Celtic spirituality has long cultivated the belief in so-called “thin places” where the veil separating heaven and earth, time and eternity, is thin and where the experience of the sacred and the divine is heightened. Places of Christian pilgrimage and shrines are among the more commonly recognized “thin places.” Monasteries and their immediate environs are […]
Fr. James’ Homily for All Saints
With a predictable regularity guests at our Retreat House ask me whether we are living in the end times. Although I realize this has been a perennial preoccupation and fear in every era, I am in no position to know. I always repeat what Jesus himself said: only the Father knows. Even without […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 29th Sunday
Increasing numbers of people are avoiding so-called “organized religion” and labeling themselves “spiritual” rather than “religious.” In doing so, they seriously challenge traditional approaches to the divine, in general, and Christ, in particular. In times past this has sometimes been integral to mystical movements within the church in which God’s grace reaching the mystic in […]
Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus
As we know, it is not only the Pharisees who are filled with plunder and evil; each one of us has to make this same painful discovery in the progress of our self-knowledge. Saint Teresa was no exception and her inward scrutiny of her heart and soul was especially thorough and unsparing. However, in the […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 28th Sunday
Today’s Gospel occupies an interesting place in Luke’s Gospel. It’s preceded by this self-effacing admission of good servants: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we are obliged to do. And it is followed the realization: Behold the Kingdom of God is among you. I believe that this healing of ten lepers both illustrates […]
Word from our Cistercian Fathers
And I beseech you, brothers, let us stand upon our watch, because now is the time of soldiery. Let not our conversion be on the dunghill of this wretched body, but in the heart where Christ dwells. Let our conversion be on the judgment and counsel of reason, so that we do not rely so […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 26th Sunday
Masochism is that mental and psychological aberration according to which a person voluntarily seeks out pain and suffering and actually derives pleasure and satisfaction thereby. I mention this because today’s parable of Lazarus speaks of the great chasm separating the place of torment from the peaceful and joyous repose with Abraham. The latter explains that […]
Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul
Viewing a Wrentham documentary in the novitiate the other day, we heard Mother Maureen affirm that Cistercian life is one hundred percent community and one hundred percent solitude. This seemingly contradictory statement finds an echo in today’s gospel where we read of Jesus praying in solitude and the disciples were with him. Now, if we […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 25th Sunday
Jesus had a reputation for keeping bad company—inevitable in a ministry as oriented to the conversion of sinners, as to announcing the Kingdom of God. He probably knew characters like today’s dishonest steward. Is Jesus trying to expose the naiveté of his well-intentioned followers with this outrageous parable? Or is he just taping into the […]
Memorial of Korean Martyrs
As Christians striving to imitate the self-giving and self-sacrificing love of Christ, we forget that receiving help and allowing others to serve us is integral to being Christ’s disciples. Although Jesus insisted that he had come to serve and not to be served, there were occasions when he did allow others to minister to and […]