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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 […]