Abbey News

Monday, April 7, 2008

Community Dialogs
In September this year there will be a meeting of the Order's General Chapter in Assisi, Italy. In preparation for the Chapter each community of the Order has to prepare a house report outlining the state of the community. These reports, covering all aspects of community life, are reviewed by the Abbots and Abbesses during the Chapter and, when necessary, appropriate responses are made. Yesterday we began a series of community discussions on our house report. We are using as a basis the text of the last Visitation Report. Such initial texts are often called 'martyr texts' and in keeping with that idea we sort of 'martyred' the text going through it line by line suggesting changes as we went along. Such discussions provide us with a good opportunity to reflect together on our life and fidelity to our vocation.


Comings And Goings
The arrival of Spring (which finally arrived!) usually brings with it a number of meetings. For starters Fr. Gerard will be leaving tomorrow for the Novice Master's meeting being held at Holy Spirit Abbey, Conyers, Georgia, returning on the 18th. Then on Wednesday Abbot John will join the Major Religious Superiors of Men meeting in Graymoor, New York, returning on Friday. Finally, at least for this week, Br. Isaac will visit St. Vincent Abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania over the weekend in order to make preparations for attending seminary there in the fall.

Fr. Bernardo Bonowitz, Prior of our daughter house in Brazil, will be dropping in on Friday for a brief visit on his way to our sisters at Wrentham where he will be giving the retreat. We look forward to hearing a first hand report from him on his community this Sunday in chapter.

Gift From India

Recently some good friends of ours presented us with the gift of a new, festive altar cloth for the Church. It was custom designed and hand made by sisters in India specially for our altar. It certainly lends a colorful, festive touch to our liturgy when we use it for those special celebrations that come along every now and again.

The next such celebration will be that of Ascension Thursday, May 1st. The schedules for that week are posted on our Liturgical Schedule page.

When Jesus talks about fire, he means in the first place his own Passion, which was a Passion of love and was therefore a fire; the new burning bush, which burns and is not consumed; a fire that is to be handed on.

Jesus does not come to make us comfortable; rather he sets fire to the earth; he brings the great living fire of divine love, which is what the Holy Spirit is, a fire that burns. In an apocryphal saying of Jesus that has been transmitted by Origen, he says: Whoever comes close to me comes close to the fire. Whoever comes close to him, accordingly, must be prepared to be burned.

It burns, yet this is not a destructive fire but one that makes things bright and pure and free and grand. Being a Christin, then, is daring to entrust oneself to this burning fire. Christ is the one who brings peace. And I would say that this is the saying that is preeminent and determinative.

But we only properly comprehend this peace that Christ brings if we do not understand it in banal fashion as a way of cheating one's way out of pain, or out of the truth and the conflicts that truth brings with it.

If the Church simply aims to avoid conflict, merely to ensure that no disturbances arise anywhere, then her real message can no longer make any impact. For this message is in fact there precisely in order to conflict with our behavior, to tear man out of his life of lies and to bring clarity and truth. Truth does not come cheap. It makes demands, and it also burns.

Benedictus
Pope Benedict XVI