ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

  Saint Rafael Arnáiz Barón is a recently canonized saint of our Order, though, in truth, he had only a very brief experience as a Trappist monk. Rafael loved Christ most ardently and embodied the Cistercian ideal despite all the complexities and contradictions of his personal vocational journey. Forced to interrupt his novitiate because of severe illness, he finally was allowed to return to his monastery of San Isidro as an oblate living in the infirmary. Rafael's life was one of great simplicity and humility. Often described as "crazed by the love of God," he was only 27 years old when he died on 26 April 1938. Christ guided Rafael through a series of bewildering contradictions - illness, war, the impossibility of ever pronouncing vows, and difficult community relations. Humiliations were constant, but Rafael learned to surrender himself in peace and joy. Things often do not turn out as we had hoped or planned. And we soon learn that contradictions and dead ends are par...

    Just before the risen Lord commands his disciples, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to every creature, he rebukes them sharply for their lack of faith and hardness of heart (16:14). Now, the command to evangelize does not follow very logically from that rebuke, does it? Nevertheless, the text stands, and verse 15 follows irreversibly from verse 14. Yes, it is to these very flawed and fearful persons that Jesus, God’s eternal Wisdom, entrusts the salvation of the world. Jesus does not go off looking for perfect shining saints. Why? No doubt because he knows that the conversion of deeply flawed humanity can best be achieved through equally flawed yet converted individuals, and the Eleven lead the way of all the converted. And what is the powerful marvel that converts hearts and minds so that they come to love and serve only the compassionate God of truth? The very first verse of St. Mark’s Gospel spells it out in seven resounding syllables. This marvel is no...

Today, the Octave of Easter has been given the special designation Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope Saint John Paul II. The Gospel of John celebrates this theme magnificently. As it opens on a Sunday, Jesus has been killed by the authorities and has been in the tomb since Friday evening. The disciples have entombed themselves behind the locked doors of the Upper Room, unable to move, like dead men for fear of the Jews. It seems to them that all is lost. The man Jesus in whom they had placed all their hopes has been crucified. Suddenly, in the midst of these seemingly dead men, Jesus appears with a greeting and message of “Peace.” This is a message completely contradicting the chaos they feel caught up in. Peace is the tranquility of order: the divine order. When Jesus perceives the joy in their hearts at recognizing their Lord, he reiterates his greeting in a way that makes it not only a greeting but also a commission. “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He then b...

We could approach from many different angles this rich and mysterious gospel episode of the risen Lord’s apparition by the Sea of Galilee and the miraculous catch of fish that results. But let us focus on only one striking fact. The disciples’ initial effort to catch fish on their own initiative, lasting all through the night, proves fruitless, ironically so because they were skilled fishermen. Nevertheless, their apparent failure turns out in the end not to have been such a failure. At a deeper level, the emptiness of their net becomes a fruitful space calling out for communion with the risen Jesus. It is almost as if this very emptiness conjures the presence of the loving Master, for love can never resist rushing to the beloved’s needs. With the rising of the sun, the disciples see Jesus standing on the shore. With his glorified person, he brings to them an abundance of life and light, and above all joyful companionship with himself and rich nourishment to strengthen them for the...

  Christ is risen! The Gospel of Easter Day, according to the Evangelist John, proclaims the experience of the Resurrection. The discovery of the empty tomb leads Mary Magdalen to break the news to Peter and the beloved disciple. The latter, upon entering the tomb, saw and believed. This is the first sprouting of Easter faith. From this first day of the week onwards, the Resurrection of Jesus also becomes a word event, an announcement; indeed, it becomes the word par excellence that the Church is called to announce and bear witness to. However, if we listen carefully to our text this morning, we see that we do not yet have the full Easter proclamation here; on the contrary, what Mary Magdalen runs to tell the two disciples is: They have taken the Lord away from the tomb and we do not know where they have put him. She still sees her beloved Jesus as dead, and thus subject to the power of human beings. Prey to fear and discouragement, Mary assu...

  One of the most significant messages of the Easter mystery is that vulnerability is not weakness. The weakness of Jesus gashed, broken, and crucified is the power of love poured out with exquisite, limitless abandon. Not wanting suffering and death ever to have the last word, God has lost himself in love for us. Jesus’ wounding is our healing. Today at an inn at Emmaus, his hands gouged by nails break bread. Broken hands, broken body, broken bread. Jesus’ presence becomes obvious. Vulnerability is the key to recognition, connectedness, and relationship with Jesus, and with one another. Jesus’ woundedness, our woundedness make God visible. Because sometimes we have forgotten, let us beg his mercy. The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio.

He died, but he’s not dead. That’s the great mystery, the paradox, of Easter. It’s the story we celebrate every year. On one level, it never changes. It always ends the same way. The stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty. We can’t explain how it happened, yet we want to be told again and again that it did happen. As St. Paul insisted to the Corinthians, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is empty, vain. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all” (I Cor. 15:19). Our faith, however consoling it might be in a desperate moment, is ultimately pointless if the tomb is not empty. Today’s Gospel  matters ! Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to hear the Easter story one more time. So many around the world are still living through the agony, the darkness, and the yet unknown consequences of a pandemic for which there is no end in sight. Millions of Ukrainians and Russians are suffering today through u...

If you were to ask me to sum up in one sentence what it was all for—the descent of the eternal Word from the bosom of the Father into our humanity; his thirty years of hidden life and hard manual work in Nazareth as one more laborer of the human race; his three years of public teaching, together with the performance of endless good works of healing and forgiving; and then, finally, his humiliating condemnation and excruciating Passion, Crucifixion and Death, and, on the third day, his glorious Resurrection from the dead and his return to the Father at the Ascension—if you were to ask me to sum up in one sentence what all of this was for, I would say this: Driven by the Holy Spirit’s goodness and undying charity, the eternal Son of God chose to descend so deeply into our human condition of sinfulness, weakness and death that henceforth no one could fall so low that he did not necessarily fall into Christ. Jesus went below the lowest of the low. You can go down as low as you can into ei...

         On Good Friday we heard these words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Who would have believed what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed.” These could have been the words of the holy women at the tomb this morning, “Who would believe what we have heard.” When they heard the announcement of the heavenly messengers, “He is not here, but he has been raised,” their astonishment knew no bounds. They bolted out of the tomb to announce the message to Peter and the other disciples. But an even greater surprise was in store for them – the realization that it had all been foretold! They began to remember the words of Moses, the words of the prophets, the words of the psalms, and above all, that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and enter into his glory. It had all been part of God’s plan, and now the disciples had the key – the Risen Lord and his Spirit. Everything was fulfilled.           ...

  What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled. Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son. The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'My Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit. And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. ‘I am your God, who for your sake becam...

            Today’s liturgy reminds me of the passage in the Book of Numbers when the Israelites are worn out from their journey through the desert, and they complain, “We are disgusted with this wretched food,” that is, with the manna. After punishing them with serpents, God accepts Moses’ intervention and has him mount a bronze serpent on a pole, and whoever has been bitten and then looked at the serpent was healed. Today we have the true bronze serpent lifted up in our midst, Our Lord Jesus Christ. To him, we must look to be constantly healed of our sins and foibles.             But our look must not be one of curiosity, but of faith. That is, fully accepting and trusting that somehow God would bring good out of this most horrific act. When Jesus was raised upon the cross, he endured every humiliation for our sake – friends abandoning him, foes gloating over him, unimaginable pain and suffering – the...

The depths of Christ’s love and his desire for communion with us are contained in the Holy Eucharist. His desire is expressed in these words: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” What greater surety of love could someone give than his own blood? What greater basis of trust could we have? Jesus has freely chosen a binding covenant with us. But in this world, the very meaning of covenant is obscured. What exactly does it mean to make a covenant? And even more, how can we plumb the depths of the Eucharistic covenant which is a divine mystery? The Church summons us today to ponder the covenant which the Lord renews for us in solemn assembly. And one way to do so is to look at other covenantal statements as in a mirror. The liturgy gives us such a mirror in the example of St. Peter. We are all familiar with Peter’s covenantal statements repeated in one form or another throughout these holy days: “Even though all should have their faith shaken, mine will not be.” ...

In this detail of a thirteenth-century window from the Sainte Chapelle in Paris,  Jesus r eclining at table with his disciples is deeply troubled and says,  “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”  The disciples look on, puzzled and dismayed. Judas receives a dipped morsel from Jesus and Scripture says,  "Satan entered him."  (Notice the sneaky little Demon above Jesus' hand.)  Jesus then tells him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”  And as Judas departs, Jesus proclaims, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once." Jesus' Hour has come, the Hour of his passion and death and resurrection. In this Hour his divinity will be made manifest in his abasement and his glorification by his Father. Let us follow the Lord, trusting that our transformation in Him will be accomplished, as we entrust our lowest selves t...

               “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” These are the words of a man who could foresee the narrow gate through which he was about to pass, the narrow gate of suffering. But it was the gate through which Jesus could best manifest his love and affection for his disciples as well as his obedience to his Father’s will. On this Palm Sunday, we have come to that narrow gate. Fortified by our 40 days of Lent, let us eagerly follow our Lord in his passage.             Certainly, the words of Isaiah should give us confidence for our journey. He speaks of the Servant of the Lord, a prefigurement of Jesus. “He gave his back to those who beat him, his cheeks to those who plucked his beard; his face he did not shield from buffets and spitting.” It seems hard to imagine that our heavenly Father would allow such things to happen to his beloved Son. Why? What had...

  In Jesus, we have a paradoxical king. We have a Lord who enters Jerusalem escorted by a procession of poor people, riding not on a white stallion but on a donkey, adorned not in gold-embroidered clothes but in the poor cloaks that some have placed on the donkey’s back and on the ground. And this “king” needs to borrow a donkey. Jesus is a king who does not even own a donkey! Where does Jesus’ lordship over these events become manifested?  In his sending two of his disciples to fetch a donkey!  Everything is contained in this action. The paradox of Jesus’ kingship appears in the insignificance of the ordinary actions he enacts here: God is revealed in a mere man, the Messiah in a pauper, the Savior in a convict, the Just One of Adonai in a crucified man. In this sending of the two disciples, the  mission  of the Church is also manifested:  Jesus sent ... saying, “Go forth...” Those who were sent went off.  This ecclesial mission requires of Christians...

I see four men unfettered and unhurt, walking in the fire…. They disobeyed the royal command and yielded their bodies rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. I can hardly imagine a more poignant image than this to illustrate the freedom of the human spirit and, ironically, it comes from the lips of the oppressive pagan tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar. For his part, Jesus assures us in the gospel that, if you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The highest freedom we can enjoy is not the ability to choose anything we want or behave in any way we want, but rather to know the truth and choosing it as our own principle of life, thought, and action. We make ourselves free only insofar as we embrace the truth that is revealed to us from outside ourselves. What makes us free is allowing Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and His Word, to abide in our hearts. I cannot be my own principle of libera...

We heard an unusual message from the prophet Isaiah.  God is the speaker, he is addressing the Jewish Exiles in Babylon, he references Israel’s foundational events – Moses, Exodus, etc., and then he says the unthinkable:  Remember NOT the events of the past, the things of long ago.    In effect,  Forget it, forget the past, forget all of it.  Then God goes on to say,  SEE, now I am doing something new.  Can you perceive it?   In context, they could not believe that the Persian King Cyrus – a non-Jew, someone who was said not to have known God – would be God’s instrument to deliver them from their exile, to bring them home, to re-build of temple, Jerusalem & community.  Many refused to return because they could not believe God was in it, could not accept a new revelation, a new experience of God’s care for them as authentic.  The “new” was the stumbling block. They refused to believe that God would do any...