ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Our Lord says in the Gospel: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” Faith in the divinity of Jesus is the basis of all spiritual life; but we must have a logical faith which surrenders us entirely to Him. In prayer, my dear child, give yourself often to Jesus Christ. You must cast yourself down in your utter nothingness before Him, that will do great good to your soul. Yield up to Christ your body, your soul, your intellect, your heart; tell Him that you want Him to make of you all that he wills; abandon yourself to Him, but do not forget that to give oneself entirely to Christ is to be also given to His mystical body, to our neighbor. BLESSED COLUMBIA MARMION Union With God

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: "Father, those whom you gave me are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me… Br. Daniel told me that soon after Peter died, while he was still in his room,before the funeral home arrived, a dove alighted on his window, and remained there for quite some time, looking in at Peter.   As we know the dove is a traditional symbol of the Holy Spirit. This appearance was particularly touching and fitting because the Holy Spirit was the object of special devotion to Fr. Peter and deeply linked to his monastic vocation. When he was sent off to the university by the monastery for further studies, his special area of study was the role of the Holy Spirit in the writings of William of St. Thierry, and this interest stayed with him throughout his monastic life. For it is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that the mysteries of Christ are opened to us, and of the Father, our origin an...

No beginner can ever drive away a thought if God does not drive it away. Only the strong are capable of struggling with them and banishing them. But even they do not achieve this by themselves, but with God's help rise up to wrestle with them, armed with his weapons. So, when thoughts come, call to our Lord Jesus, often and patiently, and they will retreat; for they cannot bear the warmth of the heart produced by prayer, and flee as if scorched by fire. John of the Ladder tells us to flog our foes with the name of Jesus; for our God is fire, devouring evil. The Lord is quick to help, and will speedily revenge those who wholeheartedly call to Him day and night. ST. GREGORY OF SINAI Philokalia, Instructions to Hesychasts

To see visible objects we need the eyes of the body. To understand intelligible truths we need the eyes of the mind. To have the vision of divine things we cannot do without faith. What the eye is for the body, faith is for reason. To be more precise; the eye needs the light which puts it in contact with visible things; reason needs faith to show it divine things. THEODORET The Cure of Pagan, Diseases 1, 78

SPENCER – Father Peter was born on November 25, 1942 to ethnic German parents, Karl and Elisabeth Schmidt, in the Moravian town of Mährisch-Trübau, now part of the Czech Republic. As the Russian army approached the area in 1945 after World War II ended, the entire family, including the five children, fled to Braunschweig, West Germany. As a schoolboy there, Peter often passed the 12 th century Cistercian Abbey of Riddagshausen, now a parish church, and it was those walks to the imposing structure that kindled in him a monastic vocation. In college he studied pedagogics, German literature and history. Post-graduate work continued with philosophy and theology classes in Salzburg, Austria. After completing his master’s degree in 1970, he went to the Trappist Cistercian Abbey of Mariawald in Heimbach, Germany, for a prolonged period of discernment. He entered the monastery that same year, taking the monastic name Gotthard. After professing temporary vows, he was sent to the University of...

‘Could not God make people perfect right at the beginning?’ someone may ask. Take the example of a very small child. The mother can give her baby grown-up food, but the baby is still unable to take adult nourishment. Similarly, God could have given humanity perfection right at the beginning, but humanity could not have received it because it was only a child. For that reason Our Lord, who sums up all things in himself, when he came on earth in these last days, came not in the full glory which he could have done, but in a form we could see. Certainly, he could have come in his imperishable glory, but we should not have been able to bear the greatness of his majesty. Therefore, like giving milk to infants, the perfect bread of the Father revealed himself to us on earth in human form, so that we might be nourished by his word like babes at the breast and so by degrees become strong enough to digest the whole word of God. IRENAEUS Against Heresies, 4,62

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...