ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Today we celebrate the Anniversary of the Dedication and Consecration of our Abbey Church. This is a special solemnity that is ours alone. This rose window pictured above, composed as it is from fragments of glass from the large lancet window in the church of the monastery of Our Lady of the Valley, is an apt symbol of the many transitions that have marked our community's history. Our community first took root at the monastery of Petit Clairvaux in Tracadie, Nova Scotia in the mid-nineteenth century. But in 1892 and again in 1896 disastrous fires devasted the monastic buildings. Soon the monastery moved from Nova Scotia to Lonsdale, Rhode Island. The small community, accompanied by their livestock arrived in the summer of 1900, and regular monastic life was resumed on August 2. Their new home was called Our Lady of the Valley. When in 1950 this abbey was ravaged by fire, the community of one hundred and forty persons was homeless. Fortunately, benefactors had already helped them pu...

If we only knew the gift of God. If only we knew; if only we understood Jesus’ desire to refresh us. For even as he invites us to come to him with our thirst, it is he who is thirsting for us to thirst for him. His thirst is his unending desire for us.   Christ Jesus longs to fill us with himself, to heal and console and “mercy” us. But there’s a hitch; we have to remember who we are- sinners, who are indescribably loved by God in Christ and desperately in need of his sweet mercy; parched, thirsting, longing for the water that he is. If as Pope Francis reminds us over and over, we are to go to the fringes to be with the poor and forgotten, it is first of all to the fringes, the frontiers of our own poverty, sinfulness, and brokenness that we must travel. For down there in the dry, dark recesses of our broken hearts, we will discover just how thirsty we are; there we will discover the breadth of our desire, our need for a Redeemer; discover how dry, how barren and desolate we real...

  Sacred Scripture often instructs us in the ways of God by the use of extreme contrasts. Today we recall the essential role the Mother of God plays in our lives as she accompanies us every step of our way to the Kingdom. Startlingly, the Church puts before us the distressing scene in Matthew’s Gospel of the lascivious dance of Herodias’ daughter before Herod at his birthday party (Mt 14:1-12). In the narrative, you can practically hear the hiss of the serpent as it slithers around Herod’s banquet hall. The girl’s dance bears the fruit of death in the beheading of John the Baptist. She performs a grim dance of lustful enticement and manipulation, which keenly contrasts our Lady’s lovely dance of humility and obedience before the throne of God—a dance of grace, this, that bears us the fullness of life in the fruit of her womb, Jesus.   The dazzling contrast between stubborn Eve and gracious Mary, respectively our mothers in the orders of creation and of redemption, is to be fou...

We celebrate today  Mary, Martha, and Lazarus- Hosts of the Lord, and our Gospel took us to Bethany. After Lazarus has been raised by Jesus there is a dinner in the house of his dear friends and Mary washes Jesus’ feet. This often reminds us of another scene in John’s Gospel- Jesus washing the feet of his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. We know that foot washing was something a Gentile slave could be required to do, but never a Jewish slave. Wives typically did foot-washing for their husbands, children for their parents, and disciples for their teachers. There is undoubtedly a level of intimacy involved in these last scenarios. And in Jesus' case, there is an obvious reversal of roles.* Jesus calls his disciples his friends. And by washing their feet he overcomes in this act of loving intimacy the inequality that exists between them. And so he establishes an intimacy with them that signals their access to everything he had received from his Father, even the...

  We rejoice this day celebrating the American martyr for the faith, Blessed Stanley Rother. An Oklahoma priest he became a missionary in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, where he served the native tribe of the Tz’utujil. Father Rother was surrounded by the extreme poverty of the Tz’utujil and ministered to them tirelessly. During his time in Guatemala, a civil war raged between government forces and guerrillas. Despite great pressures, the Church continued to catechize and educate the people. Thousands of Catholics were killed. And when Father Rother’s name appeared on a death list, he briefly returned to the States. But he was so dedicated to his people that he soon returned to Guatemala insisting, “the shepherd cannot run.” A few months later three men entered his rectory around 1 a.m. on July 28, 1981, fought with Father Rother, and then executed him. The people of Santiago Atitlan mourned the loss of their leader and friend and requested that Father Rother’s heart be kept in ...

In the finding of the treasure and the finding of the pearl, there is a certain element of surprise, unexpectedness and wonderment. It is almost like it is too good to be true. Like finding the one special person that you want to spend the rest of your life with or the vocation that you cannot wait to embrace. It is breathtaking, and you are willing to spend the rest of your days catching your breath.  Let us breathe deeply the air of God's breathtaking, merciful finding of each one of us. Photograph by Brother Guerric. Meditation by Father Damian.  

Filled with wonder at the mystery of the Incarnation, the Church continually imagines and reimagines the ramifications of God’s enfleshment in all its ordinariness. And so today we celebrate the maternal grandparents of Jesus, named by ancient tradition as Joachim and Ann. Jesus had grandparents. Did they babysit? Did they spoil him? Perhaps. Probably. Christ Jesus is always more ordinary and available to us than we know, longing to be hidden with us day by day, moment by moment. It is God’s ordinariness in Jesus our Lord that reveals the immeasurable beauty of his humble love for us. Giotto di Bondone , The Meeting at the Golden Gate , 1305, Scrovegni Chapel , Padua. This is thought to be one of the earliest depictions of a couple kissing.

The Church around the world, but especially in the United States, is seeking to renew the understanding and desire for the Eucharist, our true Sabbath rest. This is especially urgent today as Bishop Robert Barron notes that only 25% of Catholics attend Sunday Mass. Certainly, our witness in the Church is crucial, not simply to attend Mass daily but most especially to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist with one heart, one mind, and one voice. Sunday is our Sabbath Rest. Our Constitutions say: “Sunday is dedicated to the mystery of the Resurrection. It is a day of joy and freedom from work so that the brothers may come together to share the Eucharist more fully and intensely, and zealously apply themselves to lectio divina and prayer.” Sunday is the moment to return to the essentials of our life – meeting the Lord Jesus in community, sitting at his feet, welcoming his word, and receiving his gift of communion. However, our witness to the Sunday rest is a paradox. Rest could suggest a certai...

   Today, in the Gospel passage from St. Luke, the disciples see Jesus praying to his Father and ask him, “Lord, teach us to pray...” Jesus then teaches them the Our Father, which is indeed a prayer, but which is really a way of life in the form of a prayer. The Lord's Prayer is meant to be lived, not just prayed. Although we read Luke's version of the Our Father today, I would like now to look at Matthew's longer version from the Sermon on the Mount—the version we all know and love. The opening words—Our Father who art in heaven—are the words of a people who are in an intimate relationship with the transcendent heavenly Father, the maker of all. In saying “Our Father” we proclaim to the world that all people are our brothers and sisters. When we say, “Hallowed be thy name” we commit ourselves, in reverential fear of the Lord, that is, reverential love of the Lord to the worship of the Holy Name of God (God's own Self) and the sanctification of our own live...

  We celebrate the Mass and Office of Our Blessed Lady again on this Saturday. She is everywhere in the Abbey, her images and icons in sacred spaces and in the workplaces. Mary protects us and accompanies us; we trust in her powerful intercession. We place ourselves in your keeping, Holy Mother of God. Refuse not the prayer of your children in their distress, but deliver us from all danger, ever Virgin glorious and blessed. An etching by Margaret Walters, (1924 - 1971).

  We love Mary Magdalen because of the way in which the boldness of her love for Jesus made her stare death down beyond all human logic or hope.  For her, there is no question that the Messiah of Israel, sent to redeem all humankind, and the Beloved of her most intimate heart are one and the same person.  She perseveres in weeping at the entrance to the tomb because she perseveres in her love: the presence and actions of Jesus in her own life had taught her that love is indeed stronger than death.  Against all odds and logic, in a sort of sublime madness, she clings to her Jesus dead or alive; and she does not reason about her relative physical strength when she says ironically to the man she thought was the gardener, “Tell me where you laid him, and I will take him away.” B ecause she loves Jesus so much, s he is prepared to carry his body away single-handed. Such passionate intensity surely was born from her gratitude at having had no less than ...

All through the lawns and along the Abbey pathways, the weed called  broadleaf plantain  grows in profusion. We were amazed to find it pictured at the very bottom of this painting of  The Rest on the Flight into Egypt  by Gerard David. We learned that the broadleaf plantain  has long been used medicinally. The "bruised" leaves supposedly have a healing effect when placed on small cuts, insect bites, stings and blisters. Fittingly then the artist paints the plantain below the Christ Child as a reference to the healing that he comes to bring us. Mary is the gateway for us to all the healing that only Christ can give. Let us rejoice in her protection.   The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,  Gerard David (Netherlandish, ca. 1455–1523) ,  oil on wood ,  20" x 17.”   The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Used with permission.

Every day of our lives God approaches us in many different disguises, hungry for our hospitality, hungry for our company and the love of our hearts.  We often complain that God has deserted us, that he doesn’t answer our prayers, that he doesn’t take pity on our sufferings.  Today’s readings tell us otherwise: they tell us that we are the ones who do not know how to deal with the fact that, if anything, God has perhaps come too close for comfort, though maybe we may be looking for him only ways that flatter our vanity or indulge our self-centeredness.  In our readings God approaches man in ways that are mysterious, disorienting and challenging.  God, the Almighty, presents himself often in forms of neediness that deceive our logic and that challenge us to lay aside our haughtiness and laziness in order to become servants of anyone in need.  Indeed, the concept of service is the common thread of all...

Silence is a participation in the world to come,  a participation in  eternity, in God’s simplicity, a great Mystery beyond words. Love seeking me is the reason for silence. The monk's wonder-filled response to God’s seeking is the silence of love and the longing to be absorbed in wordless, quiet rest in the presence of the One who loves him. Those in love need not say anything. They want simply "to be with," to be  agendaless , resting in each other's presence. God longs for our openness, a great empty space within us, an emptiness that is not nothing but is availability. In silence, I can notice God noticing me. In practicing silence, allowing silence, allowing the empty space, I make an open space for God.  The community is on its annual retreat this week, a special time for greater silence and solitude.   We send our prayers and blessings to all our friends. Abbey gardens photographed by Brother Brian.

  From the beginning of John’s Gospel to the very end, a little word appears over and over again . In Greek it is meno . It must be one of John's favorites. Meno means to stay, dwell, abide, to stay where you are and not stir, to remain, even to linger – all with notes of quiet intimacy, at-homeness, and commitment. In the very first chapter of John’s Gospel, two disciples decide to follow Jesus and they ask him, “Where do you stay?" Jesus invites them, "Come and see." They remain with him that day, they meno with him, and their lives are transformed, all because they stay . It’s what we say to those we love – stay, please don’t go yet. By the end of John’s Gospel when pressed by Peter, Jesus intimates that he just might want his beloved disciple to remain and await his return. My brothers, we are that beloved disciple, individually, communally. And Christ Jesus our Master has invited us to remain, to abide with him here in this place waiting for him, ever attentive...

When Jesus prompts the scholar of Torah in today’s gospel to identify the most important of all commandments in the divine Law, this pious Jew replies at once: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Already in the Law, love of our weak, very imperfect and often irritating ‘neighbor’ appears as inseparable from love of the Creator Lord and God, who made the neighbor and placed him unaccountably right next to us. We cannot have life, according to Jesus, unless we practice these two eternally yoked loves. But then the man, lawyer that he is and consistent with his desire to test Jesus, begins breaking down the commandment by asking Jesus for a definition that would perhaps conveniently narrow the field of God’s categorical injunction Love your neighbor as yourself, and make it more practicable. Thus, desiring to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?...

  The Lord has placed in Mary the fullness of all good. So that if there is anything of hope in us, if anything of grace if anything of salvation, we may rest assured it has overflowed into us from her. With every fiber of our being, every feeling of our hearts, with all affections of our minds, and with all the ardor of our souls let us honor Mary because this is the will of God, who would have us obtain everything through her hands.  In the monastery we are reminded of Mary often; images of her are in many nooks and corners of the Abbey. And we go to Mary for all we need from her Son, confident that she will never forget those whom her Son has entrusted to her care. The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,  Gerard David (Netherlandish, ca. 1455–1523) , oil on wood, 20" x 17.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Used with permission.  Lines from Saint Bernard of Clairvaux,  Sermon 6: For the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary .

  As beloved disciples, we lean close to the Lord this morning as, through the words of the Prophet Hosea, He whispers his heartbreak but His refusal to punish or ever disinherit us. I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer. My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger… For I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you; I will not let the flames consume you... Let us humbly, confidently, and even joyfully step into the Mercy that He is for us always.

On this day in 1902, the 12-year-old Maria Goretti lay on her deathbed, her life running out of her body through the seventeen stab wounds inflicted by her thwarted rapist, the 20-year-old Alessandro Serenelli. Someone asked her whether she would forgive him, and at once she answered: “Of course I forgive him! From heaven, I will pray for his conversion. For the sake of Jesus who forgave the repentant thief, I want to have that man with me in Paradise.” It seems that already by age 12, this extraordinary child had patterned her life, words, and deeds on those of her beloved Jesus. No less than the great, seasoned apostles in today’s gospel (Mt 10:1-7), little obscure Maria too, by her powerful witness, went out “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and proclaimed that “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”. Will you and I ever have the faith, fortitude, and clarity of vision of this peasant child? Let us pray for our own conversion, following the example of Serenelli, who attende...

  In the year 1916, the New York City harbor was busy with boats and ships arriving and departing, carrying cargo and passengers from many lands and places, both near and far. One of those steamships sailing into the harbor brought a young woman named Ellen Burke; to most people was known as Nellie, but to me, she was Nan. Nan stood on the deck of the boat and saw for the first time in person the colossus known as lady liberty with her torch, offering a beacon of light and light to guide people to their destination. Nan knew she was home. Nan was a single woman aged 20, barely literate. Nan's skills included; harvesting peat from the bogs, slopping the hogs, along with sowing and growing vegetables. Nan was traveling alone, and her only relation in this new country was a distant cousin, whom Nan had never met (remember, by Irish standards, anyone less than 5th cousins is considered close family). Like so many other people from around the world, Nan came seeking a better chance; peo...

Perhaps most significantly for us as monks, loving our enemies will mean praying for them, for to pray for those who hurt us is to love them. And if you’ve ever tried it, you know how dumb, awkward, and even phony it can feel. But we have also come to realize that our failure to do so may have dire consequences.  For then the inner room of our heart will no longer be a place for prayer but a shoddy hovel for wound-licking and rage.  And so we pray for those who hurt us even though sometimes it feels impossible.    It is our work, our duty, and our promise to pray. And we know it is the only way to make sense of hurts- individual, communal, national. And so we pray- after too many needless shootings in classrooms and supermarkets. We pray because the tragedy in Ukraine makes our hearts cry out. We pray because so often, too often the sacredness and fragility of life are disregarded, and we feel so helpless. We pray. We pray for victims and for perpetrators, for p...