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Immaculate Conception 2017

2017-12-08T10:00:27-06:00December 8th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

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 […]

All Saints 2017

2017-11-01T10:00:47-05:00November 1st, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Post haec vidi turbam magnam…After this I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands (Apoc. 7:9).

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

We pilgrims along the way of faith cannot as yet see the end of the road. That great City contemplated by Saint John is still beyond the horizon, around the bend of our earthly existence. Our precious Catholic Christian faith gives us, it is true, a certain knowledge of that end, the only one for which God truly destines us, depending, of course, on our free acceptance; but we cannot yet see clearly this heavenly Jerusalem […]

The Stolen Rainbow

2024-09-05T11:58:09-05:00October 13th, 2017|Letters to the Friends|

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky …
— William Wordsworth

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

If there is a biblical image that speaks to all mankind—in all times and places—it is surely that of the rainbow. “And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I will give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth” (Gen. 9:12-13). This was the great sign of God’s mercy, the sign that there would be no more flood “to destroy all flesh” (9:15).

The rainbow likewise had a privileged place in Greek mythology and the philosophical tradition […]

2017 Our Lady of Fatima Centenniary

2017-10-13T10:00:34-05:00October 13th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Delivered during a Special Mass on the occasion of the Centennial celebration of the apparitions at Fatima.

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

At a moment when the world is torn apart by acts of terror and rumors of wars (cf. Matt. 24:6), while looking, heavenward, perhaps as never before, for a sign to ease the tension, the prophetic messages uttered one hundred years ago at Fatima concerning the Immaculate Heart of Mary and our need for conversion seem more to the point than ever, more eloquent than anything mere human words could convey: they bear upon the very destiny of our lives and of the world. Even as secular society, living under the enchantment of a technical power seemingly limitless, continues to ask for entertainment and amusement rather than […]

Assumption 2017

2017-08-14T10:00:51-05:00August 14th, 2017|Homilies of Father Abbot|

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo…A great sign appeared in Heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. (Apoc. 12,1.)

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

Because we live in a place of spiritual darkness or, more exactly, of spiritual twilight (that half-light of Faith, as opposed to the vision), because the final truth concerning God and His Church has not yet appeared to our mortal eyes or to the eyes of our souls in its full splendor, because we struggle through life not knowing all there is to know about ourselves or about the world, having only a partial understanding, because of all of this God sends us signs in order to help us keep on […]

Praise in the Church

2024-09-05T12:08:10-05:00August 13th, 2017|Letters to the Friends|

Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,

Though the beauty of its sacred melodies rarely echoes in the parishes and religious communities of our time, Gregorian chant has a way of surviving the vicissitudes of liturgical decline and renewal. Despite the efforts of some to suppress it, this unique musical form, no doubt the greatest single musical repertory produced by our Western Christian culture, has a way of rising from the tomb.

Dom André Mocquereau“Like the music of the ancients,” wrote Dom André Mocquereau, the great restorer of Gregorian chant at Solesmes abbey in France, “the chant’s offspring is simple and discreet, sober in its effects; it is the humble servant, the vehicle of the sacred text, or, if you will, a reverent, faithful, […]

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 […]

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