Homily - Fr. Joel - 07/26/2020

Fr. Joel’s Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1 Kings 3:5, 1–12
Romans 8:28–30
Matthew 13:44–52

Can you imagine if God appeared to you in a dream and made you an offer: “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” —What would you ask for? What will your response say about your deepest desire or need? These days our response might be different than it would have been a few months ago. We might ask for an end to this pandemic, some might say for our country, some might say for our world. For someone struggling with a job, the focus might be on employment or more money to get through. We might ask for cure for people we know with the pandemic. Some might simply ask for things to get back to normal. Others might look at another aspect of our lives these days and ask for a way forward out of our racism. These might be asking not for something material but for a change of heart, a new vision of the human person, for humility.

Today we hear Solomon’s answer to God’s offer: “Ask something of me and I will give it.” His response reflects his current situation–he is young and finds himself in leadership. He is looking ahead to the future. What will he need? His response includes the admission that “I do not know how to act.”  These days, when the overall situation of our lives is unsettled and uncertain, we can easily see ourselves saying the same thing. I am not sure what to do? I am treading in ways that are partially uncertain. We can join Solomon in asking “Give us an understanding heart….give us wisdom because we are very fragile at the moment.”

Solomon is the classical wisdom figure of the Bible. He and wisdom go hand in hand. It is important to remember that it was a gift to him from the Lord. It was not something he created on his own. His honest assessment of his situation led him to ask for it. His honesty was met with the gift of an understanding heart and wisdom. We would do well to do more than admire Solomon. We would do well to pray for an understanding heart and wisdom for ourselves. Some might even go further and ask for leadership to be given wisdom and an understanding heart–—leaders in our Church, leaders in our civil and political society, leaders in the business and economic forum.

Solomon was looking toward the future. And God responded by giving him what was needed for the future: a heart of understanding and wisdom. When God gives gifts for the future it not material wealth, long life, power over people, victory over opposition, success. What God gives is something for the heart. God’s gift for the human heart will reflect his own heart—a heart that seeks to understand, a heart that has a profound knowledge and love of others and wants to support them, a heart for justice and truth, a heart that seeks to bring humanity together, a heart that knows what is the good in the hearts of others. We hear that echoed today in Paul when he says that those whose hearts are set on God will be working to bring the good that is there out into the open. This working for goodness, he says, was God’s plan from the beginning. Receiving wisdom is becoming a partner in that plan to weave all things into his glory.

Jesus’ parables offer us two images of what wisdom looks like. Wisdom is a treasure, hidden, waiting to be found. Wisdom is like a pearl waiting for us to buy it. The activity in the parables is the activity of a person readying themselves for wisdom. You search for it seek it and you find it….sometimes it is hidden at first, sometimes it jumps out at you. And when it appears you do all you can to get hold of it and you don’t let it go. And when you find this wisdom and understanding, she will become your joy. (See Sirach 6:27–28).

In the well-known parables, we find wisdom is life in the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not so much a territory or place, a situation of power, but a way of life, the way God has put in front of us….Some might understand the treasure and the pearl as Christ himself. For him, we will give up everything to become part of him. Or as Paul puts it today, committing oneself to the treasure is a way of conforming yourself to the image of God’s Son. Christ is the pearl which I buy not to possess it but to be possessed by him in joy.

Wisdom is a gift, a treasure I discover and pearl I find. Wonderful! But once in front of me, there is something I must do. I must acquire what I have found—this wisdom, this treasure of the Kingdom. But to acquire or buy, I must first sell. I must look at what has been there, the old that Jesus speaks about. And some of those old needs, beliefs and behaviors have to be set aside. These old parts of myself would hold me back from entering fully into the new that I have discovered and are working toward accepting. I need to see them off, I need to lose them. Only then will the new become a joy and will the work of conforming myself into the image of Christ take hold.

It is quite possible that our experience of the pandemic will call up the gift of wisdom. The pandemic, for all the upsetting it causes, may reveal another layer of our humanity that seeks to be found. The way forward may mean letting go of that old that has not been working for the good. It may well be that we will become more aware of our shared humanity as a real treasure to be held and loved and cared for. We may discover that what we walked over and disregarded, whether it be mother earth or the stories of fellow humans, contains pearls beyond price.

Each of us still in the process of seeking, selling and buying. The gospel affirms us in this process for it is a process that comes from an understanding heart. It will mean walking with old and new. And its goal will—a humanity conformed to the image of Christ. He, we believe, is the first born of a new family of many brothers and sisters—the treasure that our God saw and knew from the beginning.

 

Canterbury Chalice - by Fr. Adam

In 2017 I was blessed to have a sabbatical to study Spiritual Direction in England.

Specifically in Canterbury.  Canterbury is the place that St. Augustine chose to settle his mission to bring Christianity to the Pagan Kingdom of Kent in the 7th Century.  It later became famous as the pilgrimage place following the martyrdom of Thomas Becket.  Until the reformation there were at least two Benedictine Monasteries of Men in Canterbury: Christ Church Priory (Cathedral), and St. Augustine’s Abbey (outside the wall of the city).  The place was home to many saints, among them  St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Mellitus, and St. Thomas Becket.

This chalice set was given to me for my 25th anniversary of ordination by the Reverend David Lord and his wife Lyn.  David is an Anglican priest who studied spiritual direction with me.  He lives and ministers in Perth, Western Australia.  David and Lyn flew all the way from Australia to celebrate my jubilee at our Abbey of Muensterschwarzach.  The chalice set is decorated with the Canterbury cross.  It is designed after a Saxon brooch dating from around 850 that was found in Canterbury in 1867.

My time in Canterbury was very rewarding and I feel I came away with some great insights into my own spiritual path, and with tools to accompany others on their spiritual journeys.  For this reason, and because of the deep Benedictine roots, I feel quite bonded to the place and to people who walked with me, people like David.  This special gift is a symbol of that bond, of our Ecumenical relationship, and  especially our bond in the Eucharist.

“That in all things God my be glorified!”

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2020

Holy Mass with celebrant Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Mt 13:24-30  
Wis 12:13.16-19   
Rom 8:26-27

Focus: God is patient with us.

Function: We, too, are summoned to be patient with ourselves and others and to leave the final judgment up to God.

Dear sisters and brothers in the faith, it has often been said that we live in a fast-paced age – of fast food and of fulfilling many of our wishes and needs with a few mouse clicks.  While online shopping has even increased, understandably so, during this pandemic, many people are telling me that their life’s pace overall has become slower again.  They do their own cooking at home; they are giving more time to the people with whom they live; they spend more time in nature.  Even here in the monastery we feel this difference. I am devoting more time to prayer, to reading and to my brother monks. This pandemic is an opportunity to learn anew a slower pace, to lean waiting – and to practice patience.

We might say that there is a place for impatience at times, too, and this is true.  When it comes to injustice in society, for example, impatience with unjust structures and practices can be a good thing.  Sometimes we have to protest. At times we have to take a stand in favor of human rights and the dignity of every human person.

Because of this human dignity, because God is never done with any of us until we die, such righteous impatience must be combined with patience, however, in our various human relationships. St. Benedict says in his Rule, the monks are meant “to accept one another’s frailties of body and soul with greatest patience.” (RB 72:5)

The Scripture texts of today’s liturgy speak to us about the patience of God:  “Though you are master of might,” the book of Wisdom’s author says to God,“you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us.”  Instead of condemning people who sin, God grants them opportunities again and again  and again  to repent of the sins they have committed.”

The scandal of God’s patience with wrongdoers appears also in the gospel.  The kingdom of heaven is compared to a farmer who has a serious problem:  His wheat is growing on his field, but there is also a poisonous weed, darnel by name, which can only be distinguished from the wheat when both plants are already tall.  While his servants want to root out the weeds, he tells them to leave them alone, because uprooting the weeds will endanger the wheat.

At the final harvest they will be separated.

My sisters and brothers, God is patient also with us. We, too, are summoned to be patient with ourselves   and others   and to leave the final judgment up to God.

Jesus lived the message of his parable. He made it his task to seek out and to save the lost. The Pharisees, whose name means “the Separated Ones” criticized him for socializing with people whom they considered to be impure and sinners.  However, Jesus knew that good and bad exist in every person and that it is wrong to label a person as a whole as bad.

This encourages each of us personally to trust that there is “good ground for hope,” that we ourselves and others can work at our weakness of body and soul and overcome them.

What today’s Scriptures are telling us is a call in the Church to believe in a person’s ability to change and to repent, even if our relationship with some folks appears to be very stuck!

This message is for us as citizens of the country, among other things, also an argument against the death penalty, for it equals a premature “weeding out” of people. In May 2018, Pope Francis changed the text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in regard of the death penalty. It now reads, “The death penalty is [always] inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” (CCC 2267)   “More effective systems of detention have been developed,” the Catechism continues, “which ensure the due protection of citizens    but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”  This chance and possibility of redemption, of repentance and reform even for hardened criminals come out very clearly in the book and movie Dead Man Walking, by Sr. Helen Prejean. Patrick Sonnier, whom she accompanied to death row, did find God. He started to pray, to read the Bible; and he truly repented of his very heinous crimes.

Let us pray this morning for firm confidence in God’s lenience toward us.  That’s the good news of this gospel: God is patient with us.  And that’s the challenge: We are also called upon to be patient.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

4th of July - 2020

Isaiah 57:15–19
Philippians 4:6–9
John 14:23–29

The word we have just heard at the Eucharist on Independence Day has a clear theme—peace. Each text from the Word has highlighted that word and that reality. A word check of the Declaration of Independence, whose promulgation 244 years ago today we recall, contains the word “peace” three times. Each time it is paired with war or a metaphor for war. Needless to say, the peace we wish to remember today at the Eucharist has another meaning. And yet, we know that the classical phrases from the Declaration that quickly come to mind “that all men are created equal” “that they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights” and that among these are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are in reality a clear recognition of and constituent of the peace of which we in the Judeo-Christian community know so well and stand firm in in hope.

We gather today in 2020 with the words of the Prophet, Paul and Jesus and with the words of the Declaration, and we know that in some way we have yet to believe them and allow them to work a transformation in our lives and in the country or polis in which we find ourselves. With the corona pandemic, with the racial injustice and the violence it has stirred, with the uneasiness of some, if not many, government policies, and with difficulty in naming the common good, we are well aware that the human vision of the nation and the Gospel hope of peace, combined as always with justice, is still something we work for. Perhaps Independence Day 2020 is a time to recall what are the essentials that hold us together.

For us who hear the words of the Gospel, it will always be Jesus and the Kingdom that will guide us in giving shape to a peace that holds all together. For us, the Risen Lord will always be the source of unity created from the richness of diversity. And also, we will stand firm in knowing that any fragment or face of peace, justice and unity is above all a gift: “My peace I give to you.” We can declare that we want peace, but it can only come about by recognizing that it is held out to us as a gift from the one who can bind us into one Body, one people. True wholeness and peace can only happen when we are joined to the source of that peace, unity and shalom.

St. Paul today asks us to consider and think about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, gracious and has excellence about it. We can safely say that in the classical words we know from the Declaration, we have heard something that is true, just, lovely and gracious. Where we can recognize any of that in human words and hope, then traces of peace are to be found. The words of the Prophet and Jesus about peace are lifted up and are carried down to our own times that we may live by them and know that in our relationship with Jesus they can become true. True peace is found within a relationship with God who, as the prophet says, is as much on high as he is with the crushed and dejected in spirit. It is found in the relationship with Jesus whose word contains his love for us. Being faithful to his word will keep us in peace.

And should human society falter and forget what is beautiful, just, gracious and true, then we are the ones who hold up again the banner that says they are still here: we are created in God’s image and in that is our equality in diversity; we are created for life, which flows from God and is found in our relationships with others; we are created for freedom—a freedom that unbinds us from any kind of slavery and restores us to a dignity that comes from within, from the Spirit implanted in our hearts.

We rightly give thanks today for any trace of God’s Kingdom and justice that the human heart has recognized and spoken about. We also want to remain firm in that longing for justice and authentic freedom which we believe is truly the goal of humanity. May the Word that speaks to us today of peace challenge us into pursuing it as the psalmist says and St. Benedict confirms. And may we again declare that Christ is the light that guides our feet into way of peace.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB


12th Sunday in Ordinary Time-2020

Jeremiah 20:10-13
Romans 5:12–15
Matthew 10:26–33

The word we have heard today is rather ominous in its tone. Jeremiah hears words of personal attack against him. He is being persecuted for what he has said. Paul brings us back to the origins of humanity when he speaks of sin and death entering the world and affecting all humanity. And Jesus speaks to his disciples about those who can kill both body and soul. Like Jeremiah, Jesus’ disciples know the fear of persecution for speaking the truth about the Kingdom.

But the lament of Jeremiah, the death humanity finds itself in and the fear of Jesus’ disciples in the face of persecution, are also balanced by words of trust in God and a promise of God’s commitment to those who are faithful. Particularly difficult moments and moments of fear are not the last word no matter how ominous the situation is whether it is Jeremiah, Jesus or Jesus’ followers or humanity itself.

As we listen to Jeremiah today we find him and Israel in one of the most difficult moments of Israel’s history. Jeremiah had a hard message to give and often did it with symbolic actions. He has just bought a clay jar and was told to bring the elders and priests along with him and the clay jar outside the city to the city garbage dump. There he smashed the clay pot to pieces and told the gathering that was what was to happen to them. The superpower of the day, Babylon, was coming and was to smash the city and temple down and take off the ruling elite and priests into exile. No one wanted to hear that. The authorities refused to listen to such language. So the temple police chief decided to put Jeremiah in the stocks for a while. Eventually he released him. But the event traumatized Jeremiah and we find him today hearing the voices around him that plan to shut him up, to make sure that his words do not prevail. He has been saying that their world will collapse and they with it. They don’t want to hear that. For it means that their special category of God’s people is also broken. As indeed it is. They have in reality broken the covenant. But who likes to be told that their way is no longer God’s way, that God is moving out on them. But such was Jeremiah’s ministry as a prophet: to say what others think is unspeakable. To say that our world is not just changing, but it is passing and won’t be the same. In the language of today, what you may have experienced as normal will not come back. Jeremiah lives at that critical turning point when the familiar is to be taken away and the future can only be seen through God’s eyes.

But Jeremiah shares with us more than the voices of threat and terror that he hears. In the midst of cries looking for vengeance, he sees God who will champion him, who will not let those who refuse to heed and believe his words triumph. We hear him affirm that he has entrusted himself to this champion God and he will leave his case with him. On the human side, Jeremiah is surrounded by voices tearing him down. But in the depths of his heart, he finds words to stand firm in the Holy One of Israel. His stand in the covenantal faith is such that he commits himself to the one who sides with the poor in the midst of being set upon. Jeremiah may lament his experience and perhaps put his hands over his ears so he doesn’t hear whisperings against him. But Jeremiah opens his mouth to speak to God and entrust himself totally into his hands. He cries out for justice but not on his terms, rather on God’s. The world that he and the people know may be coming to an end, but what does not come to an end is the God who knows his heart and knows his faithfulness. The exterior world may collapse but his God knows the inner word of mind and heart. This is where God has spoken to him and from this inner world Jeremiah can call out for justice. We may find it strange but in the midst of a threat on Jeremiah’s life, he can find reason to praise the Lord. His heart is in the covenant God makes with those who are faithful and never cease listening to his word.

Jesus seems to anticipate that his followers may find themselves in a situation where their lives are threatened because they act and speak from a perspective different from the prevailing world, society and culture. He senses their fear. Three times he tells the Twelve: Fear no one, do not be afraid. Jesus knows the crippling power of fear in the face of the unknown, in the face of things falling apart, in the face of losing grip on what is normal. It would be easy to succumb to fear. But Jesus says no. You stand in a new world now, a gracious gift from the Father. Speak about it; let the vision of the Kingdom be heard. Do not be afraid of the truth. It might be painful to hear, like the story of our original sin of racism and slavery. It may be hard to bear, but hiding it and pretending it is not there is only shoring up a world that is distant from the one the Father wants for us his children.

We have a new value system. You think that sparrows are only worth a dime a dozen. You count them in monetary terms. But the Father doesn’t see how cheap they are. What he sees is each time one falls. That touches him. He is moved when a common bird falls. And so does it touch him when any of his children lose just one hair on their head. That is the new value system you stand in—one of caring for the least as though it mattered the most. Why should you fear when you are linked forever in love to one who notices even a thread of your hair.

Jesus asks his followers to stand in the everlasting love that cares for what looks common but is very dear. If we stand in the conviction, in the faith, that our God is such a one who cares for the ordinary, then we can stand without fear in a world that is shifting—a world perhaps that doesn’t want to admit its fear.  But even more, we can even glimpse at what the new world will stand on:

the same fidelity toward the poor,

the truth that breaks open darkness for healing to burst forth,

the mercy that forgoes self-justifying justice,

the love that embraces hearts and minds that both need love

and recognize it when our God touches them ever so gently in a harsh world.

To speak about that world there is no need to fear for the power in such world is transformative and gives life. In that world all lives matter, the common sparrow and each human being.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Corpus Christi Sunday-2020

Jn 6:51-58  Dt 8:2-3.14-16  1 Cor 10:16-17

 Focus: God guides and sustains us on the various journeys of our life.

Function: We are called to pay attention to God’s presence and God’s gifts in our lives.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, 0. a. During a directed retreat, I often invite the retreatant to an exercise called “My Spiritual Autobiography.” The retreatant hears the Scriptural message: “I am wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.  God is ever present in my life and has always been there for me, even when I didn’t realize it.”

Then the retreatant writes down significant events from his/her birth until the present.  Out of these they select one event. They remember the time, and in their imagination enter into the scene. The feelings they recall may not all be positive ones.  Yet they still can ask themselves in prayer: How has God been at work in this situation?  This can be repeated for one or two more scenes.  Remembering the way God has worked in our lives can help us to note God’s presence in the now, to appreciate it, and to experience it anew.

In today’s first reading Moses calls upon the people of Israel to remember.  At the end of their 40 years journey through the desert, Moses tells them to look back. “Remember how…the Lord, your God has directed all your journeying.”   Traveling through the desert, was troublesome: there was hunger and thirst; there were poisonous snakes and scorpions… Yet God, who had led the people out of the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, provided manna for food and water from the flinty rock.

Plus, God guided and strengthened the people by God’s word. They did not live by manna, quail and water alone, but by every word that came forth from the mouth of God.

And now as the people enter into the Promised Land, they can expect a better life.  As prosperity takes the place of want, they are called to continue to remember and not to forget their God:  God’s providential care for them, the guidance, the strength, and the challenge that comes from God.

There are so many gifts that we, too, receive from God. God’s greatest gift to us is his Son Jesus. It was Jesus’ mission to make visible and tangible God’s great love and care for all people. In his ministry he poured himself out for others. Especially he turned to the poor and to those treated unjustly in the society of his time.  This ultimately led to his death on the cross. At the last supper before his passion he gave his original disciples and us today the memorial and the sacrament of his love:  He became the bread that strengthens us on our life’s journey and that stills our deepest hunger.

We celebrate today the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  We are being reminded of our deepest truth, namely that in eating the Eucharistic bread and in drinking the cup of blessing we become one with him.   We are being transformed by him.  We receive life from him.  We are invited to imitate him in his self-giving.  And by him we are being united among each other, in spite of all our differences, into one body, into communion, for we all partake in one loaf.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, God guides and sustains us on the various journeys of our life.  We are called to pay attention to God’s presence and God’s manifold gifts in our lives.

It would be a good idea to spend a little time today with recalling our own personal history of salvation. Which events, joyful or more difficult, stand out for me as moments in which God cared for me, strengthen me, bestowed gifts upon me, me guided me, or challenged me?

In a preeminent way God nourishes and strengthens us at the Eucharist.  This happens, on the one hand, the table of the word. We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. The 2nd Vatican Council said:  “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of the Lord.” [Constitution on Divine Revelation 21] God’s word is food for the journey. This time of pandemic is an invitation for all of us to feed at the table of God’s word.

On the other hand, there is the table of the Eucharist. Those who are not able yet at this point to attend Mass in person are invited to an act of spiritual communion.  When Holy Communion is being distributed for those physically present those who watch at home can unite themselves spiritually with Christ in the Eucharist.

Unified by Christ at the Eucharist in one body we are invited to build unity actively in our world. The racial tensions in our country, including the violence in which they also expressed themselves, have brought to our attention anew how important it is to take new steps in this regard, like giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, paying more attention to commonalities then to differences, noticing our prejudices and generalizations, making cross racial friends… These are just a few examples of how we can build unity actively.

Let me conclude with a prayer by the late Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr:  "O God of so much giving, my true life is all around me and within me. Life surrounds me and embraces me. Open the windows of my eyes.  Take away the veil that prevents me from seeing the simple treasures [your gifts] that are in my reach." [The Flowing Grace of Now]   AMEN.

    ~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

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

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