All Hallow's Eve

We always look forward to Halloween when we have a festive supper of Brother Patrick's homemade pizza. With Brother Daniel's assistance, he spends the day making sauce, chopping peppers and onions and kneading his own dough to create delicious giant pies. It is a special meal when speaking is allowed and there is candy and ice cream for dessert. After pitching in for a quick but thorough clean-up, we head to church for Compline and then to bed.

Dom Thomas Keating

A little after ten in the evening on Thursday October 25, Dom Thomas Keating passed to the Lord after a long illness. He is beloved of the many monks who were formed under his direction.

One friend and fellow monk recalls that Dom Thomas’ teaching on prayer represented “the finest in the mystical Catholic tradition, with its origins in the earliest centuries of the church." Dom Thomas  brought the rich mystical contemplative tradition of the Church to many and was a leading Catholic proponent of interreligious dialogue, cultivating ties of friendship and understanding. He will be remembered by many as a much beloved friend and teacher.

Saturday of Our Lady

She is our mother, mother of our life, of our incorruption, of our light...She therefore who is the mother of Christ is the mother of our wisdom, mother of our righteousness, mother of our sanctification, mother of our redemption. Therefore, she is more our mother than the mother of our flesh. Better therefore is our birth which we derive from Mary, for from her is our holiness, our wisdom; our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption.

Scripture says, ‘Praise the Lord in his saints’. If our Lord is to be praised in those saints through whom he performs mighty works and miracles, how much more should he be praised in her in whom he fashioned himself, he who is wonderful beyond all wonder.

Details from an early Cistercian manuscript. Lines from our Cistercian Father, Saint Aelred of Rievaulx. 

His Body

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.

Vigilance

Jesus said to his disciples: 
“Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.
And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.” Luke 12

Our work as monks is to remain constantly vigilant for the Lord's kind presence. This is the reason for our earlier rising and our return to prayer at the various hours of the day.

Photos by Joan Bennett.

True Discipleship

At this point in their relationship with Jesus, the apostles do not truly understand what discipleship will entail. And perhaps too readily they agree to drink the "cup" of Jesus and be "baptized" with him. He is of course referring to his passion. Loving him more and more, identifying with his mission of mercy and self-gift, soon they will understand more clearly, as they see mocked and scourged and crucified.

As Father Emmanuel reminded us in his homily this morning, worldly ambition is always a temptation - seeking power and prestige and predominance. To follow Christ means to serve, just as he came to serve, not to be served. This is a lesson to be learned and re-learned here in the "school of love," that is the monastery. 

Photograph by Brother Brian.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

How do any of us, come to understand the cross as, of all things, an opportunity? How do we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who, for the sake of the joy that lay before him, embraced the cross out of love, heedless of its shame? Can we imagine truly embracing the cross, embracing our own crosses? 

Saint Ignatius of Antioch had his gaze so fixed on Christ Jesus that he begged his friends not to keep him from the wild beasts who would eat him up in the Roman arena. “I will gladly die for God, if only you do not stand in my way,” he said. “I offer my life's breath for the sake of the cross…let me imitate my suffering God...I am God's wheat and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” Perhaps we are humbled by such ardor, but such passion is meant to be ours as well. 
Photography by Brother Brian.