Saturday, June 29, 2013

Brother Jude

But this I will call to mind;
therefore I will hope:
The Lord’s acts of mercy are not exhausted,
his compassion is not spent;
They are renewed each morning—
great is your faithfulness!
The Lord is my portion, I tell myself, 
therefore I will hope in him. Lamentations  3


Brother Jude entered the community in July of 1972. He has served the brethren as community cook for more than twenty years. Brother Jude's kitchen is a place of warmth and hospitality, and the brethren can always pop in for a warm cookie and a kind word. He loves to quote Saint Elizabeth of Hungry, "We must make people happy."



Jude treasures the rhythm of the monastic life at our monastery, shaped as it is by the Church's great liturgical cycle. And true to Saint Benedict's dictum, he is content to  "prefer nothing whatever to Christ." A great lover of this place and of the brethren, he remarks, "If people knew what life was like in a monastery, they'd be beating the doors down to get in!"