Tools

Their work for the winter season completed, these shovels wait to be stored away until next winter. Humble tools serve us all day long. Saint Benedict reminds the cellarer of the monastery and implicitly all of the monks to regard the tools and utensils of the monastery "as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar." Sacredness is hiding in what is ordinary, if we are attentive.
 
Photograph by Brother Jonah.

Easter Joy

Liturgy means "service;" it is first of all God's service of us in Word and in Sacrament. All that we do in the Liturgy, our prayer, thanksgiving, petition and contrition, is ultimately our response to God's initiative. All during the Easter season our response is joy-filled gratitude, expressed in our chants and psalmody and prayers. As the Preface for Easter in the new Missal puts it, we are "overcome with Paschal joy.'' Indeed, the springtime landscape mirrors our joy and expands our hearts in gratitude.

Regina Cœli

During Eastertide our recitation of the Angelus at dawn, noon and before retiring is replaced by the recitation of the Regina Cœli:

Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.
Has risen, as He said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.

Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Spring has come early to our area of New England, and violets are blooming in profusion on the edges of sidewalks and hedges all around the monastery. The low-growing violet is a symbol of humility. And our Father, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, described the Virgin Mary as the "violet of humility." In paintings the violet was also used to denote the humility of Christ in assuming our humanity. The violets we see remind us of the Virgin Mary and her Son, risen from the dead.

Do Not Be Afraid

We are struck by the serenity and deep quiet of this fresco by Piero della Francesca. The atmosphere seems clear, crisp; and the landscape communicates the transformation that Jesus' rising has accomplished- to his left all is barren, at his right all the trees are in full leaf. 

The guards doze oblivious, as a majestic young Christ steps confidently out of his marble sepulchre. His voluminous mantle is rosy pink- the color of dawn's first brightening, the color of spring blossoms, the color of healthy young flesh. His hair swept back, blood trickling from his wounded side, Jesus is depicted by Piero as an athletic, victorious warrior just back from his battle with all the powers of sin and death. His divinity and humanity are perfectly merged. Jesus carries a furling banderole of victory and pauses to gaze at us. "It is really I; do not be afraid. Sin and death no longer have any power over you."

Resurrection,  Piero della Francesca, fresco, c. 1460, San Sepulcro, Italy.

Divine Mercy

We share excerpts from Father Luke's recent homily. Father Luke currently serves as the Abbey's Director of Novices.

In 1997 Blessed John Paul declared Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to be a Doctor of the Church.  She could be called the Doctor of Mercy. Thérèse lived at a time when fear of God, fear of Hell were major motives in religion. In her autobiography Thérèse emphasized the loving mercy of God in ways that were often very dramatic. She wrote, "I'm going to be doing only one thing. I shall begin to sing what I must sing eternally, the Mercies of the Lord. Most  of all I imitate the conduct of Magdalene; her astonishing or rather her loving audacity which charms the Heart of Jesus also attracts my own. Yes, I feel it; even though I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, my heart broken with sorrow, and throw myself into Jesus' arms, for I know how much He loves the prodigal child who returns to Him. I go to him with confidence and love." The witness of Thérèse to the mercies of the Lord and the effect her witness has had upon the universal Church in giving hope to the weak and sinners was so profound that Pius XI called her “the greatest saint in modern times.

Our own Cistercian Father Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was one of the greatest preachers of Divine Mercy. In a sermon he delivered to his monks, Bernard describes himself as  "burdened with sins, enveloped in darkness, enslaved to pleasure, tormented with desires, dominated by passions, filled with delusions, always prone to evil, easily accessible to every vice, in a word, full of all shame and confusion.” We should not dismiss this self-description by Bernard as humble posturing.  This was indeed an accurate account of what Bernard had discovered about himself.  Instead of this being something that filled him with fear, in his openness to God's grace he had mercy upon himself, as it were.  This inspired him to have mercy upon all his brothers in their misery.  And this opened him even more to a knowledge of the Father of Mercies.  He discovered that Mercy's natural home is our misery.  That's the destination to which it rushes like the wind.  Like Saint Thérèse would, centuries later, Bernard wrote and proclaimed: “The mercy of God is from eternity. Surely there can be nothing co-eternal with the Father save the Son and the Holy Spirit.  And each of these two is not so much merciful, as mercy itself.  But the Father himself is also Mercy.  And these three are not three mercies, but one mercy.”

Faced with our own misery, the only sane response to ourselves and to our brothers and sisters, who likewise suffer, is to have mercy, to practice the forgiveness of sins; and thus to know and proclaim the God of Mercy. We encounter the merciful Risen Lord in the sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Mercy. Here we receive the body of Christ given up for us, and the Blood of the new and eternal covenant poured out for us for the forgiveness of sins. Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we place all our hope in you.

Saint Benedict Joseph

Today in the monastery we celebrate the memorial of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre. Many of the monks are fond of him and greatly admire his simplicity. Benedict Joseph attempted unsuccessfully to enter a number of monasteries. He never fit in, was judged unstable and was always sent on his way. He ended up as a wandering pilgrim, praying incessantly. Our missal entry for this morning's Mass listed him as Saint Benedict Joseph, Fool for Christ. As we celebrate his life and holiness this day, it seems it would be of little use use to us and give him no fitting honor, should we try to imitate his so-called foolishness. Benedict Joseph did not set out to be a fool. Like all who are truly poor, he simply had no choice. It would seem that deep within him two forces met and struggled- on the one hand his very real physical and psychological weaknesses and incapacities and on the other his very ardent desire to love Jesus with every fiber of his being. It was this love that gratefully took over his life. It is only this folly of love that we dare to imitate. May all our personal weaknesses and disabilities of whatever kind make us depend more and more on Christ Jesus, whose power will be made perfect in our weakness.

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre was born in  Amettes, France in 1748 and died as a beggar in Rome in 1783. The portrait was painted by Antonio Cavallucci in 1795. 

Abundant Mercy

A whole Sunday is set aside by the Church to celebrate the abundance and constant availability of Jesus' mercy. As we see Thomas put his hand into Jesus' open side, we pray with our Cistercian Father, Blessed William of Saint Thierry:

Those unsearchable riches of your glory, Lord, were hidden in your secret place in heaven until the soldier's spear opened the side of your Son our Lord and Savior on the cross, and from it flowed the mysteries of our redemption. Now we may not only thrust our finger or our hand into his side like Thomas, but through that open door may enter whole, O Jesus, into your heart, the sure seat of your mercy, even into your holy soul that is filled with the fullness of God, full of grace and truth, full of our salvation and our consolation. Open, O Lord, the ark door of your side, that all your own who shall be saved may enter in, before this flood that overwhelms the earth. Open to us your body's side, that those who long to see the secrets of your Son may enter in and receive the sacraments that flow therefrom, even the price of their redemption. Open the door of your heaven, that your redeemed may see the good things of God in the land of the living. Let them see and long, and yearn and run...

Andrea del Verrocchio, Christ and Saint Thomas, bronze, 1483, Orsanmichele, Florence.
William of Saint Thierry, Meditations, 6.11-12