Spiritual Progress

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’ the 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 

Br. Kenneth's Solemn Profession — Homily and Photos

Br. Kenneth, your solemn profession has brought together a microcosm of the Church with the presence of your dear mother and father, your sister and her family, friends from your youth and even from your days in India, former band members, our sisters from Wrentham, and your own brothers of Spencer. Our heavenly Father must be pleased to see so many of his children gathered to celebrate this solemn moment of your monastic consecration. You have found your treasure, and with it you are opening a window into your heart. For Jesus’ saying applies to you, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Let us look at this treasure which you are embracing today, namely, the Cistercian life in all its fulness. 

But I would be remiss on this feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, if I did not mention how much Our Lady is pleased to see you clothed in the cowl of Citeaux. For certainly, our Order is a treasure to Our Lady. Other vocations are, no doubt, of equal value or even more so; to name a few: the love and devotion of a husband and wife who accompany and nurture their children, even to the possibility of a total consecration to God; the dedication of a teacher to bring a student to the search for truth and self-knowledge; the zeal of a missionary who leaves mother and father to go where the Spirit leads her. All these are dear to the heart of Our Lady, each in its own way. But today, let us take a closer look at why our Order, and you, in particular, Br. Kenneth, are such a treasure to Our Lady’s heart.

First of all, because with your vows you are being conformed more closely to her Son, Jesus. He was taught by her, held in her arms, fed by her silence, touched by her prayer, and immersed in her love. The Father sent Jesus to be fully human, and Our Lady was the privileged helper for his humanity to come to that fulness. Our Lady continues this mission in our Order today, helping us to become fully human after the example of Jesus.

Second, because it was in the humble circumstances of the Holy Family of Nazareth that Jesus’ human nature matured in its perfect consecration to the Father. Jesus could see in the example of the perfect and chaste love of Our Lady and St. Joseph the true gift of self in human relationships, in friendships, and in charity which seeks not its own but that which benefits another. Likewise, it is in the daily encounters with your brothers and others that your consecration to the Father is being purified and sanctified. Our Lady will help you with this purification.

Third, Our Lady was perfectly obedient to the Father’s will, just as her Son would be. The good of obedience can be a great sacrifice. Consider Our Lady’s willingness to accept the Father’s will, which can be so demanding and so incomprehensible at times – think of her three-day search for the child Jesus, or the sword that pierced her heart when standing at the cross! Such abandonment to the Father’s will is what Our Lady is looking for in a Cistercian monk or nun.

We could go on and on trying to articulate all the blessings of our Cistercian charism. St. Bernard has a well-known letter in which he adds the following characteristics: “Our way of life means applying ourselves in silence, being trained in fasts, vigils, prayers, manual labor, and above all it means clinging to the most excellent way, which is Charity. It is no wonder Our Lady holds our Order as a treasure close to her heart, because in all this she sees her beloved Jesus.

Br. Kenneth, the School of Love is calling you, urging you to run with heart expanded on the way of God’s commandments. Follow the sweet ointments whose fragrance flows from the hearts of Jesus and Mary, and run – with all decorum, of course – with a heart overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. This is your treasure and the place where your heart is. And for all your family and friends joining us today, let us encourage one another in the diversity of our vocations to imitate the Lord Jesus. But above all, for us Cistercians, let us be faithful to the grace we have received. Our Cistercian Order is a little jewel, hidden to be sure, and our charism, unusual to say the least, but one that Our Lady loves to wear close to her heart.

Desires

The Christian says: creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

C.S. LEWIS Mere Christianity

The Mind of Saint Paul

The mind of Saint Paul is clear. He wants all the Corinthians now in this life to be transformed from “one glory to another into the image” of God himself (2 Cor 3:18). What the apostle has in mind is so unspeakable a transformation in love that no eye has seen, no ear has heard anything comparable, nor can it dawn on our imagination what God has prepared even in this life for those who love as they ought.

THOMAS DUBAY, S.M. …And you are Christ’s

Life Shines Brightly

Life shines brightly not because we are rich, beautiful or powerful. Instead, it shines when we discovered within ourselves the truth that we are called by God, have a vocation, having a mission, that our lives serve something greater than ourselves.

POPE LEO XIV 

Homily — Feast of Corpus Christi

In a short while we will process with the Blessed Sacrament around our cloisters, a path we travel many times each day. It reminds me of the rock that St. Paul said followed the Israelites in the desert, the one struck by Moses to bring forth water for the people, and Paul says, “the rock was the Christ.” This is a foreshadowing of what happens to us in our monastic journey. For just as God had directed all the journeying of the Israelites in the desert, testing them to know their intentions, so, Jesus has accompanied us and directed our journey, feeding us with his very body and blood. He is our rock whose body was struck by the soldier’s lance and blood and water flowed out to nourish us in all the stages of our journey.

Our procession through the cloister is a remembrance of the intimate presence of Jesus in our midst. The Book of Deuteronomy exhorted the Israelites to remember all the blessings they had received starting with their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, then to the protection they received in the wilderness where their clothes did not fall from them in tatters or their feet swell up on account of the hot sands, to the most important moment when God and the people made a binding covenant at Mt. Sinai. But the people also looked forward to the fulfillment of God’s promise that they would enter a land “flowing with milk and honey.” Looking back in awe at God’s mighty deeds and looking forward in hope to the fulfillment of God’s promise – our celebration today is similar. We look back on how God has directed us since the moment of our monastic conversion, how he has led us through the afflictions in the desert of monastic life, which, figuratively speaking, include all kinds of seraph serpents, scorpions, parched and waterless ground, and finally, how he brings us to our true destination: purity of heart and the kingdom of God. 

As I said, on this journey Jesus never fails to feed us with the manna of his flesh and blood: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” It is precisely this sacred reality, this mutual remaining in Jesus and he in us, that gives us life. When we remain in him, we share in the life that Jesus receives from the Father. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ make this exchange a reality in our life.

But it is not only the blessings of God that we must remember. The author of Deuteronomy also gives warnings not to forget or take God’s blessings for granted. The same goes for us. Jesus also warned his disciples. When the people murmured, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus told them, “Stop your murmuring…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” We must not forget the privilege we have of celebrating the Eucharist daily. We must nourish our faith by meditating on Our Lord’s words, spend time in silence before the Blessed Sacrament as Mary of Bethany did, and keep our way of life most pure, frequently approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation all out of a desire to remain united with our Lord in the Eucharist. “For the Eucharist contains the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely, Christ himself, our Pasch.” 

This is the paradox: the Eucharist is not only the greatest gift our Savior has left us – that is, his very self – but it is also “a stumbling block; the stone which the builders rejected; a stone that will make people stumble and a rock that will make them fall.” “…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” This saying has always been and will always be a scandal, a hard saying that will cause people to turn away. St. Paul says, “A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.” But for us who have been given the inestimable gift of faith, the Eucharist makes us a “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own…Once we were “no people” but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy but now, we have received mercy.” 

Jesus in the Eucharist is our rock of mercy who has accompanied us and directed us through all the stages of our journey. The Father has drawn us to Jesus in the Sacrament, to an intimacy which makes all the seraph serpents and scorpions bearable. “Once we were ‘no people’ but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy but now, we have received mercy” in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

The Most Delicious Food

The Father of all things is a well-beloved kingdom. Anyone who is in him, anyone who establishes his dwelling in him, fiinds his joy in living as a stranger, because he has for delicious food the beauty of God's face.

EVAGRIUS OF PONTUS Centuries, Suppl. 57