ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

The poor Christ is always coming toward us to give himself to us. We never go to him alone, we always go together. And so our life as monks is lived out in community in an ordinariness that is ultimately transformative for each of us from the novitiate until our last moments in the infirmary. As we persevere in community day in day out, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus. For truly we have no other way to discover that we are poor men following the poor Christ. And the deeper our personal awareness of our poverty grows, the more the compassion and mercy of the poor Christ can flow into us, into our community and into the whole Church.  Postcard from our monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in Rhode Island. Meditation from a Homily by Father Isaac.

We mourn the passing of our dear Father Robert, who died in the Abbey infirmary this morning at about 7:30. He had been ailing for a number of weeks. Father Robert entered the monastery on the 10th of September in 1954. Hardworking, devoted to prayer and a lover of this place, he discharged many duties in his more than sixty-one years of monastic life. Father Robert was responsible for revamping the monastery's Holy Rood Guild in the 1970's. And just before his recent illness, he was Director of Trappist Preserves. He also served as forest manager and farm manager for the Abbey lands. Father Robert was a respected and popular retreat master in the monastery retreat house. He treasured the give-and-take of community living, the commitment to prayer, the intellectual atmosphere and the responsibility of hard work.  With characteristic enthusiasm he said that monastic life was "the most fulfilling life" he could imagine. May he rest with Christ in peace. ...

The Cistercian scholar Father Michael Casey often reminds us that we must let go of "the myth of the golden age," a cherished fantasy period when the Founders and the early generations of our Order enjoyed some ideal monastic life, when everything ran like clockwork, smooth, ideal, neat. Probably Citeaux, like our founding houses in Nova Scotia, Rhode Island and like our own monastery here in Spencer, was full of men like us, wounded sinners trying with all their hearts to follow the poor Christ. Perhaps then we can honor the memory of our Holy Founders, Saints Robert, Alberic and Stephen best, if we go with them to the place of humility in the shadow of the cross, to rest in its shade and remember that we are, as they were, sinners, absolutely dependent on the tender mercy of our God.  Icon of the Holy Founders written by Brother Terence.

Today we see Jesus enter the synagogue on the Sabbath, "as he usually did.” He stands up to do the reading, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah is given to him. And he reads: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." (Is 61) The words of Isaiah are addressed to the materially poor, those in prison, the physically blind, the oppressed and the exploited. The message is one of hope, healing and liberation. But this message is not only for the materially poor but also for the spiritually poor, the emotionally poor, the outcast and the rejected. Even those who are surrounded by material wealth can be poor. Mother Teresa used to say that the countries that are the most rich are the most spiritually poor. All are poor for we are all in need of Jesus’ message ...

Today we celebrate most gratefully God's gift of life and commemorate with sadness and contrition the many lives lost to abortion, praying that human life will be reverenced and protected  at every stage. God our Creator, we give thanks to you, who alone have the power to impart the breath of life as you form each of us in our mother's womb; grant, we pray, that we, whom you have made stewards of creation, may remain faithful to this sacred trust and constant in safeguarding the dignity of every human life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Photograph of the monks in choir  by Father Emmanuel   .

God always has mercy on us unconditionally, because mercy is in his very nature, because mercy is his nature.   Because God is Love, God is Mercy.   However, a necessary condition from our side, which alone makes us capable of receiving the mercy God is always extending to us, is that we repent of all our wrongdoing and evil inclinations.   Only conversion of heart in fact opens the heart so that the mercy of God can enter it and have its healing and life-giving effect there.   Without the change required of us by conversion of heart, all of our pleading for God’s mercy remains laziness and presumption. God's mercy is not cheap.  Persistence in sin cannot but have dire consequences, though God’s nature as mercy remains unaltered throughout.   Without conversion of heart, we remain deliberately shut off, barricaded within our ego, and so are simply not capable of embracing the mercy God gives.   It falls to the ground, tragically wasted. ...

We imagine that all the Gospels answer a question posed by a second generation of Christ’s followers, perhaps the children and grandchildren of the apostles and disciples. “What was Jesus like? What was it like to know him? What was it like to be with him?"  How extraordinarily attractive Jesus must have been. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” he says. And so perfectly does he express this good news of God’s reign, in his healing, in his preaching, in who he was, that he says, “Come away with me,” and at once  the first disciples leave everything behind.  Was it just so clear? Why else would they have left everything without hesitation?   There is a rather bizarre medieval legend that John the Beloved Disciple was actually the bridegroom of the marriage feast at Cana . The story goes that, having witnessed the power and beauty of Jesus as he transformed gallons and gallons of water into wine, the groom abandoned his bride there and then and became Christ’s...