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At that time…Jesus saith to [His disciples]: But whom do you say that I am?

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

There is something supremely important about love in its highest expression. “God is love [or charity],” as the Apostle Saint John teaches us, “and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God and God in him.” Saint Paul, for his part, surpasses himself with his apotheosis, his hymn, of charity in the first letter to the Corinthians. “If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (I Corin. 13). In a world where we do not enjoy the beatific vision, where, like birds of the night, we see only by the twilight of […]

[I]f I by the finger of God cast out devils, doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you. (Lk. 11:20)

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

On this Sunday, called Pentecost or Whitsunday, that marks the fiftieth day of the Easter season, we commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and Disciples of the Lord, gathered around the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Upper Room of Jerusalem. The Book of Acts recounts the episode.

And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they all were 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, […]

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

With the entire Holy Catholic Church, Christ’s Mystical Body, we celebrate today the Lord’s Ascension into Heaven. Echoing the praises of the Angels and Archangels, of the Seraphim and Cherubim, of Thrones and Dominations, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, and of the Queen who rules them all, we add the glow of our own gladness to the spiritual brightness of those blessed beings, who feast their eyes on the very vision of God, while the Son of God, in His sacred and resurrected humanity, climbs to the height of His glory.

It was just forty days ago that Christ broke through the bonds of death to rise to a life that will know no decline, but already the time for this departure is upon us. Although […]

Haec dies quam fecit Dominus: exsultemus et laetemur in ea, alleluia. This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us be glad and rejoice therein, alleluia.

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

Haec Dies. This is the day. These words, taken from Psalm 117, figure throughout the Easter liturgy. This morning the monks were awakened by the same biblical verse, as the brother assigned to rouse them from slumber, going from cell to cell and knocking upon each door, repeated the words Haec dies, This is the day…, which is thus employed to wake us up only on Easter Sunday and on the day of a monk’s profession.

Truly this is the day, because on Easter something immensely important happens, something far outside the normal […]

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,

The verse just quoted, taken from the Gospel according to Saint John, says it all. The entire mystery of Maundy Thursday is contained as if in a spiritual seed in these few words: the washing of the feet, the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, Christ’s painful awareness of Judas’ betrayal, and the beginning of the Passion. It is all there. “He loved them until the end,” that is to say, to the utmost, until the last moment, until His human physical […]

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? Where 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 […]

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

Today’s solemnity recalls the transitus, the “passing” as it were, the death, of Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict. It falls rather appropriately in the season of Lent, during which we turn the eyes of our soul toward the more austere aspects of life in the Church and in the lives of all of us. The death of Our Lord is a lesson in the ultimate meaning of things, and the death of His Saints is like a miniature version of the unique passage toward His Father of the Word Incarnate.

The mood of the Church these past decades has been about a certain reform (a constant need that always returns) and about the re-evangelization or New Evangelization of so many places, where the Faith […]