ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Saint Bernard says that above all what has drawn God to Mary is her humility. God finds it absolutely irresistible. Certainly, we will come to our humility by a route very different than Our Lady’s, but it can give us the same irresistible quality. We can do it through our sinfulness, acknowledging that we have nothing to boast of before God but our weakness. It is after all the only thing about myself that I am absolutely confident about. The problem is it’s also the one thing I most want to deny. But this reality, this humility lets God be God. Said another way, when things fall apart then God can be God. Through the Virgin Mary, God has chosen to be part, an integral part, of our fragmentation. Let us open our hearts completely to the Lord. Bernardo Daddi, Madonna And Child With Four Angels ( Central Predella Panel From The San Giorgio A Ruballa Altarpiece) ,  1348, Tempera And Gold On Panel, Ronald Lauder Collection. Meditation by one of the monks.

Jesus tells us in the Gospel that he has come to serve not to be served. Part of our work as disciples is always to allow Christ Jesus near enough to care for us, heal us, forgive us and console us. With this in mind, it seems, our Cistercian Father Blessed Guerric of Igny puts the following words on Jesus' lips:  I will serve you," his Creator says to man. "You sit down, I will minister, I will wash your feet. You rest; I will bear your weariness, your infirmities. Use me you as you like in all your needs, not only as your servant but also as your beast of burden and as your property. If you are tired or burdened I will carry both you and your burden..."  Detail of  The Descent from the Cross  by Rogier Van der Weyden, c. 1435.  Text from  The First Sermon for Palm Sunda y, Blessed Guerric of Igny.

  Growing patiently beneath the Abbey bell tower, our ginkgo tree shouts its praise in blazing yellow for a few glowing days each year at the end of October. Soon its fan-shaped leaves will litter the northeast corner of the monastery's enclosed garden. A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means  it to be it is obeying Him. It "consents," so to speak, to His creative love.  It is expressing an idea that is in God and which is not distinct from  the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree. Photographs by Brother Anthony Khan. Lines from Thomas Merton,  New Seeds of Contemplation , p. 29.

Jesus presents the two men in the parable this morning in a way that idealizes one quality in each. One claims superior status for himself by comparing himself with and separating himself from others; the other makes no claims to status at all but acknowledges his position as a sinner who can take refuge only in God’s goodness and mercy. Convinced of his righteousness, dependent on his own acts of piety, one asks for and receives nothing from God. The other comes to God in humility and receives that for which he asks, divine compassion. These two figures called to my mind two other but very different characters one, a young priest, the other a 16-year-old girl: central characters in the novel Under the Sun of Satan by Georges Bernanos. Neither of these two lines up in a strictly parallel way with the two characters in today’s parable. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the comparison and decided to dig into it. Here’s what I have come up with at this point. The setting for the encounter ...

We grieve for our sisters and brothers in Ukraine. We feel helpless, but we do not despair as we pray for peace. God hears us. We pray that they will be safe and have a future full of hope. Lord God of peace, hear our prayer! We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain. Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and hearts, and give us the courage to say: "Never again war!"; "With war, everything is lost". Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace. Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to ...

As monks, we know that the martyrs are our forbears and exemplars in the monastic life. And surely this prayer of Saint Ignatius had formed the hearts of the Jesuit martyrs we remember today. Ignatius would pray in these words: Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will, all that I have, and all that I possess. You gave it all to me, Lord; I give it all back to you. Do with it as you will, according to your good pleasure. Give me your love and your grace; for with this, I have all that I need. Jesus the Divine Thief longs to sneak in and take us to himself; take all that we have and all that we are. Inspired by the ardor and exquisite generosity of the North American Martyrs, let us surrender completely to the constant invasion of God's mercy in Christ.

On this past Saturday, 15 October, we celebrated with great joy the priestly ordination of our Brother Stephen Shanahan; Bishop Robert  McManus  of Worcester presided. Family and friends gathered with the community in prayer and thanksgiving .     Brother Stephen consults with Bishop McManus before the Liturgy. Brother Stephen prostrates as the Litany of Saints is chanted. Father John Shanahan, tor imposes hands on his brother, invoking the Holy Spirit. The priests of the Abbey impose their hands. Bishop McManus gives the newly ordained Father Stephen the gifts of bread and wine. Father Stephen imparts his first priestly blessing upon Bishop McManus. Father Stephen blesses his brother monks. We pray earnestly to the Lord that our Father Stephen may have many years of fruitful ministry as a priest of Jesus Christ. Photographs by Brother Daniel.

           This is the story of a woman alone in the world, like Naomi from the book of Ruth; she has no men in her life, no husband to support her, and no strong, able sons to take care of their mother in her old age. But this woman has grown and learned to be independent. It was not an easy path to learn to take care of herself and to find that she had a voice, but this old woman was determined and persistent. I am speaking about the widow from today's gospel reading. She was alone in a time when it was not good for anyone to be by themselves, but a widow is someone who would be especially vulnerable.             Why the woman needs to be vindicated, liberated, redeemed by a just verdict from this judge is never stated. But it is easy to see the importance of the situation for the widow. This woman needs something she feels deserves or is owed; perhaps a poor verdict and the widow will lose what littl...

  The single light of perfect unity which we experience with Jesus and one another in the depths of prayer becomes refracted, as it were, into a variety of possibilities as to how exactly interior unity should be lived in the concrete, in the face of shifting circumstances, opinions, particular needs, cultural backgrounds, etc. The greatest challenge for the Church is how to incarnate the one eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ in ever-changing and -challenging circumstances, how to safeguard carefully the precious Mysteries of the faith and the perfect unity that results from our having received the one Spirit and the one Love of Jesus. The Church’s great task is how to be faithful to all these sacred and immutable Truths, how to dynamically hand them down, always within the necessarily shifting field of tensions that is concrete life on earth. Only our continual mindfulness of our common source in God’s loving Providence will temper our individual points of view and initiatives, and ...

Jesus abolishes divisions and separation. Isolated outsiders – lepers, the lame, blind and deaf are all healed, the dead given life; and all sent back to those they love, back to family and community. And it is finally in his death on a cross, that the ugliness of our stupid divisions and divisiveness will be revealed and put to death in his wounded body. He is our peace, and he has reconciled us to himself and to one another once and for all. As we prepared to enter this abbey, each of us can probably recall at least one friend or relative asking, “Why do have to go there to pray? What’s so special about a monastery; you can pray anywhere.” But we sensed it; we knew  in our hearts that we needed  a community. We needed to be with these people who did this “thing” together. How precious, how necessary, how good it is for us to be here - together in this place. Even when, or more especially when, all seems craziness or burden, when we hurt and disappoint and...

Today’s gospel relates a turning point in Our Lord’s life. All that had gone before – his birth, his childhood, his teenage years, his public ministry with its healings, debates, and instructions. He carries a ll of it   with him as he enters his “hour,” the hour “for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The same must happen to all of us. We carry forward all our life experiences when our hour arrives. These must all be sown in the ground and covered over like a grain of wheat as happened with Jesus. Fr. Gabriel, must have experienced this, in a particularly poignant way. He carried all his life’s experiences with him into his hour with as much willingness as he could muster, following in the footsteps of his Lord. Fr. Gabriel’s service to the Lord and his many friends and brethren spanned 90 years and numerous residences. From the deep south of the United States to the halls of Harvard, to the quiet of Spencer, to Rome, Belgium, and beyond – all the while creating friendships and shar...

  Someone who loves you, Lord, makes no mistake in his choice, for nothing is better than you. His hope is not cheated, since nothing is loved with greater reward...Here is joy because fear is banished, here is tranquility... Photograph  by Brother Brian.  Lines from Saint Aelred of Rievaulx.  

We are told that Saint Francis decreed that his friars not have pockets in their habits. How he wanted them to be poor with the poor Christ! How to depend on Jesus alone for all we need? How to cling to Him, a Treasure always ready to hand and heart? Detail of  Saint Francis Of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata  by Giambattista Tiepol

Our Father Gabriel Bertonière passed quietly to Lord late last evening. He will be remembered as one who loved the brethren and this place. Gabriel was a gifted musician and master of Gregorian Chant, training many of the monks in proper chant style. And even into his later years, Gabriel sang like a choir boy. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 17, 1932, to John A. Bertonière, Sr., and Hazel Montaldo, he graduated from Jesuit High School there in 1948 and went on to study at Harvard University. Immediately upon obtaining his BA cum laude from Harvard with a major in English in 1952, he entered St Joseph’s Abbey, whose community had only recently transferred to Spencer after a devastating fire destroyed their monastery in Cumberland, Rhode Island.   Father Gabriel made temporary profession of vows in 1954 and solemn vows in 1957, and he was ordained a priest in 1958. In 1962 he was sent by the Abbot to Rome to continue his theological studies. While in Eu...

But, brethren, from all that might be said of His character I single out one point and beg you to notice that. He loved to praise, He loved to reward. He knew what was in man, He best knew men's faults and yet He was the warmest in their praise. When He worked a miracle He would grace it with Thy faith hath saved thee, that it might almost seem the receiver's work, not His. He said of Nathanael that he was an Israelite without guile; He that searches hearts said this, and yet what praise that was to give! He called the two sons of Zebedee Sons of Thunder, a kind and stately and honorable name! We read of nothing thunder-like that they did except, what was sinful, to wish fire down from heaven on some sinners, but they deserved the name or He would not have given it, and He has given it to them for all time. Of John the Baptist He said that his greater was not born of women. He said to Peter, Thou art Rock, and rewarded a moment's acknowledgment of him with the lasting heads...

  If you are willing to bear in peace the trial of not being pleased with yourself, you will be offering the Lord Jesus a home in your heart. It is true you will suffer, for you will feel like a stranger in your own house. But do not fear, for the poorer you are, the more Christ will love you. We are always consoled by these words of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; she reminds us that Jesus' power is made perfect in our weakness. God does not want our virtue, he wants our weakness. Even as we try to please him, we see and understand that we always come up short. Jesus is not a coach. He wants us to go to him in our poverty.  This requires courage, humility, and quite often a good deal of embarrassment as perhaps we realize that we are not the spiritual athletes we imagined ourselves to be and are not making much progress in the spiritual life (as if such a thing were desirable in the first place.) It's all about Jesus' mercy. All I can offer him is my poverty and weakness. This...