Holy Mass - 7th Sunday of Easter-2020

Joh 17:1-11a
Acts 1:12-14 1
Pet 4:13-16

Focus: Today and this coming week, we are waiting, together with Jesus’ first disciples, for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

“Come, Holy Spirit, pour out of the depth of the Trinity a ray of Your Light—that Light which enlightens our minds and, at the same time, strengthens our wills to pursue the Light. …

You are the best consoler!... In an instant You dissipate all doubt and sadness. Come, Father of the poor, the poor in spirit, whom you love to fill with the fullness of God.”

With this Prayer to the Holy Spirit, inspired by the Church’s Pentecost Sequence,Trappist Father Thomas Keating begins his book, Open mind, Open Heart.

Prayer is the overarching theme in our Scripture readings today on the 7th Sunday of Easter, the Sunday before Pentecost. The gospel presents us with the first part of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer for his disciples. As his ‘hour’ is approaching, which in John’s gospel is the time of his being lifted up on the cross as well as of his return to the Father, to heaven, he prays for those who believe in him, and who continue to be in ‘the world.’ The rest of Verse 11 in Chapter 17 of John’s Gospel that was cut off in the end from today’s gospel text says what Jesus is praying for: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me so that they may be one just as we are.” Jesus prays for unity among his disciples,
which has its root and origin in their unity with him and the Father.

In our first reading, we find the apostles gathered in the Upper Room waiting for the Holy Spirit, together with Mary, the women of Galilee and the brothers of Jesus. It’s significant that Luke mentions so exactly the people preparing in prayer for Pentecost. For when the Holy Spirit is coming down upon them with a mighty wind and tongues of fire, they, who had been so close to the earthly Jesus, will constitute the basic community of the church. Who are they?

The Eleven, later completed by Matthias to be 12 again, enjoy a unique importance because they were chosen by Jesus and were with him “right from the time when John was baptizing until the day when he was taken up from” them.

However, there was experience, which complemented that of the apostles: There were the women from Galilee. They, not the apostles, were the first to hear the message of the Resurrection by the empty tomb!

And there was Mary. She was the first in the gospel to hear the message about Jesus—at the Annunciation from the angel—and, together with Joseph, she was responsible for the formation of Jesus’ early life.

The apostles and the women and Mary bring the Gospel in its entirety into the beginning of the Church, together with a last group, the brothers (or cousins) of Jesus! One of them, James, will play a very important part in the early Church as head of the church in Jerusalem.

Being Jesus’ disciples includes also sharing in his sufferings. Suffering and rejoicing usually don’t go together. While today’s second reading doesn’t mention prayer directly, it’s understandable only from a stance of prayer. Well, Peter says, we must not cause suffering by our own wrongdoing!
If suffering, however, is caused by us imitating Christ we are blessed and can know that the Holy Spirit rests upon us and strengthens us.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, Today and this coming week, we are invited to wait in prayer, together with Jesus’ first disciples, for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s pray during these days for that unity among Christians, which Jesus so desired. We can work toward Christian unity through dialogue, remotely or in person, through common prayer and through common action. But we also have to receive it as a gift for which we can open ourselves in prayer.

Let’s pray for the leaders of the Church, for Pope Francis, for clergy, religious, and laity, that we may lead people to the true knowledge of God and of his Son Jesus Christ. Let’s specially also pray for women in the Church in gratitude for their unique gifts that they bring to it.

Let’s pray for all of us, for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit that we may be strengthened to stand up for our faith, even in difficult times like now during this pandemic. Let’s pray that we may recognize ever more clearly what it means for us, for each one of us personally, to live out the message of Christ.

“Come Holy Spirit, O most blessed Light divine, shine within these hearts of ours, and our inmost being fill. In your sevenfold gift descend. Give us joy that never ends.”

Amen. Alleluia.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Holy Mass - 5th Sunday of Easter-2020

Acts 6:1–7
1 Peter 2:4–9
John 14:1–12

From time to time during this pandemic we are reminded of certain people who are affected by COVID-19 more adversely than others. Immigrants and migrants are among them. So also are the homeless. When the rest of us are told to “stay-at-home,” it suddenly dawns us that there are people without a home. Their abiding place is under a bridge, in a makeshift cardboard box, on the street, on or under a park bench. They simply do not belong. At one point some were gathered in an empty parking lot where the places are marked off…There for a while they could be cared for.

Today Jesus is gathered with his disciples at the Last Supper. He is about to leave them and as he does so he reflects with them on what his going will mean. As we listen to him closely we can hear and feel that in some way he has been among us only temporarily and literally without a place to lay his head. We have the feeling that though he will love us to death, literally, he is not at home here. He pitched his tent here we heard on Christmas. But a tent is not a home. It is temporary shelter for a time. Jesus was with us for a time. But now a different time is at hand. It is the time to go home. Today’s table talk is about where Jesus’ heart is and where he is going…he is going home. Jesus has been homeless here among us but the time for his homecoming is at hand.

Jesus may speak of a house. But it is not so much a physical home with rooms. When Jesus speaks of home and house, he is really speaking of the Father. For Jesus home is not some physical place, some permanent residence. Rather what Jesus is speaking about is home as a person, as a relationship. That person is the Father. Jesus is going to the Father; Jesus is going into the intimacy of his relationship with the Father. Jesus is Son and being Son only makes sense if there is Father. Jesus’ identity is complete when his relationship with the Father is clear and at its best. Physically it means being with the Father, living with him. While Jesus is here in our flesh, in our time, he is in some sense experiencing homelessness. He is on mission as he says so often; he is sent, but his sending is at an end and he must go home. It is from that perspective that he is talking to us these days.

The time of his living in a tent is coming to an end. The way home to the Father will mean the destruction of the tent. His death will mean the end of his homelessness among us. It will look like the end. And the disciples feel that the end of his flesh is upon them, a flesh that they have come to know and love because he awoke something in them. And so they are afraid, sad and feeling adrift. They felt at home with him and now they are afraid of what it might mean if the relationship ends with his death. They understand his death as the end of the relationship they have with him. It seems that this relationship was only for a time. Like most of the characters in John’s Gospel, they are locked into certain limited perspective about Jesus, about what he was doing. They see but don’t see.

Philip gives expression to their and perhaps our lack of understanding. They really don’t know who Jesus is. In simple human terms they have not looked at the son and said “Oh, you look just like your father” or, “Oh, you talk just like your father did.” When they hear Jesus, when they look at him, when they see his works, they don’t see beyond them to their real source and energy and spirit, his Father.

Today Jesus makes it very clear that when they experience him they are seeing the face of the Father. When they take in his words, when they begin to follow his patterns of behavior, when they appropriate his values and priorities, they are in effect experiencing the God and Lord whom they have worshiped in the temple and listened to in the Torah and prophets. They are seeing and hearing the God of their ancestors. Perhaps they separated Jesus and made him a stand-alone man of God. But Jesus is insistent he is not a stand-alone man from God. When you see him you see the God he calls Father.

You and I struggle along trying to find a map that shows us the way to this God. But Jesus comes as a gift from the one we are seeking. He brings not a map but himself. He says I am the way that you are looking for. Walk in my way and you too will find your real heart. Get involved in the works you have seen me doing and you will discover your true self; you will find yourself in the relationship that feeds and nourishes you. Do the work of washing each other’s feet and you will know that you are not some stand-alone, isolated individual but that you are abiding in true love, the love of the Father and the love of the Son. You will find your identity. You will be at home.

Jesus must leave and go to the home of the Father. Only then is the story of his relationship of love for the Father and the Father’s reciprocal love complete. Only when he is lifted on the cross and ascends to the Father is his mission complete. But then and only then is it possible for him to complete and fulfill our own identity also. He goes into the Father so that we too can go home to the Father. For, whether we like to hear it or not, we are perhaps more homeless than he is. But his time in his tent here was precisely to complete our identity by bringing us into the circle of his love, making us his friends. And we are his friends if we do his work of loving in the world we live in.

Jesus says that we will do greater works than he. Sounds strange, but is it? He is with the Father; we are here on this earth in this time. We who are his friends are living his life, his way now in this time. We are his face in the 21st century, in a time of pandemic and uncertainty. He is abiding in us and our believing in him is our abiding him. In this way we reveal here and now, as he did once before, that we are not alone, that we are bound by a love that is mutual, that looks outward. We are doing the great work of making him and the Father seen and heard now. That is our work of making new. He is at home; we are here. We are still on pilgrimage living the way. This is our work; it is a work only we can do.

When we do it faithfully to the end, then we too will go home to rest in the Father’s heart along with his Son. What matters now is that we recognize where works of the Father’s love are happening now. What matters is that we are part of the mystery of our God and Father loving the world in the 21st century. Only we can do that great work.

~Prior Joel Macul, OSB

Divine Mercy Sunday - 2020

Joh 20:19-31
Acts 2:42-47
Pet 1:3-9

Focus: The Risen Christ is our Lord and God.
Function: The Easter Season is meant to help us believe in the resurrection.

Dear Sisters and brothers in the faith, we have celebrated Easter; and the feast continues for fifty days. After the Easter Vigil last Sunday, I was energized and full of joy: On that stormy morning we had ignited a fire in the monastery courtyard. From it were able to take the light inside in a little lantern to the Easter Candle. Fr. Adam sang the Lumen Christi (“The Light of Christ”) three times, and we monks lit our own candles from the Easter Candle. The light of Christ dispelled the darkness, also in my own heart.

Now we are back in everyday life. We monks are all well here at the monastery. We continue with our rhythm of prayer, Holy Reading and work. Overall, we have more time for prayer these days. Yet, the coronavirus crisis continues, and the uncertainties and challenges that come with it. We monks consider it to be our most important task to carry in prayer before God those who are suffering, who are ill, who are dying, those who are struggling with economic issues, the health care professionals and all those who help in many different ways…

And all of us can ask: How can the Easter Season, the fifty days of celebrating the core tenet of our Christian faith, namely the Resurrection of Jesus, be helpful for us? How can it assist us to become an Easter people, of faith, hope and love? The Scriptures of this 2nd Sunday of Easter show us the way.

Three times Jesus addresses the disciples in today’s gospel with, “Peace be with you!” This is a customary greeting – and it is much more than that! In his words at the Last Supper, in the Farewell Discourses, Jesus had said to the apostles: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.” Now they who were filled with fear, with sadness and with a sense of great loss, can experience peace again.
The Greek word that Jesus uses in the account of John’s Gospel, eirene, connects with the Hebrew concept of shalom. Peace in the sense of shalom means universal well-being, wholeness. The disciples felt miserable, now they are well again. They felt torn, now they are whole again.

The disciples rejoice as they see Jesus. This joy was also a promise of Jesus that is now fulfilled: “Your hearts will rejoice,” he had told them, “and no one will take your joy away from you” (Joh 16:22). This is coming true now.

Then Jesus breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is a reference to the 2nd creation account in the Book of Genesis. As God breathed life into that lump of clay and turned it into a living human being, so now the disciples are being re-created, made new and filled with God’s life-giving breath, the Holy Spirit.

They receive a sending, in which they participate in the mission that Jesus had received from his heavenly Father. They are meant to be messengers of peace, who invite people to accept the forgiveness that comes from God and to practice forgiveness among themselves.

Finally there is the Thomas story. Thomas, who had been absent from this first encounter of the disciples with the risen Lord, can’t believe their words. What they say seems so unlikely, too good to be true.

One week later Thomas is present when Jesus is with them again, with his gift of that peace that “the world” cannot give. By offering Thomas to touch the wounds of his hands and his side, he underlines that it is him. Thomas then makes the greatest and deepest confession about who Jesus is: “My Lord and my God.”

Dear sisters and brothers, The Risen Christ is also our Lord and God. The Easter Season is meant to help us believe in the Resurrection. The report about the life in the early Jerusalem Christian community gives us pointers as to how this can happen.

The early Christians devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. During the Easter Season, the liturgy presents us with many texts from the Acts of the Apostles. It would be good to follow these in Give Us This Day or in Magnificat. Or we can simply read a passage or two from the Book of Acts every day. It is encouraging to hear how, in spite of rejection and persecution, the message about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, spreads over the whole world known at this time. The apostles’ message evidently came from God. Humans were not able to destroy it.

The early Christians also devoted themselves to the communal life. We encounter the Risen Christ in each other. Our ability to forgive a person who has hurt us is a gift of the Risen One;
we receive it if we ask him. Our ability to share our possessions, to share whatever we have or can do,with those in need is a gift of the Risen One, too, and evidence of His presence.

Finally, the early Christians devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Prayer in common is always possible and perhaps even more important during this time of the pandemic.
So our homes truly become domestic churches and basic cells of the Christian faith, not unlike those first Christian domestic churches in Jerusalem. Even though most of you cannot participate in person at the Eucharistic breaking of the bread at the moment, you can know that the Lord is present wherever two or three are gathered in His name. And you can unite yourself with Him, with His Body and Blood, in spiritual communion.

Certainly, it would be nice to trade places with Thomas and the other disciples of his time and to share in this first overwhelming experience of Christ ‘s resurrection. If we, however, prayerfully, see, hear, note and perceive, especially during the next six weeks, we will get in touch, even in this difficult time, ever more fully with this new reality, with the light of Easter. Indeed we will encounter the Risen One.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Easter Sunday Vigil - 2020

Gn 1:1–2:2; Gn 22:1–18; Ex 14:15–15:1
Is 54:5–14; Is 55:1–11; Bar 3:9-15, 32:4:4
Ez 36:16–17a, 18–28; Rom 6:3–11; Mt 28:1–10

“As the first day of the week was dawning…” Matthew begins his Gospel this day with dawn. It begins with the gentle quiet arrival of the first light of the day. Our vigil liturgy began with light. With light in the midst of darkness, with the proclamation that Christ the light was rising. We began our vigil of listening to the Word of God with creation. We heard that the first creative word of God was light. And there was light. And then we heard that the great saving work of God called Exodus took place just as dawn was arriving. Should we be surprised then that God’s creative and redemptive work of resurrection will be experienced in the fresh light of dawn.

The women come in the light of dawn but they are still wearing the clothes of darkness, the garb of death. They come to sit and mourn as they had already seen the place of burial. But this dawn will quickly change their mourning into a real though hesitating joy. They will find themselves in a new world. First, they will experience an earthquake. It was already announced by Matthew on his Good Friday—immediately after Jesus dies tombs are opened. Today it is definitive. The old order is broken; the earthquake has broken open the place of death. The crucified man cannot be held by death. A new existence is opening up for him and for these women as well. The earthquake has destroyed the assumption of the past. The angel has plopped himself down on the door of death as if to say, you just try closing it again. You can’t fix what an earthquake has destroyed. Death is emptied.

Are there hints here this Easter Day that our pandemic is a kind of earthquake? When it is over perhaps we cannot put back the old order again. Perhaps we have to change how we see our world. The virus for all its destruction and disturbance of everyday life has pulled out of us a solidarity in our common humanity. Even as we go about the caring for one another, making efforts to protect ourselves, being with those who are dying and mourning their loss, even in all that expression of love, is there not something new being born? We are touching our fragility and powerlessness. And it is precisely in that a new life can find a home. Today we proclaim that a crucified and dead Jesus lives. Today we celebrate God’s mercy in loving one man’s tortured and pierced body left for dead back into a new and different life. Jesus’ utter powerlessness on the cross is today shown to be the place where the dawn of a new day opens our vision to the possibility of a new world.

The women who came to the tomb thought the future was clear. A man, even a man of God, God’s son, had died and was buried. That was the end. Death claimed him. But the angel, God’s messenger, really said: No, it is not the end, it is the beginning. Something new is happening. Go and announce it to those whom he taught and mentored. Go tell his disciples that he is going before you to Galilee. You will see him there. He is still with you; he is still leading, going before you. He is Emmanuel. He is leading you into a new way beyond the dust of the earthquake, beyond the shattered bodies, beyond your closed worlds and shut doors.

When the earthquake starts and we feel as though everything under us is going to give way, we become afraid, we panic. Where shall we go? And yet, what is the word spoken to us today in the midst of the shaking of the world by a virus: “Do not be afraid.” We heard it first from the angel who seems to enjoy his perch on the overturned stone: Do not be afraid. I know you are trying to understand what is happening. But things are changing; you can change too. Understanding may come slowly, like the dawn. You need to go forward where he is leading you. And running on the way to catch up with Jesus, they meet him. And his words to them: “Do not be afraid.” Yes, head on to Galilee and I will meet you there. We will all be together there. “Do not be afraid”: This is the refrain God is sending our way this Easter Sunday.

The earthquake is a symbol that something of the older order has broken up. But something new has emerged. What is broken is the claim that death has on humanity. What is released is new way of life that was originally shown us in Galilee, that place where even in Jesus day nations mixed and Jesus taught on the mountainside what constituted the real way of being human with God. Galilee—the place where God comes not to break what is bruised or broken, or flickering, but to lift us up by carrying our burden. This he did on the cross.

The earthquake is not the only sign that resurrection has changed something. Jesus’ rising has changed relationships beginning with Jesus relationship to his own. The angel tells the women to become messengers themselves and announce to Jesus’ disciples that Jesus has be raised from the dead and still leading—in Galilee. The angel calls the followers of Jesus his disciples, his students, his learners…and so they are.

But something has changed when Jesus gives similar instructions to the women himself. There he does not speak of ‘his disciples.’ No, he speaks of ‘my brothers.’ The resurrection has brought about a change in Jesus’ relationship with his followers. Now they are his brothers and sisters. And he, he is their brother. Yes, in his dying he has completed his own humanity. He has borne the burden of suffering and death that is so much a part of the human story and experience. He has become like us in all things. He has completed is name of Emmanuel, God with us, in suffering and death. For the first time Jesus can look at those who have given him their ear and their heart and he can call them his brothers and sisters. Now that he has passed through the darkness of death and experienced God’s love, he can look on us as one with him. And we, we can hasten to meet him in Galilee because today he has become our brother, someone we want to be with. The women are carrying a precious message to Jesus followers. He has entrusted to them not only the news that death is conquered but that God has given them his Son as their brother.

We know the meeting in Galilee will result in mission. Jesus will send his new brothers and sisters to take this message into the world and announce a new humanity. The earthquake has set in motion a new earth, the old order has passed. And dawn has revealed the beginning a new humanity gathered around Jesus our brother.

Christ is risen, alleluia!
He is truly risen, alleluia!

~ Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Good Friday - 2020

Joh 18:1 – 19:42
Is 52:13 – 53:12
Hebr 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Focus: We have a God who knows our hurts and pains, a God, who carries our burdens
for us, and a God who gives us dignity in the midst of our suffering.

My sisters and brothers, a. Megan, an ER nurse in NYC, rises at 5:15 a.m., and arrives in her Covid-19 unit by seven. She receives the hand-off information from the night shift. She washes down, puts on the yellow gown, shoe covers, hair cover, the face mask, gloves and the eye shield
and sees a first patient who is distraught, coughing uncontrollably. She administers a breathing treatment, along with some pain medication and fluids.She delivers to the patient a message from her family and reassures her that she will get better. She leaves and repeats the process with the next patient. She does this for 12 hours. Then she goes home and thoroughly disinfects before she greets her family. She has some dinner and goes to bed. She rises at 5:15 a.m. and repeats the process,
trying not to be discouraged by those patients who go on ventilators or don’t survive.

Megan also prays for her patients. And she prays for herself and for her colleagues for strength and for the necessary attentiveness to what needs to be done at every moment to keep the virus from spreading further. First responders, nurses like Megan, doctors, and so many others are at the front line in the fight against this virus. Their dedicated and courageous service to those who are suffering during this crisis is indispensable.

Today we commemorate the suffering of Jesus. God’s Son became a human being. Carrying out to the end his mission of making God’s love and mercy visible and tangible especially to the poor,
the hopeless, and the marginalized, he endured rejection and scorn, torture and death.

In today’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, composed over 500 years before Christ,we find the concept of substitute suffering. In the Lord’s Suffering Servant, we meet a person, who, guiltless and standing up for what is right,has to endure terrible things And we hear: “He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins … By his stripes, we were healed.” The early Christians saw Jesus as the one in whom this prophecy fully came true.

Our second reading from the letter to the Hebrews speaks to us explicitly about Christ, the high priest, who offered himself for our eternal salvation. The journey wasn’t easy for him. At Gethsemane, he rebelled against what it entailed. He prayed with loud cries and tears that his cup may be taken away from him. Then, however, he found his YES. God’s gift to him – he was heard – was his readiness to surrender his life.

The Passion account in John’s Gospel reports about Jesus’ trial, his being beaten, scourged and mocked, the crowning with thorns, his carrying of the cross and his crucifixion.

Yet, in the midst of all that is being done to him, Jesus’ royal dignity shines forth: Pilate interrogates Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus responds, yes, I am a king; however, “my kingdom does not belong to this world.” Jesus comes from a different world, from the divine world,
which Pilate can’t understand, because he only sees the surface. Jesus is the true king who is completely free and rules over himself. The world has no power over him.

Here’s the liberating and healing message of the Passion according to John for us: Because of Christ and because we belong to Christ, each one of us is a king or a queen. In us, there is a dignity, which is not of this world. Therefore, the world has no power over us. The paradox consists in the fact that this dignity becomes visible in the passion: Where we are weak, judged, hurt, and nailed down, we can know: There is a space in us, in you and me, in which nobody can harm us.
Nobody can take my royal dignity away from me.

Dear Sisters and brothers in the faith, We have a God who knows our hurts and pains, a God, who carries our burdens with us and for us, and a God who gives us dignity in the midst of our suffering.

Pope Francis has drawn attention to so many forms of suffering, lately especially also to those caused by the coronavirus. He said this week: “Life is a gift we receive only when we give ourselves away, and our deepest joy comes from saying yes to love, without ifs and buts.
As Jesus did for us. Let us give thanks today for the health care workers like Megan and all who help others, and have to put up with a lot on behalf of others, during this crisis. Let us also intercede for them today, for their safety and for strength.

During the Veneration of the Cross this afternoon, we will bow or kneel down before the Cross, acknowledging that in this sign of disgrace there is the foundation of our hope. As we do so, let us bring our sufferings to Christ, and those of so many people during these days.

And let us ask today for an experience of that divine freedom that allowed Jesus to say: “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” AMEN.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Palm Sunday - 2020

Isaiah 50:4–7
Philippians 2:6–11
Matthew 26:14–27:66

Western art in particular has not failed to offer us detailed images and pictures of the crucifixion. Nearly every crucifix is in some way an attempt to portray for the beholder something of the suffering of the crucified Lord: an expression of pain in the face, the taut muscles, the thorns on the head and in many cases the ubiquitous blood pouring and dripping. We are left in no doubt of the horrors of what Paul says today “He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Why we should be interested in seeing crucifixion vividly portrayed and even acted out is another matter.

What is striking about the Passion story we just heard is that there is nothing of that at all. When the time comes in Matthew’s gospel to speak of the crucifixion, it is mentioned in a subordinate clause. It doesn’t even warrant a main sentence. There is no description of what Jesus’ crucifixion looked like. The evangelist’s interest must lie elsewhere for the whole story is filled with drama. Perhaps Matthew’s community knew too well what a crucifixion looked like and needed no picture or description of this excruciating death. The cross remains central but maybe its meaning is found in what leads up to it and follows it.

The Passion of Jesus doesn’t begin with his being nailed to the wood of the cross. His death has begun long before that. It is not just a horrible physical death that Jesus suffers. Where does the evangelist put his pen to work? We will find its strokes in the story of betrayal. Here money on the table will turn a companion in life into a personal object of gain. A monetary value is place on the person and personal relationships. And to make the point clear, it is not just anyone who betrays but someone who breaks bread with me, someone intimate—a Judas who eats at my table and with whom I have shared my joys and pain. Someone uses the sign of kiss as the final bridge to hand me over. Is that not a death, a killing of intimacy and friendship and for what–money? The betrayer gets a good chunk of the narrative. Why? Because betrayal makes the other a victim that is easily disposed of. Money over people. In this pandemic Pope Francis has already pleaded not to set economics over the sick and dying. Relations among humans is uppermost.

Then there is denial. Peter too gets a lot of the story. It is words that are at stake this time. There is bravado and boasting here. I will never deny you, I will be faithful, even dying for you. But when it comes time to stand by another, I fade into the farthest corner and simply watch another go to their fate. Peter doesn’t say I don’t know him once but three times. The sword of the word has struck deep and the evangelist has let us feel that. Here it is: promised fidelity to the end but the promise is cheap and so denied. A word broken. While the one to whom the promise is made remains faithful to his word to the end. Death of a word of promise, death of a word of fidelity. Jesus is surrounded by broken words, words of a leader he chose. Is this, too, not death in relationships. And where does that leave the Lord? After his chosen leader has said I do not know the man, I do not even know what you are talking about, Jesus is left alone. Now the disciples, the followers, the table companions with whom he has shared his body and blood hours before have left him alone. Jesus is isolated from his human companions. Others will take charge now.

Hanging on the cross, crucified now, he is still hit with words. This time words that mock him. Now his own words and actions are thrown back in his face. He saved others, he trusted in God, God should deliver him. Where is his is relationship with God now? Here is the king and look how powerless he is. What is said in mockery is true in one sense but the words are misunderstood. The words like this could hurt you and I when we are misunderstood, when our identity and message is thrown back in our face. But then slowly it comes to us that the truth of the words is found in that very crucified one. It is the cross and the crucifixion that fill these words with their true meaning.

In these pandemic days when being cut off, being alone feeling isolated is felt by so many, in these days we also hear this story of Jesus Passion. In it we hear how his dying encompassed precisely the death of relationships as well as the pain of physical suffering. If we are honest with what we read and hear, the evangelist devotes considerable energy to the death of relationships, the fracture of words, the misuse of words as part of the death story, as part of the Passion, as part of suffering.

Yet we also see how the death of human relationships only makes the one relationship Jesus has stand out more clearly. Filled with sorrow and distress, he calls out the one name he can and takes his position in that name: Father. In that name he pours out his heart and his sorrow. He pours out his fear of what lies ahead…take this cup from me. But each time, and we hear it three times, he will not give the final word on his life. That he leaves to his Father. He will keep the Father’s word even if it means drinking the cup.

In the midst of the passion and from the cross itself, there is one relationship that remains steadfast for him and he to it: namely Father. The cry from the cross, My God, My God…is not a cry of despair. It is the cry of every person who has come to their limits and only has faith in “My God” left. These are not words thrown to the air. They are words from a pained heart of humanity clinging to the only relationship left, the invisible but real Father. And this is relationship that the foreign, occupying soldiers see and hear in these events of death and so it leads them to declare: “This is God’s son.”

On this Sunday of the Passion heard in our own days when we seem to be at a loss and all is spinning around us, we have a witness in a dying man of where we must turn and to whom we can speak. For the trust we have in Our Father will lead, in his day and time, to something new, something right now beyond our imagining but quite possible. Possible because it will be rooted, as Jesus’ death teaches us, “in his will.” For God’s son, loving faithfulness on both sides led to resurrection. It will for us too when we enter into the Paschal Mystery these days of 2020.
~ Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

A Message from our Prior, Fr. Joel

Scripture is rather reluctant to promote boasting about plans to go here and go there or to do this or do that. It suggests adding a little phrase “If God wishes, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). And these days we come face to face with interrupted trips, interrupted meetings and having to stay put. The change of plans has an added dose of anxiety, uncertainty of what is next or what will the next news bulletin will say.

Each night at Compline we monks sing, “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Admittedly, most of the time, most of us just sing the words routinely.
Everything seems to be going well. But now is the time to stand in those words. Placing our lives into the hands of God is one certain thing we can do. We can pray and in praying, practice letting go of what we cannot control and hear what we can do. Putting ourselves in God’s hands means trusting in one greater than I.

The experience of staying at home is not usually difficult for us monks but even now we feel the limits of movement and of people not able to move in our direction. This staying put may be hard for those not used to this. But St. Benedict has some simple suggestions: make up a schedule for the day. Put in it time for prayer, do some work in the place where you are, take time to read, spiritual reading and other literature. Now is the time for doing everyday things mindfully, with a sense that even small things matter. Life is made up of many little necessary things. Work at remembering others, staying in contact and having a meaningful conversation. Going slow and looking carefully at what is around us can be a graced moment. We might discover what we never saw before. We may feel cut off but in our hearts we can know ourselves more connected than ever in our humanity and in our Body of Christ.

We here continue our daily scheduled cycle of prayer in the community. Petitions are added for those suffering from the virus and those who are worried and anxious and you, who know and support us. This cycle helps us to deepen our Lent, join Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, and nurture our faith in a God who as the prophet says “will love us freely” no matter the circumstances.

~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Homily - 3rd Sunday of Lent-2020

Fr. Joel Macul, OSB gave the homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent this morning.

Exodus 17:3–7
Romans 5:1–2, 5–8
John 4:5–42

On this third Sunday of Lent we are dealing with some common themes in our lives: tiredness and complaining or murmuring. On another level it is the theme of being thirsty. If we listen closely to the story of the community in the desert, we hear that they are giving leadership a hard time. They are thirsty and feel they are going to die. Yes, they left Egypt, they got out of slavery but what is happening to them now is worse than the past. Caught in their present needs, the community has forgotten the real meaning of freedom from slavery. It almost sounds as if life in Egypt was better….. In the story, the people grumble, complain to Moses and to God. Take care of us! Give us water! In the story, we hear how God provided water from the impossible. He provided it from the rock, something hard. The Lord God met the demands of the community. But at the same time we get a picture of a community that seems to lack trust in the Lord. Thrown into that is a sense of entitlement, and of wanting something here and now.

What is the source of grumbling? Somehow it is found in a lack of confidence, lack of trust. It is found when we lose sight of our purpose, our being or our goal. When we forget what we are doing here or where our life’s journey is leading us, we tend to look at situations in a negative way. The community of Israel had been crying out for liberation and freedom from oppression. God heard the plea and answered. He sets them free. Now he was to lead them across a desert to the Promised Land, a new home for their being community. Somehow the people were only interested in the moment: Get us out of Egypt. They did not know that freedom had implications. Getting out was only the beginning. Their life was to be a journey through the harshness of an arid wilderness. They would have to continue to trust in the God who loved them enough to set them free. They would have to trust him for the necessities of life, like water.

The community is very practical. What they are complaining about is real enough. No water and we are dead. But you can hear an overtone of demand, of regret and lack of trust. The journey of life demands water. But water is not something you and I can make. It is something offered to us. When we discover it, we have the responsibility to care for it, to keep it clean and keep it around. What is most needed for life, and there is no life without water, always remains a gift. Its presence in a physical or spiritual way demands a response of gratitude.

In the Gospel story we find Jesus tired and thirsty in the middle of the day. He comes to a well, a cistern expecting to find water. Jesus, too, needed water. He was tired from the journey. But what does he find? Instead of finding a welcoming host, he finds a woman who seems to question everything. I’d say he finds a thirsty woman: Her living condition demands she keeps coming out to the well for water; her marital condition indicates that her relationships are not normal or acceptable; she is a Samaritan woman–not one of us. Following cultural tradition, she should not be talking to a male Jew. So we find racism, tribalism and sexism all in one. We find that religious questions have created tensions between her community and the Jews. I’d say Jesus finds a thirsty woman. Surely she is not a complainer, but she is locked into a system that keeps her longing for something of freedom, for something that can truly satisfy her longing: for the necessities of life: water; her sexual desires; a healthy relationship; a longing for God who exists in spirit and truth.

The woman is really a reflection of our own needs as we journey through life. Many of us can feel tired. We keep coming for water but never seem to get enough. We look for relationships, but how often they are turned into a format for domination and control. And how often we Christians fight among ourselves about what is the true and authentic way to worship our one Father. We long and thirst for so much. We complain when we do not find it. Or we lose courage; we lose the way or find something else to drink. We give ourselves to relationships but without commitment or bonds of love.

This is the Sunday to listen to the longings of our heart. They are many, they are great. They are also real and practical. But today is also the Sunday of the good news that Jesus is the one whom God has sent to meet us in our tiredness, in our moment of thirst. He is the one the woman found at the well. Maybe he is the one sitting there each time we need water of some kind. Maybe he is there thirsting for us, longing to offer us the life that flows from within. We look to fill up our needs by pouring in something from the outside. But Jesus is there to say, I will fill your life from the inside out. A relationship with me will quench the frustration of all others. It will make the journey of life truly a life-giving one.

This Sunday invites us to be honest about our longings. The community of Israel was very honest about what it wanted. The Samaritan woman was also honest with Jesus about her needs. We may be tired, discouraged; we many have lost something of the meaning and purpose of our life. But this is the Sunday that we look up and see Jesus. He is sitting there and offering something sweet and wonderful. Will we be as courageous as the woman of Samaria? She kept talking to Jesus until she realized that he was the one she had been thirsting, longing for. Let us be in conversation with Jesus long enough for us to know that he is the water of life, he is the Messiah, he is the Prophet; he is the Savior of the world.

~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Homily - 1st Sunday of Lent-2020

Fr. Thomas Leitner shared his homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent. Click below for the video:

Mt 4:1-11
Gen 2:7-9;3:1-7
Rom 5:12-19

Focus: Through the redemption in Jesus Christ, we have found anew community with God.
Function: Nevertheless, temptation and sin are still a reality in our lives and need to be confronted.

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

In his Rule for monks, the founder of our order, St. Benedict, enjoins on the novice master to pay attention to the following in a person who is interested in joining the monastery. Quote: “The concern must be whether the novice truly seeks God, and whether he shows eagerness for the Work of God [the Liturgy of the Hours, the daily prayer times], for obedience, and for trials. Benedict wrote his Rule in Latin. The Latin word for obedience, obedientia, is related to the word audire, which means hearing. Is he ready and willing to listen to God in prayer and to listen to the abbot, the prior and the other monks, to what they have to say? – Trials, this word stands for readiness to do simple and menial work and for readiness to accept correction. Whether he seeks God…This points us the central topic of the Season of Lent: Seeking God.

Today’s first reading tells us about the creation of the first human from clay and divine Spirit, about the dwelling of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and about their expulsion from there as a consequence of sin. The intention of the Biblical author apparently is to address questions and problems of human life: Why is there so much suffering among humans and finally death? The answer: God doesn’t want death; human beings themselves choose death by turning away from God, the source of life.

Today’s gospel presents us with the person of Jesus. For forty days, Jesus was tempted, that is, examined, tested, by the devil in the desert. Adam had given in to the temptation. The people of Israel were tested by God himself in the desert and didn’t pass the test. So they had to stay there for forty years. Jesus, however, did not succumb to the temptations. He was completely human and experienced the human hunger for wealth, for honor and for power and for influence over people. But he withstood—with the mighty help of God’s word.

Finally, in today’s second reading, St. Paul explains to the Christians in Rome the new era that has begun for us in Jesus Christ. The disobedience of Adam lead to death, the obedience of Christ has opened for all the way to life, to lasting communion with God.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, Through our redemption in Jesus Christ, we have found new communion with God. Nevertheless, temptation and sin are still a reality in our lives and need to be confronted.

We stand at the beginning of Lent. St. Benedict wrote, “our life should be a continuous Lent.” Since few, however, have the strength for this he urges the monks and all of us “to wash away in this holy season the negligence of other times” (RB 49:1-3). Lent is a time of cleansing, a time of leaving behind bad and sinful habitsand of training good habits that make us freer to serve God and other people. A good confession can help us to evaluate our lives before God,and to make corrections wherever needed.

“One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” What are our ways of receiving nourishment through God’s word? Would it be a good idea for us to set aside a little time every day during Lent and to read Holy Scripture, for instance, the Gospel of Matthew, from which the Sunday gospels are taken during this liturgical year? Are we able to attend daily mass sometimes during Lent?

Lent is a time of fasting, of restraint in food and drink and in other areas. But in a certain sense also a time of joyous feasting. Here are some more ideas for Lenten fasting and feasting:

Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ dwelling within you.
Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from anger; feast on patience. Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.
Fast from worry; feast on Divine order. Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.
Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from discouragement; feast on hope.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.

Good choices like these during Lent and beyond will help us to turn to God, to seek God. Proper fasting and feasting during Lent help us to become open to God, and, in order to use St. Benedict’s words again, “to expect … Easter in the joy of the Holy Spirit.”

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

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