Holy Saturday

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

Good Friday

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 this so? I don’t know. I don’t have any good, satisfying or easy answers. I don’t think any of us really do. But, what I’m convinced of is that what we do have is a God who suffers with us. Ultimately, that’s why we cling to and glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ. It’s all we’ve got. And it’s all we need. 

Excerpts from Abbot Damian's reflection for Good Friday. Safet Zec, Deposition, detail, 2014. 

Holy Thursday

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 position - it was just too dangerous, it would have ensured complete social ostracism.

            To me, this is why Paul’s words which we sang in our entrance chant, are so shocking. Because when Paul speaks of Christ crucified he is not just describing the manner of Jesus’ death. He is evoking the shame of it; the utter desolation of dying outside the city limits, outside the law, rejected, abandoned and despised by just about everyone. And yet, bizarrely, almost unbelievably, this is what Paul proclaims. Jesus Christ, afflicted, crucified, accursed, is ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ Such words strain the very borders of what makes sense, humanly speaking. So why does he say this? And why do we so solemnly proclaim it?

            To proclaim Christ crucified, as Paul does and as we do with him is to say that this place of affliction, of shame and dereliction, has been entered into and undergone by God. The worst that can befall us, the suffering most threatened by sheer meaninglessness - right here, Paul says, Jesus Christ has come and known it from the inside. Known it and broken its power over us. How? By revealing that even this place of utter degradation cannot separate us from the love and life of God.

            Christ redeemed us by becoming accursed. Christ redeemed us by going to the place where everyone was sure God was not. The love of God is a love that goes where God is not supposed to be; where God cannot even be imagined or conceived to be. [he became sin] God’s love in Jesus Christ becomes recognizable precisely as that love which goes where it has no business going; the place of the curse; the place where God is forgotten.

            My brothers and sisters, on this evening over 2000 yrs ago, Jesus gathered with his close circle of friends to celebrate a final, farewell meal together. Jesus pretty much knew what was in store for him by this time. He had heard the whispered accusations of blasphemy and felt the growing antagonism of the religious leaders. And he knew that blasphemy was grounds for the death penalty. And since Jewish law wouldn’t allow the religious leaders to put him to death, he’d have to be handed over to the Roman authorities. And he knew well that crucifixion was their preferred mode of execution. He knew what awaited him. And so he also knew what awaited his friends and disciples. He knew the fear, disappointment, disillusionment and distress that was going to be theirs over the next few days. And he passionately wanted to offer them something. Passionately! As Luke’s Gospel puts it: “When the hour arrived, he took his place at table and the apostles with him. He said to them: ‘I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you…” What he so passionately wanted to offer to them was more than just words of advice or consolation or encouragement. That was part of it. But He knew that wouldn’t be enough. He wanted to offer them, and us, himself - whole and entire. Take eat, this is my body. "Take drink, this is my blood." Nothing less would satisfy his fervent desire. Think of this when you come up for communion this evening. When you proclaim ‘Amen’ to the body and blood of Christ, not only are you satisfying your own hunger and desire for God; but you are also allowing God’s fervent desire and hunger for you to be satisfied. 

Excerpts from Abbot Damian's Homily for the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.

Ascesis

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 the Triduum draw near, we ponder with love and wonder the forgiveness and mercy Jesus lavishes upon us through his passion, death, and resurrection.

Photograph by Brother Brian. Reflection by one of the monks.

Our Work

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.

Cry Out

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. 

A Haven

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.

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

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 to do the same. Jesus leaves nothing behind and neither should we. For what we refuse to look at and carry with us cannot be renewed, re-created or resurrected. So, what are you carrying and what will you bring and offer this Holy Week?

Abbot Damian’s Palm Sunday reflection inspired in part by Rev. Michael’s blog Interrupting the Silence.

Thirst

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. 

Photograph by Brother Brian

Self-forgetfulness

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.

Down There

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 God himself, “so that in him we might become the very holiness of God." 

Some years ago in the flush of new fervor, a love for Christ I had never before experienced, I think I felt a bit rarefied and somewhat above the common fray. I remember one afternoon a temptation sneaking in, softly, suddenly, insistently. I was embarrassed, lost my balance. Imagine feeling such things again; I was supposed to be way beyond that now. And as I tried to pray through it, I sensed Jesus somehow saying to me, very quietly but definitely, “Would you be less than I am?” “Would you be less than I am?” which is to say, “I went through all of these things, I was tempted in every way as you are, I am, I will be with you, in you, through all of it. Trust me, rely on me alone. Don’t you want to be like me?” 

Our weaknesses, our temptations are a place of encounter with Christ. Down there we have the blessed opportunity to depend on him alone, to cry out in our helplessness and flee to him for refuge, hide in him. Then he can save us, for his power is always completed in our weakness.

Photograph by Brother Brian. Meditation by one of the monks.

Saint Joseph

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.

A Way Out

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 show us a more excellent way; he shows us that death has no more power over us.

He tells us that the seed must fall into the earth to bear abundant fruit, and then, “When I am lifted up, I will draw everyone to myself.” Clearly his “lifting up” is his crucifixion. He will be raised up on a cross of humiliation, pain and death. 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 him to the Father through the very narrow gate of his passion.

Jesus shows us that God dreams something extraordinary and beautiful for us. Jesus reveals that the cross, all of our crosses, are a way out. He longs to draw us into his own his loving self-offering as a way out of death - self-giving as a way that absolutely cancels death, smashes it to pieces forever. “For the joy that lay before Him, He endured the cross despising its shame,” because he knows that death is only a gateway, excruciatingly painful, but an utterly porous membrane that we can break through by means of love - the very gift of ourselves to him and to our brothers and sisters.

An etching of the Abbey by Margaret Walters, (1924 - 1971).

Who

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.

Two Notes

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 Abbey archives.

Our Need

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.

Always

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.

From Above

"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 unless it is given him gratuitously “from above”. Nicodemus’ choice is to ignore the question of the kingdom of God altogether, eliminate the sense of the word as “from above” and to interpret it as “again”: "How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?" Falling back into the security of his world of familiar concepts and patterns of thought, he stalls the movement toward Jesus.

Jesus tries again, developing what he has already said. "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. He moves now from “seeing” the kingdom of God to “entering” it, by means of water and Spirit. The new thing that Jesus brings is the ability to see and enter into the kingdom of God by being born again of water as a result of a gift from above of the Spirit. He then encourages Nicodemus to let go of being content with what he can see and control and to be open to this new way of understanding.  “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you, 'You must be born from above.”

If Nicodemus is to move forward as Jesus counsels him, he will have to begin with love. Jesus knows Nicodemus because he loves him. We can only know a person when we love them. Through love, Nicodemus will discover the capacity to surrender and let go of the familiar. Through love, he will find the seed of insight,  that will give birth to hope, which will prepare him for the leap of faith into the realm of God, where he will find again a whole new love and hope. All of this will be wholly the grace of God, the God who gives himself entirely, and is love and nothing but faithful, ever-constant tender love through and through.

Photograph by Brother Brian. Excerpts from Father Timothy's homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

Lifted Up

“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 offers us the cross a way out. He longs to draw us into his own his loving self-offering as a way out of death as dead end- self-giving as a way that absolutely cancels death, smashes it to pieces forever. “For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross despising its shame,” because he knows that death is only a gateway to life in love. We need not be afraid.

Follower of Jean Goujon (French, ca. 1510–ca. 1565 Bologna (?)), after a composition by Marcantonio Raimondi, ca. 1555, marble with traces of gilding, 43 1/4 x 24 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Used with permission.

Only Mercy

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.

Jubilee

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 with permission.

Gazing

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.

Hope

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.

Lenten Morning

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

The Temple of His Body

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 temple that will be destroyed and raised up is not the temple of stone but the temple of Jesus’ own body.

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” Jesus says this referring to his Hour, the Hour of his passion, death and resurrection. For it is most of all in that Hour of great sorrow and emptying, that he will truly become the place where we can encounter the most tender, self-emptying love of the Father for all creation. For in that Hour Jesus’ body will be broken open, destroyed by the horror of his passion and so become the life-giving temple of Ezekiel’s vision, the temple from which living, life-giving waters flow. Life and all love gush out of the sanctuary of his pierced heart and recreate Paradise. Here and now Jesus reveals himself as the place where the Father’s love abides and flows out. 

Detail of a Deposition by Fra Angelico.

Pictures Become Windows - 2

    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 future regardless of the circumstances we face. They show us who we are. They provide the truest horizon. We are called to be the transfigured people of God. Let us open our eyes and see a transfigured world, open our ears and hear the transfiguring voice, open our hearts and become a transfigured life.

    “Is this all there is?” This question may be our experience of God’s longing for us, a reminder that the window never closes. The transfigured Christ wants us to know that every picture we have of life and of him is truly an open window. The Good News is that he himself is the window, the lens, through which we are to see and live our lives. He is the portal that makes transfigured moments possible. According to the Father’s salvific design for us, the power that transforms pictures into windows is the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. 

Detail of an ancient Cistercian grisaille window from the Abbey of Obazine. Meditation by Father Dominic.

Pictures Become Windows - 1

    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. It 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 dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” There is the overshadowing cloud, and the Father speaking of his beloved Son. Peter wants to build dwelling places. “It is good for us to be here,” he says. He wants to preserve the moment. It is as if he wants to take a picture. Pictures are static. Pictures have to become “windows” through which we can move into the depths of God’s life, God’s light, God’s love.
    There on the mountaintop Peter, James, and John were transformed; they could see Christ as he had always been. Their eyes were opened. Their ears were opened, and they heard the voice that has never ceased speaking from the beginning. The transfiguration is as much about them as it is about Jesus. For we know that to really see Christ is to begin to get a glimpse of ourselves.

    So it is for us on our Lenten journey.  It is all right there in front of our eyes. We do not need to see new things. We need to see the same old things with new eyes. We do not need to hear a different voice. We need to hear the same old voice with different ears. We do not need to escape the circumstances of our life. We need simply to be more fully present to those circumstances. When this happens life is no longer lived on the surface. These are transfigured moments when the picture of our life becomes a window into a new world, and we come face to face with the glory of God. Then by God’s grace, his touching us inwardly, we experience as sheer gift the world transfigured and creation filled with divine light. Circumstances haven’t changed. We have changed, and that seems to change everything.

Detail of an ancient Cistercian grisaille window from the Abbey of Obazine. Meditation by Father Dominic.

The Prodigal Son - 4

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 love. He rose and returned to his Father and has taken us with him. We must rejoice for we were lost and have been found by God in Christ forever. Indeed, in the wounded risen Christ, God rushes toward us to bring us home and buries his beautiful face in the dirty crook of our necks.

Photograph by Brother Brian.