ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

We may want to make the story of the Holy Family pretty or picture perfect, but we should know better, Jesus is too real for any of that. He’s not having any of it. God from God, Light from Light, Jesus is at the same time fully human, like us in all things but sin- which is to say quite a lot. He has come to embrace the full reality of our human awkwardness and ambiguity. And as we heard today, his life with Joseph and Mary was not without its incongruities. The key, I suspect, is the closing phrase: “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.” My sisters and brothers, we see Jesus this morning advancing , a Work of divine beauty in progress; Jesus at the bewildering, frustrating, age of twelve ; he is growing up.   And like any twelve-year-old, totally absorbed in a new interest, a new friend, a project that seems to eclipse all other obligations, Jesus’ surprised response to his mother seems unnerving. “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know?” “The fi...

As progress is made in the way of life and in faith, the road of God's commandments will be run with heart enlarged and in the indescribable sweetness of love. And so, let us never cease to have [Christ] as master, let us persevere in his doctrine in the monastery until death, and let us participate by patience in the sufferings of Christ. In this way will we deserve to be sharers in his kingdom. Amen. SAINT BENEDICT RB Prol 49-50

I too will proclaim the greatness of this day: the immaterial becomes incarnate, the Word is made flesh, the invisible makes itself seen, the intangible can be touched, the timeless has a beginning, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, always the same, yesterday, today and forever… This is the solemnity we are celebrating today: the arrival of God among us, so that we might go to God, or more precisely, return to him. So that stripping off the old humanity we might put on the new; and as in Adam we were dead, so in Christ we might be made alive, be born with him, rise again with him… A miracle, not of creation, but rather of re-creation… For this feast is my perfecting, my returning to my former state, to the original Adam… Revere the nativity which releases you from the chains of evil. Honor this tiny Bethlehem which restores Paradise to you venerate this crib; because of it you who were deprived of meaning ( logos ) are fed by the divine Meaning, the divine Logos hims...

Abbot Vincent's words to Br. Craig Br. Craig, in this Advent season the word of God has been coming at us from every side through the prophets, especially Isaiah and John the Baptist. But there is another prophet among them whom we often do not recognize, a hidden jewel, that is, Our Lady. She is a prophet and the Queen of prophets. She carries forth the entire prophetic tradition. You are now a part of that tradition. Why? Because a monk is a prophet, a hidden one, but a prophet nonetheless, following in the footsteps of Our Lady.   Have you ever thought of yourself as a prophet? It may sound a bit odd. We don’t breathe out fiery oracles (normally). We don’t foretell the future. But we do have a key characteristic of prophets: we are immersed in the word of God, like a fish in water. We carry in our hearts the word of God as Our Lady carried the Word of God in her womb. The word is for us an ongoing revelation—it reveals who we are, what we are meant to do, and what awaits us. I...

It takes only a moment’s reflection to reveal that letting our light shine forth requires a large measure of humility. It means ignoring the inner voice that tells us we are not good enough. We have to be willing to act upon the Spirit’s gift of parresia , or freedom and boldness in speech, about which the New Testament often speaks. By God's gift we are free to be ourselves. It is to everyone's benefit that we are perceived as what we are not more not less. And that is why it is good to bring forth truth from the heart and from the mouth and, bashful though we be, to let our life speak. FR. MICHAEL CASEY, OCSO Seventy-Four Tools For Good Living

Let acts of kindness be our delight and let us be filled with those foods that will nourish us for eternity. Let us be happy and giving food to the poor whose hunger is satisfied by our gift. Let us be joyful in clothing those whose nakedness we cover with necessary garments. Let our humanity be experienced by those who are sick in bed, the weak who are feeble, exiles in their hardship, orphans who are without resources, and lonely widows in their grief. There is no one who cannot be generous in doing some small thing to help such people. Income is never too small when the heart is large; the measure of kindness and mercy is not dependent on great wealth. SAINT LEO THE GREAT Lenten Sermons 2.4

The great men and women of prayer throughout the centuries were privileged to receive an interior union with the Lord that enabled them to descend into the depths beyond the word. They are therefore able to unlock for us the hidden treasures of prayer. And we may be sure that each of us, along with our totally personal relationship with God, is received into, and sheltered within, this prayer. Again and again, each one of us with his mens , his own spirit, must go out to meet, open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the vox , the word that comes to us from the Son. In this way his own heart will be opened, and each individual will learn the particular way in which the Lord wants to pray with him. POPE BENEDICT XVI Jesus of Nazareth

Is there anything He can refuse us in the future, if already in the present He gives Himself to us as our food? The Eucharist is our one happiness on earth. BLESSED JOSEPH CASSANT, OCSO

If you are happy, look upon your risen Lord. If you are suffering trials, or are sad, look upon Him on His way to the Garden. Love to speak to Him, not using forms of prayer, but words issuing from the compassion of your heart. ST. TERESA OF JESUS Way of Perfection

There is no heavier cross here below than that state of exhaustion and lassitude produced by the climate and by the life you have to lead. But, believe me, there is nothing that brings about the true divine life within us like union with the weakness of Jesus. In espousing our nature in the Incarnation, He took upon Himself all our weaknesses, all our powerlessness, all our suffering; He made them His own: "Surely He has borne our iniquities and carried our sorrows.” At the time of the Incarnation the Word did not assume a glorious body, like that of Thabor, not an impassible body like that of the resurrection, but a body made in the likeness of sinful flesh, like to ours in all things, save personal sin. In taking our sins, He uplifted and rendered our weaknesses divine , and thenceforth they cry out in us to the Father, like those of Jesus Christ Himself. It is by pure faith, by love without any feeling that this is brought about and, in place of our weaknesses we receive the st...

In order to experience our humanity in the full sense, it may be necessary to undergo the temptation of believing that we are sufficient unto ourselves. Once we have undergone this temptation, we will better understand that cleaving closely and inseparably to God represents progress in freedom. YVES DE MONTCHEUIL

Read often and learn as much as possible. Let sleep creep upon you as you hold a book, and let the Scriptures catch your head as you nod. SAINT JEROME

The deformity of Christ forms you. For, if he had not wished to be deformed, you would not have received back the form that you lost. Therefore he hung deformed upon the cross, but his deformity was our beauty. So let us in this life hold onto the deformed Christ. What is this deformed Christ? “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” [Galatians 6:14]. This is the deformity of Christ. SAINT AUGUSTINE Sermons 27.6.6

Indeed, this participation in the body and blood of the Lord, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, teaches us that we should die to the world and have our life hidden with Christ in God [see Colossians 3:3], that we should crucify our flesh with its vices and wicked desires [see Galatians 5:24]. Thus it happens that all the faithful, who love God and their neighbor, drink of the cup of the Lord's love even if they do not drink the cup of his bodily suffering. And when they have become inebriated with it they have put to death their members that are upon the earth [see Colossians 3:5] and, having clothed themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ [see Galatians 3:27], they pay no heed to the desires of the flesh [see Galatians 5:16]. The gift of love confers this upon us—that we should in fact be what we celebrate mystically in the sacrifice. FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE Against Fabian 28.18-19

When a person has overcome one temptation and his faith has been tried in it, there upon he comes to another, and he passes as it were from one stage to the next; and when he has mastered whatever may befall him and faithfully endured it, he goes onto another. And thus he is said to have proceeded by stages as he submits to each of the trials of life and the tests of faith, and in them the virtues are acquired one by one. Likewise in them there is fulfilled what has been written, "They shall go from strength to strength” [Psalm 84:7], until the final stage is attained, which is the summit of the virtues, and the river of God is crossed and the promised inheritance is received. ORIGEN Homilies on Numbers  

This morning a dazzling excerpt from the Last Supper Discourse in John’s Gospel, something we usually hear in Eastertide. “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. ..I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete…love one another as I love you.” Jesus invites us to remain with him, in him, in the Father. This remaining and abiding have been enabled by God’s enfleshment in Christ, this “utmost gesture of his self-surrender and self-donation” which will reach its culmination on the cross. There on the cross, Love’s Sacred Heart will be pierced and the gushing spring of his love fully revealed.   We are invited simply to remain, to be drenched beneath this spring, remarkable in its immediacy, overwhelming in its immensity and beauty. Such is the passion of the Word, the eternal Eros of his self-emptying love. God has fallen in love, espoused us to himself, given himself over to us completely, irrevocably and welcomed us into the e...

The way to achieve stability in our soul is to beseech God that in each of our undertakings we may have a successful outcome, to give him full gratitude for having provided us with the power to perform what we have done, and to persevere in our goal of pleasing him…. For, unless we adopt this approach, how can we possibly reconcile the two texts of the Apostle Paul, "Pray without ceasing" and "At work day and night” [1 Thessalonians 2:9]? Nonetheless, even though the law requires us to give thanks at each and every moment and both nature and reason demonstrate that thanksgiving is one of life's necessities, we should not overlook the fixed times for communal prayer, for these times have been selected with an eye to the necessity that each has his own distinctive way of remembering God's good gifts. BASIL THE GREAT The Longer Rules 37

In the type of bread his body is given to you, and in the type of wine his blood is given to you, so that by partaking of the body and blood of Christ you may be one body and one blood with him also. For thus also we become bearers of Christ, because his body and blood are distributed throughout our members. Thus, according to the blessed Peter, "we become partakers of the divine nature” [2 Peter 1:4]. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM Mystagogical Catechesis 4.3

Desire itself is your prayer, and if your desire is continuous your prayer is unceasing. For the Apostle did not say in vain, "Pray without ceasing.” Is it possible that we should unceasingly bend the knee or prostrate our body or raise up our hands that he should tell us, "Pray without ceasing”? Or, if we say that we pray in this manner, I do not think that we are able to do it unceasingly. There is another prayer that is unceasing and interior, and it is desire. Whatever else you do, if you desire that sabbath [i.e., eternal life] you do not cease to pray. If you do not wish to stop praying, do not stop desiring. Your unceasing desire is your uninterrupted voice. You will grow silent if you stop loving. SAINT AUGUSTINE Exposition of the Psalms 37.14

Indeed, this participation in the body and blood of the Lord, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, teaches us that we should die to the world and have our life hidden with Christ in God [see Colossians 3:3], that we should crucify our flesh with its vices and wicked desires [see Galatians 5:24]. Thus it happens that all the faithful, who love God and their neighbor, drink of the cup of the Lord’s love even if they do not drink of the cup of his bodily suffering. And when they have become inebriated with it they have put to death their members that are upon the earth [see Colossians 3:5] and, having clothed themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ [see Galatians 3:27], they pay no heed to the desires of the flesh [see Galatians 5:16]. The gift of love confers this upon us—that we should in fact be what we celebrate mystically in the sacrifice. FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE Against Fabian 28.18-19

Each of us can say to the tempter, “Unlike you, I have not yet become an outcast from heaven through my pride. By my baptism I have become one with Him. It is you that should fall prostrate before me.” SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN

Although he is the Lord, and a real lord who has no need of our goods, yet he has deigned to be hungry in his poor so that we might do something for him. “I was hungry and you gave me to eat,” he says. “Lord, when did we see you hungry?” “When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.” [See Matthew 25:35-37, 40.] In a word, let everyone hear and consider worthily how great the merit is for having fed the hungry Christ, and how great the crime is for having scorned the hungry Christ. SAINT AUGUSTINE Sermons 60.11.11

Is Providence not always with us? Two sparrows are not worth very much, and who can count the hairs on your head? But the Lord cares for the sparrows and counts the hairs on your head. Will He not also care for our souls, our life itself? So there is nothing to fear, for nothing can happen to us without our Father knowing. The Lord is the Creator of the sparrows, but to us He is even more: He is our Father. SAINT JOHN XXIII

I think this is the principal reason why the invisible God willed to be seen in the flesh and to converse with men as a man. He wanted to recapture the affections of carnal men who were unable to love in any other way, by first drawing them to the salutary love of his own humanity, and then gradually to raise them to a spiritual love. SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Although it runs contrary to the way we normally use our tongues, God's Word tells us: “do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters” (James 4:11). Being willing to speak ill of another person is a way of asserting ourselves, venting resentment and envy without concern for the harm we may do. We often forget that slander can be quite sinful; it is a grave offense against God when it seriously harms another person’s good name and causes damage that is hard to repair. Hence God’s Word forthrightly states that the tongue is “a world of iniquity” that “stains the whole body”; it is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison.” Whereas the tongue can be used to “curse those who are made in the likeness of God,” love cherishes the good name of others, even one’s enemies. In seeking to uphold God's law we must never forget this specific requirement of love. POPE FRANCIS Amoris Laetitia

At the root of all virtues there ought to be humility: not only that humility which is exterior and formed with words, but humility of the heart; not a forced humility that comes from delusions, displeasures, or the fear of not succeeding, but humility of the heart, willed for the love of God, born of the knowledge that God alone is great, while we are nothing. Our Lord surely does not love humility that is melancholy, sad, or of bad humor, urging us to set ourselves apart and to remain inactive. Rather, he loves that humility of heart that is happy to act and sacrifice self for God. FR. GARRIGOU-LANGRANGE, O.P. Knowing the Love of God: Lessons From a Spiritual Master

If we often draw so little fruit from Communion, it is because we take it to be something it is not. People think they are supposed to experience some kind of sacred emotion or thrill. Such an attitude is entirely sterile; it prevents us from getting out of ourselves. It is still a search for self. To derive from Communion the benefit that should be drawn from it, we must above all remember that Christ wished to be our food in the Eucharist. We take in nourishment in order to replenish and increase our strength. We take Communion in order to increase our spiritual strength. We eat when we are hungry: our appetite decides the matter here, the equivalent of the physical appetite is the infinite (but powerless) passion to get out of ourselves, to forget ourselves—this being our only means of being assimilated to the Truth. Once this passion arises in us, we will soon experience a painful need of strength to achieve this “ecstasy”—and we will go to Communion to obtain this strength. FR. CH...

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This point of nothingness and absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us—as our poverty, our indigence, as our dependence, as our Sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody and if we could see it we would see these billion points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely… I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. THOMAS MERTON 

PERFECT LOVE INDWELLS US Over the last few Sundays we have seen in Mark’s Gospel how many groups with political and religious vested interests have accosted Jesus to challenge his authority, out of envy and self-righteousness, and often with murderous intent. But today a lone individual, someone very much like you or me, approaches Jesus on very friendly terms, even though, as a scribe, he is a member of one of those hostile groups. This man is different because he comes to Jesus by himself, as an earnest, non-prejudiced searcher for truth, without an axe to grind.   The scribe asks Jesus which is “the first of all the commandments” of the sacred Law. This question implies that, among the 613 commandments of Torah, there must exist a hierarchy. Since it is humanly impossible to comply with so many commandments, the hope is that, by obeying the greatest commandment, one can be said to obey God’s will in its totality.   We are so familiar with this text that we may not at first ...

The wonderful, unbelievable thing is that every difference and distinction of rank is missing here. If anyone happens to be in a position of worldly importance or conspicuous wealth, if he boasts of his birth or the glory of this present life, he stands on just the same footing as the beggar in rags, the blind man or the lame. Nor does he complain at this since he knows that all such differences have been set aside in the life of the spirit; a grateful heart is the only requirement. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

When you feel invited to remain in silence at our Lord’s feet like Magdalen just looking at Him with your heart, without saying anything, don't cast about for any thoughts or reasonings, but just remain in loving adoration. Follow the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. If He invites you to beg, beg; if to be silent, remain silent; if to show your misery to God, just do so. Let Him play on the fibers of your heart like a harpist, and draw forth the melody He wishes for the Divine Spouse. BLESSED COLUMBA MARMION

If I can recognize you in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, I must be able to recognize you in the many hungry men, women and children. If I cannot translate my faith in your presence under the appearance of bread and wine into action for the world, I am still an unbeliever. HENRI NOUWEN Circles of Love

The crowd wants Bartimaeus to shut up, but he refuses and shouts out all the more insistently, “Son of David, have pity on me!” My sisters and brothers, Bartimaeus may be blind, but he has clear insight - for he calls Jesus, Son of David, thus acknowledging Jesus’ royal lineage, and he knows what he wants, as he shouts out his confidence in the One he is sure can heal him. Truth is Bartimaeus had grown accustomed to the sidelines, accustomed to ridicule; being shunned and looked upon with pity and derision. His blindness, after all, revealed that he or a member of his family had done something really bad. Sickness, deafness, blindness were after all, the direct consequence of sin; everybody knew that; all decent Jews in Jesus’ day believed it. It had to be someone’s fault. Bartimaeus is trapped. Case closed. Dead end. But today Jesus, Son of David has come to break the barrier with his mercy.   For Jesus is magnetized by the urgency of Bartimaeus’ pleading; he draws near, and with ...