Toward Us

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To desire God is to possess him, for it is God who desires us first and without ceasing.

 Painted initial from an early Cistercian manuscript. 

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R.I.P. Father Peter Schmidt, OCSO

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SPENCER – Father Peter was born on November 25, 1942 to ethnic German parents, Karl and Elisabeth Schmidt, in the Moravian town of Mährisch-Trübau, now part of the Czech Republic. As the Russian army approached the area in 1945 after World War II ended, the entire family, including the five children, fled to Braunschweig, West Germany. As a schoolboy there, Peter often passed the 12 th century Cistercian Abbey of Riddagshausen, now a parish church, and it was those walks to the imposing structure that kindled in him a monastic vocation. In college he studied pedagogics, German literature and history. Post-graduate work continued with philosophy and theology classes in Salzburg, Austria. After completing his master’s degree in 1970, he went to the Trappist Cistercian Abbey of Mariawald in Heimbach, Germany, for a prolonged period of discernment. He entered the monastery that same year, taking the monastic name Gotthard. After professing temporary vows, he was sent to the University of...
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Blessed are we, if in poverty of spirit we free ourselves from false confidence in material things, desiring above all else spiritual and religious goods, treating the poor with respect and love, as our brothers and as living images of Christ. Blessed are we, if in the meekness of the strong, we renounce the ruinous power of hate and vengeance, conquering only by goodness and peace. Blessed are we, if we refuse to direct our lives by self interest, nor take pleasure as our goal, but learn to find in temperance strength, in pain a source of redemption, in sacrifice the summit of greatness. Blessed are we, if for the kingdom of God—in our time and in eternity—we learn to struggle and to pardon, to serve and to act, to suffer and to love. POPE PAUL VI Homily in Nazareth, 5 January 1964
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