ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Br Adam and Fr Isaac last wrote you about the renovation of the hermitage here at the abbey. Here is a timeline report to bring you up to date on this project. The re-building of the hermitage was substantially completed mid-December 2024.   Our abbot Dom Vincent and a substantial cohort of the community came out on Gaudete Sunday to bless the hermitage and the hermit, placing both under the care of Santa Maria del Silenzio.   Fr. Vincent noted that the hermitage shares in the monastery’s mission as a “monastic institute wholly dedicated to contemplation”.   Likewise, the hermitage in particular makes present the life of Nazareth in its silence, hiddenness and ordinariness.   The Vigil Mass of Christmas 2024 resumed the Liturgy at the hermitage and was offered in thanksgiving for the generosity of all of you who supported this endeavor in every and any way.   The everyday life of the hermitage was resumed on the feast of the Holy Family and continues uninterrupt...

Be mindful of God, so that in every moment he may be mindful of you. If he is mindful of you, he will give you salvation. Do not forget him, letting yourselves be seduced by vain distractions. Do you want him to forget you in your times of temptation? Stay near him and obey him in the days of your prosperity. You will be able to rely on his word in difficult days. Because prayer will keep you safe in his continuous presence you may constantly be before his face.Think of him, remember him in your heart. Otherwise, if you only meet him from time to time, you risk losing your close friendship with him. ISAAC OF NINEVEH Philocalia

In general, the reason why many souls have no love or inclination towards virtue is that they harbor affections and desires which are neither innocent nor directed wholly towards God. He therefore who loves anything beside God renders his soul incapable of the divine union and transformation into God. ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS The Ascent of Mount Carmel

Believe more and more intensely in God's love. Or, better, that God is Love: that, for Him, to be and to love are one and the same thing. Remember what Saint Augustine wrote on the text: "I am, Who am". Change the word being for loving and you will still be far from reaching the limits of that truth which is Love. Despite all the penetration of his genius Saint Augustine never reached those limits. No one ever will— there are no limits! The Love of God is boundless Light. A CARTHUSIAN They Speak by Silences

Back in the late 1950s, in my early teenage years, just before Castro’s Revolution and his accession to mock-messianic power, I attended an all-boys’ school in provincial Cuba run by the Marist Brothers. First Fridays of the month were rigorously consecrated to devotion to the Sacred Heart, a focus of Catholic piety that at that time was inseparable from the veneration of Christ the King. On First Fridays the whole student body of about 200 would gather in the garth first thing in the morning, and we would rededicate ourselves to the enthralling mystery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During the almost 70 years of living I’ve done since then, one phrase from the consecration prayer that we all recited in schoolboy unison—like the multiplication tables—has stuck firmly in my memory and gently haunted me: Tuyos somos y tuyos queremos ser: “Yours we are and yours do we want to be.” My mind stored away this formulation as a memorable puzzle, and its singsong rhythm and mystery have never lo...

We should find God in what we know, not in what we don't; not in outstanding problems but in those we have already solved…. We must not wait until we are at the end of our tether: he must be found at the center of life and not only in death; in health and vigor, and not only in suffering; in activity, and not only in sin. DIETRICH BONHEOFFER  Prison Letters

The “bodily” union of humanity with God made present to it has been, in a manner beyond all comprehension, presented to us in terms of eros , as the fulfillment of what the Song of Songs had celebrated long before: existence as a bridal state. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR A Theology of History