geese who honked their warning and saved Rome from the invasion of the Gauls.  Since then geese have been used in literature and art as symbols of vigilance and divine providence. As we keep watch in vigils and prayer, the geese are our late August companions. Autumn is not far away. Photograph by Brother Brian.

This morning we ascend Mount Tabor with Jesus and eavesdrop as the Father says, “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This is our truth as well. Baptized into Christ, we too are the beloved of the Father. To be sure, the brilliance of this morning’s Transfiguration and points us to another hilltop, that of Calvary. There the Beloved one will give himself away to us completely. His clothes, his flesh once bright with light on Tabor will be torn and stained with the spittle and blood of his passion. Empowered by his Father’s love, Jesus will freely give himself up for us. Trusting in the Father’s love, we too may be transfigured and fearless enough to be self-forgetful like Jesus. Let us open to him.  Photograph by Father Emmanuel.

The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live… the heart is the place "to which I withdraw."  The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully.  The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death.  It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation:  it is the place of covenant. Let us go frequently to our inner room, the room of our heart.  This is the place of prayer.  There we will find the Lord Jesus awaiting us, inviting us into quiet and relationship.  Photograph of Della Robbia bas relief of Tobias and the Angel Raphael in the monastic refectory by Brother Brian. Lines from The Catechism of Catholic Church, 2563.

First Monastery at Tracadie He came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man,  was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way.  When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy.  Luke 19 Our Lady of the Valley God’s interventions in our lives are always unexpected and surprising. We cannot plot them out ahead of time or predict them. And more often than not they smash our so-called certitudes. All Zacchaeus wanted to do was get a better glimpse of Jesus. And Jesus surprisingly and unexpectedly (scandalously according to the bystanders) intervened and invited hi...

Come, true light; c ome life that never ends; c ome, hidden mystery! Come, nameless treasure; c ome, name that can never be uttered! Come, inconceivable One; come, joy without end! Come sun that never sets! Come, name well-loved and ever repeated! Come, joy that knows no end; come, untarnishing crown! Come you whom my poor soul has longed for,  and longs for still! I give you thanks that you have become one single spirit with me.  We are called to ceaseless prayer, Saint Augustine will name this living in ceaseless desire for God. Ever-mindful of this, we treasure these l ines from a hymn of  Saint Simeon the New Theologian. 

Today we celebrate the Anniversary of the Dedication and Consecration of our Abbey Church. This is a special solemnity that is ours alone. This rose window pictured above, composed as it is from fragments of glass from the large lancet window in the church of the monastery of Our Lady of the Valley, is an apt symbol of the many transitions that have marked our community's history. Our community first took root at the monastery of Petit Clairvaux in Tracadie, Nova Scotia in the mid-nineteenth century. But in 1892 and again in 1896 disastrous fires devasted the monastic buildings. Soon the monastery moved from Nova Scotia to Lonsdale, Rhode Island. The small community, accompanied by their livestock arrived in the summer of 1900, and regular monastic life was resumed on August 2. Their new home was called Our Lady of the Valley. When in 1950 this abbey was ravaged by fire, the community of one hundred and forty persons was homeless. Fortunately they had already purchased a ...