This Sunday, clocks go BACK one hour. So if you forget to reset your clock and plan to come here for Sunday Mass this coming week, you’ll have a full hour of mental prayer before Mass begins. I suppose that’s better than switching to Daylight Savings Time in the Spring. If you forget to reset […]

This Wednesday, 1 November, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. The community Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 AM and, since it is a holiday for us, we follow the Sunday schedule. So Midday Prayer will be at 12:20 PM and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament will follow Vespers (5:30 PM) on Wednesday. […]

Readings: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew22:15-21 The community Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 AM, Abbot Joseph Wittstock presiding and preaching.

Readings: Isaiah 25:6-10; Philippians 4:12-14; Matthew 22:1-14 We’ve been wading through some rough parables that past few Sundays and today’s is the roughest of the bunch. Matthew takes a simple parable–you can read it in Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 14:16-24–and complicates it into an allegory. Why? Matthew is struggling to understand Jesus’ failure with their own […]

Readings: Isaiah 25:6-10; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew22:1-14 In contrast to the fig tree that Jesus cursed, because it produced nothing but leaves, neither vineyard described in today’s scripture readings failed to produce fruit. Instead, the problem was that one vineyard produced wild and sour grapes–despite being meticulously cared for–while tenants of the other refused to […]

Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43 The community Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 AM, Abbot Joseph presiding and preaching.

Although the Word has come to me, I have never been conscious of the moment of his coming. I perceived his presence, I remembered afterwards that he had been with me; sometimes I had the presentiment that he would come, but I was never conscious of his coming or going. And where he come from […]

Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20-24; Matthew 20:1-16 How often Do I wonder about people getting more than they deserve? I may not actually say it out loud, but that changes nothing. When I think like that, I am thinking like the hired workers in today’s parable who believe they’ve been cheated. To me, that’s the […]

Readings: Sirach 27:30-28:7; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35 The community Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 AM, Fr. Vincent Collins presiding and preaching.

Readings: Numbers 21:4-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17 When we celebrated the blessing of the new altar, the Preface referred to the altar of the Cross. At the same time, neither the altar nor the Cross was identified as an object but as a place; in Latin, locus. Latin is a very abstract, conceptual language–as opposed […]