ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

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!