Homilies of Father Abbot

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

Today, as it sometimes happens, we celebrate the solemnity of the Annunciation, under the glorious light of the Resurrection of Christ. How the brightness of the Risen Lord enhances today’s celebration! It seems that we find here a perfect blending of the two great facets of the Christian faith, Incarnation and Redemption. What was announced to Mary of Nazareth, concerning the child to be conceived in her virginal womb, finds in the empty Tomb of Easter and the glorified Body of Christ its full accomplishment.

At the dawn of History, when the world began, God uttered His multiple “fiat”, “Let there be” : “Let there be light…; Let there be a firmament…; Let the waters that are under heaven be gathered together…” (Gen. 1: […]

Resurrexi, et adhuc tecum sum…I arose, and am still with thee, Alleluia (Introit).

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My very dear sons,

This day marks the moment when all things begin to rise. Not only does the Messiah, Our Lord, rise from the dead, but with Him and in Him the entire human race and the entire cosmos surge ineffably upwards, if such a thing can be said on such a scale. Nothing will ever be the same; the world will never again look like it did before Christ’s Resurrection, the great Paschal event at the center of History. We understand now that it was all the secret of the Father, His design from beginning, from the sad moment when Adam and Eve tumbled into sin, like Jack and Jill down […]

Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end (Jn 13:1)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My very dear sons,

We find ourselves again this evening on the threshold of the sacred Triduum, the holiest days of Holy Week, at this solemn Mass of Maundy Thursday. We are here to commemorate the beginning of Our Lord’s Passion. But is this not something we have done before, many times? Is Maundy Thursday just an exercise we repeat year after year? Or is it not, rather, a unique mystery into which we enter—at least this is to be hoped—more intensely every time? […]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,

When Saint Peter declared to the Lord that he and the other Apostles had “left all things” and followed Him, he could not have realized the immense consequences of his words. He certainly did not consider at that precise moment how thousands upon thousands of human beings in future times would imitate his example by giving up all their earthly possessions, in order to be more perfect followers of Christ. How could he have known in his day that hermits, monks and nuns would someday fill the desert places of earth like so many John the Baptists? Surely, it did not cross Peter’s mind on that particular occasion, as he spoke with Jesus in the land beyond the Jordan, that he was actually tracing a […]

And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people Israel. (Matthew 2:6)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

It is high time we took the road to Bethlehem. Like the Magi, it is time we followed the star toward the City of David, not only because it is Christmas, but because we stand in need of much that is to be found in that place. Our world has grown cold. Times are hard. We are freezing in our materialism and our cultural sinfulness. The Lord is our last refuge: we need to see Him. Let us go over to Bethlehem, said the shepherds, and let us see this […]

Vestimentum tuum candidum quasi nix…Thy garments are white as snow, and thy face is as the sun. (2nd Antiphon of Laudes).

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,

In contemplating the spectacle of the Immaculate Conception, such is the spiritual splendor and brightness of the vision, supposing we turn our soul toward this mystery with humility, such is the power of Mary’s immaculate radiance, that one might fear going “snow blind” so to speak, of being blinded for shear excess of light.  It is tempting for one who preaches to conclude (hastily) that there is nothing to say about such uniform whiteness, nothing to comment upon here, whereas in truth such beauty rightly considered, could feed our contemplation for year upon year, age upon age.  Our Lady’s light is not the […]

Post haec vidi turbam magnam…After this I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands (Apoc. 7:9).

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

There is a question that has crossed the mind of every believer at one time or another, and tested the mind of many a theologian, both in our day and in times past. It is the problem of the number of the elect: what part of mankind, in the end, will have been saved from the terrible fate of eternal damnation and what part welcomed into the blessed life of God’s eternal friendship? “How narrow is the […]

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo, A great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. (Revelation 12:1)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

Often has Saint John’s vision of the woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet been understood as a prophecy describing historical events surrounding a given generation of believers. Such was surely the case with the early Christians, who expected the end of the world to be very near. More generally, in this prophetic image we contemplate both the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Church herself as she endures the hardships of her earthly pilgrimage and the great war that is waged between God and the devil, […]

Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? (Mt. 19: 27)

Dear Brothers and Sisters
My Very Dear Sons,

When Saint Peter declared to the Lord that he and the other Apostles had “left all things” and followed Him, he surely did not fully realize the immense consequences of his words. He certainly did not think at that moment how thousands upon thousands of human beings in future times would imitate his example by giving up all their earthly possessions, in order to be more perfect followers of Christ. How could he have known then that hermits, monks and nuns would someday fill the desert places of earth like so many John the Baptists. Surely, it did not cross Peter’s […]

At that time…Jesus saith to [His disciples]: But whom do you say that I am?

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very Dear Sons,

There is something supremely important about love in its highest expression. “God is love [or charity],” as the Apostle Saint John teaches us, “and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God and God in him.” Saint Paul, for his part, surpasses himself with his apotheosis, his hymn, of charity in the first letter to the Corinthians. “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (I Corin. 13). In a world where we do not enjoy the beatific vision, where, like birds of the night, we see only by the twilight of […]