ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Blessing is somehow built into the very fabric of the universe and so into the very fabric of our lives. In the first chapter of Genesis it’s obvious that God calls forth everything and everyone into existence and then affirms the goodness of it all. And fundamentally that’s what blessing is. Whenever we bless in expressing thankfulness for anything or anyone, we both recognize and strengthen a goodness that’s there. And in so doing we participate in bringing it into being and in generating more of it. This is most evident when parents bless their children. For in doing so they both affirm and strengthen who they essentially are and seek to call forth goodness from and for their future. According to the story of creation, this practice, this possibility of blessing comes from God who creates in order to bless. God seeks the world’s goodness first by calling it forth: ‘Let there be light’; and who acknowledges the world’s goodness by first recognizing it and then strengthening it...

We remember our parents tugging at our sleeves when were given a gift or a small treat and reminding us, “What do you say?” Recognizing all we have been given by God in his love and mercy, on this Thanksgiving Day we gather to pray and feast and remind one another what to say. Thank you, thank you Lord from the bottom of our hearts for all you have given so freely, so lavishly. Our hearts are full, filled to overflowing. For what do we have that we have not received? Wonder, praise, thanksgiving become one. And so fittingly, wonderfully, jubilantly we celebrate Eucharist on this day. Eucharist means thanksgiving. God never stops giving God’s very Self to us. God is love. Love never ends. And even as we come to thank and praise God for all he has given us, it is he who is gathering us at this Eucharist to feed us once again with himself. Our thanksgiving overflows.

The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, "He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God." Even the soldiers jeered at him. As they approached to offer him wine they called out, "If you are King of the Jews, save yourself." Above him there was an inscription that read, "This is the King of the Jews." We find today's Gospel passage particularly moving, as we celebrate this solemnity. For what we celebrate is Jesus'  crucified love and self-forgetfulness; his dominion has nothing to do with pushing others out of the way so that he can be number one and have control. He has entered Jerusalem meek, riding on a little donkey colt and soon received the only crown we could manage to offer him - one of woven thorns. And so we may call him king, if we understand that He has turned the whole idea of power and majesty absolutely upside-down, inside-out, for his power is made perfect in littleness and weakness. ...

- Rejoice, ladder set up from earth to Heaven, on which the Lord came down to us and returned to heaven again, as seen in the vision of the great Patriarch Jacob! -Rejoice, miraculous bush where the angel of the Lord appeared in flames of fire, where the flame burned without consuming, as Moses realized, who alone saw God face to face! - Rejoice, shining golden lamp radiating light, from which the inaccessible light of God has shone out on those in darkness and the shadow of death, according to the inspired Zechariah! - Rejoice, “light cloud where the Lord dwells,” according to Isaiah, who spoke the most sacred things! - Rejoice, locked gate, through which the Lord God of Israel comes in and out, according to Ezekiel, who gazed on God! - Rejoice, unquarried mountain-peak, higher than human hands, from which that rock was cut which became the corner-stone, according to Daniel, that great teacher about God! We rejoice as we celebrate Our Lady on this feast as chosen dw...

When I was ten I fell about 20 feet from a tree in our back yard and smashed my wrist to pieces.  I had to wear a cast all summer and fall.  It drove me crazy to have to wear that thing: no swimming, no hunting, no games, no bike.  My mother's answer to my getting very antsy about it was her classic, “Tommy, patience is a virtue.”  I guess I didn't have any: patience, that is.  The last line of today's gospel used to have a famous saying explicitly about patience: “In your patience you shall possess your souls.”  It is an important saying in the history of spirituality.  The present translation leaves me cold: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”  What would Mom say about that! The early Church needed patience. It was white hot with expectation of the Lord's imminent 2 nd coming.   St. Paul and St. Luke had to calm Christians down like in this morning's reading from 2 nd Thessalonians where Paul tells them to get back...

I adore You, O Precious Blood of Jesus, flower of creation, fruit of virginity, ineffable instrument of the Holy Spirit... I am overcome with emotion when I think of Your passing from the Blessed Virgin's heart... I adore You enclosed in the veins of Jesus, preserved in His humanity like the manna in the golden urn, the memorial of the eternal Redemption which He accomplished during the days of His earthly life. I adore You, Blood of the new, eternal Testament, flowing from the veins of Jesus in Gethsemane, from the flesh torn by scourges in the Praetorium, from His pierced hands and feet and from His opened side on Golgotha. I adore You in the Sacraments, in the Eucharist, where I know You are substantially present.... I place my trust in You, O adorable Blood, our Redemption, our regeneration. Fall, drop by drop, into the hearts that have wandered from You and soften their hardness. O adorable Blood of Jesus, wash our stains, save us from the anger of the avenging ...

“People were bringing little children to Jesus…” “People were bringing even little children (babies) to Jesus…” This word ‘even’ suggests that something unusual was taking place. And it helps explain why the disciples were disapproving. At that time and in that culture children were seen very much as second-class citizens. They had little, if any, social status. And the disciples thought they were doing Jesus a favor by discouraging their presence. But as so often happens in the gospels when the disciples make such assumptions, they receive a rebuke from Jesus and a lesson in the upside-down nature of the coming of God’s kingdom. No, don’t prevent them, let them come to me, he says, “for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” In fact, “whoever does not receive the kingdom as a little child will never enter it.” This is strong language. Now, we are familiar with these words and so they don’t shock us. But for these first disciples and would-be disciples these word...

This morning we listen as the Sadducees try to stump Jesus with an impossible dilemma- “If she had seven husbands, whose wife will she be?” It’s an outlandish “what-if” scenario, the absurd possibility of six of the so-called “brother-in-law” marriages prescribed in the Book of Deuteronomy. What makes it even more ridiculous is that the Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection anyway. For them the dead are dead, period. It seems pretty clear- they only want to taunt Jesus. “Let’s see how he gets out of this one.” Jesus is undaunted. With characteristic beauty, integrity and directness; he takes the Sadducees’ crazy story, flips it around and draws them and us into a more astounding revelation. Marriage in its beauty, intimacy and commitment is appropriate to this present age, but it will come to an end. ( Joseph Fitzmeyer)  And raising up heirs, so that family and race may endure, will be inessential in the age to come. Something new, breathtaking in its beauty, is to c...

Solitude…is experienced, first of all, at the fine point in the heart where each person is ceaselessly created within a dialogue, in the course of which he receives his own name from God. This is…continuous prayer, which is the monastic form of prayer par excellence.  Solitude is next experienced in all the deaths to the self which constitute the numerous, daily decisions that oblige us to choose … to remain faithful to the call we have received from Christ. This is what is known as continual conversion.  It is also experienced in all the concrete demands the arise from our commitment to live the Gospel with others under a common rule.  This is obedience...Solitude is neither Christian, nor even real, if it is not the other side of communion.   Reflection by Dom Armand Veilleux.

Very early this morning our Brother Meinrad passed away to the Lord. Meinrad brought joy and gentleness. He began his monastic journey at the Abbey of Gethsemani and   came to our community about twenty years ago. Like all the monks Meinrad had worked at a variety of different jobs during his monastic life and as a young monk at Gethsemani  had been one of Thomas Merton's typists. Origami was one of his favorite past times, and a few years ago Brother Meinrad made enough delicate white cranes to cover our enormous Christmas tree. Meinrad's distinctive country guitar music was always a special part of our annual Christmas gathering. A man of prayer and deep devotion, Meinrad will missed by his brothers of Spencer. 

It is indispensable to regard the world in light of the resurrection...And yet God's creation is still something in its own right: it lies before our eyes and wants to be looked at. It is what it is, itself, and it must not be constantly asked about where it is going. It is precisely in its purposelessness that it glows before us. Photograph by Brother Anthony Khan. Lines by Gerhard Lohfink.

Again, this morning Jesus is caught making friends with a tax collector. As we remember, tax collectors were among the most despised members of Jewish society. They took money from their own people for the Romans, and they were despised for this collaboration with an alien power. But this morning we watch as little Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, climbs a tree to gaze down at the famous rabbi Jesus who is visiting his town. Jesus notices Zacchaeus noticing him, and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ home.  We cannot help but notice with admiration this desire of Jesus to befriend a sinner and the openness of this notorious outsider to the presence of Christ. Jesus always praises the readiness of these outsiders - prostitutes and collectors of the tax - to change their minds and hearts. They are available – broken enough to know who they are. They have no illusions about themselves and so do not refuse an invitation to change, reform. They know they’re a mess, they know it all...

In the miracle of adoration we are already with God, entirely with God, and the boundary between time and eternity is removed. It is true that we cannot now comprehend that adoring God will be endless bliss. We always want to be doing something. We want to criticize, intervene, change, improve, shape. And rightly so! That is our duty. But in death, when we come to God, that all ceases. Then our existence will be pure astonishment, pure looking, pure praise, pure adoration - an unimaginable and unnameable happiness.  Lines from Gerhard Lohfink.

"Who are these wearing white robes?” says an elder in heaven to the narrator in today’s First Reading from the Book of Revelation. The elder then answers his own question, “Why, these are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” Now anyone who has ever tried to remove even a small blood stain from a piece of clothing can understand that it must have been a near impossible task in first century Palestine, long before OxyClean or Shout . And we can only wonder at the perfectly ridiculous image of robes made radiantly white by washing them in lamb’s blood. But this is not just any lamb. And the offbeat beauty of these words reveals the truth of the dazzling, unprecedented victory of the Lamb of God. It is Jesus’ self-forgetful love that has created this radiance. He is the radiant, blood-stained Lamb, who is seated on the throne at God’s right hand.  W e live now in the period of his sov...