ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” Laetare Sunday, is a Sunday of rejoicing over God’s goodness- in the Gospel parable of the goodness of the father in relation to his two sons, in the joy of a homecoming, and in God’s goodness in reconciling us to himself in Christ. Let us taste and see this goodness, especially in the mystery of reconciliation. Reconciliation is a great mystery. It begins with brokenness, but ends in peace. It passes through suffering, but gives new life.  The younger son had a legal right to his inheritance. But the expectancy was that he would reserve some of it to care for his father. Instead, he once he got what he wanted, he walked out: no obligations, no regrets, and, we might say, no heart. On the other hand, the older son murmured his life away. His stability was like a chain around his leg. He outwardly obeyed his father’s commands, but inwardly resented them. Their broken relationships eventually became evident, as it does for us all. Bu...

Ultimately it is Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection that are the endless second-chance he offers us. And now he sets his face toward Jerusalem and all the horror that will befall him there.  “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! If he is truly the king of Israel, let him come down now from that cross, and then we will believe in him.”  So, the onlookers will jeer as Jesus bleeds and pants and breathes his last; they are certain now that he could not possibly be the Messiah, because God would not allow his chosen One to undergo such agony. This proves it; Jesus was a fraud, a blasphemer. Not true, for God’s power is made perfect in the weakness of love poured out. Love reverses everything. Jesus is our Exemplar, our Hope, our unending Opportunity. No wonder that in the Prologue to the  Rule , Saint Benedict offers us this amazing throwaway line: “The days of this life have been given us as a time of truce for the correction of our faults.” A time...

My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me. Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. Oh, who am I that for my sake, oh, who am I that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh and die? He came from heaven’s throne salvation to bestow; but they refused, and none the longed-for Christ would know. This is my friend, my friend indeed, this is my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need, his life did spend. Drawing by Brother Mikah. Text from  Lauds hymn,  Love Unknown  by John Ireland.

    It is fitting that, as we move toward the celebration of the Paschal Mystery, we pause to celebrate the moment when God revealed his will that his Word should take on the reality of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, for without the assent of the Virgin there is no redemption from our sins, no victory of the Cross over sin and death, no resurrection, no eternal life with God.   Through Jesus’ sacrifice our human nature has been transformed from within; we have been given access to God’s own holiness.  Mary’s “Yes” is the fruit of this reconciliation achieved through the Cross of her Son. It is through the redemption he won for us that she possesses the purity and holiness to utter her “Yes.”     Mary placed herself at the service of God’s call in complete surrender: with the whole strength and depth of her ability; in both strength and weakness. In strength, in that she is ready for whatever the Lord asks; in weakness, in tha...

A tree full of figs, branches heavy with pomegranates, an abundance of corn and new wine - all this fruitfulness was surely a sign of God’s favor. And so, the logic was, it’s opposite - barrenness - clearly indicated God’s disfavor. And so, the frustrated orchard owner not finding any ripe figs says, “Dig up the fruitless tree. It’s useless.” Jesus the Gardener, our Advocate with the Father, says, “Wait. Give me some time; let me give it a bit of extra care.” Jesus  sees opportunity for his graced intervention. And if the fig tree was by tradition Israel itself, it is as well all of us and each of us - stuck and sinful and seemingly unfruitful. And when the Gardener asks for just a single year to do his work, Jesus is pointing to the urgency of repentance and a change of heart. “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.” As if to say, there is still time, but there’s no time to lose.* Jesus never gives up on us. He is the God of second chances, he underst...

We too have seen him, experienced his presence. Have we not? We can deny it, slip back into a cozy darkness. It’s always a possibility. But Jesus has come near, very near and changed everything. We have been anointed with the blood and water flowing from his wounded side; we belong to him. There’s no going back. Once we all  were  darkness, but now we are light in the Lord.  Now at long last the winter is over and past, the light is increasing, soon flowers will appear on the earth; the voice of doves and little birds already fills the air, the day of our redemption draws nearer and nearer. Now with great desire Jesus desires that we become all light, all compassion in him. The powers of darkness are always on our tail. We need his body and blood to help us to keep choosing the light. So we keep coming back to the altar table day after day to receive the Bread and Wine that is light, the light that he is, the light that we are becoming.

On 21 March 1950, the Feast of Saint Benedict, the monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in Lonsdale, Rhode Island was ravaged by a devastating fire. The original wing was destroyed; the church was rendered structurally unsound and would have to be demolished. The community of 140 monks was homeless. Well before the fire the monks had been searching for a new location that would insure their solitude and economic stability, since the population in the area around the monastery had increased considerably. And by 1949 the community had purchased a large agricultural property, Alta Crest Farms in Spencer, Massachusetts. The 1950 fire merely accelerated the community's projected move. In God's providence the end of one story became the seed for a new one.

We were struck by the beauty of the following text by Saint Bernadine of Siena, read to us at the Second Nocturn during this morning’s Vigils. This is the general rule that applies to all individual graces given to a rational creature. Whenever divine grace selects someone to receive a particular grace or some especially favored position, all the gifts for his state are given to that person and enrich him abundantly. This is especially true of that holy man Joseph, the supposed father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and true husband of the queen of the world and of the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father to be the faithful foster-parent and guardian of the most precious treasures of God, his Son and his spouse. This was the task which he so faithfully carried out. For this, the Lord said to him, ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.’ A comparison can be made between Joseph and the whole Church of Christ. Joseph was the specially chosen man throug...

In this morning’s Second Reading from Saint Paul's Letter to the Philippians, he exhorts his brothers and sisters to conduct themselves according to the model they have in him. Elsewhere Paul exhorts the Corinthians, “Be followers of me as I am of Christ.” The glory that anyone of us manifests is the glory we share in Christ, individually and especially corporately. And the surest way to achieve glory is to act as did Jesus Christ "who did not count equality with God something to be grasped at but emptied himself taking the form of a slave obedient unto death, death on a cross. Because of this God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every other name so that every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Paul reminds his faithful flock that by living in Christ, God will change our lowly body to conform to his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.  Ma...

We have been praying our novena to Saint Joseph each evening after Vespers at the Saint Joseph altar in the north transept of the Abbey church. A candle is lit each day by a different brother. Blessed are you, Joseph, our patron, guardian of the Word Incarnate, to whom it was given not only to see and hear, but also to embrace and watch over the Child Jesus himself. We come to you now with confidence that your prayers to help us in our need will be heard before the throne of God.  Pray for us, Joseph, that the Lord may come into our souls to sanctify us. That he may come into our minds to enlighten us. That he may guard our wills and strengthen us. That he may direct our thoughts and purify them. That he may look upon our deeds and extend his blessings on us. St Joseph, righteous and just.  Pray for us. God our Father, in your infinite wisdom and love you chose Joseph to be the husband of Mary, the mother of your Son. May we, who count him as o...

It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light .... Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it? .... Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. Image by Father Emmanuel. Lines from Marilynne Robinson ,   Gilead .

Popular financial advice used to include the calculations of how many pay checks separated me from the street. If I were to lose my job, how long would my resources last? How many pay checks before I would no longer be able to pay my rent and face becoming homeless? It was a call to reevaluate assumptions of financial security and make the necessary changes. The call of Jonah to the people of Nineveh is strikingly similar, but much more profound. For the prophet reminds us that, not only our prosperity and security, but our very existence depend on the goodness of God. All of us, all of creation were made by God and are held in existence by him. Like Jonah's call to repentance, the Church's call to Lenten discipline is a call to live truly as the creatures we are, to renounce our illusions of competence, security and autonomy and embrace our dependence on our heavenly Father.  Photograph of the Abbey retreat house by Brother Brian. Excerpts from a meditation by Father...

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, It is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.   1 Cor Paul's description of love is a fitting description of Christ Jesus our Lord, who is all Love and Mercy. In the face of rejection, suffering and contradiction, he is steadfast, compassionate, patient, speaking the truth in love. He is love itself.

There are two major biblical traditions concerning Satan. One portrays him as a divinely assigned tester, who works in league with God to uncover what is in peoples' hearts. So it is that  in the Book of Job, God and Satan have a heavenly conversation about Job. Is he really a righteous servant? Or is Job righteous because God has kept him safe from the vicissitudes of life? And God agrees to put Job to the test. This testing tradition is in the background of today's temptation story in the Gospel of Luke - temptations will expose Jesus' heart.  The second tradition portrays Satan as the enemy of God's purposes, the one who is "prowling like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." This is the Evil One who must be resisted. There is no suggestion that he can be entertained. This tradition is also present  in the symbolic narrative of today's Gospel.  Jesus has just come from his Baptism, and he has heard the Father's voice, "You are ...

Lent is the time of our desperate longing for mercy and compassion. And it may seem that, given the terror and suffering and contradiction that seem so pervasive, the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, is absent from our world. It is we, more often than not, that are far away from Him, far away from one another and from our truest selves. But Mercy, He who is Himself all mercy and all compassion, is constantly running after us, longing to bring us home.  Let us constantly open our hearts to Him.  Photograph by Father Emmanuel.

Here we are at the beginning of another Lent. Once again we hear the gospel’s call to the traditional ascetical practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Those of us who follow the Rule of Benedict are familiar with his Lenten call: "We urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times…by devoting themselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and self-denial.”  It is all very familiar, perhaps too familiar. Ascetical practices have always been an integral element of Christian life. One of the best definitions of ascesis I  have come across is from the book we are presently reading in the refectory. “Ascesis is not a morbid obsession with one’s guilt or sense of unworthiness but a celebration of the experience of being loved unconditionally by God.” The author goes on to say, "Let us not mistake asceticism for spiritual athleticism. Athl...

Shrove Tuesday in the monastery brings our “farewell” to the Alleluia at this evening’s Vespers, as we chant an elaborate Alleluia at the conclusion of the office. Then we head to the refectory for Brother Patrick’s homemade pizza, followed by ice cream and sweets. Then there’s clean-up followed by Compline, and the last time we can chant the Salve Regina with Our Lady’s window illumined until Easter Sunday. The sanctuary is then prepared for the Ash Wednesday Mass, and the cross over the altar veiled in purple for the holy Forty Days ahead.

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,' when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite!  Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye.   Luke 6 How foolish we can be, too quick to judge, too quick to notice another's fault or failure, while totally oblivious to our foolishness and failures. And yet t he tender love and relentless rescue of Jesus make our foolish failures almost worth it. For we are meant to be icons of his rescue, our very selves, revelations of what Christ’s ongoing merciful rescue can accomplish if we give him the least bit if access to our broken hearts.  We welcome him with our need for him. As monks this means constant awareness of our foolishness, what we often refer to as "bitter self-k...