ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Humble love is perhaps the greatest of all evangelical virtues, much more rare than the frequent use of the word ‘love’ in contemporary literature would lead us to suspect. Love in the image of God—generous, patient, gentle love toward everyone, toward those nearest and those most distant, toward friend and enemy, toward just anyone who shows up. A Cistercian Abbott who lived in the 12th century, Guerric of Igny, said it in his way: ‘It is the property of friendship to make itself small before it's friends’. Such people are a great blessing to the Church and to the world. As a rule they are easy to recognize. For real love attracts and wins others—without knowing it. ANDRÉ LOUF Tuning Into Grace

We are what we are in prayer: there is no success or failure—just as what we see in the mirror is what we are. If we do not like what we see, there is no point in throwing out the mirror. That changes nothing. If we do not like the self we discover when we try to pray, the solution is not to stop praying. What we have to do is to turn our dissatisfaction into prayer so that in time things may change a little. Meanwhile it is important that we continue to offer ourselves to God—in whatever state we are. MICHAEL CASEY Grace On the Journey to God

Whenever we come together to listen to the Word of God, what we are seeking at bottom is not mental information or moral instruction or even a sentimental influence that will make us "feel" the presence and goodness of God. What we seek with all our soul, rather, is the possibility of opening ourselves up in prayer to God's transforming action. Whether we are fully conscious of it or not, in other words, we desire a change of life, a conversion from what we presently are to a more precise embodiment of the likeness of Christ at the center of our being, radiating out from us through all our thoughts, words, and actions. This is why the life of contemplation is the boldest and most adventuresome of undertakings… ERASMO LEIVA MERIKAKIS The Way of the Disciple

One who knows his sins is greater than he who raises a corpse to life. One who weeps over himself for an entire hour is greater than he who furnishes information to the whole world. one who knows his weakness is greater than he who sees the angels. SAINT ISAAC THE SYRIAN

Throughout this Holy Week we have been witnesses to the inner thoughts and affections of Jesus’ heart: watching him bend low to wash our feet; sensing his eagerness to give us everything he has, including his body and blood; hearing his agonizing cry from the cross. But tonight, before we began our vigil, there was only silence and darkness. There were no witnesses. The resurrection was shrouded in holy silence. But now the bells have been untied, the Exsultet has awakened heaven and earth, and the holy women have astounded us and reported a vision of angels who announced that Christ is risen from the dead. The silence has been broken! But one thing still puzzles me. What was in Jesus’ heart at the moment of his resurrection? Is there any insight from his heart that would help us understand the meaning of the resurrection we are celebrating? Well, I will take a risk here and suggest something we might ponder—the exchange between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit on the night...

The mystery of Good Friday may be described as being, at the same time, the worst of days and the best of days. It is the “worst” because it will not let us look away from the horror that we can inflict on our innocent fellow human beings in this world, the accumulated horror and viciousness that today we see crushing Jesus like a worm—our Lord Jesus, who bears us all in his Heart. And Good Friday is also the “best of days” because of how it also demonstrates the infinite creativity of a God who can transform the worst catastrophes imaginable into resplendent works of lavish grace. To illustrate what the all-powerful alchemy of God’s creative love can accomplish, using as raw material the worst that destructive human violence can muster, let us turn to one very poignant detail of the Passion narrative from John we have just heard: When they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood ...

 At the last supper in St. Luke’s account, Jesus expresses what is in his heart with these moving words, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer…” This is no ordinary desire! There is an urgency that alerts us to a critical moment, which is not surprising. Jesus had taken his life into his hands by remaining in Jerusalem. He knew the Scriptures: “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” He had gone so far as to do what even a Jewish slave would not do by washing the disciples’ feet. Why such eagerness? Why such urgency? Because he must absolutely eat this Passover meal with his disciples and with us as well.   On a natural level one might see his eagerness as simply a desire to be with his friends at such a moment. But it is more than that. We get closer to the truth when we hear his words, “It is you who have stood by me in my trials.” This is not just a gathering based on friendship or family ties. His eagerness is rooted in ...

Cultivate thoughts of confidence as long as it pleases God to give them to you; they honor God far more than contrary thoughts. The more wretched we are, the more is God honored by the confidence we have in him. It seems to me that if your confidence were as great as it ought to be, you would not worry about what may happen to you; you would place it all in God's hands, hoping that when he wants something of you he will let you know what it is. ST. CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÉRE

Vatican II tells us that man is a being in dialogue, someone who does not know who he is until another reveals it to him. For man is that being to whom God speaks. By speaking, God reveals not only his own Being to men; in a real way, he also reveals man to himself. JOHN EUDES BAMBERGER

Today we enter into the holy of holies of the Church’s worship, that is, Holy Week, beginning with Our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem. And even more, we enter with him into the inner Jerusalem, which is his Sacred Heart. For, if we listen carefully to the words the Church places before us, we will hear the inner movements of Jesus’ heart, his greatest desires and affections, his one thing necessary. It is a privileged time for us, an acceptable time, the day of salvation. Today the Father reveals to his people Israel, who are gathered for the feast of Passover, their true king. He is David’s son, the heir of David’s kingdom. But he is also the Father’s Son who did not cling to his equality with God. And here we have the stumbling block, the winnowing fan. For Jesus is both Son of God and son of David. He is not a Messiah riding in with pomp and circumstance, but someone who is not afraid to mount a beast that poor people use, a lowly donkey. This humble entry shows us the true king, for...

All our activity, our joy and happiness, our work, our life's anxiety should be nothing other than a passionate effort to understand, feel and desire evermore this personal relationship with infinite Love. Our sadness is this: that we cannot see, feel, and touch this relationship after the manner of things here below. Therefore it too often happens that symbols try to get the better of us, quenching in earthly mist the life force that would raise us on wings of passion to the Father's embrace. LUIGI GIUSSANNI 

“My dear son, people aren't bad. What happens is that they do not know how to love. How, then, can we teach them to love? Only by loving. That is why the Lord gives us a family when we come into the world. A loving family and engenders loving persons. I am sure you know this very well. When I came to pray at Czestochowa, it struck me very much that she, Our Lady, desires more than anything else to be our mother. My dear, I think we must follow her example and love everyone with a mother's love. If we did, then slowly, slowly, we would gain the whole world.” POPE JOHN XXIII speaking to CARDINAL WYSZYNSKI

Oh my brother, the contemplative is not the man who has fiery visions of the cherubim carrying God on their imagined chariot, but simply he who has risked his mind in the desert beyond language and beyond ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust, that is to say in the surrender of our poverty and incompleteness in order no longer to clench our minds in a cramp upon themselves, as if thinking made us exist. The message of hope the contemplative offers you, then, brother, is not that you need to find your way through the jungle of language and problems that today surround God: but that whether you understand or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers you an understanding and light which are like nothing you ever found in books or heard in sermons. THOMAS MERTON A Letter on the Contemplative Life, 1967

As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus’ thirst…’Repent and believe’ Jesus tells us. What are we to repent? Our indifference, our hardness of heart. What are we to believe? Jesus thirsts even now, in your heart and in the poor — He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you.   ST. MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS