ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

My dear souls, you are seeking for secret ways of belonging to God, but there is only one: making use of whatever he offers you. Everything leads you to this union with him. Everything guides you to perfection except what is sinful or not a duty. Accept everything and let him act. All things conduct you and support you. Your way is lined with banners as you advance along it in your carriage. All is in the hand of God. His action is vaster and more pervasive than all the elements of earth, air and water. It enters you through every one of your senses so long as you use them only as he directs, for you must never employ them against his will. God's action penetrates every atom of your body, into the very marrow of your bones. The blood flowing through your veins moves only by his will. The state of your health, whether you are weak or strong, lively or languid, your life and death, all spring from his will, and all your bodily conditions are the workings of grace. Every feeling and e...

Some things are intrinsically good, some are intrinsically bad, and some are in between. Things good in themselves are wisdom, justice, temperance, courage. Things intrinsically evil are the lack of these virtues. In the middle are wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, health and illness, knowledge and ignorance and so on. They are said to be in the middle because in themselves they are neither good nor bad: it depends on their use whether they are called good or bad. For instance, wealth is good when given to charity, but bad when spent on pleasure. Similarly poverty is good in teaching us patience and unshakable gratitude to God, but bad if it produces blasphemy and servility with lack of endurance. Fame and notoriety are good if they teach us to be humble and to strive for future glory, but bad when they induce a spirit of dependence, adopting ‘what people may think’ as the criterion of our actions. In conclusion, we must not condemn things. Nothing that God has made is bad. It be...

God is the cause of the universe, a cause which does not depend on any other cause. This is the teaching of our eyes when we look at the ordering of nature. Our eyes observe visible objects and note how they are perfectly stationary and at the same time on the move, if it were possible to call immobility mobile. Through visible objects is made apparent the ordering of nature whereby reason is able to deduce the Author of the universe. How indeed could the universe have begun to exist, and how could it be still in existence, if God had not given it existence and were not sustaining it day by day now? When we see a musical instrument that is well-made and well-tuned, or when we hear the sounds it gives out, we think at once of the person who made it or of the person who is playing it. We do not perhaps know him personally, but we think of him. That is how it is with the Being who has made the world, who gives it motion and sustains it. His existence is indisputably clear to us. We do not...

    With the United States marking 250 years since its founding in the issuing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, enduring questions about how to best foster the freedom we so value remain vital. In the popular imagination, freedom and fighting are often linked, with many books, films, and video games built around a violent struggle to establish or protect liberty. Even significant portions of the Old Testament read this way, with the destruction of encroaching enemies closely associated with avoiding idolatry, oppression,or enslavement, while ensuring entrance into the richer life of the Promised Land. Yet as the narrative moves steadily in the direction of the Incarnation, there is a subtle and slowly growing awareness of the incompatibility between the goodness of the Creator-God, the source and securer of all human freedom, and the ruin wrought by our warfare. In contrast to various other cultures and religions of the region, which tended to personify and deify wa...

What is prayer? It is the mind detached from earthly things and the whole heart pointed to that in which it hopes. We need to have both of these qualities evenly matched. Otherwise, we are imitating a farmer who yokes together to pull the plow not two oxen or two asses, but an ox an ass. In order that prayer should not be disturbed by distractions it is essential for the mind to be constantly directed towards God. Through this continual recollection God dwells in us, provided that there is in us a loving search for his will. Then our soul under the action of the Holy Spirit is truly purified. Through this, prayer becomes the symbol of our future state. Prayer raises human nature above all the excitements that are stirred up in the heart by the thought of earthly things. The gift of the Holy Spirit makes us capable of practicing prayer continually. When the Holy Spirit has established his temple in a person, that person cannot but pray without ceasing. Whether waking or sleeping, prayer...

The sacrifice you are looking at was instituted by Christ our Lord as the sacrifice of his own body and blood. His body was pierced by the spear and there flowed out water and blood, through the medium of which we have obtained the forgiveness of our sins. Mindful of this gracious gift, approach with fear and trembling to take part in this feast, knowing that God himself is at work in you. Recognize in this bread the body that was hanged on the cross. Recognize in this cup of wine the blood that gushed out from his pierced side. Take and eat the body of Christ, since in the body of Christ you have become Christ’s members. Take and drink the blood of Christ. To counter your tendency to disunity, eat that body which is the bond of your unity. So as not to appear to be without value in your own eyes, drink that blood which is the price that was paid for you. When you eat this food and drink this wine, they will be transformed into your substance. Equally you will be transformed into the b...

Grace engraves on the heart of the children of light the laws of the Spirit. They must not therefore draw their confidence only from the Scriptures written in ink, for God's grace also inscribes the laws of the Spirit, the celestial mysteries, on the tables of the heart. The heart, in fact, directs and rules the whole body. Once grace possesses the pastures of the heart, it reigns over all its members and all its thoughts. For therein is the mind and all the thoughts of the soul and its hope. Through the heart, grace passes into all the members of the body. PSEUDO-MACARIUS Fifth Homily

Denials of the salvation and regeneration of the flesh are futile. For if there is no salvation for the flesh, then the Lord has not redeemed us by his blood, the cup of the Eucharist is not communion in his blood, and the bread which we break is not his body. For blood can issue only from veins, from flesh, from the whole human substance, and it is because he truly became all this that the Word of God redeemed us by his blood… And because we are his members and are fed by means of created objects—things he himself provides for us by making the sun rise and the rain fall—he declared that the cup, part of creation, is his own blood by which our blood is strengthened. He likewise pronounced the bread, part of creation, to be his own body by means of which our bodies are strengthened.   IRENAEUS OF LYONS Against Heresies

The great obstacle to contemplation is rigidity and prejudice. He who thinks he knows what it is beforehand prevents himself from finding out the true nature of contemplation, since he is not able to “change his mind” and accept something completely new. He who thinks that contemplation is lofty and spectacular cannot receive the intuition of a supreme and transcendent Reality which is at the same time in his own ordinary self. He who needs to be exalted and for whom mysticism is the peak of human ambition will never be able to feel the liberation granted only to those who have renounced success. And since most of us are rigid, attached to our own ideas, convinced of our own wisdom, proud of our own capacities, and committed to personal ambition, contemplation is a dangerous desire for any one of us. But if we really want to get free from these sins, the desire for contemplative freedom and for the experience of transcendent reality is likely to arise in us by itself, unobserved. And i...

Man feels an irrepressible yearning for the highest, lasting Good and is so strongly drawn to it that he simply must seek it, even through all finite and transitory goods. He is bound to acknowledge its overwhelming superiority over his own narrow ego, which encloses him as in a prison. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Y ou Crown the Year with Your Goodness, 169  

Sometimes people suffer a great deal from fear of death and because of their self indulgence. The first is a delusion the devil puts in their minds, he says, “You see that you are going to die, and that you haven't done a bit of good! So do you know where you're going? Your deeds have earned only hell!” On the other hand, he makes them feel sorry for themselves by saying, “Just think! Your body is so pampered now with worldly pleasures, but soon you will die.” We have to counter the devil's great malice by responding to these interior suggestions of his. Turning our gaze to our Creator, we should say, “I acknowledge that I am immortal, but this is a tremendous grace for me, since death will bring me to my goal, to God who is my life. I acknowledge, too, that my life indeed deserves only hell. But I have faith and trust in my Creator, in the blood of the Lamb who was slain and consumed, that he will pardon my sins and grant me grace. I will try in this present time to amend ...

Hedonism and consumerism can prove our downfall, for when we are obsessed with our own pleasure, we end up being all too concerned about ourselves and our rights, and we feel a desperate need for free time to enjoy ourselves. We will find it hard to feel and show any real concern for those in need, unless we are able to cultivate a certain simplicity of life, resisting the feverish demands of a consumer society, which leave us impoverished and unsatisfied, anxious to have it all now. Similarly, when we allow ourselves to be caught up in superficial information, instant communication, and virtual reality, we can waste precious time and become indifferent to the suffering flesh of our brothers and sisters. Yet even amid this whirlwind of activity, the Gospel continues to resound, offering us the promise of a different life, a healthier and happier life. POPE FRANCIS Gaudete et Exsultate

Although there is an evident distinction between love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self, a marvelous bond nevertheless does exist among the three, so that each is found in all, and all in each. None of them can be possessed without all, and when one waivers they all diminish. Someone who does not love his neighbor or God does not love himself, and someone who does not love his neighbor as himself does not love himself. Furthermore, someone who does not love his neighbor is proven not to love God. For ‘how can a person who does not love the brother he sees love the God whom he does not see?’ These three loves are engendered by one another, nourished by one another, and fan into flame by one another. Then they are all brought to perfection together. AELRED OF RIEVAULX The Mirror of Charity  

I have ascended to the highest in me, and look! The Lord is towering above that. In my curiosity I have descended to explore my lowest depths, yet I found him even deeper. If I looked outside myself, I saw him stretching beyond the furthest I could see; and if I looked within, he was yet further within. Then I knew the truth of what I had read, “In him we live and move and have our being”. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Let those, then who are singularly active, who think they can win the world with their preaching and exterior works, observe here that they would profit the Church and please God much more, not to mention the good example they would give, were they to spend at least half of this time with God in prayer… Without prayer, they would do a great deal of hammering but accomplish little, and sometimes nothing, and even at times cause harm. God forbid that the salt should begin to lose its savor (Mt 5:13), for however much they may appear to achieve externally, they will in substance be accomplishing nothing; it is beyond doubt that good works can be performed only by the power of God. ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS The Spiritual Canticle 29.3  

Speaking of Our Lady’s assumption into heaven, Saint Bernard says, “This is a precious gift that our earth today has presented to heaven: thus, by this exchange, human realities are united to divine realities, the earthly to the heavenly, those from below to those on high, in a happy pact of friendship.” (St. Bernard, First Sermon on the Assumption.) In this exchange, the earth has offered its most sublime fruit and then from there descend upon us the most perfect gifts, “come down from the Father of lights.” Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption along with the rest of Church, but in a manner that is particularly special for us because, because for us Cistercians it is the patronal feast of our Order. Today’s feast, therefore, says something very important about who we are, about our place in the Church, and about our relationship with the Church and the world we live in.   There are various ways to approach the meaning of this feast both for the early Cistercians of the ...

Love makes us free if it is selfless, and it is selfless if it is ready to sacrifice pleasure, advantage and independence for the sake of the beloved. And since no earthly love is initially perfect, it must go through these purifications. Moments and times must come when love is tested through sacrifice, when it becomes clear whether the enthusiasm of the first encounter was love at all, when the naïve first love—if it really was love—is refined and deepened in the fire of renunciation. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Prayer, 128

Continue to pray as you feel drawn, but do not worry about it, for worry comes from self-love. You must abandon yourself to the leading of God with no other intention than that of pleasing him, and when you know that you have this intention deep in your heart, you must not waste time in reflecting about yourself and about the degree of virtue you have obtained; occupy yourself with him whom you love and bother very little about yourself. ST. CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÈRE Letter #135, London, 1677

Once you have had the experience of God's benevolence, you need no longer feel abashed in aspiring to a holier intimacy. Growth in grace brings expansion of confidence. You will love with greater ardor, and knock on the door with greater assurance, in order to gain what you perceive to be still wanting to you. The one who knocks will always have the door opened to him. It is my belief that to a person so disposed, God will not refuse that most intimate kiss of all, a mystery of supreme generosity and ineffable sweetness. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

We cannot avoid this law of the spiritual life: that in order to come to the point where we can finally abandon ourselves totally to God, we must first feel what appears to be utter abandonment by God. ERASMO LEIVA-MERIKAKIS, Fire of Mercy

How shall a man attain to the perfection of Charity if he does not keep himself perpetually in the presence of God, and has not the attention of his whole soul fixed on him and primarily on Jesus crucified in such a way as to “pass through the wounds of his Humanity into the intimacy of the divinity”? JOHN OF CASTEL (in Maritain , Prayer and Intelligence)

For many of our contemporaries, religion has been reduced to an experience, one among others, occasionally powerful, but not sufficiently so to draw the rest of their existence into its orbit. LOUIS DUPRÉ Religious Mystery

This world is, and always will be, a place of exile and pilgrimage; a desert to be crossed, where for a moment we pitch our tent, soon to strike it again and continue our journey. AUGUSTÍN GUILLERAND

Thought cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love Him whom I cannot know. Though we cannot know Him, we can love Him. By love He may be touched and embraced, never by thought. ANONYMOUS The Cloud of Unknowing

Faith and love are like the blind man's guides. They will lead you along a path unknown to you, to the place where God is hidden. In order to draw nearer the divine ray, the intellect must advance by unknowing rather by the desire to know, and by blinding itself and remaining in darkness rather than by opening its eyes. ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

Fr. Timothy Scott  was elected  as the seventh abbot of Spencer for a six-year term on Thursday, July 23.  Dom Timothy was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1960. He entered Spencer in 1988 and made his solemn profession in 1994. At the time of his election he was novice master in the community. Congratulations Dom Timothy!

When you are weary of praying, and do not receive, consider how often you have heard a poor man calling, and have not listened to him. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

However much we love mercy and practice loyalty, we are like the heavenly Father. However much we endure poverty, humiliation, rejection, and pain here on earth, we are like the true Son of God. However much we love others and live expensive lives—flowing outward with the abundance of our hearts—and to the extent we give our possessions to the poor and spend our lives serving the sick and the shut-ins, we are like the Holy Spirit. However much we are honest and love peace, and however much we live modest, holy, simple lives, we are like the Holy Trinity. MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG The Flowing Light of the Godhead

God says, “I want to be merciful to the world. Mercy is what I do. In my unlimited mercy and love for everyone, I sent the Word, my only-begotten Son. To make this amazing good news clear to you, I showed Him to you in the image of a bridge stretching from heaven to earth. This bridge is the union of my divine nature with your human one. I, the Eternal Father, supreme and everlasting truth, am telling you that by following the Word, my only-begotten Son, you have life.” ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA Dialogue

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field…” Today we continue with the series of parables to the crowds that Jesus began last week with the Parable of the Sower. Jesus had gone out of the house where he was staying and sat down by the sea. The crowds were so great that he got into a boat and sat down while the whole crowd stood along the shore. God, the sower, scatters the seed widely, across all kinds of surfaces, whether they are suitable for receiving it or not, as if unconcerned aboutwhere it falls. But only the seed that falls on rich soil bears fruit. This is the one, Jesus explains, who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty of thirtyfold.   We must always strive to become the rich soil. In all of his parables, Jesus always demands that the seed that is scattered, the talents that are given, must bear fruit. The kingdom is for those who bear fruit.   This initial parable sets up the c...

Perhaps we don't know what love is. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that this is true, sad but true. Love doesn't exist—as we like to think—in the degree to which we are happy. No, love exists in the strength of our determination to try to please God in everything that we do, each and every day. The important thing is not to think much but to love much. ST. TERESA OF JESUS Interior Castle

Reading serves the purpose of the intention with which it is done. If the reader truly seeks God in his reading, everything that he reads tends to promote that end, making the mind surrender in the course of the reading and bring all that is understood into Christ’s service. GILBERT OF HOYLAND Sermon 7.2

We must not be surprised at the difficulties we encounter before we find peace. Difficulties are necessary and precious. They are the exercises by which our nature gets its training, and our powers develop. A soul that did not meet with them on its path would be greatly to be pitied. It would remain forever in its state of powerlessness. We do not always realize that sufficiently. We want to reach the goal without having run the course. The ‘running’ is the effort, the exercise the constant training, which brings into play our latent powers and develops them through use. We must find peace in these exercises, and love them as God loves them; that is, as a means to an end, and as remedies, at times bitter to the taste—even as surgical operations! A CARTHUSIAN They Speak By Silences  

We celebrate the Solemnity of our monastic Father, St. Benedict of Nursia, who, in the sixth century, gave us the Christ-centered Rule by which thousands of monks and nuns have lived through the centuries and by which we live here at St. Joseph’s Abbey. People might be tempted to ask what relevance a sixth century rule could have for the 21 st century. Pope Leo XIV seems convinced of its relevance not only to monks but to all people. In the recent (May 2026) encyclical On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, Pope Leo writes, (quote)“Since the emergence of her Social Doctrine, the Church has emphasized the protection of workers and the need to combat all forms of exploitation. Above all, the Magisterium has recognized in work ‘the essential key’ to understanding the entire social question, since it is through work that individuals develop many dimensions of their existence. In view of this, we can understand the great intuition of Saint Benedict of Nurs...