ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

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

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 mor...

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