Feast of St. Matthias - May 14th, 2022

Acts1:15–17, 23–26
John 15:9–17

There are a number of definitions of Church. Some of the more common ones are the Body of Christ, the People of God and the Christian community. You may have your own favorite definition or image that tries to capture who we are. But who would think right away that the Church is the friends of Jesus? And yet that how Jesus understands the group of disciples at the table with him. His relationship with them is a relationship that falls into the human category of friends. The customary relationship between a higher and a lower was master and servant or slave. But Jesus will not allow that structure from society to enter into the room. Instead, he speaks of his disciples as friends.

There are at least three signs of the friendship that Jesus extends to his disciples. One is that there are no secrets. How can this be? It is simply because Jesus’ experience of friendship is based on the relationship he has with the Father. Jesus tells us over and over again that he does not speak on his own, he speaks what the Father speaks. Jesus holds nothing back from us, his friends, either. He has shared everything with us. This ‘no secrets’ implies a certain knowledge and intimacy. If we are the friends of Jesus, it is not a casual relationship. It is grounded in openness, in listening and in passing on what we have come to hear him say in our day. It is not ourselves we talk about but always what he is saying.

At the heart of being friends with Jesus is that he lays down his life for his friends. This is more than a euphemism for his dying or the cross. It is the heart, the mission of Jesus. It is the depths of love and being loved. If the expression laying down his life for his friends is a euphemism for anything, it is love.  It is the epitome of covenantal fidelity. Jesus surrounds his words today with the commandment to love one another. Put this in other words and it is the command to lay down your lives for one another. For that is what the love commandment entails.

We become a church, a community, to the extent that we accept Jesus as loving us. We might think we chose to love. Actually, when you think about it, human beings chose very little. But we bring our being loved to the situations that are not of our making. Our faith is based on responding to the experience of being loved. Jesus can call us his friends because we have accepted that he loves us. And in accepting that, we are accepting that his Father loves us. Jesus tells us his friends we did not choose him, he chose us. We are the object of his love. How can Jesus love us? Because, as he says, he knows he has been loved since before the foundation of the world. In other words, he has always been loved.

Jesus choosing us, Jesus loving us, is not because of what we do or say. It is really all gift. Our recognition that it is gift, that God in Jesus has set his face on us is that we take being loved and turn it into loving one another. Knowing and believing we are loved transforms us into people, a community, that lays down our lives for one another. And that is the third dimension of being chosen as the friends of Jesus. Our lives bear fruit, as Jesus, says in service. This service is our sacrificial love, this loving for love’s sake.

The Apostle Matthias we remember today is probably seen simply as a replacement to complete the number 12. But the story of the way he is chosen and Jesus speaking of our being chosen offers another perspective. It is clear in the prayer of the community that as much as they might cast lots, it is God who is choosing. The name Matthias means Gift of God, Gift of the Lord. Our being loved is above all a gift. It is in acknowledging the gift that we begin to become community, friends of Jesus, and bear fruit in a world that struggles in believing it is loved.

~Prior, Fr. Joel

4th Sunday of Easter - 2022

Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB - celebrant

Acts 13:14, 43–52
Revelation 7:9, 14b–17
John 10:27–30

It is only three verses of Jesus that we are given on this Good Shepherd Sunday. These three verses place before us the image of Jesus as Shepherd. So does the reading from Revelation, which speaks of the Lamb Jesus shepherding the faithful and leading them to springs of life-giving water. The image of Jesus as the shepherd is one of the first, if not the first image of Jesus that is depicted in art of some kind. This representation of Jesus is seen even before the crucifix. The image of Jesus carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders may be found in the catacombs of Rome. There we also sometimes see a touch of green in the background to hint at the green pastures of Psalm 23. Surely it is meant to be an image of hope for the community as they lay their dead members to rest. Jesus carries us into the restored paradise, the newly opened garden.

Today Jesus draws our attention to one particular aspect of shepherding, namely the shepherd’s voice. This may strike those of us not familiar with the relationship between sheep and shepherd as a bit different from our usual consoling thoughts of a shepherd’s care. Recently I came across this scenario that might give an insight to the voice of the shepherd. In the state of Gujarat in western India, many shepherds gather their various flocks together at night in one place. This lets the shepherds share night watches and more easily protect the sheep. At daybreak, each shepherd calls his sheep to take them out for watering and then move on. The call of each shepherd is different. When the sheep hear it, they disentangle themselves from the flock and follow the voice of their own shepherd. Now, we should know that sometimes there are as many as 5000 sheep gathered together with the different shepherds. Each shepherd is so familiar with his own sheep and they with him that when the sheep answer his voice, the shepherd can recognize who is weak and who is straggling….It is clear that Jesus wants to put this relationship between shepherd and sheep mediated by the simple voice in front of us today.

The sound of the human voice calling out a name is both powerful and intimate. When we human beings call out to one another by name we are giving voice to a relationship that can send a message of hope and life. We are recognizing another for who they are; we acknowledge them. It is all a whisper of how we came into being in the first place. God spoke and said let us make man and woman in our image. And so it was. A word called us to life; a word called us forth from dust to be the crown of all that the word of God brought into being. Think of Mary Magdalene in the Easter Garden. She was disconsolate at the loss of Jesus and his very body. But Jesus speaks a most personal word to her, “Mary” and she responds right away with recognition, “My Teacher”. Then new life comes to Mary in this simple voice of Jesus. It does not take many words to say a name, to allow another person’s identity to come forward.
Today Jesus is talking about the community of his disciples. He speaks and they respond to his word. In that speaking, he is saying he knows them; there is a relationship between him and the community. It is not a knowing of information, of some detail or fact that he knows; it is a knowing of their hearts. And the community knows him in return. Like Mary Magdalene. We know who it is that is speaking to us. It is not a stranger. It is Jesus.

The relationship of shepherd and sheep that Jesus puts before us today is not about him and some ‘dumb sheep.’ No it is a relationship of reciprocity. Jesus knows the sheep, Jesus knows us and we in turn know him. This bond is as intimate as a husband and wife who have been faithful to one another for years. It has the steadfastness of friends that lasts for decades. Think of human bonds that are faithful in caring, in walking with you no matter what, that listen to one another for hours, that sit in silence and know the oneness between them. That says Jesus is what is happening between him and those who know his voice.
What are we doing at every Eucharist? We are here because we know his voice. We come here, we gather to hear it again and again. His voice feeds us. Yes, we need a sense of direction and we need his voice so as not to get lost, discouraged or burdened by guilt. The voice of the shepherd Jesus is not a shaming voice that beats us down, not a discouraging voice. Jesus’ voice is drawing us together from our various side trips, our solitary wandering and detours. We know Jesus’ voice and we need to hear him. His voice is essential for us. Today we hear many voices, in fact often a cacophony, all clambering for our attention. So we come here because the voice our Shepherd is trustworthy and grounds us. It keeps each of joined together lest we scatter or worse, lest we use words to divide us. Jesus is the familiar voice that summons us back to our common vision, our common hope for life and for the world. Jesus’ words call us back to the Kingdom of God, that network of relationships that binds us together as people of God, that being together where love never ends.

Jesus voice today assures us in strong language, that his relationship with us and ours with him will not allow us to fall out of his hand or the hand of God. They are holding on to us as perhaps we once did with a child or a younger sibling. We held on to a child lest they get lost, so they would not be afraid. And they trusted us. Once we say yes to the voice of our shepherd, his hand reaches out to us, we grasp it and from that moment on the Father and his Shepherd Son will not let us fall.
The power of the Word keeps calling out to us and so we gather; we and all whom the Shepherd led to the waters of baptism. And once gathered we acknowledge the one voice that reaches out to us. We are fed on that word. With the Shepherd’s voice sounding in our ears we can leave here to pasture awhile in this life. But we leave believing that there is always a hand that will not let us go but will be faithful to us until the Father reaches out to wipe away the last tear of this world’s suffering and pain.

The Shepherd is risen, alleluia.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Thursday of the 3rd Week of Easter

Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB - celebrant

Acts 8:26–40
John 6:44–51

Sometimes we are told by concerned people not to pick up strangers and hitchhikers along the road. This could lead to trouble. It seems the Spirit today overrides such a concern for safety. Instead, the Spirit moves the deacon Philip to get out on the road, to be on the way and make himself visible to a traveler in a vehicle. And then, the Spirit moves the stranger, the eunuch from an exotic land, to invite the stranger running along the road into his chariot. And breaking all protocol of being cautious about the stranger actually asks him for advice about what he is reading.

What is Luke calling our attention to in this unique story about two people on the road? Remember that yesterday we read how deacon Philip went to proclaim the gospel in Samaria. It was welcomed and brought joy to the Samaritans. Today, deacon Philip is reaching out to a eunuch from a distant country. In both cases we are being told that the Spirit is working among the marginalized people of Israel. The Samaritans are sort of half-breed Jews; because their bodies were maimed eunuchs were not allowed to fully participate in the assembly or temple. Yet the Risen Jesus is restoring Israel, creating it anew, fulfilling its purpose. Those on the edges are being received into the community the Servant of God, Jesus, is calling together. Subtly the Spirit is bringing the words of the same prophet Isaiah that the eunuch is reading to fulfillment. For it is the prophet Isaiah that speaks of eunuchs having a place in worship in the restored Israel. It is Isaiah among others that speaks of people coming from Ethiopia to the New Jerusalem. And it is Isaiah who speaks of the suffering servant who brings all this about in his silence and humiliation. The eunuch is reading the prophet whose words become real in Jesus. The suffering and risen Jesus brings to reality what the prophet spoke and saw. The apparent stranger along the road helps the foreign visitor to Jerusalem to make the connection. Deacon Philip is doing with the eunuch what the Risen Lord once did for two downcast disciples walking on the road away from Jerusalem. He is breaking open the Scriptures so that the Servant and the Lamb are revealed.

Before Luke can reveal to us the Risen Lord’s call to the gentile world through the call of Paul and the experience of Peter and Cornelius in the next two chapters, he wants to bring into the community the fragments of scattered Israel. It is the Scriptures that are the key to this coming together. The result, we hear, is joy and rejoicing.

The response of the eunuch upon making the connection that Philip points out is simple: What prevents me from being baptized? What is preventing me from joining God’s suffering servant and rising with him out of the waters? Philip and the eunuch together go into the water for baptism.

We could ask ourselves when we see the connection between the Scriptures and who Jesus is and the potential for our lives, what holds us back from our dying to self so that we can truly live from the center of our being? What holds us back as individuals and community from accepting that the love that pulled Jesus out of death is still working to embrace myself and all God’s children, even those parts of myself that I have pushed back out sight over the years? Or am I afraid to let someone else, even a stranger, instruct me and help me read the Scriptures and my life?

Moments for letting go and allowing myself to be taught, to understand and to love again can appear anywhere along the road I am traveling. These moments are like the water the eunuch saw from his chariot and chose to plunge into with joy. These are moments when the Spirit is working. May we not be afraid of the guides who help us to find new meaning in our lives.

Easter Vigil - 2022

Part 1

Part 2

Romans 6:3–11
Luke 24:1–12

What are we doing here these very late hours of the night or early morning? The two men in dazzlingly garments we just met in the tomb tell us what we ought to be doing. We ought to be remembering. They tell the puzzled women in the tomb to remember what you have been told: Remember what Jesus told you about his suffering, his crucifixion, and the promise of his rising on the third day. That process of suffering, dying and rising, that is what we are to remember–we call it the paschal mystery. Our gathering in these early morning hours was announced as just that. This is a time for remembering. This is our Easter duty, this is what will draw us into the movement of a passage through death into life. That passage from death to life marks so many of large and small movements of life. It marks our whole life journey.

When we gathered around the fire, you will remember that we are gathering to remember that Jesus Christ passed over from death to life. Our gathering is a remembering and celebrating his paschal mystery. When we do that then we in effect build up the hope within us of sharing well in the same Passover, the same passage through suffering, death into life. We are here to let Christ’s Passover from death into life touch our lives again here in the 21st century. We remember what seems to be the past, but in that remembering it touches our present.

The content of what we are doing and keeping is simply put: it is the Passover of the Lord. We heard it around the fire, we heard it in the Easter proclamation, the Exsultet. We have heard it told in various images and stories as we gathered here around the light, or in more homey terms, around the fire, a wonderful place for telling stories, singing songs and making poems. If we remember, as the two men in the tomb ask us to do, then we will remember that we began our process of remembering Passover when we gathered here for our Eucharistic meal on Thursday. For that meal was itself a memorial of the first Passover. We remembered then that the blood of the Lamb that was slain was used to mark the doorposts so that the Lord would passover the house leaving it free from death. The blood of the slain lamb was in effect life spilled so that freedom could begin. Even then it became clear that Passover was a movement through death into life. For Israel, a life of freedom from slavery to the Egyptians.

We are remembering that our God is about leading his people in the passage from suffering and death into a new existence. We passover from death in any of its forms to the broad expanse of new life with its richness of relationships that are held together in a communion of love. If Thursday thrust us into the midst of Passover through the meal, where we learned to serve one another, then Friday we remembered that the power of the meal lies in the death of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We heard that Jesus’ Passover into death was a completion of God’s work to love the world so much that his son would lay down his life so that we might have eternal life. His death was to draw us into that love. Lifted up on the cross, Jesus proclaimed that his work of loving us to the end was finished. The suffering and death of Christ reveal the power and depths of God’s faithful love. It is not half-hearted, it is not exclusive, it embraces us all.

In many ways, the stories and prophetic messages we have just listened to are an exercise of that memory that the two men in the tomb are asking us to do. We remember that in each of these fragments of God’s relationship with his people there is a passage, a Passover if you will. It begins with passover from darkness into light, with water that symbolizes chaos and death to water that teams with life. We hear how Isaac, too, pass through death into freedom because his father Abraham trusted in the Lord’s power to transform immanent death into a real future. We heard how Israel passed through the Red Sea water, leaving behind an Egypt of slavery into the freedom of being led by the light of God’s Word. All the prophets we heard announced that a broken relationship that involved infidelity, abandonment, hopelessness and exile all passed over into forgiveness, restoration, cleansing and wisdom. The Passover of the community ended in a restored life together.

And so where will we fit into this Passover pattern? How will we be able to move forward through life’s suffering, its infidelities, its broken relationships? To make the passage we will have to get wet. We will have to get into the water, not alone but with our Christ who has completed the Passover. For in the water we can die in its chaos, but in the water we can begin to rise with the Christ who has completed the Passover and come out the victor. We call that water our baptism. Each of the readings we have heard should remind us of what lies at the end of our Passover journeys. There is something new, something of light and beauty, something of love, receiving it and giving it. All these are clear experiences of what we are remembering tonight: Christ’s victory over all that holds us back from completing the Passover into the new life God the Father holds out for his children.

We have proclaimed Christ risen. That is where Passover leads. Christ is risen. And you and I? We once joined him in that Passover. And that too is what we have to remember. We too passed through water. That was the beginning of our Passover. We know only too well that it is not over. We know only too well that it takes time for the implications of dying and rising with Christ to work their way into our bodies until the day they are transformed anew. But we can say yes again and again to our remembering that we have joined Christ in his Passover. We have left behind the old world and way of thinking. We are journeying on this side of his Passover. And so in a few minutes we will give voice to our remembering by renewing the promises we made when we first joined Christ in his dying and allowed his rising to shape our lives.

The celebration of the Passover of God’s Son we began on Thursday, we will now renew for ourselves. Yes, we will once again commit ourselves to light in the midst of darkness, to life in the face of death’s many threats, to the unspeakable dignity of human beings created in God’s image, and to the Word that holds the Wisdom of how we are to continue our Passover journey until the whole of creation stands in the peace of God’s eternal covenant of unremitting love.

Christ is Risen, alleluia!

He is truly Risen, alleluia!

~ Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

Palm Sunday - Part 1

Palm Sunday - Part 2

Lk 23:1-29
Is 50:4-7
Phil 2:6-11
Lk 22:14 – 23:56

Focus: Today is the beginning of Holy Week which is the peak point of the liturgical year.
Function: We are invited to participate in it fully, actively and consciously.

It was a shock when Fr. Dick Hauser, whom many of us knew, was diagnosed with cancer and died only a few weeks after that. A week ago, on April 3, was the fourth anniversary of his passing into eternity.

Fr. Dick, Jesuit and Professor at Creighton University, also presented many workshops at St. Benedict Center and was my spiritual director. Two weeks after his diagnosis of terminal cancer I was able to visit him. Fr. Dick shared that he had been angry toward the doctors. Wouldn’t they have been able to detect the cancer earlier?
However, this lung cancer was aggressive and fast-growing. A specialized treatment might have prolonged his life some, but could also have had devastating side-effects. Fr. Dick decided against it. One night he didn’t get any sleep, wresting with these issues, in prayer. But then he could accept reality and found inner peace.

To me it was utterly amazing how this very active man now dealt with this sudden turn in his life. In response to my inquiries, he did share some of his struggles. However, time and again he managed to direct our conversation away from him and toward me. He asked me about my life and my prayer; I shared a few things. He listened and commented. In the end, he asked for my blessing and I gave it to him. I asked him for his and he blessed me. I will never forget this visit with a person who, even in the sight of impending death, was so completely oriented away from himself and toward others.

This encounter came to my mind as I prayed with the Passion of our Lord according to Luke. The evangelist Luke highlights more than the other three how Jesus, in his suffering, constantly cares for the well-being of others. During the last supper, he says to Peter, “I have prayed that your… faith may not fail… once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers and sisters.” – On the Mount of Olives, Jesus heals the ear of a servant that one of his disciples had cut off. – On the way of the cross, Jesus talks to the weeping women, comforts them, and calls them to conversion. – Hanging on the cross in agonizing pain, he prays for his executioners: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” To the repentant criminal he says: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” His merciful love offers a person an opportunity for repentance even in the hour of his death.

Luke’s gospel as a whole is also the one in which we find Jesus in prayer most often. Luke describes Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives in greatest detail, too. Jesus was in such agony and prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. Only Luke relates this. In his prayer, as always, he addresses God as Father, Abba in Aramaic, Daddy. He prays with great trust. And we hear (only in Luke) that an angel appeared to him from heaven to strengthen him. It is prayer that prepares Jesus for his Passion and that supports him in it. In his prayer for his torturers, he asks, Abba, this heavenly Father, to forgive them. And in prayer he surrenders himself the Abba: "“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Today is the beginning of Holy Week which is the peak point of the liturgical year. We are invited to participate in it fully, actively and consciously. We journey with Jesus from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem through his trial, his passion and his death on the cross, to his glorious resurrection.

During these days, we are invited to be with Jesus on this journey. Jesus sets no limits to his love. It is good during these days to empathize with Jesus, To be with him, to stick it out with him, to stay with him, to see and to listen. If we do so then he will also be and increasingly become our teacher of love, a love which we are meant not to abandon even if things become difficult in our own lives.

Secondly, Holy Week is a time to bring our suffering in prayer trustingly before our heavenly Father, and before Christ our Lord, our own issues and struggles, those of our families and of our Church, of people in our country and around the world. None of these things are foreign to Christ. Let us pray especially for the people in Ukraine, who are suffering from a brutal war and for the Ukrainians who have fled their country that they may receive effective help and not lose hope.

The Servant of God in today’s first reading spoke to the weary words that encouraged them and he showed them kindness. We are invited especially also during these days to be aware of those around us (and those for away from us) who are in need. There are so many ways in which we can do good to others and so imitate Jesus’ compassion and other-centeredness.

We know that he who emptied himself and died on the cross is Lord to the glory of God the Father! AMEN.
~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Thursday of the 5th Week of Lent

Genesis 17:3–9
John 8:51–59

This is Abraham’s Day in Lent. Clearly, Abraham is a key figure in the word we are hearing in the final stretch of our Lenten journey. Abraham was all about the future. The Abraham story has left his past behind. There is not one story about Abraham’s past. It is all about setting out. And it is not setting out for a planned future. It is setting out for what God will show him. Abraham’s future lies in following God’s word. Finally, God makes a covenant with Abraham. It is a covenant of promise, promise about the future, a covenant of word. And a grand future at that: the father of nations and a land where he could stay. Imagine–a future based on a promise to a childless husband and wife with no possible future. And yet that is God’s word, God’s promise. But this is Lent, letting go of the past and following the promise of God. It means trusting this God in the face of what in human terms is a dead end. Does God keep his promise? Sure every time there is trust in the face of the world’s foolishness. So Lent is about returning to trust in God’s word, and hearing that word in unexpected places.

Jesus understands himself as the One in whom Abraham hoped. Jesus notes that Abraham rejoiced and was glad when he saw Jesus. Abraham knew then that God was faithful to his word. The future was not a dead end. God is being God to Abraham’s descendants as he promised in covenant.
Jesus is no less about the future. “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.” Now one need not be a physical heir to Abraham. Now one need only keep the word of Abraham’s heir and the new life of the future will be yours. The future all hinges on keeping the word of this Jesus from Nazareth. Keeping this word open us up to the resurrection and its new life; it opens us up to the creative power of
the Word God sent to make all things new. It is this word that releases us from time and propels us into the future.

When Jesus pushes Abraham’s claim to have seen Jesus in the future even further and claims that he always existed, this is too much for his antagonists. Up come the stones to get rid of this man who sees things so differently. But what about us? Can we understand that Christ is the core of all things that exist, seen and unseen? Can we understand that he is at heart of every person, that he is found in the dust of the stars and the dust of earth? Can we stretch our imaginations to find him before Abraham was, to find him now even in our broken world, and be ready to find him glorified when our fragment of time is done? But that is the Easter mystery toward which our lives are moving. Christ yesterday and today…all time belongs to him-thus we open the Easter Vigil. Thus is God’s covenant with us.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

5th Sunday of Lent - 2022

Isaiah 43:16–21
Philippians 3:8–14
John 8:1–11

The Gospel from John we have just heard is often titled “The Woman Caught in Adultery.” At first hearing we might nod our heads in agreement. But really the Gospel is not about the sexual behavior of the woman. The key phrase in the gospel is not adultery. The key word is test. The scribes and Pharisees wanted to test Jesus and to find a charge against him. The woman is merely a pawn in the machinations of local leaders. There is not much concern for the woman; the concern is Jesus and what he will make of this situation. It is a trap. That a woman is caught between men’s games is nothing new, sad to say.

The story is part of the collection of conflict stories that we find in all the gospels. Religious leaders question Jesus or give him questions and situations to test him. These conflicts often take place in the temple where Jesus is teaching. These conflicts increase the longer Jesus stays in Jerusalem. So too here. Jesus is really the one on trial. His judgment is being put to the test. If Jesus says yes, stone her. He is usurping the death penalty, which is not for him to administer. He could be considered a revolutionary disturbing Roman rule. If he says she should not be stoned, he contradicts the Mosaic Law and long-standing tradition. He will also be considered a hypocrite in front of the people who regard him favorably. He is contradicting is own message of mercy and compassion, indeed, of not judging.

There is something strange in the story. In the Mosaic Law both of those caught in adultery should be stoned to death, both the male and the female. But where is the woman’s male partner? Nowhere to be seen. Perhaps. But the stones at hand are enough for two. So who is the second? Perhaps Jesus is the male for whom the stones are intended. John’s Gospel has made it clear that leaders picked up stones more than once to throw at him. His crime, making himself equal to God, calling

God his Father and so seeing himself as Son. Jesus’ act of adultery is bringing the human and divine into contact with one another in an unheard of way. The deeply intimate relationship of Jesus and his Father—that is Jesus’ crime of adultery.

So how does Jesus answer? He keeps silent and bends over and starts writing on the ground. People have been asking what he is writing. What do you write on a notepad or a blank page when you are bored or when someone is talking on the phone?..talking talking…you doodle, you scribble. So Jesus scribbles while the leaders talk and talk, pushing him up against a wall….we doodle so we have time to think, to let another’s words run dry. When their words have run out and the silence needed for the right word has matured, then Jesus stands up and speaks. So Jesus has found the right words: “Let anyone among you without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Instead of watching Jesus doodle away in the sand in the temple courtyard, read what is written in the secret of your own heart. Then Jesus goes down to doodle again…and slowly as each one begins to read what is in their heart, they start to walk away. The eldest first…no doubt they have a long list of things they know and others too—their infidelities piled up over the years. Soon enough everyone who wanted to cast a stone either at the woman or Jesus, the two adulterers, has left.

Then Jesus stands up and speaks in human terms to the woman. Note that Jesus is the only one in the scene to speak directly to the woman. For the authorities she is only an object to catch Jesus off guard. When he speaks to her, Jesus merely asks where the accusers are. They’ve gone. They offer no act of condemnation. If he throws a stone at all, it is one of mercy. He offers no judgment. He spends no time rehearsing the woman’s past. He shows concern only for her future. His judgment is a freedom for what is to come: “Go your way and from now on sin no more.” No moralizing lecture; just a command rising from a heart of mercy and compassion. Just a word that allows a new thing to happen for this woman. It was a critical moment for both of them. It appeared they were on trial. But it became a critical moment for their accusers when they realized that they too had something to be ashamed of. Words fell silent. And in that silence mercy blossomed. In the silence and doodling a new thing could come about.

The woman was not longer defined by adultery; she was free to set out again on her life focused in the right direction, following the way laid out by her God. In Jesus, God had put something new in front of her, gave her back her dignity and told her to go, go forward from here. “Remember not the events of the past,” says the prophet today. That is what Jesus says to the woman. Become part of something new.

Paul today gives us a glimpse of what happened to him when he encountered Christ. A whole new way is opened up for him. The past was great he says. But I have met Christ and now the past is rubbish in comparison to meeting him. I now journey with him. It not always easy; it involves his cross. But it is only in that cross that I can move forward. It is the Christian paradox: only in Christ’s shame, his condemnation can I move forward.

Jesus transformed a woman’s shame into an opportunity for her to move forward toward her proper goal. She met Jesus in a moment of shame and he changed it to an opportunity for honor.

If the Word today recalls anything, it reminds us that God is not finished with his people of old, his Church today or with you and me. Lent is not about lamenting the past; there is no beating the breast in the Word today. There is only the wonder of God acting again, setting us toward our goal, a goal that Paul says is always upwards toward Christ Jesus in his fullness.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Memorial of the passing of our Holy Father St. Benedict

Genesis 12:1–4a
Philippians 4:4–9
John 17:20–26

It seems that for centuries we Benedictines have call this day the Transitus of our Holy Father Benedict. Transitus easily translates into English as “the Passing” of our Holy Father Benedict. In our American culture where death is often spoken of without using the term, ‘passing’ may seem to be nothing more than a euphemism for death.—a word to soften the reality, to avoid talking about it or at least holding back a bit. And yet, we Benedictines today are celebrating the Passing of St. Benedict, we are honoring him on the day he died. We read the account of his death and are impressed and comforted. There is no sense of Benedict hiding his death or avoiding it. He planned for it, prepared for it, told others of it. He was helped by the brothers when the moment came. He was helped into the oratory where he received the body and blood of the Lord. He died with his arms lifted up in prayer.

When we say someone passed, we might ask, passed from what to what, from whom to whom? Passing is not a dead end. Transitus means a movement from one place to another. Death is not the end. Death is the moment when we definitively move from our visible life here to one which is not visible to those who have not yet passed. It is very visible for those who have transited, who have passed. Perhaps calling death a passing is not so much to soften its impact but to draw out its meaning and its movement.

To speak of death as a passing, a transitus, is to ground it in the gospel, in John’s gospel to be exact. There when Jesus’ public life has concluded, the evangelist moves the story forward by simply saying, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.” He knew this because the community was about to celebrate their Passover, the foundational act of their passing out of slavery into freedom and at the same time to remember that God passed over them when handing out death to the Egyptians. Like Jesus, Benedict knew that his hour to pass was at hand.

A transitus, a passing, in a Christian sense is to move from one place to another; it fact it is to be on the move, presumably on the move forward. We hear the beginnings of that transitus in the Lord’s call to Abraham. “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk. I will show you the way forward.” From that moment on Abraham was in transit; his life was life of moving, always moving. And all that kept him moving was God’s constant word of promise, promise of land, promise of a son, promise of a legacy, promise of a name. Abraham was kept in transit by the word of the Lord. And that became a blessing. To always follow the promise and keep moving forward is a blessing. Such was Abraham, such was Benedict, a man blessed by God.

We are remembering today Benedict’s final moments in his transitus to what lay ahead. Like Abraham, like Paul, like Jesus, those who pass through life well attract others on their transit through life. And when the final moment comes to step forward from this life into the Kingdom, they leave behind a word for those still in transit and following their footsteps. Abraham walks his journey following the promise of many nations yet to come, his transit in this world is based on the word of promise. Paul in prison writes to his Philippian community, his favorite community, about what will make their passing through life one of peace and joy. Stay with what is pure, lovely and gracious, be grateful. And we hear Jesus in the midst of his followers praying for them as he departs from this life. And as he prays he lays out the vision and hope for who they are to become. As he enters into his passing from this world to the Father, he lays out for them their goal, what they themselves are transiting into. It is a communion between him, them and their Father. It is a legacy of unity for the world. Their movement into this unity is in fact what the Father wants so that all are united in him. It is another way of speaking of the blessing promised to Abraham generations before.

It is customary for us today as we remember Father Benedict transiting from this world to the heart of the Father, passing into the unity he saw in his vision a short time before his death, to called to mind his legacy. Perhaps at one time we did that by counting the number of his followers. But that is perhaps not the legacy that concerned him. Benedict’s legacy was a short rule, a guide of how to live as you and I transit through this world into the love of the Father and Son. This is his word. Not an end in itself, he says, but a beginning. What we can say today about this legacy of his guide is that it works. Follow it and what the Scriptures promise as the goal will happen to you: You will be transformed from a person of fear into one of love; at the end you will see what God has prepared for those who love him. For the transitus, the passing is a movement into that love which is the foundation of the world, the spirit and energy that upholds it. Yes, we will be at home in the love that has always passed between the Father and his Son. It is the love that is the foundation of each of us. For at is core a transitus is the final acceptance and the great Amen we say when our hearts are fully expanded by the indescribable sweetness of love.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

1st Sunday of Lent - 2022

Lk 4:1-13
Dt 26:1-10
Rom 10:8-13

focus: The temptations of Jesus in the desert describe basic dangers for all of us.
function: The Season of Lent is an opportunity to face them and, with the help of God’s grace, to overcome them.

I was amazed to see what has become of our Stations of the Cross, here outdoors, East of the lake and beyond the bridge. In the course of twenty-five years, they had turned very dark and also were dirty from bird droppings. Now our good maintenance and grounds keeping team, Harold and Dan, have cleaned them, put a new coat of bronze on them, glazed them – and they look like new!

They are very good art, made by the late Lore Friedrich in Germany. However, the cleaning and do-over was needed so one can see again what they depict; and even though most of them (except for the Easter station #15) point us to very sad and sorrowful events, there is also real beauty in some of them, for instance, in Jesus’ standing uprightly and with great dignity before Pilate, and in Veronica’s holding the sweat towel of Jesus.

Looking at these Stations, now again so shiny and beautiful, raised the question in me: Do I, do we, need such a do-over on occasion, too? Can it be that we, who are fearfully, wonderfully and beautifully made by God in God’s image, sometimes don’t show this beauty anymore as we used to, that we need, as it were, some cleaning and polishing?

St. Benedict, the founder of our order, thought so. In his Rule, in the chapter on The Observance of Lent, he writes: “The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent. Since few, however, have the strength for this, we urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times.

Does today’s gospel speak to us about this task? In we find Jesus in the desert, where he goes in order to prepare for his public ministry, fasting for forty days. He has returned from the Jordan River, from his baptism, where he has experienced himself as God’s Beloved. He is filled with the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit then that leads him into the desert. Apparently, it’s a Divine necessity that he goes there and experiences “temptations.”

The temptations, which Jesus was a faced with, he who became in all things like us except for sin, are fundamental dangers for every human being: being caught up in material things, greed and consumerism (“Turning stones into bread”), exercising power and control over people (“I shall give to you all this power and glory”), and seeking prestige and the acclaim of the people (“Throw yourself down from here”). Jesus faces the temptations, but doesn’t give in to them. God’s word, which he throws against them, helps him to overcome them.

What is important for us is honesty. When does it happen that we fill the hole in our chest, that may well also have to do with old childhood wounds, with things like food, booze, our accomplishment and our reputation, having to be in control, refusing to forgive or being selfish with our time, talent and treasure? The truth is that we can make good choices. We always have a choice (2x). The truth is that we can do what is right instead of what is easy. The truth is that, in spite of everything, we can take over responsibility for ourselves. As the Holy Spirit guided Jesus in the desert, so the Holy Spirit guides us, too, in our decision making.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, the temptations of Jesus in the desert describe basic dangers for all of us. The Season of Lent is an opportunity to face them and, with the help of God’s grace, to overcome them.

This can happen though prayer, fasting and acts of charity, to which the church calls us during this Holy Season of Lent. One important form of prayer is praying with Holy Scripture. Jesus knew the Sacred Scriptures and could draw from them words to combat the suggestions of the tempter.

In regards to fasting and abstinence, St. Benedict writes in his Rule: “Let each [monk, during Lent,] deny himself some food, drink, sleep, needless talking and idle jesting – and look forward to Holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing.” There is a connection in Benedict’s mind between these two things: abstinence – and the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. Abstinence is not a goal in itself. It is meant to create inner space, inner openness and freedom, so that the wellspring of the Holy Spirit can gush forth within us more easily.

Acts of charity: When I think of acts of charity, Veronica comes to my mind again. She practiced charity toward a suffering person along the way of the cross and encountered Christ. The same can happen to us when we assist people in need today.

Let us pray this morning: O Loving Christ Jesus, we come to you with our wayward hearts. Teach us through your word and example so that this Lent will become for us a time of cleansing and of conversion, a time in which the beautiful image of God, according to which we were lovingly created, shines forth anew in us. AMEN.

~Fr.l Thomas Leitner, OSB

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12–18
2 Corinthians 5:20–6:2
Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18

There are a number of good Lenten verbs with their corresponding demands in our Word for this Ash Wednesday. The Prophet Joel gives two: “return” and “weep”. Paul says, ‘Be reconciled to God,” and Jesus says what you do is to be hidden or secret. Taken together they offer a guideline for what Lent is all about and our way of participating in it.

For all the prophets’ their favorite word and cry to the community which had strayed from the Lord was “return.” It implies that one has walked off the path or that one has moved away from someone and now you need to come back or to come home. Lent is the time to consider the path, the way we are walking upon. Remembering that a very early name for the disciples was The Way, Lent is now the opportune time, as Paul, says to get back on the way, to return to the primary relationship that holds us together. “Return to the Lord, your God,” says Joel. ….The place where the return happens is our hearts. The road is within. What are our hearts really set on? Our lives are to be lives of seeking God. But in the course of time the heart may have grown weary, clouded, discouraged, even worn out. So what are we returning to in Lent? Who is this God? What awaits us on our return is one who is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness and relenting in punishment. The Lenten way is above all a journey into a love that is the source of our being and all the universe we can see and even what we cannot see or fathom. Lent is hardly a dire time; it is the time to awaken ourselves to the love that will never let us go. We are returning to love itself.

Come together and “weep” says the prophet. Yes, Lent is about tears and crying. In the spiritual life tears and deep prayer are joined. What provokes the weeping is a heart that experiences compunction; the heart is broken. The tears can come from loss of so much, but deep down it comes from the realization that I thought I could walk this way on my own. The tears come when I am overwhelmed by the belief that I am not alone. I had trained my heart into believing that all depended on me, that I was the center and everyone and everything had to revolve around me. Then one day I awoke to find that I am truly myself when my God is with me and then I cried; I let go of this stubborn heart and found I was borne by love. Tears are about the very heart that I carry on my journey to the Lord. They are about my prayer during this time. A prayer not focused on wanting something my way, but a prayer that comes from the center of myself, the Spirit of God within me.

Today we are asked to weep together with the people of Ukraine as they experience evil in their lives. Weeping with them acknowledges a loss they feel. It also expresses our solidarity with other children of the same Father. Weeping with them also allows us and them to remain in touch with the love that will never fail, that will always overwhelm and one day raise us up together.

“Be reconciled to God,” says Paul. This too is about being loved. We do not plan out the steps of reconciliation. It is God who has reconciled us to himself. God has entered into my stubbornness and rebellious self in his Son. His son has taken up my humanity and returned with it to the Father. I do not have to invent the relationship again. In a mysterious way, I need to accept the restoration of my heart as a grace, a gift freely given. Lent is about accepting the gift of a restored relationship, opening my hands and heart to the gracious God the prophet proclaimed. Lent is about letting in the light of an already restored relationship, a reconciliation that has happened. Now Lent is the time to become a part of this process of the healing grace that God has already wrought and laid in front of us. There is a potentiality of full life and being that is offered these days. Accept it, do not let this grace (another word for love) fall from your heart or your hands.

And Jesus, what does he lay out for us today? You can call it the hidden or quiet way. It is a way of relationship. Each of us looks to be acknowledged, to be recognized and appreciated. In simple terms, we want to be noticed. Our delusion is that we think that when we are noticed by those we live with we become someone. Jesus calls us back to the center. You are already a child of God, God is Father, source of your very self and the source of affirmation of yourself. The goodness that arises within you and touches other people’s lives, let it happen for it is right and just to pray, to fast, to share your goods. But it needs no recognition from others. It stands on its own. You do it because you know your relationship with the Father. He has called you his child and has been doing that since your baptism. He continues to call you his child. Lent is a return to that quiet place within. That secret place is nothing less than a relationship with the Father, the same Father whose Son is Jesus. If you need motivation for doing what is good and upright, then look at the Son.

Lent is a return, a return to our Father and God whose name is mercy, graciousness and kindness. The return may seem hard, but if it does, then remember: the gracious God sent a Son to heal our brokenness and heal our primary relationships. Remember this Son and live from the love that he has set loose in the world once again. It is a love that became visible when the Father raised him from the dead. And Lent, it is our journey into that same love that will not let us die forever.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB


8th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

Sirach 27:4–7
1 Corinthians 15:54–58
Luke 6:39–45

Today we are blessed to be hearing from two wisdom teachers. There is Ben Sira trying to lay out the wisdom of Israel to a diaspora community in a Hellenistic world. He is looking to put before the community the riches of their tradition from lived experience. His goal is to show what traits will reveal a person’s true character and integrity. Then there is Jesus who is trying to put in front of his disciples a way of integrity that will lead them to bear good fruit in due season. Jesus has been a teacher for his disciples and for us the past few Sundays. Jesus as the teacher of wise living not only speaks well and graciously as we heard a few weeks ago; he also lives out his word in a life of kindness and compassion. Last week he pushed us to the limits of that kindness when speaking of the depth our love must have. It must include those we label other or enemy.

Like a good teacher and in line with many a wisdom teacher, our two teachers today use exaggeration to make their point and employ metaphors taken from daily life and the natural world. The familiar biblical image of a tree seems to have caught their attention. Jesus notices that some folks actually have a plank or beam in their eyes. But having a log of wood in your eyes does not make one a very efficient speck-remover for someone else’s eyes. It would seem that a beam in one’s eyes would mean that you are blind. A sense of superiority distorts our vision of our neighbor and ourselves. We start giving advice when we ourselves know very little or have little experience of the matter at hand. We can be great at making snide remarks or giving false praise but to make sure we are on top in our interactions. We find ourselves quick to be on the offensive against others, making sure they and everyone else knows their faults. We are quick to place ‘ought to’ on others as if we were teachers of the first order. And at the same time, some of us could win prizes for the way they use words to defend ourselves.

A characteristic of a wise man or woman is not that they have a good vocabulary. Rather they exhibit wisdom in knowing themselves well enough to be aware of the appropriate moment of when to speak and how to speak. Classical wisdom says that a fool uses a volley of words, they come spewing out. The wise person does not judge but speaks from the fullness of their heart. Self-knowledge is key to the wisdom tradition and a Kingdom way of seeing and hearing. If we do not know ourselves, we have the tendency to paint a wonderful picture of ourselves or even to paint ourselves as innocent and pure. We then view the imperfect world around us as if we are not a part of it. We live in disdain of it rather than with compassion and mercy as we learned last week. The only way to approach others is to know well our own story. The wise person, the person in the Kingdom, walks humbly before God and with themselves.

There is a story told about Gandhi that might be helpful when it comes to a plank or beam in your eye.. It sheds light on how one wise person approached a situation.
A woman brought her granddaughter to Gandhi and commanded, “My granddaughter eats too much sugar. Tell her to stop.”
Gandhi said, “Bring her back next week.”
The granddaughter and grandmother returned the following week. But Gandhi put them off again, saying the same thing, “Bring her back next week.” This happened three times.
Finally, Gandhi said to the granddaughter, “You should not eat so much sugar. It is not good for you.”
The grandmother was bewildered. “We waited four weeks for this simple remark.”
“Ah!” Gandhi sighed. “It took me that long to stop eating too much sugar myself.”

Jesus ends his wisdom sayings with a simple but profound line: “From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” In our biblical tradition with its wisdom, the spiritual center of a person is called the heart. It bears the source of our identity. A good tree bears good fruit. A good heart speaks truth and love and recognizes goodness and beauty. The heart is the hidden source of speech. It has within it an abundance, a treasure that the mouth draws on and makes available to the outer world. The heart then appears in the outer world and can be judged through what a person says. If the person spins out evil imaginings, then we are assured the heart is not good. If a person’s words weave scenes of reconciliation, hope and peace, we can be assured that their heart is in touch with the God of reconciliation, love and forgiveness. What you say reveals who you are.

Jesus makes it clear that a disciple of his can be recognized by the words that he or she speaks. The integrity and identity of the person will easily become known. Words matter, language matters. Jesus uses images of blind and seeing people, logs and splinters and trees to drive his point home. The tree is an ancient symbol of the human person. Different aspects of it are used to speak of various qualities of being human. Sometimes it is about stability, about drawing life from the right sources, or about bearing fruit. Today all these combine to producing fruit, that is speech that flows from a good heart, a heart that loves our Father above all else and that loves others for who they are.

In his book The Hidden Life of Trees, the German forester Peter Wohlleben has a chapter early on entitled “The Language of Trees.” He is aware that the reader will be surprised that trees can communicate, that they speak. He gives some examples of trees that live together in the woods and forests and their communication methods that are quite visible and tactile. But he also shares what science has recently come to know: that the trees are also communicating where it cannot be seen, underground through their root systems and their fungal networks. With this system, the trees talk to one another, help and defend one another in their community of forest. We outsiders do not see or hear this, but a language is maintaining a community and sustaining it.

Perhaps today the wisdom teacher will want to draw on this part of the image of a tree to remind us of the quiet power of our simple day-to-day words to support, nurture and look after those we live with. Hidden it seems from the outside but in effect assuring that the tree bears leaves and fruit.

Jesus’ words come from his heart. We hear them as grace-filled. We see in his life that what he speaks, he also walks and lives….

Lent is upon us. This is the time to get our heart back in order so that we can speak again “Alleluia” “Praise the Lord” from the heart and build up one another in love with words that carry life.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

© 2025 Christ the King Priory   •   1123 Road I, Schuyler, NE 68661    •   402.352.2177