Homilies of Father Abbot

All they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense, and showing forth praise. (Isaiah 60)

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

The Epiphany is a feast of attraction: the Incarnate Word irradiates the world, and the humble of heart are attracted to the spiritual light emanating from the Stable of Bethlehem. At the same time the tiny Messiah is more or less ignored by the world of men, except by King Herod, who perceives a possible threat to his power. This attraction is on a very grand scale, bringing the Magi from great distances, but it is selective at the beginning, as only a handful of souls benefit from this new radiance that has shined forth upon the earth. Nevertheless, this attraction will grow in intensity and extension over […]

And [Mary] brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger…(Lk. 2)

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

Despite the harshness of the times for believers and in spite of the fact that so many in our society have lost all sense of God and of the Christian faith, Christmas continues to inspire the world on many levels, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. What is the power of Christmas, what is its secret?

Is this secret to be found in the poverty of Saint Joseph and of Our Lady, who sought in vain for a place at the inn at the very moment, the dramatic moment, when the Mother was on the point of bringing forth her Child? […]

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made anything from the beginning (Wisdom 8).

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

As with every solemnity of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, this one too, feast of the Immaculate Conception, is about God—entirely about God. In His infinite wisdom and goodness God deigned to create a world; to place in it human creatures made in His own image and likeness; and to send a Savior to redeem those same human beings, once through sin they had plunged themselves into spiritual death. The Blessed Virgin Mary is a most holy and beautiful witness to God, a flower growing as it were at the foot of this great work of God in the world.

Better yet, it was […]

Blessed be the Lord who made heaven and earth, who hath directed thee to the mortal wounding of the head of the prince of our enemies (Judith).

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

On this glorious feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, many splendid and glorious things are presented to the eyes of our soul: a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet; the visit made by Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, when she intoned her Magnificat; the spectacle of angels rejoicing as they receive their Queen into the blessed precincts of Heaven; finally, the bride described in Psalm 44, adorned with gilded clothing surrounded with variety. And all of these sacred images have a spiritual meaning, not only for the Church in general, but […]

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,

The consequences of Saint Benedict’s flight to the wilderness in order to serve God alone are incalculable. How paradoxical this is: he abandons family and friends, his fellow human beings, but in so doing renders them a greater service than ever he could have by remaining in the usual walks of life! The theme is well known to monks, who also remember that much of our Western civilization hinged on that decision of the young man from Nursia. Not only did monastic life powerfully prosper in his wake, but even the outcroppings of the monastic project served to sustain the institutions […]

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

When today, at the end of this Holy Mass, we make the traditional procession in honor of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Angels will look upon the scene (as the Saints tell us) with awe and wonder. “How can it be,” they might say among themselves, “that these poor mortals, these lowly human creatures, are allowed to carry the very Lord of Heaven and Earth, trapped, as it were, inside a small circle of gold behind glass, along a path of colored wood chips, to the tune (joyful, though slightly off key, perhaps) of their humble canticles?”

In a time before time really started on our earth, it is said that some of the Angels rebelled against God, precisely because it […]

And there appeared to them parted tongues as if were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2).

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

The scene of the first Christian Pentecost, as described in the Book of Acts, only lasted for a few minutes—perhaps an hour. The historic event was limited in time and space. But the mystery contained in this supernatural occurrence cascades down through the ages and ever renews the Church and the face of the earth.

Over the centuries spiritual tongues of fire have appeared at regular intervals. Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict was one such spiritual tongue of fire. Saint Francis was such a flame, as were Saint Dominic and Saint Ignatius […]

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

Everything about the feast of the Ascension speaks to us of the vertical dimension of human existence. Ye men of Galilee, why wonder you, looking up to heaven? This seems very normal in the context of the Christian faith that has us say so often, Our Father who art in Heaven. Not only does our faith point us in the direction of higher things—of celestial matters, of heavenly realities—but also it orients our whole being toward a supernatural destiny, an entirely new reality that surpasses even the highest physical objects we can see or imagine. We are Christians: all of this is our birthright. By virtue of our Holy Baptism, we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Much of modern society and of […]