ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

The seed is the Word of God. How do we receive the Word that is given to us each day, his Word spoken to us in prayer, in our lectio divina , in our hearts? Are our hearts broken enough, open enough, to receive the abundance he longs to give? Let us bow our heads and beg his mercy. Photograph by Father Emmanuel.

Now, today. What keeps us from living the urgency of the now of Jesus’ presence and action in our lives? "Today.” says Jesus. “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." Gratefully the Lord Jesus is relentless. Indeed God uninterruptedly uninterruptedly converses with us, even today, right now. Today his Word is being fulfilled in our hearing, if we will allow it. Today. Now, Jesus wants to free those who are oppressed, now he wants to remove our blindness, now he comes with great good news for us. Now he wants to make of us his compassion and his mercy-makers. Mercy-makers . But too often, perhaps, we find ourselves, despondent, walking to a nearby village with our heads down, much too slow to understand.   Living in the todayness of Jesus’ compassionate presence always involves a surrender and a passover with him into a place of precariousness and uncertainty, where we are invited to abandon ourselves and depend on God alone, even unto dea...

This morning Jesus proclaims his truth and his heart’s desire in a passage from Isaiah, one which probably he had heard and read more than once before. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” But today it's different; he understands himself in what he reads. He is this Word. The Word made flesh reads the scroll of the prophet and recognizes himself, his mission in and through the Word. He simply cannot keep this good news to himself and so he says, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." And we hear an echo of the words he will speak later on to a Samaritan woman at a well, “I who am speaking with you am he; I myself am the mercy and compassion of the Father that Isaiah wrote about. This Word is me.” Like Jesus, we too will come to understand oursel...

When I think of Moses I dwell particularly on his leading Israel through the desert wilderness on the way to the promised land.  It was our Father Saint Robert who led the hermits of Colan from their solitude there even deeper into the wilderness forest of Molesme with the two “tablets” of the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Gospel as their guide. When this was no longer a place of solitude and fervent monastic life, he once again took up those tablets and led a monastic Israel to the inhospitable wilderness, “the desert place called Citeaux” there to found the first house of our Order. And, like Moses, Robert was denied the joy of really entering into the Promised Land that Citeaux would become. He was called back by the Pope to his original monastery of Molesme after only about eighteen months at the New Monastery.  We today still hold tenaciously to Robert's ideal of the monastery set in the wilderness in imitation of Our Lord's own predilection for deserts, mountain top...

My happiness lies in you alone...Your will is my delight. Our life in the monastery makes us available to be drawn as completely, as immediately, as constantly as the disciples were - to be completely open, vulnerable to the compelling presence of Christ. He beckons us even now. And  it is never too late to love him with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength. Perhaps we feel that there is always too little to give, but it is never ever too late to give all that we can, for he is incessantly drawing us to himself. The bells are our constant summons to put all things aside. “The monks will always be ready to arise without delay when the signal is given,” says St. Benedict. “On hearing the signal the monk will immediately set aside what he has in hand and go with utmost speed.” Such attentiveness is grace and gracefulness. And it is why we have come here,  a way to name our deepest desire. At the first stirrings of his call, were not our hearts burning wit...

A great prayer for life is urgently needed, a prayer which will rise up throughout the world. Through special initiatives and in daily prayer, may an impassioned plea rise to God, the Creator and lover of life, from every Christian community, from every group and association, from every family and from the heart of every believer.  We pray that that every human being will be protected in law and welcomed in life.  Photograph by Father Emmanuel. Excerpt from  Evangelium Vitae of  Pope Saint John Paul II. 

When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servers, "Do whatever he tells you." John 2 Mary cares for us, always attentive to our needs, to whatever we lack. She always speaks to Jesus on our behalf, "They have no wine." Perhaps, in other words, "They need you, they depend on the joy and gladness and consolation only you, my Son, can provide." In turn Mary always says to us, "Do whatever he tells you." As if to say, "Never despair, be attentive to him, to his invitation, trust that he will always fill you with good things and  transform your ordinariness, your emptiness, if you make it available to him." The Marriage Feast at Cana, Juan de Flandes (Netherlandish, active by 1496–died 1519 Palencia), ca. 1500–1504, Oil on wood, 8 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (21 x 15.9 cm). ...

So much to pray for, our hearts are full. The Lord is attentive. We begin today the Octave of Christian Unity praying that divisions among Christian churches may dissolve.    The division between Christ’s disciples is so obvious a contradiction that they cannot be resigned to it without feeling in some way responsible for it. The purpose of this particular week is to encourage the Christian community to devote itself more intensely to prayer, in order to experience at the same time how beautiful it is to live together as brothers and sisters. Despite the tensions sometimes caused by existing differences, these days give us in some way a foretaste of the joy that full communion will bring when it is finally achieved. Photograph by Brother Brian. Lines by Pope Saint John Paul II.

In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!"  Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet!  Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him." Mark 1 Christ Jesus has come among us to quiet within us, around us, all that would impede God’s sovereignty in the lives of us, his little ones. In Christ wounded and risen from the dead, we have been brought into the glory and beauty that God is.  Photograph by Brother Brian.

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him and rise with him. John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly, he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water. The Baptist protests; Jesus insists. Then John says: I ought to be baptized by you. He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. I ought to be baptized by you: we should also add, “and for you,” for ...

"Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us ." These words of  Saint Aelred, whom we celebrate today, remind us of his certainty that in his experience of relationship, Christ was ever present. Indeed, Christ Jesus is never ever in competition with his creation. God is Love; love is one. And so Jesus is truly with us in all of our loving interconnectedness. Aelred will at last declare, “God is friendship.”   When at last we realize that we ourselves are loved beyond all measure by God, we want to respond in love with our whole heart. Aelred understands well that this relationship of love will heal us. He says, "No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share happiness in time of joy.” Image of Saint Aelred from an early Cistercian manuscript.

I never tire of repeating those words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”.  Thanks solely to this encounter…with God’s love, which blossoms into an enriching friendship, we are liberated from our narrowness and self-absorption. We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the fullest truth of our being. Here we find the source and inspiration of all our efforts at evangelization. For if we have received the love which restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others? Echoing these words of Pope Francis, our own Constitutions remind us that it is only if we  prefer nothing whatever to Christ will we be happy to persevere in our life that is ordinary, obscure and ...

Herod is, in part, instrumental in leading the Magi to Bethlehem. He is the one who calls the chief priests and scribes to inquire where the Messiah is to be born. Herod wanted to kill him, the Magi wanted to worship him. And that really is a succinct summary of the responses that people had to Jesus throughout his life and ministry. W hat is it about God's coming into the world that humanity finds so difficult to take? What is it about God’s coming into my world that I may find so difficult to take? Herod offers us a clue.            When the Magi asked, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” Herod was frightened. And that is what goes on in all our lives. It is a story as old as Adam and Eve; after Adam took the forbidden fruit the first thing he did was hide! God came looking for Adam and called, “Where are you?” Adam answered, “I was afraid, so I hid myself.” So it is that in Scripture angels always preface t...

In this morning’s gospel, John the Baptist watches Jesus as he walks along and points him out as the promised One, the Lamb of God. Hearing this, two of John’s disciples decide to leave him and follow Jesus. Jesus senses their footsteps behind him; he turns and gazes upon them, "What are you seeking?" he says. "Teacher,” they say. “Where are you staying?" Jesus invites them, "Come, and see." A relationship has begun. The scene takes place in Capernaum; some scholars believe Jesus had a little house there. Capernaum was after all Jesus' home base during his ministry in Galilee, and the Gospel of Mark will call it "his own town" and say that Jesus was "at home" when people came to see him there. And so these two go home with Jesus; now right beside him not behind him. And they see where Jesus is staying, and they stay with him that day. It is, the Gospel tells us, about four in the afternoon; an hour they will always remember...

In paragraph 323 of The Joy of Love , Pope Francis writes: “It is a profound spiritual experience to contemplate   our loved ones with the eyes of God and to see Christ in them. This demands a freedom and openness which enable us to appreciate their dignity. We can be fully present to others only by giving fully of ourselves and forgetting all else.  Our loved ones merit our complete attention. Jesus is our model in this, for whenever people approached to speak with him, he would meet their gaze, directly and lovingly. No one felt overlooked in his presence, since his words and gestures conveyed the question: 'What do you want me to do for you?' This is what we experience in the daily life of the family."   In community we are constantly reminded that each person merits our complete attention, since he possesses infinite dignity as the object of the Father's immense love.  This gives rise to a tenderness which can stir in the other the joy of ...

There come to her doors men beating their breasts, confessing their sins, and having received pardon, they return home with joy...In the same way there draw near to her feet...the sad, the needy, the afflicted, the lonely...The prayers of all these who cry out of whatever tribulation she gladly receives and, making supplication to her Son, in her pity she turns from them every evil...with what great kindness she embraces and loves those who are akin to her in purity of heart... We trust always in the kindness of Our Blessed Lady. She lets all the mercy that Jesus is come to us. Orazio Gentileschi, Madonna with Sleeping Christ Child, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum.  Lines from our Cistercian father, Amadeus of Lausanne.