This is the theme of an email I received from a Monastic Immersion Weekend guest this morning. The MIW ‘changed his life’ and I think changed a lot of lives. This was a special retreat for 16 men living with the monks for three and a half days, praying with them, listening to them in conferences, […]
Sixteen Men to Immerse in Monastic Life
Thursday will see a diverse group of sixteen men come to the Abbey for our fifth Monastic Immersion Weekend. MIWs offer men and women an opportunity to live in community-both the community of those attending the retreat and the monastic community-while providing ample time for silence, solitude and prayer. Retreat can be structured in many different […]
Benedictine Hospitality
When I use the term Benedictine, in reference to hospitality, I’m indicating hospitality according to St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries. It’s a species of hospitality anyone should be able to expect from Camaldolese and Cistercian as well as from Benedictine communities. We all follow the Rule, are informed and shaped by the Rule with it’s demands and […]
Abbot Robert’s Homily for the 19th Sunday of the Year
Readings: I Kings 19:9, 11-13; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33 The Scripture Readings for today’s Mass give us one of those wonderful opportunities to choose from a wealth of riches. The Gospel of Jesus walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee occurs in three of the Gospel accounts–of Matthew, Mark and John–right after the […]
Soul and Psyche
Among the works of the 12th century Cistercian authors, I wonder how often the treatises entitled On the Soul (De anima) are read by the average reader of Cistercian authors? I could equally ask how average is any reader who would read the works of the 12 century Cistercian authors! But such readers exist and […]
Considerations on 150 Years at Cool Spring
Last Friday evening I was on my way to the retreat house, aware that there would be visitors on the property to see the Civil War battlefield–from a distance. They were not to intrude upon the farming operations that have transformed the battlefield from a place of violence and death to new growth that nourishes. And […]
Abbot Robert’s Homily for the Solemnity of St. Benedict
Mass Readings: Acts 4: 32-35; Philippians 4:4-9; John 17,: 20-26 The whole Church, not just our Cistercian Order or the larger Benedictine family, celebrates the feast of St. Benedict today. Because his monastic Rule influenced the entire continent of Europe during those desperate centuries called the “dark ages”, the Church honors Saint Benedict as the special patron of […]
Abbot Robert’s Homily for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Church has always nourished its life on the personal revelations given by the Spirit to chosen souls. The first we encounter was Saint Stephen the protomartyr; he saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. A witness to Stephen’s stoning was later to have his own […]
Abbey Calendar on the Way
Now don’t buy your 2015 calendar at Staples or Office Depot because the new, beautiful…stunning really…Holy Cross Abbey Desk Calendar will be published soon. Based on the Liturgical Calendar running from Advent to Advent (November ’14-November ’15) the Abbey edition is designed to serve both as a reminder of the beauty of the HCA through […]
Br. Barnabas Brownsey, 5 January, 1934 to 16 June, 2014
Lawrence Joseph Brownsey, the future Br. Barnabas, was born to Lawrence and Mary Kathleen Brownsey in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 5 January, 1934. The Depression was gripping the country and even when he was old enough to remember, he recalled his mother helping to support the family as a cook to the well to do in the environs […]