ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

  As he called his first disciples Peter and Andrew, Jesus calls each of us. Like Saint Paul and all the saints, we long to depart to be with Christ. Daily we try to set our minds and hearts on things that are above where Christ is. We have died; our lives are hidden now with Christ in God. We consider everything to be nothing at all compared to knowing Christ Jesus, our Lord. Because of him, we have set everything else aside, because in comparison everything else is a pile of rubbish. And we want more and more to know only Christ and the power of his resurrection. We share in his sufferings even now and so are becoming like him in his death. And it is worth it if somehow we attain the resurrection. So we keep pressing on to make it our own because Christ Jesus has made each of us his own. Our drawing closer to him, following him, is only possible because he draws us to himself. We need only be constantly available for this "drawing." Again and again, our Lord said, I am he. ...

You may remember the story of the Johnstown flood; we read the book by David McCullough in the refectory some years ago. It had been raining for days in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1889. A poorly constructed damn has broken above the town; and water is rising rapidly, higher and higher, in the town below. All is pandemonium, utter chaos. But one well-to-do family residing on the hillside in a lovely Victorian home is trying to let life go on as usual. (Denial, I think is what we’d call it today.) Their lawn and garden are submerged, and water is moving up their front steps, as they calmly finish their formal luncheon, seemingly oblivious. The maid clears the dessert dishes. And finally, the father of the family puts down his napkin, rises, and declares that they must all leave the house immediately and walk up the hill outside their home to higher ground. Everyone departs. The father has his little daughter’s hand. After a few steps his wife, walking arm in arm with her si...

  A spring morning some years ago, I am lost in thought, puttering in the garden at the Cottage. Fr. Simon drives by in his motorized wheelchair, he is off to work in the treasury office, even though he is at this point bent and twisted and practically crippled with the Lou Gehrig’s disease that will eventually take him. He cranes his head toward me and pauses to say hello. “Oh Simon,” I say, “I’m so sorry.” “Sorry,” he says without missing a beat. “What’s to be sorry about? I have this wonderful chair.” And motioning to the hills, “And look at this beautiful place, our beautiful monastery. Nothing to be sorry about.” Was the man simpleminded, overly pious, his sensibilities dulled after too many years in this place? I don’t think so; no, it was simply Fr. Simon’s natural self-forgetfulness. He could see far beyond his present situation and, trusting in the Lord, he shifted his focus to love, appreciation, and gratitude. My brothers and sisters, mindfulness of the gift received is ...

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. These words of Saint Ignatius' prayer  The Suscipe , sum up most poignantly the self-offering of the Mexican martyr, Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro. As a young man ,  Miguel renounced everything and entered the Society of Jesus. After his ordination, he carried on  his priestly ministry  in spite of the grave religious persecution of the Church in Mexico in the early 20th century. O ften in disguise and continually foiling the best efforts of the Mexican secret police to arrest him, Miguel was eventually captured. On 23  November 1927, after forgiving his executioners, he extended his arms like his crucified Lord and was  shot by a firing squad as he proclaimed " Viva Cristo Re!" Jesus'...

  Today we celebrate the tradition that Mary was dedicated to the Lord  even from her childhood . She is presented in the Temple, but she herself will become the temple of God Most High. Mary is the perfect medium for God’s self-expression- because most of all she is the unlikeliest, so small, among the most powerless. This is the brilliance of God’s unprecedented breakthrough in Mary - her of all people. She is young in a society that values age and wisdom; female in a world where men run everything; poor at a time when poverty implies divine disfavor; unmarried in a society in which a husband and children would grant her status, protection and validate her existence. *  She has nothing and is nothing at all; a nobody, but she is just right for God. God is smitten. Mary is the perfect match for a God who is always captivated by what is little, humble and small; God who always prefers the lowest place, who always notices what is seemingly incongruous, upside-down, th...

        On Thursday of this past week, we celebrated the feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  I like to think of her feast as a prelude to today's Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe. She was born in 1207, the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Queen Gertrude who was the sister of our beloved Cistercian oblate, St. Hedwig.  At the age of 4, she was sent to Germany to be educated and prepared for her arranged marriage (which took place 14 years later) to the princely lord, Ludwig the Landgrave of Thuringia.  Despite her exalted station in life—or perhaps because of her Christian insight into what true rulership is---she devoted much of her time and eventually all of her own wealth to personally feeding and clothing the poor and to nursing the sick poor in the hospitals she founded. When her beloved husband Ludwig died she was unceremoniously thrown out of the castle with her newborn baby in her arms by Ludwig's stuck-up a...

  With her husband not far behind, annoyed at her constant almsgiving, the young Saint Elizabeth of Hungary was saved when the bread she had been carrying became a fragrant bundle of roses. "Keep your deeds of mercy secret," recommends Our Lord. And in His providence, He accomplishes for Elizabeth, what His love has requested. Illustration by  Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale.  

  O Sacred Heart of Jesus, Fountain of eternal life, your Heart is a glowing furnace of love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary.  O my adorable and loving Savior, consume my heart with the burning fire with which yours is inflamed. Pour down upon my soul those graces which flow from your love. Let my heart be united with yours. Let my will be conformed to yours in all things. May your will be the rule of all my desires and actions. These are words of Saint Gertrude the Great, a  Benedictine  nun of the  thirteenth century, whom we remember today . Her ardor inspires us to follow Christ more fervently. One of her visions finds her resting at the open wound in Christ's side and listening to the beating of his Heart. Let us go with Gertrude to Christ's side and rest there. O God, you are my God. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water.  Psalm 62 Andrea del Verrocchio,  Christ and Saint Thomas,  bronze, 1483, Orsanmichele, Florence...

Only two weeks from today we will celebrate the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new Church Year.  I don’t know about you, but every year Advent sneaks up on me like a thief; I then feel the ending of a period in my life, but also the birth of a new hope, a new beginning.  By means of this cycle of the liturgical year the Church, in her wisdom, sets before our eyes very vividly the reality of the unavoidable end of our lives and of the history of the world, and the expectation of good things to come: The day is coming, says the prophet Malachy to us today, blazing like an oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. … But for you who fear my name, the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings.   We do well to contemplate this reality of the day of reckoning with our minds and with our hearts, through the words and teachings of the Lord Jesus himself.  The great challenge posed to us by this meditation is to decide what will be ...

Today we honor the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict. It was in the year 324 that Emperor Constantine erected this great basilica in honor of the Savior. And its baptistery was later dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. The Lateran basilica reminds us of our history as Church. It is filled with treasured relics. Its high altar is built over an ancient wooden table said to be the one on which Saint Peter celebrated the Lord’s Supper with the first Christian community of Rome. But we are not simply remembering some faraway church that most of us have never visited. No, we celebrate a greater reality- the unity and universality of our faith- the reality that we are Church with Christ Jesus as our cornerstone. Though sinful we are even now being made into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. The Liturgy of the Word this morning provides a dazzling blast of images. And we are being invited to enter the world of symbol, w...

A s we gaze upon the full moon, we recall that it is a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Just as the moon receives its light from the sun, so Mary receives and radiates the True Light who is Christ Jesus our Lord, the Sun of Justice,  the Dayspring from on high who dawns upon us. The  Virgin Mary's  one desire is to reflect his light and radiant beauty. Photographs by Kathleen Trainor.

There is a growing interest in what has come to be known as ‘Near-Death Experiences.’ If you Google NDE you will be amazed at the results. You’ll find dozens of people giving personal testimonies, videos, and even support groups for people who have had a near-death experiences. For many, these experiences have been life-changing, especially for those who previously were agnostic or did not believe in God. Most say that they were overwhelmed by the all-embracing love of God and because of that are convinced of the existence of heaven and no longer have any fear of death. One of the most pressing questions any of us has in this life is what happens when our life is over? For Christians “Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of Christian faith from its beginnings” (CCC 991). “For those who die in Christ’s grace, it is a participation in the death of the Lord so that they can share in his resurrection” (CCC 1006). Our belief in the resurrection of the dead ...

  A Portfolio of Autumn Photographs by Brother Brian.