brett

About brett

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far brett has created 224 blog entries.

Still Building. . . Something Beautiful for God

2024-09-05T12:10:47-05:00July 13th, 2017|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

As this mysterious thing we call “time” inexorably devours people and things, it carries all before it like a river moving toward the sea of eternity. But this mystery also fulfills the providential plan of God, one that includes all of us, pulling us toward that Kingdom where God’s glory and beauty crown the efforts of our hard-fought battles on earth. If only we can get there…

At Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey things continue to grow and develop. Our most recent construction project came to completion in May, leaving us with a beautiful sanctuary. In its exterior aspect this part of the church is referred to as the chevet.

We now have a […]

Saints Peter and Paul 2017

2017-06-29T10:00:01-05:00June 29th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

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

Where are the men in our day? Where are the giants? The book of Genesis tells us that in early times “there were giants upon the earth [in Hebrew, “Nephilim”]…the mighty men of old, men of renown” (Gen. 6:4). Holy Scripture explains—although this is wrapped in mystery—that after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men there came into existence an extraordinary race living on the earth. What happened to those great men, those giants? The Book of Wisdom implies that they perished in the flood in the time of Noah (Wis. 14:6). We do not really know otherwise, as the modern world has lost their trace. We only have those obscure mentions in the Holy Scriptures. Nevertheless the biblical image of these giants […]

Corpus Christi 2017

2017-06-17T15:24:25-05:00June 17th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

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

In her spiritual Diary, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, the apostle of Divine Mercy, writes of a vision she was granted, one centered on the Last Supper and the Institution of the Most Holy Eucharist. On today’s great feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi, it is enriching to share in this splendid revelation that God made to Sister Faustina about the Sacrament of the altar. Allow me to read a passage from the Diary of Saint Faustina.

During this hour of prayer, Jesus allowed me to enter the Cenacle, and I was a witness to what happened there. However, I was most deeply moved when, before the Consecration, Jesus raised His eyes to heaven and entered into a mysterious […]

Pentecost 2017

2017-06-04T10:00:44-05:00June 4th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Emitte spiritum tuum et creabuntur, et renovabis faciem terrae. Send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. (Ps. 103:30)

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

As you perhaps remember, when the prophet Elijah, fleeing the persecution of Jezabel, had come to Mount Horeb after a long walk through the desert, the word of the Lord came to him and a great revelation was given. While the prophet stood before God on the mountain, a strong wind that shook the whole earth around him shattering stones came up, but God was not in that wind and earthquake. Nor was He in the fire that followed. Then there came a whistling of gentle air, and Elijah covered his face with his mantle, […]

The Third Day of Fatima

2024-09-16T15:51:08-05:00May 13th, 2017|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

On May 13th, feast of Our Lady of Fatima, His Holiness Pope Francis will have canonized at the sanctuary in Portugal two of the three shepherd children who were the privileged witnesses of extraordinary events that took place a century ago near the Cova da Iria. To tell the truth, since that time the world has never been quite the same.

In their early lives, especially before the apparitions of Our Lady, Jacinta and Francisco Marto were surely two of the most insignificant human beings ever to walk the face of the earth. Nothing distinguished them from the numberless poor who constitute now as then most of the world’s population. And yet this very lack of human excellence, far from hampering them in their mission, made them […]

Easter Sunday 2017

2017-04-16T10:00:29-05:00April 16th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Brethren…Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I Cor. 5.

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

Today is the greatest of days, the most venerable of feasts: it is a day when dark and sad things give way to what is entirely luminous and blessed. All hell was leagued against the Lord in His Most Sorrowful Passion; all of heaven rejoices to see Him rise from the dead as we celebrate the victory of God’s infinite mercy over the powers of evil. It is such a victory that the darkness is nearly forgotten and will evaporate someday like so much smoke or an evil dream, when […]

Maundy Thursday 2017

2017-04-13T18:00:13-05:00April 13th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

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

In a real way it was the Lord’s own feet that would have needed attention during the Last Supper, even more than those of the Apostles. Not that Jesus’ feet were somehow impure, but because they were about to be cruelly pierced by nails. They needed no cleaning, but they needed anointing. However, as we know, Mary, the sister of Martha, whom tradition identifies with Mary Madeleine, had thought about this matter earlier. It happened six days before the Pasch in Bethany.

Jesus therefore, six days before the Pasch, came to Bethania, where Lazarus had been dead, whom Jesus raised to life. And they made him a supper there: and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that were at table with him. […]

Annunciation 2017

2017-03-25T10:00:53-05:00March 25th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.

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

Christian antiquity, following traditions modern historians can neither confirm nor deny, recognized the 25th of March as the actual day of Our Lord’s death as well as being the day of the Annunciation. It was further argued that the coming of Our Lord at the Annunciation and His death must have coincided with the creation and fall of Adam. And since the world was created in spring, again according to the calculations of the ancients, the Savior was also conceived and died shortly after the equinox of spring. Today’s feast commemorating the springtime of the world and the springtime of Salvation, reminds us of the most sublime dialogue […]

Purity and Primeval Praise

2024-09-16T16:03:33-05:00February 13th, 2017|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

There is no subject more central to monastic doctrine than that of purity of heart. The conferences of St. John Cassian bear ample witness to this fact. Seeing God in the company of the Blessed of Heaven is what Cassian assigns as the end toward which our lives must be ordered. And purity of heart is the means to that end. This comes to us directly from our Lord himself: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5:8). Of course this has all been expounded upon by the saints and doctors of the Church, but it is especially worth pondering as we enter into the Lenten season.

As we clearly see in the Gospel, most notably during the dramatic confrontations between the […]

In Praise of Rural Manners

2024-09-16T16:16:27-05:00January 13th, 2017|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

The Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, wrote that “happy people have no history.” Other interpretations of this mysterious saying are possible, but here is one: since what we call “history” is often made of wars and death-dealing revolutions, the happiest folk are those who can live for a time in peace, far from that violence and bitter conflict that fill our history books and constitute each day most of the world’s breaking news.

The village that has grown up, little by little, within hearing range of our abbey bells is just such a place—the home of a people with no history. It is a village that hardly has a name. It is never in the news, and its glory lies in its very smallness and in the glad […]

Go to Top