ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Like members of any family, the monks share the household chores that keep the monastery running smoothly. Here Fathers Simeon and Timothy are shown cleaning the monastic refectory. The quietness of mind cultivated by silence is also the fruit of purity and simplicity of heart. For this reason, the monk, in a spirit of joyful penitence, is to embrace willingly those means practiced in the Order: work, the hidden life, and voluntary poverty, together with vigils and fasting.   from The Constitutions of the Monks

Love always provokes, as for example this affirmation: Today this Scripture passage has been fulfilled in your hearing. These are the first words we hear today in the gospel from the mouth of the Lord Jesus. It is the Sabbath, and we are with Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth, where he had grown up, as St Luke explains, and according to his custom ... he entered the synagogue and stood up to read.   Jesus is here preaching to his fellow citizens and his own relatives. But what is the prophecy referred to by Jesus?  It is the capital text of Isaiah that Jesus, as liturgical reader, specifically chose and proclaimed aloud, and which we heard last Sunday: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me and sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. “He has anointed me”: this statement, on Jesus’ lips, is tan...

Please pray with us for vocations to the monastic life: O Jesus, Friend, and Good Shepherd, with you, we surrender ourselves to the Father’s will. Teach us to repeat with you  our yes to all the Father desires. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.   In communion with all the saints, we pray. Make us witnesses before the world of what we have seen  and heard and believe, so that all people may  recognize you as their only Lord and God. Make us brothers with you who have gathered us  to live  the mystery of community. Send our community men willing to leave everything  to follow you in poverty and weakness.   Blessed Mary, Queen of Cîteaux, pray for us! Saint Robert, Saint Alberic, and Saint Stephen,       founders of our Order, pray for us! Saint Bernard, Saint Aelred, and Saint Humbeline, pray for us! Blessed Guerric and Blessed Beatrice, pray for us! Blessed Gervais Brunel, Paul Charles, Elie Desgardin,...

It is fitting that this Feast is shared by all three founders, St. Robert of Molesme, St. Alberic, and St. Stephen Harding, because as Fr. Jean-Baptiste Van Damme summed up so well in his book, The Three Founders of Cîteaux : “These were three men of God who played different roles, but who were wholly united in their drive towards a single goal: a monastic life faithful to its most authentic traditions and, at the same time, capable of meeting the aspirations of the best of their contemporaries for renewal and regeneration. Their efforts converged in the great monastic movement which, in turn, promoted the general reform of the Church.” They have left us a great legacy, probably without principally intending to. They didn’t set out to found a new religious Order, just a monastery. Each, however, successively contributed through many hardships and unpromising circumstances to the birth and development of what turned out to be a new and enduring monastic observance. They had to have ha...

  The Cistercian scholar Father Michael Casey often reminds us that we must let go of "the myth of the golden age," a cherished fantasy period when the Founders and the early generations of our Order enjoyed some ideal monastic life, when everything ran like clockwork, smooth, ideal, neat. Probably Citeaux, like our founding houses in Nova Scotia, Rhode Island and like our own monastery here in Spencer, was full of men like us, wounded sinners trying with all their hearts to follow the poor Christ. Perhaps then we can honor the memory of our Holy Founders, Saints Robert, Alberic and Stephen best, if we go with them to the place of humility in the shadow of the cross, to rest in its shade and remember that we are, as they were, sinners, absolutely dependent on the tender mercy of our God.  Icon of the Holy Founders written by Brother Terence.

  There were once, two sisters whose parents had died and left them well off. Neither of them married. These were both strong independent women. They shared a common faith and had great compassion and love for their brother, who was special needs, and even though he was high functioning, he still needed a great deal of their time and attention. The brother never spoke; he is not remembered as ever having uttered a single word. But the brother was open-hearted and gentle of spirit and loved for who he was. This is a story about a mother whose only child was ill. We have all heard stories of parents going to any extreme to save their children. The love of a parent knows no limits. That is the type of mother this woman is, she was willing to risk embarrassment, humiliation, and possible rejection if it would save her beloved daughter, by swallowing her pride and seeking out the one person who could help her and her daughter. Justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting ...

  In Scripture, a mountain top is always a place of divine encounter. And in today's Gospel, Jesus majestically ascends the mountain and calls to himself those whom he desires to follow him closely, appointing a band of Twelve. And they come to him. As Jesus inaugurates the Kingdom, these twelve recapitulate the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. God’s reign in Christ Jesus has begun. Saint Agnes, whom we celebrate today, was martyred as a girl of twelve for defending the virginity she had consecrated to Christ Jesus alone. Her following led her to the cross like her Master. Preferring Christ Jesus above all else, we too celebrate our chosenness and promise to follow the Lord wherever he leads us.  Saint Agnes, attributed to the Master of the Straus Madonna,  (Italian, active late 1300s–early 1400s) , 1300s , tempera on panel. Worcester Art Museum.

  So much to pray for, our hearts are full. The Lord is attentive. We begin today the Octave of Christian Unity praying that divisions among Christian churches may dissolve.    The division between Christ’s disciples is so obvious a contradiction that they cannot be resigned to it without feeling in some way responsible for it. The purpose of this particular week is to encourage the Christian community to devote itself more intensely to prayer, in order to experience at the same time how beautiful it is to live together as brothers and sisters. Despite the tensions sometimes caused by existing differences, these days give us in some way a foretaste of the joy that full communion will bring when it is finally achieved. Photograph by Brother Brian. Lines by Pope Saint John Paul II.

The Gospel today proclaims the mystery of the new spiritually inebriating wine of the Gospel manifested in the Marriage Feast at Cana; a passage found only in the Gospel of John. Most of John's gospel consists of the parts called “The Book of Signs” in chapters one through twelve and “The Book of Glory” in chapters 13 through 20. The Book of Signs is constructed around seven of what we normally call “miracles,” but which John prefers to call “signs” because they reveal the glory of Jesus in a way beyond the amazement at a miracle and a cure, for instance. The seven signs all point to the meaning of the ultimate manifestation of the glory of Jesus that is in the paschal mystery of Christ's passion, death, resurrection, ascension to heaven and sending of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit—through which wounded and sinful humanity is made whole and glorious in the sight of God. So, for example, the sixth sign in John, the healing of the man born blind points to the messianic identity ...

  We dare to hope because our help is in the name of the Lord, Jesus our Hope, who is forever with us, on our side. May this be the day We come together. Mourning, we come to mend, Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better. Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning That though we weren't ready for this, We have been readied by it. We steadily vow that no matter How we are weighed down, We must always pave a way forward. This hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal, Someday we can venture beyond it, To leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, But reach toward what is next. What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove pure. Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree, Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee, Where we weren't aware, we're now awake; Those moments we missed Are now these moments we make, The moments we meet, And ...

I’d like to begin by sharing my strongest image of Brother Roger, which I also cherish as an ongoing gift from him. Yesterday at Sunday Chapter we gathered as a community to share our personal memories and stories about him—and there were many! My first encounter with Brother Roger was when I was a novice, taking my turn working with him in the laundry. For us novices, he was a delight and an important part of our formation. But over the years, I believe I got to know him best during the Infirmary Mass, to which I am usually assigned one week a month. There was Brother Roger, parked in his wheelchair always in the same spot with his oxygen concentrator sometimes beeping, looking right at me with the most open, receptive, smiling expression—fully attentive, engaged, and clearly happy to be present. He struck me as totally himself and completely at home in prayer . He radiated a transparent joy, depth, and presence that I found both inspiring and genuinely brotherly. In a word, he ma...

  "And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.’" Today marks the end of the Christmas season; with the baptism, the years of the Lord’s hidden life have come to a close and Jesus takes up his public ministry. The time of Israel’s expectation has been fulfilled. The long-awaited Messiah has appeared. The whole time of the preparation of the Old Testament, of Israel’s election, the covenant, and the mission entrusted to it, converges here on this one figure, in this one very concrete time and place in human history. With the eyes of Easter, we can see how all the fragmentary images presented in the Old Testament find their unity and unveil their meaning precisely here in Jesus. For thirty years Jesus has been immersed in the beliefs, customs, and traditions of Israel and its covenant relationship with the God who chose them and formed them as his people; and in and through them matured in the mission that he and the Father had decided upo...

  This miracle of the healing of a man afflicted with leprosy drives home the point that the Lord Jesus is concerned with the salvation and restoration of the whole human person, here and now, and not only with people’s spiritual welfare. Every endeavor of the Church to restore the human person to the fullness of humanity as intended by the Creator—physical, mental, social, as well as spiritual—consequently is a vibrant work of the Gospel and a manifestation of God’s will to save: hospitals, counseling centers, schools, soup kitchens, prison chaplaincies, and so forth. We Catholics have in the past, I’m afraid, been too spiritualistic in our outlook, perhaps as a pious way of fleeing demanding responsibilities. The Church ought to be passionately engaged in the well-being of people as God created us, endowed with body, mind and spirit. All works of Christian charity are true epiphanies of God’s will to save in Christ. Jesus always brings with him to every encounter the reality ...

In yesterday’s Gospel from St Luke, the epiphanies continue concerning the nature, person, and mission of the Lord Jesus. The setting, in the synagogue in Nazareth on a Sabbath, stresses the unified sweep of divine revelation. Though offering to the world an unheard-of portrayal of the being and action of God, Jesus nonetheless does do out of the heart of Jewish worship and tradition. Luke stresses the rootedness of the eternal Word in this world, with very specific local and personal references: “He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.” How beautiful, I think, this familiarity and ordinariness of Jesus’ mode of existence in his native Galilean environment!   The occasion signals the beginning of Jesus’ “public life” and activity in Luke. All of Jesus’ future mission is here shown to flow from a most human setting and situation, and at the same time from an act of worship, a proclamation of the prophetic Wo...

  The two readings today present us with two strongly contrasting aspects of Christian experience. In his First Letter, St John writes: “We have come to know, and to believe in, the love God has for us.” The wording is significant because it implies that such a profound realization and conviction took much time to sink in and transform the lives of the disciples. It was not grasped automatically from the beginning of discipleship. In the Gospel, St Mark witnesses to this same laborious process of growing from worldly unbelief into fullness of faith when he writes that the disciples were “completely astounded” at the event of Jesus walking on the sea, because “they had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened”. We can surely sympathize with the disciples for this unbelief, and for their fear and the sluggishness of their hearts because, after all, the full reality of Jesus’ presence and the meaning of his words and actions is so extraor...

Dear Brother Roger passed to the Lord late last evening. He  will be remembered for his playfulness and good humor as well as his profound wisdom, humility, and quiet holiness. Roger worked hard as a lay brother in the early years of our foundation here at Spencer. We share excerpts from a remembrance of Roger composed by one of our monks: The person I have in mind is ninety-seven years old, still very much mentally with it, ...    A quick note about his origins is in order. He is of French-Canadian descent and hails from Pawtucket Rhode Island...  Most of Roger’s forebears migrated to southern New England to work in the mills and had remained a closely-knit community. French was the language people used at home and among neighbors. Outside the confines of that neighborhood, few spoke English. As for his English, even after all these years, Roger speaks with a heavy accent. Almost everyone gets a kick out of the way he expresses himself because he doesn’t bother hi...

Today’s Gospel further develops the Epiphany’s manifestation of Jesus as merciful Lord of Glory. It presents Jesus as the ever-watchful Shepherd who is full of compassion for the people and who sates their hunger: first, of the Word of Truth by his teaching, and then with the Bread of Life—himself. He has the people “recline on green pastures” just as the Good Shepherd does in Psalm 22. The people then form groups of 100 and of 50, which recalls Israel’s trek through the desert wilderness in Exodus 18. The apostles receive the task of distributing the bread, just as Moses delegated some of his work to the judges in that same chapter. In all of this, Mark is portraying Jesus as the new and ultimate Moses, who rules the people of God and cares for them with both strength and tenderness. Jesus divides the people into distinct “communities”, to which he assigns the twelve apostles, who are to dispense the Bread of Life through word and sacrament. Crucial to the text is the fact that the ...