ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

The Feast of the Holy Family is not just about Jesus, Mary and Joseph but about our own families and our monastic community; for the Holy Family of Nazareth is a model for all families.   Pope Benedict XVI has said that   "the house of Nazareth is a school of prayer where one learns to listen, meditate on and penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, following the example of Mary, Joseph and Jesus ." May our monastic family become a school of prayer where we listen to the voice of God, who daily calls us to conversion and purity of heart. Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner. Meditation by Father Emmanuel.

At Christmas we celebrate the huge step God takes towards us to bridge our estrangement from him, to teach us what we dearly need to know again and again: namely, how deeply and personally he loves us. He continues to do this by making himself disarmingly approachable, meeting us exactly where we are, in our human ordinariness and need. On Christmas in 1971, Blessed Paul VI said: “God could have come wrapped in glory, splendor, light and power, to instill fear, to make us rub our eyes in amazement. But instead he came as the smallest, the frailest and the weakest of beings. Why? So that no one would be ashamed to approach him, so that no one would be afraid, so that all would be close to him and draw near him, so that there would be no distance between us and him. God made the effort to plunge, to dive deep within us, so that each of us can speak intimately with him, trust him, draw near him and realize that he thinks of us and loves us . . . He loves you! Think about what this...

It takes work to get back to the peace of knowing yourself completely loved. And perhaps we never fully get there while we’re here. But the desire is set deep inside us, that incompleteness, the ache for the surprise of love to find us. Perhaps some of us follow certain old scripts handed on to us by our own histories, stories filled with fear and failure. The script often reads- don’t trust, don’t hope. Jesus, God’s tender Word comes to us and offers us a new script, new words to rewrite our story and reimagine the old hopelessness as possibility and opportunity for grace; even allowing ourselves to believe that we are rejoiced over. Jesus invites us back to this place where we can learn to receive life and love as underserved and unexpected blessings. We may sense the near impossibility of opening our hearts to make a space for love and hope, a place inside us where God’s rejoicing can sprout and blossom from the hard, unpromising stump of our tired old fear and loneliness. An...

The flesh that Jesus assumed is our flesh- human, weak, vulnerable, needy, suffering. Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth into all of these things, not his removal of them or from them. The incarnate God really is Emmanuel, God-with-us. Our world and our lives remain wounded; painfully so. But the reality of the Incarnation assures us that God really is present. The late Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles put it this way: “The Incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which to escape the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather, it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of planet earth and find it shimmering with divinity.” This shimmering divinity is offered to us each day in the Eucharist, at the altar manger , under the unassuming signs of bread and wine. Come, let us adore. Come, let us consume. Madonna and Child by Sandro Botticelli. Excerpts from Dom Damian's Homily for Christmas Mid-night Mass.

Shepherds are the first ones to hear the good news of great joy that a Savior has been born. Shepherding was a despised occupation in the first century. Shepherds were scorned as shiftless, dishonest people, who grazed their flocks on other people’s lands. Yet these outcasts are the ones who not only first hear the proclamation of a Savior but are the first to respond to it. For them it was more than just a birth announcement. It was an invitation, an invitation which they accepted. “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste…” These unlikely outcasts really knew how to hear and respond to God’s approach. You cannot miss the echoes of Jesus own words later in his life, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.”      We remember that it all be...

Later in his ministry, Jesus will remind a follower that he, “the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” But for now the Infant Jesus rests in the arms of Mary and Joseph, hidden with them in an ordinary life of pleasures, small joys, sorrows and aches and pains like ours. And still he  asks each of us if he can rest his head against our heart.

This evening in the final O Antiphon we chant to Christ Jesus: O Emmanuel , king and lawgiver,  desire of the nations,  Savior of all people: Come and set us free, Lord our God.   Emmanuel is God with us, in all that we go through, in our joys and sorrows.  As monks it is our duty and privilege to become attuned to the Lord's  continual advent. For if it is true, as we believe, that one day the Lord will return once and for all to gather us all together and bring us home to the Father in the end time, we also know that his coming toward us is a relentless, already-happening reality. And we are meant to be experts -- experts at waiting, attentiveness; experts at emptiness, the emptiness that is constantly clearing a space for him. In Christ Jesus, our Emmanuel, God has made a giant leap towards us. Jesus our Lord is always drawing near.   And attentiveness to his presence is the secret we were made for.  Photograph by Brother Brian. ...

This evening at Vespers we chant: O King of the Gentiles and the Desired of all, you are the cornerstone that binds two into one.  Come, and save man whom you fashioned out of clay.  King may be a title we need to remind us of the place we want Jesus to have in our lives, in our hearts. But it is simply not a title Jesus chooses for himself. He has come to serve, not to be served. And so he tells us:  "Whatever you did to one of these least brothers of mine, you did to me."  He, the highest, speaking from his throne of glory, thus declares himself to have wholly passed over, in his actual existence on earth, into “the least”, and these, the lowest, he also claims as his own brothers and sisters. Christ’s eternal origin in his heavenly Father, dynamically mediated through the Incarnation, creates a new brotherhood among all human beings. This is not a natural brotherhood, existing by the mere fact that we are all human beings.  This is a supernatural kin...

This evening we call, out to the Lord Jesus: O Rising Dawn, Radiance of the Light eternal and Sun of Justice: come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Faith is light. In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”  John 12:46   “We therefore are not the origin of this light but it is the great gift of Jesus as light of the world. As Jesus exclaims to Peter after his confession, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.’ ” The consequence of this supernatural gift is that “Those who believe, see; they see with a light that illumines their entire journey, for it comes the risen Christ, the morning star that never sets.” And with the light of faith we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see. This vision is never simply the assimilation of an idea, for faith  “is bor...

This evening we call out to Jesus as "Key of David." Keys open doors. Jesus is the key to our freedom from all that would frighten, cripple or close us in on ourselves.  He offers us the small, fragile hand of God beckoning us not to be afraid. Whatever our fears, our sins, Jesus notices and offers us accompaniment and a way out. He assures us that we are more than all that. He has come to save us from all that would paralyze and hurt us.  Now in Him we have the power to forgive, not because “It’s alright. It’s nothing.” No, the opposite is true- very much has happened. We’ve been hurt, ignored, whatever, but we can absorb the hurt and forgive because we trust in Christ Jesus who is at our side, even within us, assuring us that pain and fear and suffering are powerless to define who we truly are. We belong to him. He is our Key. O Key of David, opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom: come and free the prisoners of darkness!

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings are speechless, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer! We chant this evening’s antiphon, acclaiming Jesus as “Root of Jesse.” And we recall that he is the Origin and Source of all our good, all our hope, all our longing. This antiphon is a kind of gloss on the words of the prophet Isaiah: On that day, The root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the peoples— Him the nations will seek out; his dwelling shall be glorious. On that day, The Lord shall again take it in hand to reclaim the remnant of his people …He shall raise a signal to the nations and gather the outcasts of Israel... Jesus is truly the One who gathers and joins together in hope all peoples, scattered by hopelessness, hate and fear. As we name his “Root of Jesse,” we pray especially for all refugees.

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,  who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush  and gave him the law on Sinai:  Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. This evening in our Vespers antiphon we address Jesus, using the Hebrew title for Lord "Adonai." Indeed Jesus is for us Lord of lords, Master and Ruler of all creation, present in the burning bush on Sinai, and still with us now in all our ordinariness. We recall the words of the poet  Elizabeth Barrett Browning:  Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes. Let us notice and honor the Lord in the ordinary events of our day. Abbey colored glass photographed by Brother Daniel.

As we begin this evening our novena in preparation for Christmas, we name Jesus first of all "Wisdom." And we recall Paul's words to the Corinthians, "Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise.  For the wisdom of this  world is foolishness in the eyes of God."  So it is that the promised Messiah, God Most High, will come to us hidden, small, clothed in the flesh of our precarious humanness. This is the wisdom of God, God's way of doing things. O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High and, reaching from beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly. Come, and teach us the way of prudence. Image from an ancient Cistercian manuscript.

As monks we are meant to live in incessant desire for God, to become all longing and hunger for him. The season of Advent, its prayers and readings speak to us of a mutuality of desire. For indeed if we long to see the face of God, so God's desire to come to us outstrips our own desire and takes flesh in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Jesus God's face has been revealed. This revelation stokes our desire for more intense experience of his presence and divine embrace. During Advent we celebrate the emptiness that makes us totally available for all that God wants to give us in Christ. We are joyful in our neediness and longing, for God longs to fill us with God's own Self in Christ more than we dare imagine.  Amen. Come Lord Jesus and do not delay!

If we were to go to Saint John of the Cross with a problem or complaint, perhaps he would remind us that of course "t he road is narrow" and those who wish "to travel it more easily must cast off all things" and use the cross as their "cane," and be ready to suffer all things willingly for the love of God. Because sometimes we may have preferred other crutches or cushions to the cross of Christ, we beg the Lord's mercy.

Mary's conception, free of original sin, was unique among all created persons. But it is our re-conception in Christ, our rebirth in Christ, our re-creation in Christ and our vocation to be holy and blameless, without blemish, immaculate before the face of God in love. This is something we all share with Mary. It seems an impossible vocation. Mary, our model, teaches us how to follow it and prays for us as we do. There is a famous quote: “Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.”  But if we were to ask the Virgin Mother Mary about it, she would perhaps say: “Pray and work knowing that it all depends on God. Everything depends on God.”  She would be in agreement with St. Paul in his saying, “What do you have that you did not receive?  If then you received  it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?”  The notion that each of us is called to be “holy and immaculate before the face of God in love” only seems imposs...

The Church does not invite us to rejoice as some kind of liturgical diversion from t he pain and conflict all around us.  Just the opposite; we are invited to rejoice only because, as the prophet Isaiah tells us this morning, God is very near despite all indications to the contrary:  Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. he lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. We dare to rejoice because hope, mercy and compassion are with us and always coming closer in Christ Jesus our Lord, the God of all consolation. Hope is beside us. Not false hope (there’s never ever been anything false about hope) for now in Christ, Hope is a Person who is searching for us. Love and mercy are relentlessly coming to us as an undeserved and surprisin...

We recall these words of Our Blessed Lady to Saint Juan Diego: Listen, Juan, my dearest and youngest son….know for sure, my dearest… that I am the perfect and ever Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the God of truth through Whom everything lives, the Lord of all things near us, the Lord of heaven and earth. I want very much to have a little house built here for me, in which I will show Him, I will exalt Him and make Him manifest. I will give Him to the people in all my personal love, in my compassion, in my help, in my protection: because I am truly your merciful Mother, yours and all the people who live united in this land and of all the other people of different ancestries, my lovers, who love me, those who seek me, those who trust in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their complaints and heal all their sorrows, hardships and sufferings… Like the Son she carries in her virgin womb, Mary very much wants to console us. She is transparent to the mercy that he is for us. Mary an...

As we celebrate Our Lady today, we recall these words of our own Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal. Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

Today the Church celebrates Saint Nicholas remembered through the ages for his generosity to the poor. We recall these words of the martyred archbishop Blessed Oscar Romero, which we imagine the holy bishop Saint Nicholas would have appreciated. No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God — for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God. Photograph of the Abbey after our first snowfall by James O'Kane.

He said to the one who was paralyzed, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”   The heart of Jesus brims over with the most tender and efficacious compassion. He speaks and healing occurs. God’s love in Christ breaks through; God’s Word as in the beginning is fruitful and full of power. For the love of God enfleshed in Christ Jesus has no patience with evil and sickness. Jesus is opposed to all that oppresses and burdens us; his power is expressed in humble, loving, compassionate mercy.   Jesus gives this once paralyzed man back to his friends, to his family, to his community.     And so the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled in Jesus: Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; With divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf ...

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. In this morning's First Reading the prophet Isaiah speaks of the wondrous upside-downness that will characterize the presence of the Messiah, the presence of the kingdom, the presence of Christ Jesus in our world. Ultimately our work as monks, indeed as Christians, is all about attentiveness to the Lord's invitation to reconcile the opposites in our lives and in our world. We are invited to move away from a world of us vs them, good guys vs bad guys, holiness vs everything else. This does not mean relativizing moral distinctions, but seeking ways to bring healing and peace and forgiveness to situatio...

No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher.  One whom we long for, even though we may not always realize the depth of our desire for him, he himself longs to draw near to us. And so he will lower the heavens and come down, hiding in Mary’s womb. There in the bridal chamber that is her flesh, he will assume our flesh. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned. God Most High has noticed our need for him, and God’s heart enfleshed in the pitying heart of Christ Jesus comes very near, revealing God’s intimate understanding of all that troubles us. We no longer need to be afraid. Woodcut by Eric Gill. Meditation on today’s Mass readings by one of the monks.

Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned  you have revealed them to the childlike.   Luke 10 Jesus' words in this morning's Gospel remind us of his words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” These are the "childlike" who know their need for God and look to God for everything. These were the ones who followed Jesus around, and hung on his every word. They have experienced that life isn’t fair. They have nothing; and they are nothing; but Jesus gives them hope. He calls them blessed, not because he’s trying to put them down, but because they are not self-sufficient, but desperately know their need for God.  Jesus turns to them, to us, and says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” There is room in his mercy-filled heart for everyone, no one is excluded. But there’s a catch,...

In this morning's Gospel we hear about Jesus coming to judge the living and the dead. But we need to know that his judgment will not be a judgment of vindictiveness, but a judgment of truth. Jesus is the truth. He knows us through and through: all the choices we have made for good or for bad; all the circumstances that influenced our decisions; all our efforts or lack of them to turn to his mercy. We already anticipate his judgment in the Sacrament of Confession when in his presence truth speaks to Truth. But when his truth meets our truth, judgment reveals mercy. Mercy is a close ally of truth, and when they come together, they give birth to hope. And hope does not disappoint us – it is the light of the Lord. Isaiah has that wonderful saying, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks….” Our monastic life of vigils, fasting, silence, and especially the common life is designed to beat our swords – that is, our passions – into plowshar...

As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed.  And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?"   Luke 17 Nine lepers celebrate new skin, one leper celebrates the Creator and Restorer of new skin. If gospel statistics are any indication, then ninety percent of us live life at skin level. Jesus offers us so much more. He desires more for us, than we often desire for ourselves. His final question in today's gospel:  “Ten were cleansed, were they not?  Where are the other nine?" is not a rebuke. It is an invitation. An invitation which Jesus ex...

By means of the cycle of the liturgical year, the Church in her wisdom sets before our eyes very vividly the reality of the unavoidable end of our lives and of the history of the world, and the expectation of good things to come: The day is coming, says the prophet Malachy to us, blazing like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble… But for you who fear my name, the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings.   We do well to contemplate this reality of the day of reckoning with our minds and hearts, through the words and teachings of the Lord Jesus himself.  The great challenge is to decide what will be our attitude in the face of this impending reality of the End of Time, when we believe that the Lord Jesus himself will come in glory, to judge and save. Jesus’ “eschatological discourse” in today's Gospel according to Luke takes place in the temple in Jerusalem, where many people are enthralled with admiration, looking at the impressi...

Someone very gentle and loving is trying to lead us forward in hope; Someone who leads by falling down, being spat upon, shoved and tortured. Not to teach us how to be doormats; that is not what His kingdom is about. It is about refusing to fight evil with evil, about absorbing hurt because of hope and trust in One who is at our side, even within us. It is all about witnessing to the reality that pain and fear and suffering are powerless to define who we truly are. They are simply not our destiny. We belong to Christ Jesus our Master, our King. Includes some insights from James Alison. Photograph by Brother Daniel of Renaissance glass fragment in an Abbey window.

Brother Jude has served the brethren as community cook for more than twenty years. And his kitchen is a place of warmth and hospitality, where the brethren can always find a warm cookie and a kind word. Jude loves to quote Saint Elizabeth of Hungry, who once said, "We must make people happy."

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,  then I will enter his house and dine with him,  and he with me. Rev 3 As Christ Jesus draws near, we recall his words to the woman at the well. “If only you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘you would have asked him instead and he would have given you living water.” If only we knew. I f only we understood Jesus’ desire to refresh us. For even as he invites us to come to him with our thirst, it is he who is thirsting for us to thirst for him. His thirst is his unending desire for us.  Christ Jesus is at the door waiting to heal and console and mercy us. Let us open to him, realizing our real need for the living water that he is.  Photograph by Brother Brian.