ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

  One of the harsh graces of monastic life is that a memory can come back in a flash and pierce your heart wide open and lead you to beg for God’s mercy. So it is that I remember with embarrassment yelling at my Dad many years ago over some triviality. I was not proud of myself. And a day or so later, I had the sense to apologize. His response was simple, “Jimmy, you never have to apologize to me.” This touched me deeply. His words were my forgiveness. He knew me and understood me, he loved me. And I understood that the love, the relationship we had, meant more and could tolerate the breach. In the end, I think I really learned how to forgive and what it feels like to be forgiven - from my father. He simply was not a grudge-holder. And when I was trying to muster the courage to take steps toward entering this monastery, it was somehow imagining his words as the Father’s words deep in my heart that gave me the courage I needed, “Give it a try. What have you got to lose?” I begin...

  It was physically and spiritually draining, being the woman with the hemorrhage. I can easily imagine that the possibility of healing would lead the woman with the hemorrhage (and what a thing to be known for throughout all time) to brazen and desperate measures. She emerged in public and touched a stranger’s cloak, a stranger who said things like, "Do not be afraid." But when she was miraculously healed, he knew instantly and called her forth from the crowd. She trembled with fear, but Jesus only said, in his perceptive, succinct way, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace." All we have to do is touch him. Just the hem of his cloak. Touch Jesus and...we will be restored to full spiritual health and vigor. Touch Jesus, and we will be sent forth, faithful, well, and in peace. Why do we make it so hard?   Image by Brother Brian. Meditation taken from an article by Valerie Schultz from America, 2008.

  Have you ever wondered if you were following God’s will for your life? Are the choices that I have made mine or God’s? Is it even possible to know? These are questions that many of us ask from time to time. I think absolute certainty is impossible. Perhaps even John the Baptist wondered if he was doing God’s will. John had a special purpose to play in salvation history. He acted as the bridge between the Old and New Testaments. John was the last and in some ways the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. As the preface for today’s Mass says he was chosen “from all the prophets to show the world its redeemer, the Lamb of sacrifice.” Jesus praised his greatness but at the same time said that even the least in the Kingdom was greater than he. While he knew and proclaimed Jesus as the one who was to come and the straps of whose sandals, he was not worthy to untie, he never saw Jesus as his Risen Lord, a privilege granted to the very least of the baptized. He is often referred to as t...

  We are always inspired by the ardor and single-heartedness of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, who died as a Jesuit scholastic at age 23 while caring for plague victims in Rome in 1591. Indeed, s o confident was Aloysius in God's tender love for him, that one day as he was playing ball with the other young Jesuits, Saint Robert Bellarmine approached him and asked what he would do if he were told he was going to die the next day. "I would go on playing ball," said Aloysius. So may we always trust in the Lord's merciful love. 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.

  A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind...   Mark 4 The early 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, is credited with the division of the books of the Bible into chapters. Today's gospel of the calming of the storm at sea is the final section of Chapter Four of Mark. It seems odd that a chapter that is chock-a-block full of parables should end with the beginning of the narrative of a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee, especially as the boat trip ends at the beginning of the next, chapter five. Why didn't the Archbishop simply make Chapter Four a collection of parables with a unified theme, and then begin Chapter Five with the entire narrative of the crossing of the sea?  The scripture scholar Marie Sabin proposes a solution to this enig...

Come, true light; c ome life that never ends; c ome, hidden mystery! Come, nameless treasure; c ome, name that can never be uttered! Come, inconceivable One; come, joy without end! Come sun that never sets! Come, name well-loved and ever repeated! Come, joy that knows no end; come, untarnishing crown! Come you whom my poor soul has longed for,  and longs for still! I give you thanks that you have become one single spirit with me.  We are called to ceaseless prayer, Saint Augustine will name this living in ceaseless desire for God. Ever-mindful of this, we treasure these l ines from a hymn of  Saint Simeon the New Theologian. 

On Sunday the community gathered in the Abbey Chapterhouse, as our brothers were clothed in the novice's habit by Abbot Vincent.  He addressed the following remarks to them. Br. Andrew and Br. Kenneth, I understand that the two of you are energetic souls who have participated in strenuous athletic and spiritual activities in your younger days. St. Benedict has a word for you in the Prologue of his Rule; in fact, not only a word, but a kind of map for the entire life of conversion to which you are dedicating yourselves. Let us listen to his words, the words of a father who loves you and wants only the best for you. He starts in a good place, quoting the words of Jesus: “Run while you have the light of life…” It is interesting how often in the Prologue St. Benedict refers to running, as though you were joining a cross country team. But it is true that monastic life is a long race. There are times of jogging, times of sprinting, and times of enduring long stretches of grueling count...

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord, the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.” In today’s parables, Jesus reminds us of the promise hidden in what is small and unremarkable – seeds that grow in hiddenness and mystery. How like our prayer, our life that is ordinary, obscure, and laborious. We dare to believe that what we bear and what we do and pray has an apostolic reverberation – fruitfulness far beyond the cloister, with a blessing for those in need. We trust, we believe, though we do not always understand. We love Jesus our Lord. Love brings us knowledge and trust of a God beyond our simple understanding. And so, we live, we pray in mystery and in wonder. Wonder ...

  Paul’s desire for the people of Ephesus is that they come to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The Father and the Son and the Spirit most of all want to see this prayer of Paul’s realized, not only then, but in each of us today. The Three Persons are the ones who have placed this desire in Paul’s heart. They are the ones who have driven Paul to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ. The mystery of today’s feast is that the supreme place where this love, the heart of God, is disclosed is from the cross, in Jesus’ wounded side. To know the depths of the heart of God and the incomprehensible love that resides there we are to look upon him whom we have pierced, gaze upon the wounded side of Christ.  This wound is not the same as Christ’s other wounds in that it is the symbol of the heart of God laid bare, rent open, precisely for our gaze, that in it we might see the extent...

One of the first to introduce song into the Church’s public worship, in the fourth century Saint Ephrem took the melodies of the heretics and composed beautiful hymns to teach sacred doctrine. Thus is he called “Harp of the Holy Spirit,” such a lovely nickname. Christ Jesus our Lord has come to fulfill all promises of the ancient Law. The messenger of a new covenant, the poet of the kingdom, He shows us the way into the heart of God. Jesus would have us sing and praise the truth of God’s mercy and compassion. And all day long, like Jesus and Ephrem, we will have the opportunity to make a hymn of praise out of our drudgery and ordinariness. Photograph by Brother Brian.

Lately I have become more aware of the fragility of life. Maybe that’s what happens when one becomes an abbot. But any of us can look at the newspapers and feel the disarray: mass killings; the breakdown of family and political life; the gradual loss of vigor in the aging and dying process, including our own. There are broken bodies everywhere, both physical and social, and our community is not immune to the reality. Oddly enough, however, I think today’s feast is a perfect fit for the situation. The broken body and poured out blood of Christ is right at home with all this fragility, and it is the perfect remedy. Why the perfect remedy? Because this feast celebrates the unbreakable covenant God has made with his people. The body and blood of Christ is our way into the sanctuary, that is, into a familiar and constant nearness to God. We pass through the veil, which is the flesh of Christ, in order to rest in the presence of God. When Moses gathered the people together on Mount Sinai, ...

  We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  2 Cor. 4 Paul's words tell us what it is like to live always in hope.   Simply falling backwards into Christ’s compassionate embrace in our desperation is always disconcerting but an exquisite refuge and relief. As Paul tells us elsewhere, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Christ Jesus will never forsake us. And our daily  dyings,  daily defeats, disappointments, and near despair are endless opportunities to trust and rely on Him, "so that the l ife of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh."   Each of us then becomes a finely...

This morning it seems it’s time once again for that favorite first century Palestinian game show: Stump the Rabbi. The scribes and Sadducees are great at it. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, their question was: “Should we pay taxes or not?” This morning it’s: “Well if she had seven husbands, whose wife will she be?” I am reminded of sixth grade at my parochial school where we often played: Stump the Nun . It went something like this: “Sister, suppose you were walking to church, and you began biting your fingernails. Could you go to Communion, or did you break the fast?” “ Gary , are fingernails food?” “No, Sister.” “Thank you, dear. Be seated. Boys and girls, take out your geography books.” Or how about this one? “Sister, suppose you were at a restaurant, and you ordered a hamburger, and just as you were about to bite into it, you remembered it was a Friday, in Lent! Should you eat it or not?” “Of course, it would be a worse sin to waste food. By all means, you should eat the burger.” Sr. El...

  Well trained in Greek philosophy, Saint Justin encountered Christian Revelation and was converted to Christianity in 132. Filled with ardor he soon began preaching with great conviction. In Rome, he was denounced as a subversive and condemned to death by beheading.  Before his martyrdom Justin was asked by the Roman prefect, "Do you think that by dying you will enter heaven and be rewarded by God?" Justin answered, "I do not think. I know.”