The disciples James and John reveal a heart still unpurified by obedience to the truth. In their presumptuous quest for glory—seeking seats at the right and left of the glorified Christ—they look outside themselves for a greatness that already dwells, unrecognized, within. The First Letter of Peter reminds us that purification through obedience to the […]
Thursday of the 7th Week of Easter
Most of us, I would imagine, have either asked others for prayers or promised our own. In the latter case, we sometimes forget that promise, and so the surgery of a friend we committed to pray for has already taken place by the time we remember—leaving us praying after the event. Although this may feel […]
Tuesday of the 7th Week of Easter
Our attitudes towards God’s will for us can sometimes be characterized by a sense of fatalism that makes us feel that all that happens to us is virtually inevitable and preordained. This can result in a sense of passive resignation to what we consider the inevitable and this can then suffocate creativity and weaken personal […]
Feast of Saint Matthias
Jesus’ insistence that it was he who chose the disciples, and not they who chose him, continues in the Church’s life with the Lord’s choice of Matthias to replace Judas—himself once specially chosen, yet ultimately rebellious toward that call. We are not told whether Joseph, called Barsabbas, felt rejected or wounded by not being selected […]
Livestream Issues
As several of you have kindly informed us, we are (yet again) experiencing problems with our livestream and are trying to ascertain the nature of the problem. With the weekend upon us, this issue may not be resolved until sometime next week. We apologize for this recurring issue and appreciate your understanding.
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter
Peter and John’s journey to Samaria and their praying for the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on those who had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus highlights one of two clear instances in the Book of Acts in which the effects of Baptism—that first sacrament we all received—don’t always follow the […]
Friday of the 5th Week of Easter
Memorial of the Cistercian Martyrs of Atlas: The unredeemed ego—also known as the false self—readily co‑opts even spiritual gifts and graces to prop up its fragile and ever‑anxious sense of identity. It treats gifts as possessions, using them to secure worth rather than to serve love. By contrast, the redeemed ego—the self whose true identity […]
A Word from Our Cistercian Fathers
In this wretched and toilsome life, it is essential that Martha be present in our house – that is to say, that our soul attend to physical activities. For as long as we have a need to eat and drink, we have a need to labor. As long as we are tempted by physical delights, […]
Wednesday of the 5th Week of Easter
All too often holiness is equated simply with overcoming vice and cultivating virtue. And although this is surely central and integral to holiness it is not all that holiness entails. In his image and analogy of the vine and the branches Jesus says that every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter
Although perhaps less common today, Lent has long been associated with giving things up and denying ourselves. Such self‑denial has been practiced either as reparation for sin or as a way of strengthening our weakened wills, freeing them from enslavement to inordinate desire and the pursuit of pleasure. And when Saint Benedict says that the […]