ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Man feels an irrepressible yearning for the highest, lasting Good and is so strongly drawn to it that he simply must seek it, even through all finite and transitory goods. He is bound to acknowledge its overwhelming superiority over his own narrow ego, which encloses him as in a prison. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Y ou Crown the Year with Your Goodness, 169  

Sometimes people suffer a great deal from fear of death and because of their self indulgence. The first is a delusion the devil puts in their minds, he says, “You see that you are going to die, and that you haven't done a bit of good! So do you know where you're going? Your deeds have earned only hell!” On the other hand, he makes them feel sorry for themselves by saying, “Just think! Your body is so pampered now with worldly pleasures, but soon you will die.” We have to counter the devil's great malice by responding to these interior suggestions of his. Turning our gaze to our Creator, we should say, “I acknowledge that I am immortal, but this is a tremendous grace for me, since death will bring me to my goal, to God who is my life. I acknowledge, too, that my life indeed deserves only hell. But I have faith and trust in my Creator, in the blood of the Lamb who was slain and consumed, that he will pardon my sins and grant me grace. I will try in this present time to amend ...

Hedonism and consumerism can prove our downfall, for when we are obsessed with our own pleasure, we end up being all too concerned about ourselves and our rights, and we feel a desperate need for free time to enjoy ourselves. We will find it hard to feel and show any real concern for those in need, unless we are able to cultivate a certain simplicity of life, resisting the feverish demands of a consumer society, which leave us impoverished and unsatisfied, anxious to have it all now. Similarly, when we allow ourselves to be caught up in superficial information, instant communication, and virtual reality, we can waste precious time and become indifferent to the suffering flesh of our brothers and sisters. Yet even amid this whirlwind of activity, the Gospel continues to resound, offering us the promise of a different life, a healthier and happier life. POPE FRANCIS Gaudete et Exsultate

Although there is an evident distinction between love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self, a marvelous bond nevertheless does exist among the three, so that each is found in all, and all in each. None of them can be possessed without all, and when one waivers they all diminish. Someone who does not love his neighbor or God does not love himself, and someone who does not love his neighbor as himself does not love himself. Furthermore, someone who does not love his neighbor is proven not to love God. For ‘how can a person who does not love the brother he sees love the God whom he does not see?’ These three loves are engendered by one another, nourished by one another, and fan into flame by one another. Then they are all brought to perfection together. AELRED OF RIEVAULX The Mirror of Charity  

I have ascended to the highest in me, and look! The Lord is towering above that. In my curiosity I have descended to explore my lowest depths, yet I found him even deeper. If I looked outside myself, I saw him stretching beyond the furthest I could see; and if I looked within, he was yet further within. Then I knew the truth of what I had read, “In him we live and move and have our being”. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Let those, then who are singularly active, who think they can win the world with their preaching and exterior works, observe here that they would profit the Church and please God much more, not to mention the good example they would give, were they to spend at least half of this time with God in prayer… Without prayer, they would do a great deal of hammering but accomplish little, and sometimes nothing, and even at times cause harm. God forbid that the salt should begin to lose its savor (Mt 5:13), for however much they may appear to achieve externally, they will in substance be accomplishing nothing; it is beyond doubt that good works can be performed only by the power of God. ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS The Spiritual Canticle 29.3  

Speaking of Our Lady’s assumption into heaven, Saint Bernard says, “This is a precious gift that our earth today has presented to heaven: thus, by this exchange, human realities are united to divine realities, the earthly to the heavenly, those from below to those on high, in a happy pact of friendship.” (St. Bernard, First Sermon on the Assumption.) In this exchange, the earth has offered its most sublime fruit and then from there descend upon us the most perfect gifts, “come down from the Father of lights.” Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption along with the rest of Church, but in a manner that is particularly special for us because, because for us Cistercians it is the patronal feast of our Order. Today’s feast, therefore, says something very important about who we are, about our place in the Church, and about our relationship with the Church and the world we live in.   There are various ways to approach the meaning of this feast both for the early Cistercians of the ...

Love makes us free if it is selfless, and it is selfless if it is ready to sacrifice pleasure, advantage and independence for the sake of the beloved. And since no earthly love is initially perfect, it must go through these purifications. Moments and times must come when love is tested through sacrifice, when it becomes clear whether the enthusiasm of the first encounter was love at all, when the naïve first love—if it really was love—is refined and deepened in the fire of renunciation. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Prayer, 128

Continue to pray as you feel drawn, but do not worry about it, for worry comes from self-love. You must abandon yourself to the leading of God with no other intention than that of pleasing him, and when you know that you have this intention deep in your heart, you must not waste time in reflecting about yourself and about the degree of virtue you have obtained; occupy yourself with him whom you love and bother very little about yourself. ST. CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÈRE Letter #135, London, 1677

Once you have had the experience of God's benevolence, you need no longer feel abashed in aspiring to a holier intimacy. Growth in grace brings expansion of confidence. You will love with greater ardor, and knock on the door with greater assurance, in order to gain what you perceive to be still wanting to you. The one who knocks will always have the door opened to him. It is my belief that to a person so disposed, God will not refuse that most intimate kiss of all, a mystery of supreme generosity and ineffable sweetness. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

We cannot avoid this law of the spiritual life: that in order to come to the point where we can finally abandon ourselves totally to God, we must first feel what appears to be utter abandonment by God. ERASMO LEIVA-MERIKAKIS, Fire of Mercy

How shall a man attain to the perfection of Charity if he does not keep himself perpetually in the presence of God, and has not the attention of his whole soul fixed on him and primarily on Jesus crucified in such a way as to “pass through the wounds of his Humanity into the intimacy of the divinity”? JOHN OF CASTEL (in Maritain , Prayer and Intelligence)

For many of our contemporaries, religion has been reduced to an experience, one among others, occasionally powerful, but not sufficiently so to draw the rest of their existence into its orbit. LOUIS DUPRÉ Religious Mystery