ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

“Wonder requires us to acknowledge what we do not know or may never know, to acknowledge the limits of knowledge. It is then a different species of knowledge, a way of knowing that does not lead to certainties or truths about the world or the way things are or ought to be. It is a state of mind that, like being in love, colors all we know.”  Wonder lets us acknowledge wonders and miracles. Wonder is born of faith and leads to deeper faith, deeper love. It allows uncertainties, hurts and failures. Wonder brings us to the interior secret of knowing ourselves fragile and at the same time treasured by God in Christ. Like love, wonder allows all things, believes all things. It let’s be, let’s God be God, magnificent, extravagant but also hidden and quiet and unremarkable. Wonder says, ‘Yes.’ It does not demand certitude but relaxes into a way of knowing that is beyond neat categories and complex argument. Beginning in wonder means I welcome Christ drawing me, working in my li...

The noted scholar NT Wright tells us that “the kingdom that Jesus preached and lived was all about a glorious, uproarious, absurd generosity. Think of the best thing you can do for the worst person and go ahead and do it. Think of the people whom you are tempted to be nasty to, and lavish generosity on them instead.”  He points out: “Jesus’ instructions have a fresh, spring-like quality. They are all about new life bursting out energetically like flowers growing through concrete and startling everyone with their color and vigor.” “Jesus’ point was not to provide his followers with a new rule-book, a list of dos and don’ts that you could tick off one by one and sit back satisfied at the end of a successful moral day. The point was to inculcate, and illustrate, an attitude of heart, a lightness of spirit in the face of all that the world can throw at you. And at the center of it is the thing that motivates and gives color to the whole: you are to be like this because that’s w...

One of our monks recalls  a scene from his childhood. He says,  "I must have been about nine or ten. I remember my mom, a really pious woman, getting angry with her brother, my Uncle Billy, who once again had bailed out his teenage son. My cousin was a young renegade who was always messing up – wrecked cars, drunk driving. There was always a new disaster. My mom was infuriated that Billy let his son take advantage of him over and over again, protective of his honor and so afraid that her brother was being made a fool of. But Uncle Billy loved this kid so much, he didn't care. He loved to love. Anyway this one day after listening to him, my mom  blew up.  'Oh c’mon Johnny,' she said. 'Don’t give me that turn-the-other-cheek stuff.' ” Our monk tells us that the memory of this conversation still smarts.  Indeed, "that turn-the-other-cheek stuff" is what it means for us to follow Jesus, as this morning's Gospel makes clear. And Jesus' way c...

And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.”   Mark 8 I n the end it’s always about letting ourselves be mercied. And so with Peter we listen as Jesus whispers this hauntingly beautiful question to each of us, “Who do you say that I am? Who am I for you?” Perhaps when we come to understand ourselves as sinners desperately loved by Christ, we can say with Saint Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. To whom else shall we go?” And with Saint Paul, “All I want is to know you, Lord Jesus and the power flowing from your resurrection. Everything else is rubbish. You are all that I desire. You are my love, my fortress, my stronghold, my rescuer, my rock, the God who shows me love." Photograph by Brother Brian.

The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.. .    Mark 8 Translated literally today's Gospel reads something like this: " The disciples had forgotten to bring bread,  and they had only one bread with them in the boat." The bread the disciples have with them is Jesus himself. And so they have all they need. He is the one who has fed the multitudes; he is the one who satisfies all the longings of our hearts. Photograph by Brother Brian.

Scripture scholars tell us that to be poor in Jesus' day was to be stuck where you were. There was no possibility of "bettering  yourself" with a new job or position; the poor were poor, and that was that. In addition, to act in way that was not congruent with your social status was to invite derision. So it is that when Jesus heals the sick there is wonder and awe and then often also a reaction of rage and resentment. As if to say, "Who does he think he is? He's only the carpenter's son after all." In any age the poor are those who have no choice, no choices. Jesus proclaims the poor blessed and happy. Why? Because he relishes their downtroddenness ? Certainly not. He longs to be longed for. And it is the truly poor who know their real need for God. How to embrace our own poverty, whatever we cannot change, whatever reveals our desperate need for God?  Photograph by Brother Brian.

He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue;  then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” - that is, “Be opened!”  And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.  They were exceedingly astonished, and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and [the] mute speak.”   Mark 7 Whose fault was it? Whose sin was it, his or his parents? The eerie possibility was that, he himself maybe even while still in his mama’s womb, had done something really horrible. Sickness, deafness, blindness were, after all, the direct consequence of sin; everybody knew that; all decent Jews in Jesus’ day believed it. Sin leaves its mark; sin causes sickness. It had to be someone’s fault. Case closed. Dead-e...

From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.  The Lord Jesus Christ reveals the truth of who we are; he has looked deep into our hearts and seen our truth. But how do we hear these words of Jesus this morning? Perhaps as a kind of indictment? Do these words of the Gospel sound like good news to us? Is Jesus trying to stop us short, call us to attention? Is he arrogant and self-righteous? Certainly not. What Jesus offers us is not a smug assessment of our sinful nature but a compassionate understanding of how we get pulled and deceived, a very real look at our tendencies toward sin. His gaze tests our hearts, scrutinizes, but it is always a gaze of love and longing, a gaze of understanding. And if he reminds us of the evil that can take root in us, it is only for one reason,  one reason o...

Like Peter in today’s Gospel, we may want to say to Jesus, “Leave me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” But Jesus won’t leave us. Perhaps that’s the hardest thing but also the most amazing grace - to realize humbly, even joyfully, our inadequacy. We are called to imitate the wounded Christ and allow him to reform our hearts, so that they conform to his broken heart. This is the grace of true blessedness and joy - a way to imitate him, who is all mercy, all peace, all mourning turned to joy, imitate him in whom we are meant to become more and more like God. We are invited to take on the mind of Christ in our embrace of our own poverty and neediness and inadequacy. The saints would remind us, “Don’t be afraid. It’s not about you. It’s about him; let him transform you.” This tender love and relentless rescue of Jesus make our foolish failures almost worth it. Almost. With Peter and all the saints, we are meant to be icons of this rescue, our very selves, revelations of what Christ...

Stolen from her family and sold into slavery when she was only about nine years old, Josephine Bakhita suffered at the hands of cruel masters and mistresses. She was tattooed with the cuts of razor blades, severely lashed and one of her legs was so battered by brutal kicking that she limped for years thereafter. Children are great survivors, and Bakhita learned early on how to live as if death did not have the last word. She always lived in hope. And finally years later when she learns about Jesus, she is magnetized, and she seeks baptism with a tenacity and conviction that astound us. She is transfixed as she gazes at the crucified Christ. He is the key to her self-understanding. Jesus, an innocent victim like her, gives her survival new meaning. She is drawn into the reality of his death-defying death. And so she calls Jesus Padrone – literally her “Big Daddy,” her Master; at last a Master she can serve with joy and freedom, one who will never, ever hurt or do any violence to h...

One of our monks shares the following insight: I notice that I pray best, when I come to prayer helpless and tell the Lord Jesus, “Lord, help me. I don’t know how to pray." Then somehow I am suspended in my helplessness. And depending on Christ’s kind regard alone, I can rest undisturbed. Then often I am brought into a deep peace that is prayer. How to trust our desperation as good news?   Photograph by Brother Brian.

In the morning's Gospel t wo people of faith seek Jesus' healing touch. Both have their prayers answered. Faith in Jesus heals. Jesus reminds us, "Fear is useless what is needed is trust," confidence in his desire to heal and accompany us in all we endure.  Photograph by Father Emmanuel.

...if you want to speed on your travels and make a good journey each day, you should hold these two things often in your mind - humility and love. That is:  I am nothing; I have nothing; I desire only one thing . You shall have the meaning of these words continually in your intention, and in the habit of your soul, even though you may not always have their particular form in your thought, for that is not necessary. Humility says, I am nothing; I have nothing. Love says, I desire only one thing, and that is Jesus.    Walter Hilton Cold and damp today. A crust of snow covers the ground, marked here and there with turkey and rabbit tracks. We long for Christ yet often wonder how to get there. Father William M gave us these words of the fourteenth century English mystic, Walter Hilton, this morning and set us securely on the way.

“Simeon took the child Jesus in his arms and blessed God, saying: ‘Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.’” With these words Simeon is telling us the story of his life - his life of waiting, yearning, longing. But what about us? What about the story of our lives? What good is it if Simeon receives the child Jesus in his arms, if we do not? What good is it if Simeon’s eyes see salvation if our eyes do not? How do we let the truth of this charming story transcend its particular history? There clearly is an historical truth to this story, but there is also a cosmic truth, a truth that is not limited by any one specific time and place. A truth that touches, invades, embraces every time and place.  This story is as much ours as it is Simeon’s. Simeon lived the many days, years, decades of his life waiting, hoping, trusting, expecting. How many times he must have come to the Temple wondering: “Is this the ...