ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

  With all his being the monk must try not to wander away from God through infidelity, and fall back into the condition of hardness of heart out of which God’s grace had brought him.  He must take very seriously his new identity as  servant of God,  put in charge of a particular work within Christ’s household.  His humble, obedient service out of love must embody the selfless goodness of the physically absent Master, who could return at any moment.  The practice of  vigilance  is, therefore, essential to a person who is not living for himself or by his own tastes and criteria, but whose joy and fulfillment in life consist in being faithful to the will of the One who has done so much for him, the Lord who has trusted him to care for what is most precious to God’s Heart.  The monk owes such service and vigilance not only to the Lord himself but to the Lord’s Bride, the Church.  The monk keeps vigil both figurativel...

       We all have heard the myth of the phoenix, a legend about a bird of great beauty, the only one of its kind, said to live for 500 years in the Arabian desert, then to burn itself up into ashes on a funeral pyre, and then to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live again and again these cycles of 500 years.  The story has made the phoenix a symbol of immortality.  We have all gone to ashes this past Wednesday and now in this season of Lent, this season of renewal, we ourselves hope to rise up with Christ from those ashes as we move forward through Lent toward the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ at Easter with joy and spiritual longing.  Lent is a time in which we try to get more serious and aware about the reformation--really, the transformation of our lives in Christ. This can bring more joy into our lives as we reawaken our spiritual longing for the ideals of Christianity, our longing for greater love for all people, and ...

As  Polycarp  was entering the stadium, there came to him a voice from heaven, saying, "Be strong, and show yourself a  man , O  Polycarp !" No one saw who it was that spoke to him, but those of our brethren who were present heard the voice. And as he was brought forward, the tumult became great when they heard that  Polycarp  was taken. And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was  Polycarp . On his confessing that he was, the proconsul sought to persuade him to deny Christ , saying, “Have respect to your old age,” and other similar things, according to their custom…But  Polycarp , gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the  wicked   heathen  then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven said,  “Away with the Atheists.”  Then, the proconsul was urging him and saying, “Swear, and I will set you at lib...

Listening to today’s readings, it is hard not to feel that the Day of the Lord is at hand. Lent is a Day of the Lord. God is intervening like a winnowing fan which spares not his Church nor his monastic community at Spencer. It seems especially important to me that this Day of the Lord is calling us as a community to realize our vocation to communion and conversion; to deepen our confidence in our communal life as a remedy for the miseries of the world and our own miseries. The Prophet Joel and St. Paul are the Lord’s messengers for us in this regard. “Blow the trumpet in Zion!” the Prophet Joel cries out. Blow the trumpet in this community to call us to one mind and one heart, to confession, to gather in prayer as a community—call the elders, the young, the infants in monastic life; have the priests of our community take up their sackcloth and cry out, “Spare, O Lord, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach…” This Lenten season is set before us as an opportunity to gather ...

This morning as I listen to the Gospel, it feels like Jesus is leading us up a very high mountain, drawing us up higher and higher, asking more and more of us at each step. “You can do it! Come on. Come higher. Yes, yes. Forgive. Turn the other cheek. Lend. Give to those who can’t possibly repay. Be exceedingly kind to those who despise you or hurt you. Love your enemies. Return good for evil. Be merciful, merciful like God. Do not judge, don’t even think of it. Refuse to retaliate. Pardon. Give without expecting a return. Give. Give. Love and forget yourself.” It’s all too much. So heady. Higher and higher we go. The air gets thinner, it’s cool and misty, and I can’t see the way ahead or behind for that matter. And perhaps you, like me, feel a bit light-headed, even faint. Jesus’ message is dizzying after all. In short, he expects so much of us, too much of us, demands too high a standard of excellence of us his disciples- like the teacher or the coach we secretly loved and found abso...

  Perhaps you know the story of that foolish college student, very drunk after partying with his friends, he scampers up the stairs to dance on the roof of his dorm and suddenly, carelessly steps over the edge and descends story past story, landing on the hard blacktop. But amazingly he is unharmed because he is limp, relaxed, and pliant. He rises quickly and is on his way. Jesus tells us, "Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies..." If only we dare to fall. But who wants that? There is really no way to do it gracefully. Or is there? Like Jesus, we are meant to plunge headfirst into God’s arms, as dark and damp as the earth after a spring rain. Like a grain of wheat, falling into the dark damp earth to have the hard shell of the kernel rot away and then freely sprout and flourish, out of death and darkness will come abundant fruit.  The way to fall gracefully?  Perhaps just like that drunken kid, stepping ou...

“Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law until all things have taken place.” This morning we continue our reading from the Sermon on the Mount. Like Moses before him, Jesus goes up a “mountain”, from which he instructs his disciples in his new law.  His is in many ways a very different kind of law, but one he is at pains to show does not abolish the old law but fulfills it. So far Jesus has laid out for his disciples a positive instruction about discipleship centered on beatitude and mission. In the Beatitudes, he laid out man’s vocation to beatitude and showed the path to the fulfillment of man’s natural desire for happiness. In them, we see outlined the face of Christ. All who strive to embody them undergo a process of becoming formed in his image and citizens of his kingdom. They become the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”, as we heard last week. But now he makes a shift and...

Today’s memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes is also World Day of the Sick. Mary is gateway to all the compassion that Jesus longs to be for us. Through her intercession, we pray for all the sick, for all physicians and health care workers, and for all who do medical research. We rely upon Our Lady's attentiveness, for she is gateway to all the compassion that Jesus longs to be for us. Gate of Heaven, pray for us. Morning star, pray for us. Health of the sick, pray for us. Refuge of sinners, pray for us. Comforter of the afflicted, pray for us. Image by Lauren Ford.

A Syrophoenician woman will interrupt Jesus this morning. She’s an outsider on two counts: a non-Jew and a woman now alone with a man.*    And she knows that she of all people has no right to make demands on Jesus, so she does what she has to do- she falls at his feet, and she begs. She’s got nothing to lose; she’s lost it all already, she’s desperate, and her life is in shambles.  Her daughter’s very sick, in fact, she has been that way for a very long time- with an “unclean spirit.” God only knows what that means. Is it seizures, is there shrieking, thrashing? We can only imagine what this woman goes through, and what havoc it has wrought on her family. She is consumed with concern for her daughter’s welfare. She’s trapped, but she knows Jesus can help her, so she begs. But Jesus seems disinterested and insists that he is supposed to feed only the children of Israel, not dogs. She is undaunted by his very blunt metaphor. “Fine then,” she says.  “Call me a dog if yo...

I was pondering how to summarize the life of Br. Christopher and the words from today’s first reading came to my mind: “See what love the Father has given us that we may be called the children of God.” Br. Christopher’s life, and in fact, every life, can be summarized in this—a search for that childhood that God has given to us. Thankfully, the Father has made this search easier by revealing to us his Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our childhood is rooted in Jesus who shows us the way of true love, especially for men—men like Br. Christopher whose deep desire was to love and to be loved. Let us think a little bit about this love. How did Jesus love? What was it like? Immediately, the image of a man ready to serve comes to mind. And not just any kind of service, but the service of one meek and humble of heart…no boasting, no attempts at dominating—get the Father’s work done patiently and properly and move on to help others. “What do you want me to do for you?” was Jesus’ constant refrain...

  As we advance through Matthew’s Gospel from Sunday to Sunday, we note that the Lord Jesus identifies his disciples ever more tightly with himself, with his mission.  Whatever the Son is by nature, this the adopted children of the common Father must also become by grace and rebirth in the eternal Word. And whatever he, the Master, does, that too his servants are to do. This, and nothing else, is the essence of both salvation in Christ and mystical union with God. Last week, in the Beatitudes, Jesus revealed to us the sacred laws that govern his own divine Heart and define the being of the eternal Son: namely, poverty of spirit, meekness, compassion, hunger for justice, mercy, purity of heart, peace-mindedness, readiness to suffer for the Truth…  And today the same Person who elsewhere affirms I am the light of the world (Jn 8:12) jolts his disciples with the declaration: You are the light of the world. What a mind-boggling equivalency Jesus establishes between his I and ...

  Some years ago after a long semester, I went off dutifully for a week of silent retreat. I was exhausted and even a bit cranky. For days nothing seemed to be happening. Nothing the retreat director said seemed to make sense. I think I had a very bad case of acedia . You know what it's like- no energy, you feel like you're covered with a wet blanket, with a cinder block attached to each foot. Prayer seemed a quaint memory. I think I wanted to pray, but I couldn't seem to get going. The director suggested a favorite poem, a psalm, a favorite Gospel passage maybe- "Nah. I've heard all the stories before." And the antiphon running through my head was something like this: "So what. Big deal. Who cares." Acedia. A terrible case. God seemed distant, away on business. I made excuses for God. "After all God's got important stuff to take care of -- wars, famines, really poor suffering people. Who am I? Why should God be interested?" It was onl...

  Br. Christopher O’Brien was born James Patrick O’Brien on November 10, 1939, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania to Joseph O’Brien and Mary Cullen of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, he was a proud graduate of Msgr Bonner High school in Drexel Hill. In 1957, he entered the Abbey as a Trappist lay brother postulant directly out of high school, receiving the name Brother Christopher. He pronounced his solemn vows as a lay brother in 1965. Over the years Christopher lived the life of a dedicated lay brother, working tirelessly at many and various jobs: landscaper and groundskeeper, cook, overall maintenance, special occasions coordinator, liaison for contractors, gift shop buyer, and at Trappist Preserves, the abbey's jams and jellies industry. Brother Christopher was predeceased by his brothers John and Joseph, and his sisters Gertrude, Mary, Helen, and Sheila. In addition to his religious brothers at the abbey, he leaves his sisters Cecilia and Margaret, his devoted nephews, Joe, Eric, and D...

This morning Jesus comes home, and his own people don’t know what to do with him. Their initial response to his mighty deeds and to the wisdom of his teaching is astonishment. They begin in wonder. ‘Where did he get all of this? What kind of wisdom is this? What mighty deeds!’ Sadly enough they refuse or simply cannot remain there. And soon the whole thing unravels. They pry and categorize and trivialize Jesus. They talk themselves out of wonder, and they try to make Jesus somehow manageable. They reduce him. “He’s only a carpenter after all. Mary’s son. We know his relatives. Come on. We know where he comes from.’ They find Jesus offensive, and intrusive. In the end, they are scandalized by him and find him altogether too much for them- that divine power could be so mundane, so accessible and so ordinary. To have remained simply in a place of awe and wonder at the person of Jesus was perhaps too frightening. And the result is tragic indeed, the tragedy of the loss of wonder. Jesus fin...