ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh... The stillness of Holy Saturday fills us with hope and anticipation. Photograph by K'een Trainor. Lines   from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday

How is it that something as brutal as the Cross has become the centerpiece of our faith? How is it that we glory in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Some say that Jesus suffered and died because we are so bad. Rather, I think Jesus suffered and died because we suffer and die. Who among us hasn’t known suffering, loss, grief, powerlessness of all sorts? Jesus’ Cross is unique to him but not exclusive to him. This is the heart of our faith - that he shares with us the totality of his uniqueness as the eternal Son of the Father. Whether that uniqueness is being expressed on the Mount of Transfiguration or on the Mount of Calvary. The Cross is definitely not exclusive to Jesus. It is also my story. It is your story. It is the story of Spencer, the United States, Russia, Syria. It is the story of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. It is the story of those close to us and those we don’t even know. It’s the story of those we love and those we shun. How is this so? I don’t know. Why is ...

We have now opened the Sacred Triduum of our Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection; the most solemn days of our liturgical calendar. And how do we open these most solemn days? We began this liturgy by chanting the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: “We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “We should glory in the Cross.” Powerful words, to say the least! And yet, how is it that something as brutal as a Cross has become the centerpiece of our faith? And we shouldn’t evade the horrendous brutality of the crucifixion.              In the Roman empire, crucifixion was a form of punishment exquisitely calibrated to inflict suffering on different levels. It involved not only agonizing physical pain, but it also maximized exposure and humiliation; it insured maximum vulnerability to the disdain, disregard, and derision of passersby. After all, no one would want to risk being associated with someone in this pos...

Visitors or newcomers often ask if monks get bored. I suppose I do - not bored by the rhythm of liturgy, work, and prayer, but bored by me. It is perhaps the most difficult part of the ascesis - to see clearly over and over again the sad, boring truth of who I am. The truth is - I bore myself constantly with my sinfulness, my lostness, and stubbornness. And having seen and known that painful, neuralgic reality all too well over and over again, the challenge, the invitation is there and then to allow God in Christ in that very moment to gaze on me with love and exquisite tenderness. It seems utter madness to allow myself to be the object of Christ’s love and attention and mercy precisely in that moment. It is the great reversal, the sublime trick of the monastic vocation - I thought I was coming to the monastery to gaze upon Christ, but it is Christ Jesus the Lord himself who wants to gaze upon me in my lowliness and poverty.  As the sacred days of th...

Compassion and mercy are enfleshed in Christ Jesus. It is he alone who really truly understands - understands each of us, our context, (our realidad as they say in Spanish) our story, our stories. And we are invited to have this same compassionate mind in us, which was also in Christ Jesus, he who emptied himself out of love . An essential aspect of our interior work here  in the monastery is growing in our understanding of one another, open to learn and hear the stories that have shaped our hearts and minds and way of being. Hopefully we begin to learn compassion.  Photograph by Brother Brian. Reflection by one of the monks.

There are many ways to silence young people and make them invisible. Many ways...to make their dreams flat and dreary, petty and plaintive... Young people, you have it in you to shout.  It is up to you not to keep quiet. Even if others keep quiet, if we older people and leaders keep quiet, if the whole world keeps quiet and loses its joy, I ask you: Will you cry out?   Pope Francis in comments delivered on Palm Sunday Dear friends sent this picture of their granddaughter all set to march for gun control with her parents. We pray for peace and an end to all violence. 

Blessed is he who allowed his hands and feet and side to be pierced and opened himself to me wholly that I might enter 'the place of his wonderful tent' and be protected. Indeed it is a safe dwelling place to linger in the wounds of Christ the Lord. The protection this tent affords surpasses all the glory of the world. It is a shade from the heat by day, a refuge and a shelter from the rain so that by day the sun will not scorch you, nor the storm move you. As we accompany Jesus during this Holy Week, we wonder at his goodness and self-effacing love. He will make his Body, God's Body, a safe haven for us Lines from  The Fourth Sermon for Palm Sunday of Blessed Guerric of Igny.

In Mark’s Gospel after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we are told that he went into the temple precincts and “looked around at everything.” Now the temple in Jerusalem was the center of the people’s religious life. So when Jesus looked around at everything, he was looking into the very heart of the people. Isn’t this what our Lenten journey has been about? I invite you now to take one last look around at everything in your heart. Look at it all with Jesus. Where does it hurt? What’s the pain? In what ways are you heartbroken? What are the things that you have done or left undone or what has been done to you that keep you tethered to your past? Are there broken relationships? Are there loved ones who have died and you still sorely miss? What are you afraid of? Look at it all with Jesus. I am convinced that Jesus does not just look around at it all and leave. I think he looks at everything so that he might take it with him and carry it through this Holy Week. And he invites us...

Often our prayer is extremely simple, a whisper, a sighing from deep inside that expresses at a very deep longing for God but expressed in our just being there in faith and with faithfulness. Our only work is availability, absolute openness to the all that God is. God is always longing to be with us. God thirsts to be thirsted after, as Saint Augustine wrote.  P hotograph by Brother Brian

Praise is what allows us to get over ourselves, to enter into the logic of ‘overflow,’ a dynamic movement toward God and others characterized by a kind of self-forgetfulness. Self-forgetfulness allows us to get out of the way so that we may be inundated with God's lavish mercy and graciousness. During the Liturgy, we step out of ourselves and into God, allowing God to be all in all. Our Brother Jerome in a photograph by Brother Brian. Quotation by   Richard Gaillardetz.

Perhaps we had thought that God was after us, trying to catch us, watching from far off to see if we would mess up. But perhaps we got it wrong. God in Christ is never that far away, he’s with us; he has come to share unreservedly in all that we go through. He is always able to empathize with us in our weaknesses. He has been tempted in every way that as we are,  yet without sinning.  He has taken upon himself all that we are. It’s who he is. He’s not far away spying on us; he’s down here with us in the mess, accompanying us, even in the confusion of our temptations. Jesus' will was always to do the will of him who sent him. Yet incredibly he was tempted to do otherwise. Like us in all things but sin; he knows the reality of what it means to be pulled in the wrong direction. So much does Jesus love us, that our temptation to sin has become his temptation. And by identifying with us down there, Jesus has paved the way for us to share the righteousness that characterizes G...

Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife.  For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. As we celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph our patron, we go to him as our great exemplar in faith and faithfulness. Perhaps brokenhearted, disappointed, surely confused, Joseph trusted God, and he trusted Mary. He let his life be turned around by God's desire to take our flesh. Saint Bernard will say that God had found in Joseph one to whom He could entrust His dearest secret. Joseph made a home for God in Christ.  Statue of Joseph at the lavabo with orchids grown by Brother Adam.

We remember a movie shown at the monastery a few years ago called  Moonstruck. In one scene Rose is sitting in the parlor with her almost son-in-law Johnnie. She has become painfully aware that her husband Cosmo is unfaithful, and it’s killing her, eating her up inside. And she says to Johnnie something like, “Why do men cheat on their wives?” He closes his eyes, thinks for a moment and says, “Fear of death.” “That’s it,” Rose replies. Just then the front door opens and her husband walks in. Without missing a beat, she yells to him, “Cosmo, you’re gonna die anyway!” “Thank you, Rose, for that sentiment,” he says; as he walks upstairs to bed. Perhaps our lives like Cosmo’s are marked by a continual flight from death but at the same time toward death. We just can’t avoid it. We’re stuck. And in the face of the inevitability of our death, our one time dying, and our daily dyings - the pains and sins and defeats we cannot control - we may want to run. But Jesus comes to sho...

We become humble, not because we see ourselves - one way or another, that always leads to pride because false humility is just another aspect of pride, perhaps the most difficult to conquer - but only if we see God and his humility.   Alexander Schmemann When our hearts are broken open, suddenly aware that God in Christ has lowered himself  for us and wants to care for us, wants to wash our feet and cleanse and free us by the flood of blood and water gushing from his broken heart, then we can fall in reverence and wonder and see at last who we are, and who he is for us.

Recently discovered correspondence between two monks: One writes: “What shall I say? I feel so frustrated but not abandoned, pressed on all sides in a million ways, as we continue here in his school of love. I am perplexed, but not in despair. And I hope, I believe I am trying more ardently, faithfully, unremittingly to hold Jesus as my treasure in my crumbly clay self. I falter, I fear, I doubt, but he is so often so gracious to me in prayer, so sweet, as is his Virgin Mother.” His senior responds: “Your self-reflection reveals two important things. First, your total Christ-centeredness, even while aware of your own lacunae and dark pulls. The other thing is your sense that life is a walk on the tightrope of faith, with an abyss gaping beneath you. But, despite occasional vertigo, which is inevitable considering the circumstances, your heart is certain you are held in Christ's firm grasp. I can't imagine a better place to be, all said and done!”  Postcard from the ...

We rejoice in the reality of a forever wounded God. And as Jesus will remind Saint Faustina, the only one who will be abandoned is the one who refuses to allow him to be merciful to them. Who would dare be so stupid or foolish? The access is too easy for us to do otherwise. It’s all there in and through him, all this mercy. The wounds of our sins remind us of our need for mercy.  Photograph by Brother Brian.

God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my pick, my paintbrush, my needle — and my heart and my thoughts. Always seeking our attention, looking for any chance to draw us in love for him, for our neighbors and for our deepest selves, Jesus is indeed always very near. Photograph by Father Emmanuel. Quotation by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin .

"Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." The word Jesus uses here means both “from above” and “again”. To stay with Jesus in this conversation, it is necessary to hold on to both meanings. Nicodemus is faced with a choice. He can say to himself, what does Jesus mean by the kingdom of God, and ask him about it.  Or, faced with a word of two meanings, he could ask Jesus which sense he’s got in mind: “from above”, “again”, both, what’s he getting at exactly. In coming to speak to Jesus, Nicodemus has begun to move from darkness to light, to an encounter with the light which has come into the world. To ask these questions though would mean to leave the realm of intellectual dispute, it would require a surrender on his part, a movement into the unknown world of Jesus, which is a movement into the realm of the mystery of God, a movement into the realm of not-understanding, and of not being able to arrive at understanding unle...

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,  so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,  so that everyone who believes in him might not perish  but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,  but that the world might be saved through him.    John 3 Jesus tells us that he must be lifted up. Clearly his “lifting up” is his crucifixion. He will be raised up on a cross of humiliation, pain and death; and his lifting up will be his self-gift to his Father for us. And when he says, “Where I am, there also will my servant be,” it is because he longs to draw us with himself to the Father through the narrow gate of his passion.   Still In the face of the ultimate inevitability of our death, our one time dying, and our daily  dyings , we may want to run away. But  Jesus off...

Even if we have thousands of acts of great virtue to our credit, our confidence in being heard must be based on God’s mercy and his love for us. Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.    Saint John Chrysostom Photograph of relief at bottom of the high altar of the Abbey church by Brother Brian.

Today March 9 marks the 450 th anniversary of the birth of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, who gave up a privileged life to enter the Society of Jesus and died at age 23 from the plague, which he contracted during his courageous and selfless care for the sick.  To mark the anniversary, the Holy See has announced the celebration of a Jubilee Year of Saint Aloysius from March 9, 2018 , to March 9, 2019 . The jubilee is fitting as the Church focuses its attention on young people with the October Synod of Bishops in Rome on “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment” and the January 2019 World Youth Day in Panama. We pray for vocations and that candidates for our monastery may grow so deeply in their faith and love for Christ that they will proceed with a courage like that of Aloysius.  The Vocation of Saint Aloysius (Luigi) Gonzaga,  Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) (Italian, Cento 1591–1666 Bologna), ca. 1650.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Used wi...

It takes courage to gaze upon the wounded, passion-gashed Jesus. For he shows us who are and who we are meant to become more and more - wounded healers, mercy-doers, never poor victims of our sin and bad choices, never mere hapless victims of our sin-filled histories and misery, never wounded wounders, but wounded shock-absorbers, wounded healers, wounded merciers .   Photograph by Brother Brian.

Seeing these first snowdrops blooming outside the cloister reminds us that spring and Easter cannot be far away. We are filled with hope; He is our Hope.

In the chill of this Lenten morning,  we recall God's unfathomable mercy. For you do not cease to spur us on to possess a more abundant life and, being rich in mercy, you constantly offer pardon and call on sinners to trust in your forgiveness alone. Never did you turn away from us, and, though time and again we have broken your covenant, you have bound the human family to yourself through Jesus your Son, our Redeemer, with a new bond of love so tight that it can never be undone.  from  Euchristic Prayer I for Reconciliation

In the Gospel of John, we always stand contemplatively before the figure of Jesus. And in this morning’s passage, we notice him as he calls the Jewish leaders to acknowledge the true meaning of the temple: it is the meeting place of God and the people, never ever a place for business. No wonder he is so driven to clear out what does not belong there. “What right have you to do this?” they authorities ask him. Jesus is Truth and he calls them to acknowledge the true mystery of the temple.  “Destroy this temple,” he says, “and in three days I will raise it up.” And then we hear this most beautiful phrase whispered to us by the evangelist, “He was speaking of the temple of His Body .” The temple of his body.   Jesus declares himself now and forever the meeting place  between God and his chosen ones. He embodies the covenant, the forever joining of heaven and earth in his very Person. The evangelist then explains that the t emple that will be destroyed and ...

    It is a marvelous thing to stand in a transfigured moment. Those transfigured moments are all around and not as rare as we might think. Every one of us could tell a story about stepping back from the picture of our life, seeing with new eyes, listening with different ears, and discovering a window that opened into another world and another way of being.     Like Peter, we are tempted to build dwelling places for those moments. But booths, dwelling places, picture frames will only keep us in the past. To the extent that we cling to the past, we close ourselves to the future God offers us. So it is that Jesus, Peter, James, and John came back down the mountain. They could not stay there, but neither did they leave the mountaintop experience. They took it with them . It is what would carry them through the passion and crucifixion to the resurrection.     Transfigured moments change us, sustain us, prepare us, encourage us, and guide us into the futu...

    There are times when we may look at our lives and want more. We experience a restlessness, a searching, longing for something else.  “Is this all there is?”   This is common enough even in a monastery. I t may be that we see only the surface of things, as though we were looking at a picture - rather than through a window to what is really beyond.      As we hear or read the account of the Lord’s Transfiguration, Jesus invites us along with Peter, James, and John beyond an everyday familiarity with him.  With the disciples, we too have seen Jesus cast out demons, heal Peter’s mother-in-law, and cure the sick of Capernaum. He has cleansed the leper and made a withered hand new and strong. Paralytics now walk, the blind see, and thousands are fed. All amazing enough, but do we see beyond the surface of who Jesus is and what he is really teaching and doing?      On the mountaintop, we see Jesus transfigured “his clothes dazzli...

In the words of Saint Catherine of Siena, God has fallen in love with what he created. And in Christ Jesus, our Lord God has given us all that he is. Indeed, God, our Father has given us his Word. He says to us, “All I have is yours.”  This is another name for Jesus.   It is finally on the cross that God’s measureless love is made perfectly clear. Because he could not bear to have us oppressed by sin and pain and death, God in Christ dies on the cross and all is reversed, for, in his  Resurrection , God's unbounded love has the last word.  We remember the Resurrection icon - Christ grabbing Adam and Eve by the wrists - yanking them out of their graves like a frantic mother pulling her children from a burning building. This what love does. When we were lost and could not find our way home, God loved us more than ever and sent us Jesus his Son. He became lost on our behalf, squandering his precious life on the cross, while always trusting in the Father's lo...