The Spirit's Work

Six good men journeyed to the Abbey this past weekend for a vocational discernment experience- our biannual Monastic Experience Weekend. As they seek God's will and their hearts' deepest desire, Father Timothy's Sunday homily struck the right note for them as well as for us monks:  

Christ and the Spirit always surpass us. Once we have received the Spirit we can never rest. The Spirit of truth is always pushing us beyond ourselves to something larger, or into some new direction, into the ever-greater life of Christ and the Father. The monastic life, and specifically the Rule of Saint Benedict, is instituted precisely as a form and framework through which the Spirit can bear witness to the truth, disclose its marvels and  guide the monk into it, inviting him into the exhaustible fullness of divine realm of the Son and the Father, breaking down the barriers set up by his ego, allowing him to transcend himself, and ever expanding his heart, insofar as he allows the Spirit to do his work. Over the centuries, countless men and women who have said ‘yes’ to this way, bear witness by their lives that it works, if it is embraced; and we who live according to it now know this, however imperfectly we may carry it out.  

Photograph by Brother Brian.