ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

We have the normal bodily response, which is fight or flight, fear, and anger. But another style of response emerges from our souls. From that core piece of ourselves that doesn’t have any shape, size, color, or weight, but gives us infinite value and dignity. And this response is an aesthetic response. It’s the one that causes us to hunger for beauty, to be called by beauty to partake in beauty, to pay attention to compassionate actions, to sacrifice for a neighbor, to keep a neighbor safe. These actions and these acts of beauty, like the Sermon on the Mount, like the Lincoln Second Inaugural often involve flipping the script, upending values. On one level, these acts of beauty and pure gift, and loving care are radically illogical. They are vulnerability in the face of danger. They are gentleness in the midst of bitterness. They are compassion in the midst of strife, but these are the acts that have the power to shock. These are the acts that have the power to open hearts. These are ...

The Lord knows who are his own. If you know, be sure that you were foreknown; if you choose, be sure that you were chosen; if you believe, you were created for faith; and if you love, you were formed for love…he reposes in you; and since he attracts you, you recline with him and he feeds you.   William of St Thierry:  Exposition on the Song of Songs , 5 In this passage, I sense William assuring us that we are understood and that we can only know ourselves in the light of Christ. And so, resisting self-knowledge even when it is most bitter will do me no good. But so often fearing the pinch of bitter self-knowledge, I think I have to clench and endure the hardship as a tough discipline. William’s words take me on a different route. When I am confident in my belovedness, my heart will be pierced with sorrow and the desire for the Lord's mercy, as I understand that I have fallen from grace, seeing clearly that I have turned away from One who loves me more than I understand. ...

  Recall that Jesus always encourages us to ask, knock, and seek. “Tell me what you want,” he says. Recall Jesus’ words to blind Bartimaeus. Jesus is interested, transfixed in love by our need for him, our truth in its beauty, and even its somewhat sad reality. And so at the end of the Beatitudes Jesus tells the crowds, each of us, “You are the light of the world.” My response: “You’ve got the wrong party. No, Lord, it is You who are my Light, my Salvation. You have lighted up my darkness, shown me the way through my darkness to the wonderful Light of peace and truth and holiness that You are.” But the Lord is insistent, as persistent as a lover, and he repeats, “Yes and you are the light of the world, you are my light.” It is achingly beautiful but somehow unmanageable. Where to start? Let us start where Saint Bernard did - with self-knowledge. “Know who you are.” This is the first truth. A story may help. The story of Mary Lavelle, a modest, young Dublin girl. She lives at hom...

As we celebrate the Lord's Day, we ponder with joy and wonder these words of Saint Francis of Assisi, quoted by Pope Francis in his most recent apostolic letter:  Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest! O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility of God, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally! Photographs by Brother Brian.

  Pope Francis recently published an apostolic letter on the liturgy entitled Desiderio desideravi.  This morning I’d like to look at how St. Bernard might help us to appropriate the teaching in this letter. The title comes from the first two words from Jesus' words to his disciples at the opening of the scene of the Last Supper in Luke’s Gospel: “I have earnestly desired ( Desiderio desideravi ) to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”  These words of Jesus, the Holy Father says, are a “crevice through which we can intuit the depth of the love of the persons of the Holy Trinity have for us.” Our response, which he repeats twice in this opening section, is “surprise.” Surprise at the gift of the supper despite the infinite disproportion between its immensity and smallness of the one who receives it, and surprise at the love of the persons of the Trinity for us, expressed by Jesus burning and infinite desire to eat the Passover with the disciples, and through it to ...

  Signaling the end of the summer, flocks of Canadian geese have returned to rest and feed in the Abbey fields on their way south. We are told that since early Roman times, geese have been used in literature and art as symbols of vigilance and divine providence. This is because of the ancient legend of the Capitoline geese who honked their warning and saved Rome from the invasion of the Gauls. As we keep watch in vigils and prayer, the geese are our late August companions. Photographs of geese in the Abbey fields  by Charles O'Connor and Brother Brian .

  The Church shares its spiritual riches with its members through its common faith, its sacraments, its Liturgy and worship, its gifts and talents and most of all in charity, the love which makes us one with Christ and one another. The Communion of Saints represents the notion that all who are in Christ serve one another in love. As Christ’s body, the Church, we are called to communion, holy communion. Our ambition is not to glorify ourselves but to bring others to Christ. For us as monks we are not called to evangelize. Our life itself is our witness. Our prayer, silence, hospitality, charity and our joy will attract others to Christ. That is our ambition. To paraphrase the words of St. Francis of Assisi to his friars: “Preach to the people, but only use words when necessary.” Initial from an early Cistercian manuscript. Meditation by Father Emmanuel.

There is nothing that pleases me more, and nothing that terrifies me more than to preach on the glory of the Virgin Mary. For, see, if I praise her virginity, I see that there are many who have offered themselves as virgins after her. If I preach on her humility, we will find, perhaps, even a few who, taught by her Son, have become meek and humble of heart. If I want to proclaim the greatness of her mercy, there are some also some very merciful men and women. There is, however, one thing in which she does not have someone like her, before or after, and that is her joining the joy of motherhood with the honor of virginity. This is Mary's privilege, and it is not given to another: it is unique, and it is also something that words cannot perfectly describe. Nevertheless, if you pay attention closely, you will find not only this one virtue, but even other singular virtues in Mary, which she only seems to share with others. For can one even compare the purity of the angels to that spotl...

  John the Baptist had promised that Someone would come to reverse things - Someone who would baptize us with fire and water- wash us clean and even burn our sins away. At last, Someone who would restore our lost innocence. That Someone, that Fire is here among us. It is Christ Jesus our Lord. And we hear the echo of the Exsultet . It is after all, what we sing about at the Easter Vigil- ‘the power of this night restores lost innocence, humbles earthly pride.’ Easter night, when the wounded Savior rises in quiet majesty. Someone at last who understands us from the inside and knows our misery. Someone who looks into our hearts, and does not judge by appearances, Christ Jesus our Lord who through his dying and rising has reversed everything. For when God refuses to resist pain and suffering, everything gets turned upside down. God’s reign has begun, the kingdom- not a neat and tidy world, but a world of messy dynamic beauty, beauty wrought out of struggle and pain. The very messy...

Jesus alone is our reward. All we do and endure is, after all, only our duty, an inestimably privileged way for us to be with Jesus, who for the joy that lay before him, endured the cross, heedless of its shame. Like Saint Clare, whom we celebrate today, we rejoice to be identified as useless because he was thought to be so, despised and ridiculed as a blasphemer by those who should have known better. Our only joy and worth are in gaining Christ and being found in him ;  we know that life without him would be intolerable. As Saint Paul will put it, “I have suffered the loss of all things, that I may gain Christ - indeed, I regard them all as dung…” So driven is Paul by his love and conviction that he can express it only by using this most vulgar term for filth in Greek -  sku’balon -  because it connotes total worthlessness and revulsion.   (See Daniel Wallace.)   In the monastery, we live in two worlds. All day long, we tr...

  As we celebrate the saints, we sometimes imagine them smiling a bit sheepishly; their heads lowered. And as we chant in their honor, perhaps they are more than a bit embarrassed by all the hoopla. They point quietly to the wounded Christ. “It’s not about us,” they insist. “It’s all about Jesus, what his tender mercy has accomplished in us.” The saints, like Saint Lawrence whom we celebrate this morning, ultimately know themselves as  mercied  sinners, who have been transformed by the love of Christ.   Small wonder that even as he was being roasted over a slow fire, Lawrence could joke, "Turn me over. I think I'm done on this side." The love of Christ transformed him and made him brave, unfailingly generous to the poor, self-forgetful, and even silly. _____________________________ You gain nothing, you prevail nothing, O savage cruelty. His mortal frame is released from your devices, and, when Lawrence departs to heaven, you are vanquished. The flame of Christ'...

Pope Francis encourages us to notice the holiness that the Lord shows us through the humblest of his people. He quotes these words of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein): The greatest prophecy and sanctity figures step out of the darkest night. But for the most part, the formative stream of the mystical life remains invisible. Indeed, the most decisive turning points in world history are substantially co-determined by souls whom no history book ever mentions. And we will only find out about those souls to whom we owe the decisive turning points in our personal lives on the day when all that is hidden is revealed. We are reminded of words in our own  Constitutions  which speak of the monastic life  as having "a hidden apostolic fruitfulness." In the mysterious reality of prayer for and in the mystical Body of Christ, we hope that our lives in the monastery help to draw the world closer to the heart of Christ.

Today the Lord Jesus continues his catechesis in Luke concerning the attitude his disciples ought to have toward earthly possessions and the use of material things. Recall the extremely successful farmer of last Sunday, who thought his only problem in the whole world was that he didn’t have barns big enough to store his abundant harvest! The grave peril the man’s furious autonomy and self-sufficiency posed to his soul may be summed up by saying that he was incapable of identifying with the terms Jesus proposes to us in today’s gospel as defining his followers: he calls us to be children of his heavenly Father, sheep in his own little flock, and servants awaiting their Master’s return. These are all strongly relational terms, but the only relationship the rich farmer allowed in his life was a narcissistic one between himself as proprietor and his precious property, which continually mirrored his success back to his ego. So, then, son (or daughter), sheep, servant: these are the titles t...

Today with Jesus we hear the Father speak to us on the mountaintop, “This is my beloved.”  Belovedness is our name written on God’s heart.  We are beloved in Christ. And nothing can separate us from that love. Baptized in Christ, we have been baptized into his belovedness.  Still, this is an identity that is somehow offered to us over and over, for our choosing, for our believing. When we dare to trust that we are so loved by God, we can go and do likewise. Those who have been amply loved, find it easy to be lovers themselves. Believing in our belovedness, we are transfigured.  Let us hear today with Jesus the voice of the Father, and imagine the pleasure of the Father with the Son in the Spirit gazing upon us.

We celebrate today this very ancient feast in honor of Mary’s divine maternity. And we recall a great basilica in Rome built in her honor dating to the 4 th  century - Santa Maria Maggiore. Legend says that very late on the evening of August 5 a miraculous snowfall marked the exact spot where the basilica was to be built. Summer snow in Our Lady's honor? Why not? What miracles are occurring even now in our midst, wonders of His grace and presence that we so often miss?

  Each of us will be transformed by our graced encounter with the risen Lord. And  there is always Jesus’ question to Peter, tinged with self-doubt, magnificent in its quiet simplicity – “Who do you say that I am?” It is an achingly beautiful question that each of us must answer, “Who do you say that I am? Who am I for you? What is your experience of me in your life, in your history? How do you experience me now? Do you know that I know you, and love you well?” How shall each of us answer Our Lord? Perhaps when we come to understand who we are, how wounded we are, and who Jesus wants to be for us, we can say with Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. You search me and you know me. All my ways lie open to you. You alone are my love, my fortress, my stronghold. All I want is to know is you Christ Jesus my Lord and power flowing from your resurrection. Everything else is a pile of rubbish to me.” Jesus did not give up on Peter, and he will never, ever give u...

I believe, O Lord, but strengthen my faith. Heart of Jesus, I love You; but increase my love. Heart of Jesus, I trust in You;  but give greater vigor to my confidence. Heart of Jesus, I give my heart to You;  but enclose it in You that it may never be separated from You. Heart of Jesus, I am all Yours; take care of my promise  so that I may be able to put it in practice,  even unto the complete sacrifice of my life. Christ and St John the Evangelist , c. 1340, Limewood, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.    Blessed Miguel Pro’s Litany to the Sacred Heart.  

  We have just heard one of the most vivid short stories in the whole Bible. Its climax: “Today I must stay at your house.” These words of Jesus spoken to Zacchaeus personally resonate with us today as we celebrate the Anniversary of the Dedication of our abbey church, for this was the very Gospel proclaimed at that historic celebration 47 years ago. Actually, they are words that each of us can identify with at any time, for during the course of our monastic life we all experience moments when we identify not only with Zacchaeus (who is trying to get closer to Jesus however he can, no matter what it might cost him) but also (more importantly) with Jesus’ unexpected and arresting initiative of inviting himself to stay with us right now —yes, with you and me, when we feel like the least likely persons in town. Moments of grace are always “unlikely” . . . both for individuals and communities. Remember, nobody in Jericho liked Zacchaeus! They would have been horrified to think that o...