ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

To seek God is a great good; in my opinion the soul knows no greater blessing. It is the first of her gifts and the final stage in her progress. It is inferior to none, and yields place to none. What could be superior to it, when nothing has a higher place? What could claim a higher place, when it is the consummation of all things? What virtue can be attributed to anyone who does not seek God? What boundary can be set for anyone who does seek him? The Psalmist says: ‘seek his face always’. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX  

We prescribe for one another remedies that will bring us peace of mind, and we are still devoured by anxiety. We evolve plans for disarmament and for the peace of nations, and our plans only change the manner and method of aggression. The rich have everything they want except happiness, and the poor are sacrificed to the unhappiness of the rich. Dictatorships use their secret police to crush millions under an intolerable burden of lies, injustice and tyranny, and those who still live in democracy have forgotten how to make a good use of their liberty. For liberty is a thing of the spirit, and we are no longer able to live for anything but our bodies. How can we find peace, true peace, if we forget that we are not machines for making and spending money, but spiritual beings, sons and daughters of the most high God? THOMAS MERTON   The Monastic Journey

I’m remembering the English language cinema in Rome, where we American students would go, when wearied by our struggles with Italian; it was called Cinema Pasquino. Now, the amazing thing about this Cinema Pasquino was that at intermission the ceiling would open with some odd contraption. You’d hear a cranking noise, and then suddenly you could see the night sky, stars, a bit of breeze and then those viewers who wished were now allowed to smoke. You’ll excuse the analogy, but I think that when we enter this church for Eucharist, or to chant the Office, or even whenever we do lectio divina , wherever we are, something very similar happens. There’s no ceiling, only an easy interchange between heaven and earth. The Lord is near, very near.   This open traffic between heaven and earth began at Bethlehem of course when the heavens were opened, and angels filled the skies, announcing Jesus’ birth to shepherds. “Fear not,” they said. “We have tidings of great joy.” Heaven has been wedded ...

We only love if we have first been loved. Hear what the apostle John has to say. He it was who leaned on the Master’s heart and resting there drank in heavenly secrets… Among the other secrets which the great seer drew from that source he showed us this: ‘We love him because he first loved us.’ Ask how anyone can love God and you will find no other answer than this: God first loved us. He whom we love has given himself first. He has given himself so that we may love him. What was his gift? The apostle Paul states it more clearly:  ‘ God’s love has been poured into our hearts.’ By what means? Through us perhaps? No. Through whom then? ‘Through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.’ ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO Sermon 34 on Psalm 149

This is the nature of love: to the extent that we distance ourselves from the center and do not love God, we distance ourselves from our neighbor; but if we love God, then the nearer we draw to him in love, the more we are united with our neighbor in love. DOROTHEUS OF GAZA Instructions

Spiritual progress has no other test in the end, nor any better expression, than our ability to love. It has to be unselfish love founded on respect, a service, a disinterested affection that does not ask to be paid in return, a ‘sympathy’, indeed an ‘empathy’ that takes us out of ourselves enabling us to ‘feel with’ the other person and indeed to ‘feel in’ him or her. It gives us the ability to discover in the other person an inward nature as mysterious and deep as our own, but different and willed to be so by God. OLIVIER CLÉMENT The Roots of Christian Mysticism