ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Like members of any family, the monks share the household chores that keep the monastery running smoothly. Here Fathers Simeon and Timothy are shown cleaning the monastic refectory. The quietness of mind cultivated by silence is also the fruit of purity and simplicity of heart. For this reason, the monk, in a spirit of joyful penitence, is to embrace willingly those means practiced in the Order: work, the hidden life, and voluntary poverty, together with vigils and fasting.   from The Constitutions of the Monks

Love always provokes, as for example this affirmation: Today this Scripture passage has been fulfilled in your hearing. These are the first words we hear today in the gospel from the mouth of the Lord Jesus. It is the Sabbath, and we are with Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth, where he had grown up, as St Luke explains, and according to his custom ... he entered the synagogue and stood up to read.   Jesus is here preaching to his fellow citizens and his own relatives. But what is the prophecy referred to by Jesus?  It is the capital text of Isaiah that Jesus, as liturgical reader, specifically chose and proclaimed aloud, and which we heard last Sunday: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me and sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. “He has anointed me”: this statement, on Jesus’ lips, is tan...

Please pray with us for vocations to the monastic life: O Jesus, Friend, and Good Shepherd, with you, we surrender ourselves to the Father’s will. Teach us to repeat with you  our yes to all the Father desires. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.   In communion with all the saints, we pray. Make us witnesses before the world of what we have seen  and heard and believe, so that all people may  recognize you as their only Lord and God. Make us brothers with you who have gathered us  to live  the mystery of community. Send our community men willing to leave everything  to follow you in poverty and weakness.   Blessed Mary, Queen of Cîteaux, pray for us! Saint Robert, Saint Alberic, and Saint Stephen,       founders of our Order, pray for us! Saint Bernard, Saint Aelred, and Saint Humbeline, pray for us! Blessed Guerric and Blessed Beatrice, pray for us! Blessed Gervais Brunel, Paul Charles, Elie Desgardin,...

It is fitting that this Feast is shared by all three founders, St. Robert of Molesme, St. Alberic, and St. Stephen Harding, because as Fr. Jean-Baptiste Van Damme summed up so well in his book, The Three Founders of Cîteaux : “These were three men of God who played different roles, but who were wholly united in their drive towards a single goal: a monastic life faithful to its most authentic traditions and, at the same time, capable of meeting the aspirations of the best of their contemporaries for renewal and regeneration. Their efforts converged in the great monastic movement which, in turn, promoted the general reform of the Church.” They have left us a great legacy, probably without principally intending to. They didn’t set out to found a new religious Order, just a monastery. Each, however, successively contributed through many hardships and unpromising circumstances to the birth and development of what turned out to be a new and enduring monastic observance. They had to have ha...

  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.

  There were once, two sisters whose parents had died and left them well off. Neither of them married. These were both strong independent women. They shared a common faith and had great compassion and love for their brother, who was special needs, and even though he was high functioning, he still needed a great deal of their time and attention. The brother never spoke; he is not remembered as ever having uttered a single word. But the brother was open-hearted and gentle of spirit and loved for who he was. This is a story about a mother whose only child was ill. We have all heard stories of parents going to any extreme to save their children. The love of a parent knows no limits. That is the type of mother this woman is, she was willing to risk embarrassment, humiliation, and possible rejection if it would save her beloved daughter, by swallowing her pride and seeking out the one person who could help her and her daughter. Justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting ...

  In Scripture, a mountain top is always a place of divine encounter. And in today's Gospel, Jesus majestically ascends the mountain and calls to himself those whom he desires to follow him closely, appointing a band of Twelve. And they come to him. As Jesus inaugurates the Kingdom, these twelve recapitulate the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. God’s reign in Christ Jesus has begun. Saint Agnes, whom we celebrate today, was martyred as a girl of twelve for defending the virginity she had consecrated to Christ Jesus alone. Her following led her to the cross like her Master. Preferring Christ Jesus above all else, we too celebrate our chosenness and promise to follow the Lord wherever he leads us.  Saint Agnes, attributed to the Master of the Straus Madonna,  (Italian, active late 1300s–early 1400s) , 1300s , tempera on panel. Worcester Art Museum.