Homilies of Father Abbot

At that time: Peter said to Jesus: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? (Matthew 19:27)

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

The Holy Rule, written by Saint Benedict whose feast we are celebrating, has sometimes been called “the Bible of monks.” Some may think this a hyperbole, a mere pious exaggeration, but, like the Bible from which it is inspired, the Rule for monks is something of a universe of its own, an imposing spiritual landscape, where one encounters that fullness of truth, love, and being, which is the hallmark of the Catholic faith. Despite the austerity of its language in many passages, this thin but great book forms our souls in multiple ways, including its teaching of a sentiment that […]

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

The color for today’s solemnity, as we are all well aware, is deep red, symbolizing the blood of martyrs. It is no secret that the Holy Apostles died the death of martyrs, excepting Saint John, who, according to a tradition reported by Saint Jerome, underwent a trial of death at the Latin gate of Rome under the order of the Emperor Domitian, but miraculously escaped from the cauldron of boiling oil into which he had been thrown. He lived many years afterward in God’s Providence in order to care for the Blessed Virgin Mary, confided to his keeping at the Cross. From his home at Ephesus, he led the churches of Asia Minor and completed his Gospel, no doubt, and the book of Revelation, the […]

Ecce panis Angelorum…Lo, upon the altar lies, / Hidden deep from human eyes, / Bread of Angels from the skies, / Made the Bread of moral man. (Lauda Sion, Sequence of the Mass, composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas.)

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

Throughout some two thousand years of history—much of it marked by major or even spectacular events—Our Holy Mother Church has seen and suffered much. Many a Caesar has tested Her holy resolve with outright or hidden persecution; not a few heretics have worked to pervert the true Faith in multiple manners, all to no avail (in the end), thanks to the grace of God. But never before our own time has there been, on such a large scale it seems, a general deprivation of the […]

And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with diverse tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. (Acts 2:1-4)

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

“Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice,” wrote an English poet. (Poem of Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice.”) Another mused, “This is the way the world ends / Not with a […]

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

The mystery of the Ascension of the Lord is filled, “charged” as we might say, with theological hope. Everything about the Gospel scene and the gripping narrative of the Acts of the Apostles relating Jesus’ departure from earth stirs up in us the invincible conviction that our life has only begun here below and that a supernatural happiness awaits us. “And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father” (Matthew 26:29). Monks live from this kind of radical hope focusing, not on the fleeting existence of this present world, but on life beyond the horizon of the visible world here […]

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

Easter is the solemnity of solemnities, the culmination of the liturgical year; it is the celebration of the Risen Lord, of the victory of Life over Death, of the ultimate Light over the deepest of darkness. Easter is not about petty matters, though it encompasses even small things. It is a revelation of the definitive meaning of human life, the great Alleluia of the human story in general; but it is also a story about real human beings, of those who were and are caught up in the drama of the God-Man, the One Who was and is the Son of Mary as well as the true Son of God the Father. It is about our living link to the Word Incarnate, to the very […]

My very dear sons,

For twenty years now we monks of this abbey have lived under the protection of Our Lady of the Annunciation and reaped the spiritual fruits of such a happy patronage. What better model could there be for contemplatives than that of the Virgin of Nazareth, hidden in prayer in her modest home, awaiting God? There is the sense that, were we to accomplish nothing else in our lives and this during the whole history of our community, the mere fact of living up as best we can to our official motto—Ecce, Fiat, inspired by the words of the Virgin in response to the great and holy Archangel—would be enough of a program for time and eternity.

Of course, we are men. Our manner of humility and obedience is that […]

My Very Dear Sons,

In a time when many things are falling apart and the very cultural ground that once held up the civilized world seems to be crumbling under our feet—and with it the sense of God—we see more clearly the point of the words of Our Lord, when He asked, “But yet the Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). A pillar that has been shaken to the core, one that is linked to the very Christian faith we profess, is that of paternity. Paternity is taken here, not only in its natural sense, but also in its fuller meaning: paternity as understood by Christians. Ours is increasingly a society without fathers. As long as there remains a single Christian, it is true, […]

For unto us a Child is born, and a son to us is given…and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

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

Tonight the argument is complete; the reason for all things has been stated in our hearing; the solution to the world’s problems (or to this great puzzle which the entire world really is) has now been provided; the Word has been uttered—or rather, in fact, it is always uttered, eternally uttered by the Father, but now especially for us. This is not just any word, but the very Word of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Word in Person, come to earth through […]

Tu Gloria Jerusalem, tu laetitia Israel, Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honor of our people, Alleluia. (Alleluia verse)

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

When Christian artists represent Our Lady under the mystery of her Immaculate Conception, they usually do so, employing for the task, the sacred symbolism taken from the description of the mysterious woman enveloped in light, the woman described in chapter twelve of the Apocalypse.

And 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. (Apoc. 12:1)

They often depict as well a serpent crushed under her feet, which is a patent allusion to the […]