ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Then they said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?" So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, "The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!" Then the two recounted  what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread. Pondering these words from today's Gospel from St. Luke, we recall all the things the Lord has spoken to us in the quiet of our hearts, words that are our food, our sustenance. We pray that  our hearts may ever burn within us  as he speaks to us  and opens himself to us. Photograph by Brother Brian.

Jesus assures us,   "I am the way and the truth and the life." In other words,  “I am the way that leads through darkness and confusion, obscurity and doubt; through seeming absence to a richer, darker, mysterious presence.” He draws us higher to the place that he is preparing for us, the place of our  belovedness . Jesus clearly understands himself as the Beloved of his Father. (How else could he have made it through the horror of his passion?) And he envisions the same identity for us, and says that where he is, there will we be- hidden in the bosom of the Father. “I will come back again and take you to myself,” he says, “so that where I am you also may be.” For all our lack of understanding, certainly these words of Jesus are tremendously consoling. “I will take you to myself.” Where else would any of us want to be? And so we continue to hold fast to his promise, for only love and surrender to him can quiet our questioning.  Jesus is   taking us to him...

He who pities them leads them  and guides them beside springs of water.  Sing out, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth,  break forth into song, you mountains.  For the Lord comforts his people  and shows mercy to his afflicted.  But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;  my Lord has forgotten me.”  Can a mother forget her infant,  be without tenderness for the child of her womb?  Even should she forget,  I will never forget you.            Isaiah 49.8-15. The Prophet Isaiah reminds us of God’s tenderness and loving pursuit. This is the real truth of Jesus' passion and death and resurrection. Our God enfleshed in Jesus will be wounded out of love for us. And so the invitation is to honestly even joyfully take ownership of our lostness, our very real need for mercy, our desperate need to be found and "pitied" by Jesus. For our sinfulness, apartness from God can never estrange us from him. But in...

We should never attempt to separate these three graces of the Gospel: its truth, which is non-negotiable; its mercy, which is unconditional and offered to all sinners; and its joy, which is personal and open to everyone.  The truth of the good news can never be merely abstract, incapable of taking concrete shape in people’s lives because they feel more comfortable seeing it printed in books. The mercy of the good news can never be a false commiseration, one that leaves sinners in their misery without holding out a hand to lift them up and help them take a step in the direction of change. This message can never be gloomy or indifferent, for it expresses a joy that is completely personal.  It is “the joy of the Father, who desires that none of his little ones be lost”  (Evangelii Gaudium, 237) .   It is the joy of Jesus, who sees that the poor have the good news preached to them, and that the little ones go out to preach the message in turn. The ...

This joyful Eastertide, away with care and sorrow! My Love, the Crucified, hath sprung to life this morrow. Had Christ, that once was slain, not burst his three-day prison, our faith had been in vain; but now is Christ arisen, arisen, arisen, arisen. Fresco by Piero della Francesca. Excerpts from Abbey lauds hymn by George R. Woodward, 1894

A stream has welled up, and become a torrent … It has flooded the universe, and it filled everything. Then all the thirsty on earth drank, and their thirst was quenched, For the Most High has given them to drink. By means of the living water, they live forever. Alleluia!    Odes of Solomom, 8  Jesus is himself the Living Water, may we thirst for him more and more. Photograph by  Brother Brian.

The crucifixion happened at the edge of the city, just outside its walls. Jesus of Nazareth was pushed out of the world in apparent ignominy and failure. There was no room for him in the inn at the beginning of his life among us and at the end there was still no room for him.  Jesus absorbs, without any self-protection or resistance, the sin of the world, all of it. We can name and lay all our burdens at his feet- failure, injury, self-loathing, guilt, shame; everything that we cannot change or transform by ourselves. This is the very edge of the world, the periphery where God is. Jesus has gone where we hardly dare even to look, taking into God’s own life all that separates us from love, so that we might be totally healed, forgiven and restored.  Photograph by Brother Brian. Reflection by Abbot Damian.