Homilies of Father Abbot

Saint Monica’s Church, Edmond, Oklahoma

Your Excellency Archbishop Coakley,

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, especially the grieving members of the Costello family,

Before going any further I must also mention how touched we are by the presence of an impressive number of dignitaries, for both the state and national levels, in particular that of Madame Governor Fallin and of our distinguished Senators and Representatives. Please forgive me, if I am not able to mention everyone by name at this sizeable gathering.

“It could be said, wrote Pope Saint John Paul II, that human history is marked from the very beginning by the limit God the Creator places upon evil.” (Memory and Identity, 38) The remark is profound. It echoes something the great Saint Augustine once said:

You are beset […]

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.

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 of the early Christians, who expected the end of the world to come very shortly. 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, between the […]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My very Dear Sons,

We live in a new era of martyrs, that is to say, of “witnesses” to the truth of the Gospel. Christians are undergoing violent martyrdom at various locations around the globe, in numbers that rival and even surpass those attributed to the early centuries of the Church. This is no great secret: even secular society is aware of what is taking place to some extent. There are also many “social” martyrs in our day, that is to say faithful followers of the Lord who are being put to death, not in a bloody manner, but by being rejected, calumniated, ridiculed, scorned, persecuted, and mistreated in every way by those who prefer the world to God. This kind of martyrdom is getting closer to […]

Veni, Sancte Spiritus…Veni, lumen cordium; Come, O Holy Spirit…Come, shine within our hearts. (Sequence)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My very Dear Sons,

After two millennia, the mystery of Pentecost continues. What started in the Upper Room, in the presence of the Mother of God and the Holy Apostles, continues today on the scale of the entire world. The thoughts of men are vaster than any ocean, but they are of no account compared to the mind of God. The gifts of the Holy Spirit give us access to that divine mind, to that infinite Wisdom of God: they are like sails on the ship of our soul, designed to catch the holy inspirations of the very breath or Spirit of God.

The founder of our Benedictine monastic Congregation, Dom […]

Ascendit Deus in jubilatione…. God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. Alleluia.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My Very Dear Sons,

We contemplate today a reality that might seem quite “out of this world,” because it truly is. The Lord, having accomplished the mission set before Him by the Father, returns to the place from which He came, if we can speak in such terms in reference to a Divine Person. He leaves in order to blaze the trail for us. He does not leave us orphans or desert us. He promised this.

One of the characteristics of our time is the tendency to want to keep everything here below. Even Catholics, even prominent theologians, have expressed acceptance for this focus on the […]

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 something we have done before? Is Maundy Thursday an exercise we repeat year after year? Is it not, rather, a unique mystery into which we enter—at least this is to be hoped—more intensely every time? Surely, at the heart of […]

Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear: for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty (Ps. 44)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My very dear sons,

Is it not rather surprising this feast of the Annunciation, celebrating the event that marks the coming into this world of the Son of God, devotes so much of the liturgy to texts taken from Psalm 44, which is a nuptial song? The opening chant or Introit, the Gradual, and the Tract are all drawn from this wonderful and inspired wedding poem. Why? Whose wedding is this? Who is the bride here? Who the groom?

At first glance the facts are disconcerting enough. The Blessed Mary of Nazareth is joined to Saint Joseph on earth in a very real, but unique sort […]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My Very Dear Sons,

It is our privilege and our joy to celebrate each year two major feasts in honor of Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict: this first one occurs during the Lenten season, and the second beneath the ardent rays of the July sun. Today’s feast commemorates the holy death of the Patriarch of monks; the second originally celebrated the transfer of the relics of Saint Benedict from Italy to France, but has now become for the universal Church the principal celebration honoring Saint Benedict. Given the penitential character of Lent, we generally reserve more solemnity for the feast in July. It is nevertheless only fitting to say a few words about the holy death of a great Saint.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is […]