ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

A continuously happy life produces extremely unhappy consequences. In nature we see that there are not always pleasant spring and fruitful summers, and sometimes autumn is rainy and winter cold and snowy. And there is flooding and wind and storms, and moreover the crops fail and there are famine, troubles, sicknesses and many other misfortunes. All of this is beneficial so that man might learn through prudence, patience and humility. For the most part, in times of plenty he forgets himself, but in times of various sorrows he becomes more attentive to his salvation. ST. AMBROSE OF OPTINA  

AT THE WORLD’S HEART—A WEDDING! We are rapidly approaching the end of this liturgical year: Advent begins in just three weeks. Clearly, the main theme of the end of the Christian year is the end of the world and of time as we know them, the Second Coming of Christ the Lord, and with it, the Last Judgment; but this happening will be anticipated by the end of our own individual lives and our achieving of our eternal destiny. Today’s parable of the Ten Virgins who wait through the night for the arrival of the Bridegroom, unique to the Gospel of Matthew, is this Evangelist’s dramatization of the theme of vigilance or watchfulness, a major monastic theme. The parable displays through stark images the simultaneously communal and individual nature of Christian life, and also the centrality of intimate relationship with God in the experience of faith—the fact that all our life on earth is oriented toward a nuptial encounter with the Lord Jesus. In this way, the parable proclaims loud and clea...

There are two golden rules about prayer. One is that we have to pray as we can in the best way suited to us, not in the way we think we ought. So there is no need to change the way we pray if we are happy with it. And the other rule is: the less we pray, the harder it gets. BENIGNUS O’ROURKE, OSA  

No man is only man. The human race is not just man. How can we relate to God without reference to woman? And how can we come to know the whole Christ if we have no woman through whom to do so? And to assume that we can relate to the Church, our Mother, Christ’s spouse, without the model, his own holy Mother, is to imagine that mere formulas and concepts are realities. MATTHEW KELTY Flute Solo

Peace is not just the absence of war. It involves mutual respect and confidence between peoples and nations. It involves collaboration and binding agreements. Like a cathedral, peace has to be constructed, patiently and with unshakable faith. Wherever the strong exploit the week, wherever the rich take advantage of the poor, wherever great powers seem to dominate and to impose ideologies, there the work of making peace is undone; there the cathedral of peace is again destroyed. Today, the scale and the horror of modern warfare—whether nuclear or not—makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations. War should belong to the tragic past, to history; it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future. ST. POPE JOHN PAUL II Homily at Mass, Coventry, 30 May 1982

We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God. Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God's deepening his life in me. ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA