17th Sunday, Year B, 25 July, 2021, 2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15 This Sunday the liturgy interrupts our progress through Mark’s Gospel to introduce Chapter Six from John’s Gospel. We recognize this section as John’s exposition of the Eucharist. Why he places it here rather than during the Last supper in Chapters […]
Saturday of the 16th Week
Our presence at this Eucharist is a witness to the communal dimension of our Christian faith—a reminder of our oneness in Christ and our fundamental incompleteness apart and separated from one another. Nevertheless, Mary Magdalene, alone and weeping outside the empty tomb expresses that other and personal dimension to our faith in Christ. Although we […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 14th Sunday
14th Sunday, YR B, 4 July, 2021: Ezekiel 2:2-5; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6 Certainly, Jesus’ one-time neighbors knew of his healing miracles or no one would have showed up for the healings mentioned at the conclusion of today’s Gospel. All of them heard him teach in their synagogue. But miracles and the proclamation […]
Feast of Saint Thomas
The incident in which Thomas gains faith by actually touching the risen body of Christ, is one that also raises questions, questions about the nature of the resurrected body—that body we are promised in baptism. For, although Thomas is able to touch the sacred wounds of Christ’s resurrected body, it is also a body which […]
A Word from Our Cistercian Fathers
O Wisdom, reaching mightily from end to end in establishing and controlling things, and arranging all things sweetly by enriching the affections and setting them in order! Guide our actions as your eternal truth requires, that each of us may confidently boast in you and say: ‘he set love in order in me.’ For you […]
Friday of the 11th Week
According to Jesus’ dictum, we can best discover just what our treasures are by examining where our heart is. And in this world where moth and decay constantly threaten any of our earthly treasures we have a convenient method for determining just where our heart is by becoming aware of the many things that upset […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 11th Sunday
11th Sunday, Year B, 13 June, 2021: Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34 Comparing the Kingdom of God to a planted field, Jesus is describing a process that is both organic and out of my control. Certainly, I can choose to frustrate the process or cultivate it–or just ignore it; but I cannot […]
Memorial of Saint Ephrem
Although Christianity is often construed as a new religion quite distinct from Judaism, today’s gospel is a reminder that the Christian faith is actually not a new religion, but rather the culmination of a millennia-long process begun in Eden. After our First Parents’ act of disobedience (and in what is sometimes referred to as the […]
Friday of the Ninth Week
Today’s first-reading-account of the safe return of Tobiah with his wife Sarah, and the subsequent curing of Tobit’s blindness, overflows with great joy, celebration, gratitude, and consolation. As such it represents a foretaste of heaven, mirroring the joy and celebration that will be ours when we pass from this life into that Eternal Home prepared […]
Your Comments
Over the years we have much appreciated the kind and encouraging comments many of you have made in response to our various postings on the abbey website. If you have tried to make a comment in the last 24 hours, you will have discovered that this is no longer possible. It is with regret that […]