“Benedictine Reflection (20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 8/16/26)

“O woman, great is your faith.” (Matthew 15:27)

None of us likes to be excluded.  Whether it be a rejection from a club we want to join or a non-invite to a desired social event, shunning leaves us with a hollow feeling.  We live in a world where exclusion seems to be sewn into our social fabric. If we search for reasons why such exclusion takes place, we see that it is usually tied to fear and ignorance, two forces that mount in intensity in tandem with the increased avenues of our social communication. How frequently it is that we do not know the person who makes the decision to exclude us.  Nor do they appear to know us.  We are far too ready to prefer creation of negative stereotypes to making efforts at genuine personal encounters. 

All this is helpful to better understand the Gospel account of Jesus and the Canaanite woman.  There is no question that the prevailing prejudice against both women and Canaanites was shared by the disciples of Jesus.  In the opening verse of this Gospel passage the disciples consider her little more than an itinerant annoyance and at first Jesus seems to share that view. However, the woman persists in wanting to have her sick daughter be healed.  The first verbal response given by Jesus is one that would have people in pastoral care class shake their heads: “it is not right to take the food of children and throw it to the dogs.”

Rather than shake her head and walk elsewhere at such a disparaging remark, this woman comes through with a sharp and venerable verbal parry: “even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table.” At this, Jesus acknowledges the unshakable faith of the woman and heals her daughter. The lesson we learn is that the key for breaking down an exclusionary bias is persistence and an unflinching faith that sees beyond social boundaries we have constructed. 

My own take on this story is that it tells us less about our faith being tested and more about the inclusive nature of the kingdom of God. Jesus asserts that the outliers of his social world are welcome, a message that connects with Isaiah in our first reading saying that my house is a house of prayer for all peoples, and St. Paul in our second reading saying that God’s mercy is intended, not for spiritual elites, but for all. This is not some woke agenda of diversity, equality and inclusion, but rather a divinely implanted desire to have God’s grace offered freely and fully to all.

At a time when many seek the comfort of their privatized silo or bubble, we may not be aware of how restrictive this can be in allowing our faith to spread.  The greatest outpouring of faith is given in response to the greatest challenge to it. The Canaanite woman shows us that no one class of people has exclusive rights to God’s grace.  If we can believe with the same intensity of the Canaanite woman, perhaps we will on our judgment day before the Lord he will say to us: “How great is your faith.”

“Benedictine Reflection (19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 8/9/26) 

“He went up on the mountain by himself to pray.” (Matthew 14:23)

Where would you rather be: in a public space, surrounded by familiar faces and crowds, or apart by yourself, alone in a quiet place? If you are an introvert like me, you would probably opt for solitude and its surrounding serenity as the preferred place to refuel.  For the extrovert, venues may vary, but people would need to dot the landscape and generate energy. What I find fascinating about the readings for this Sunday is that we are presented with a blend of both such options, along with a sense of how to cope with the common fear we all share of not having someone to be there for us in times of distress.

The scene in our first reading of the prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb is a striking one.  We find Elijah alone in the desert. He has been chased there by the rulers after his victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.  Mount Horeb or Sinai is a sacred landscape.  It is where the Lord first appeared to Moses in the burning bush and later with peals of thunder and lightning.  Elijah has come to the cave tired and fearful.  He has questioned God and expects that he will be given a response in the accustomed symbols the prophets associated with the divine—fire, wind and earthquake.  Instead, he is made aware of a still, small voice, a whispering breeze, that Elijah senses immediately is the presence of God. What our reading does not tell us is what follows upon this encounter. The Lord tells Elijah to leave the place and go back to the people with courage, not fear, to continue his prophetic ministry.

This is the same pattern we see in the life of Jesus.  At the outset of our Gospel, we see Jesus going to the mountain alone to pray. This is truly quality time for him when he is fortified for the demands he will face.  In the midst of this prayer, he comes to recognize the distress of his apostles out in the boat on the Sea of Galilee.  So he goes out to them across the water.  These are the same followers who wanted to dismiss the crowds because of lack of food, the same fishermen whose confidence in being in a boat on the sea is swallowed up by fear.  They are now mindful of the need to have faith in something greater than themselves and the storm at sea. No less than Elijah, they realize that whether at rest or at work, all they have comes from someone greater than they.  Only in this way can fears be dispelled.

Does this mean that all fears are unjustified?  Certainly not.  However, we know that at a certain point we need to stifle our anxiety, refuse to let it immobilize us, and make ours the words of Peter: “Lord, save us.” At that point we might be able to recognize that a still small voice is greater than any natural force.  It will not only  keep us from sinking, from being weighed down with our sinfulness, but it will give us the fortitude to  believe in the face of any fear.

“Benedictine Reflection (18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 8/2/26)

“His heart was moved with pity for them and he healed their sick.” (Mt. 14:14)

Henri Nouwen was a Catholic priest from Holland who, many years after his death, remains a widely popular spiritual writer whose words still exert influence on many people of different faiths.  I had the good fortune to meet Nouwen—before he became famous—while on the campus at the University of Notre Dame. While at a dinner table with him I remember his conversation with a Holy Cross priest who was his friend, when he delivered a line that found its way into one of his books: “I used to think that my desire to serve God was constantly being threatened by the interruptions from others, until I came to see that it was precisely in my interruptions that God was being made present in my life.”

I have found that nugget of wisdom most helpful in my own monastic and priestly life and it comes to mind in reflection on the Gospel passage for this Sunday.  In that Gospel scene we see Jesus mourning the news of the sudden and violent death of his cousin, John the Baptist.  He has just been forced to leave his home town of Nazareth because its citizens could not accept his teaching. One could understand how Jesus might want to take some time off. But no sooner does he arrive at a secluded spot to rest when he is intercepted and interrupted by the crowds. Most telling is the way Jesus reacts to this particular interruption.  Matthew tells us his heart was moved with pity. 

We are led to wonder what our reaction would be if placed in a similar situation.  Our private space is being invaded and our personal schedule waylaid.  Our reaction might be quite similar to that of the apostles in the Gospel who want to dismiss the crowds.  However, Jesus chides them, takes time to recognize the needs of the crowd, puts aside his own desire to take some R & R, and not only invites the crowd to eat but supplies them with food in abundance.  It is a graphic fulfillment of the promise we hear from Isaiah in our first reading: “Come receive grain and wheat, listen, have life.”  This is about more than a free lunch. The feeding of the multitudes delivers several valuable lessons that add to the wisdom of Henry Nouwen.

Not the least of these lessons is taking time for others. As we find ourselves rapidly coming to the end of summer and before we get bogged down once again in school schedules it is good for us to think of how we spend time in simply being present to the other. Jesus spells out for us the importance of sharing a meal, not only as a place to nourish the body and soul, but to teach us how we are to give generously to those who come to us in need and give thanks to the one who cares for all our needs. The fact that this meal of miraculous supply of food is found in each of the four Gospels attest to its importance. 

The feeding of the crowds certainly anticipates the action of the Eucharist.  When we allow ourselves to become part of that action, in both our family of faith at the Eucharist and in our families of origin, it should change our lives.  At the least, it should take us back to the words of Fr. Nouwen and have us realize that our particular call from the Lord is always intersecting with the call of others. We need them and they need us. A faith community is not a fast-food franchise.  We don’t call in our order outside the church door and drive away. We stay and we share not only the food, but we collect what is left over and share in the blessing before we leave.  If we see that as an interruption, then we fail to know how God’s grace usually enters our lives.

“Benedictine Reflection (17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 7/26/26) 

“The one who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household bringing from the storeroom both the new and the old.” (Mt. 13:52) 

From childhood to adult fantasy worlds, a question stands out: “what would we wish for?” When the young King Solomon was given that opportunity, not by some genie or cleverly contrived app, but by no less than God himself, we might have expected that his choices would be those of young men of every age: power, wealth and prestige. Instead, Solomon asks for what today we would call the gift of discernment or right judgment. As we learn in our first reading, the Lord is pleased with his choice. Lest we hold the young ruler up too highly as a moral paragon for any ruler, we need to recall that eventually Solomon makes some bad choices in marriage and in rule, ones that would come to haunt him as he led Israel into perils that were the result of his choices.

In a similar vein, our Gospel reminds us that there are certain treasures that require our making a choice.  That choice, for which we need to give up everything else, is for the kingdom of heaven.  This is not a choice akin to buying a lottery ticket.  The parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price invite us to consider at some length the cost of discipleship. It tells us that the road to heaven is not for neatniks.  It is a messy one, like a body of water full of all manner of fish, fair and foul. To choose the right options, we need the prudence and moral acuity that Solomon requested from the Lord.  We will need to be like the head of our household in our Gospel who can bring from the storeroom both the new and the old, much as Pope Leo has so deftly done in writing his recent encyclical on how we deal with AI.

We are promised that the Lord who gives us the free will and wit to render our choices, is the same one who will render judgment on the decisions we make.  That was the message of last Sunday’s Gospel parable of the weeds and the wheat, and it is reinforced by the symbols of this Sunday’s parable of the fishing net in the lake.

We are mindful of the adage: “be careful of what you wish for.” Followers of Christ, whatever wishes they have brought to prayer and whatever gifts they have been granted, are not called to leave the world.  Rather, we are to transform the world more into the likeness of the kingdom. In the words of the old Collect for this Sunday: “to use wisely the blessings God has given to our world.”  That is a tall order, especially in a world so racked with violence and contention. In such a time, the temptation is to trade in risk and sacrifice for security.  However, the parables of the kingdom Jesus gives us are not about security.  They are about taking all our spiritual capital and investing it wisely. If we think we lack the wisdom and right judgment of Solomon, we should remember that there is a greater than Solomon here. In as much as we tap into the person and wisdom of Jesus, we need not fear about where the results of our choices take us. 

“Benedictine Reflection (16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 7/19/26)

“Whoever has ears, ought to hear.” (Matthew 13:43)

The images presented in the parables of Jesus—mustard seeds, lost coins and lost sheep—often fail to connect with our world of technology and algorithms.  But weeds, whether they appear in backyard gardens, front lawns or sidewalk cracks, are constant companions to us this time of the year, and they allow us to make a practical application of this Sunday’s Gospel on the weeds and the wheat.

Try as we might, weeds remind us that we are never going to have the perfect lawn or garden, or for that matter the perfect family or society.  The striking image of the weeds and wheat growing together in the field, like the struggle of good against evil, is one that will continue for the rest of our lives.  Nonetheless, we can easily identify with the inclination of the workers in the parable to pull up all the weeds in the field. The lesson of Jesus we take, however, is that if you zealously pull up the weeds you risk damaging the wheat as well. What must be in the mind of all who continue to hear this parable is the knowledge that the Church will always contain saints and sinners.  What makes things more interesting for those who play at being judges is that we are never entirely sure about our own capacity to determine who the saints and who the sinners are.

Yet another lesson in this Gospel parable is that the Church is never going to live  up to our highest expectations.  We all know people who have left the Church because they are disappointed with its members. The weeds of abuse of authority, uninspired preaching and moral laxity put into question the productivity of God’s harvest. That is where we need to be reminded of how this parable is one that holds out hope of conversion. As sinners, we know how thin the boundary can be between the good harvest of the wheat that has been sown and the darnel, the false wheat that first looks promising but then after it comes to growth has to be burned.

We need not be offended by the weeds that grow in the ample field of God’s harvest. They can even serve as a source of inspiration. The next time we are troubled by the weeds of our garden, or what we perceive as the weeds of our faith community or extended family, it may be helpful to first step back and consider if we ourselves qualify as a weed—or at least a bit of moral crabgrass. Of two things we can be sure. The Church will always be composed of saints and sinners. In the final accounting, the master of the harvest of souls through his own wisdom and not through our misled judgments, will determine where the saints and the sinners will go.

“Benedictine Reflection (15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 7/12/26)

“The seed born on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit.” (Matthew 13:23) 

The parable of the sower and the seed carries a timeless message, even as its application takes us to many different places on the course of our pilgrimage through life.  There is no doubt that the Word of God emerges as the essential element in receiving and interpreting this parable.  For those of us who live in monasteries and spend a goodly part of our day listening to that Word in public reading and private reflection, it becomes the staple of our spiritual diet. As we heed St. Benedict’s advice to listen to the Word with the ear of our heart, we come to grasp another reality.  There will always be obstacles to our desire to have the Word take root in our hearts. That does seem to be an alternate teaching Jesus conveys in the parable, to be mindful of these obstacles and how they can blunt the power of the Word as we receive it.  

The seed in the parable is beset by obstacles. It is eaten by the birds, scorched by the sun, and choked by thorns.  We can fill in the blanks with our own obstacles that keep us from providing the time and work required for the seed of the Word to produce the abundant fruit promised by Jesus. Much of our capacity to receive the Word is threatened by the diminished time we give to digest it and the superficial level at which we take it in. We seem to have a retention capability that dwindles not only with age but with the range of electronic devices that promise us we can retrieve or delete anything as quickly as it passes our brain. We have seen enough examples of how social media gets positioned to provide us with short-term convenience, but not long-term fruitfulness.

The demand of the disciples in the Gospel to have Jesus interpret the parable can serve as a way of revealing our own reluctance to take responsibility for the gift of the Word entrusted to us daily. Apart from the explanation of the parable given by Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, we have access to a plethora of posts on daily and Sunday readings.  However, Jesus says we need to go beyond sampling the cafeteria line of reflections. We need to embrace the Word and allow its full force to move from our heads to our hearts. If we do that, we can learn that the parable is all about God’s extravagant grace.  The incredible yields described in the original parable are meant to remind us that the fruit of the Word relies more on grace freely given than on our own feeble efforts. The best measure of the fruitfulness of the Word is how well we allow God to do his work in us.  This requires on our part patience and careful cultivation. It calls to mind a phrase favored by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “Above all, trust the slow work of God.” It is a trust akin to the farmer’s watchful care, one that allows the fertility of the Word to do its work in the Kairos of God’s time. Great works are often quiet works. 

At all costs, we want to avoid the prospect held out to us by St. Paul in our second reading, “that the Word returns to us void.” We do have reassurance that the seed has been sown in every generation of Christ’s followers.  It has an amazing capacity to bear fruit in the most hostile of conditions.  We are mindful of how those conditions exist today in multiple forms.  Yet we never lose hope in the productive potential of the seed God plants in our hearts.  For if we have the desire to not only hear it, but understand and embrace it, we will surely come to know its abundant fruit.

“Benedictine Reflection (14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 7/5/26)

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30)

There is a story about a young man who came a great distance to study with one of the great Jewish rabbis, a teacher who was said to have no peer in intellectual or spiritual insight.  When the young visitor arrived to begin his study with the great man, the villagers asked him with great pride whether he wanted to hear the revered rabbi recite the Torah from heart or deliver a commentary.  The young man replied that he only wanted to watch him cut bread and pray.  So he proceeded to watch the rabbi sit quietly in the afternoon sun and he went away edified.

The story points to a common error held by many who claim that to be religious is to connect the holy with the extraordinary, the divine with the spectacular. But in the passage from Matthew’s Gospel for this Sunday we discover how Jesus corrects this false impression.  The wisdom of the Father, says Jesus, enters our lives not so much through the amazing as the ordinary. It is a message underlined

by the image of that comes to us from the prophet Zechariah in the first reading that tells of the king of the people arriving triumphant and riding not on a horse with squadrons of chariots and warriors, but on a lowly donkey.

On this Fourth of July weekend, when many are intent upon celebrating a 250thbirthday of our nation, watching grand fireworks displays, and binging on World Cup soccer, it might be timely to step back from the glitzy spectacles and review the truth that God comes to us most typically in the everyday and humble moments of our lives.

Our best teacher in this is, of course, Jesus himself.  As he tells us in our Gospel, we learn best by taking the mind and heart of the child.  The gentleness and humility highlighted by Jesus compare with similar qualities that Jesus laid out earlier in Matthew’s Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount. The meek and lowly, the poor and peacemakers, are the ones who find fulfillment, not those who surround themselves with perks and prestige.  The rabbi’s villagers in the story wrongly thought that showy religious performance would impress the young student, but they learned otherwise. Jesus too insists that because religion is not a matter of diversion and display, people who are into the game of power and success will always come away unfulfilled and find anxieties multiplied rather than diminished.

A summer holiday weekend should serve as an apt time for all of us to examine the manner in which we discover the holy, the way in which we find rest from the burdens of work and worry.  If it comes through the grace of perceiving the holy in the ordinary (a rose, a sunrise) and the divine in the lowly (the wonder of a child), then we can lighten the load of our spiritual journey considerably and rest comfortably in the Lord’s presence, whenever and wherever he comes to us.

Benedictine Reflection (12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 6/21/26)

“Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:31)

Fatherhood has always brought its demands and disappointments.  Too many stories of deadbeat dads and absent fathers weigh heavy as we hear them. As Catholics, we know that any serviceable model of fatherhood begins and ends with the person of Christ.  That is where we can take ourselves in this Sunday’s Gospel. 

We know that one of the ongoing problems besetting our family structure is the lack of a father who by turns can model integrity and build trust. Jesus is giving his disciples in the Gospel some strong words of how they are to give witness to the world.  What the followers of Jesus would come to know in the presence of Jesus was that he could speak without fear and elicit so much trust because of his own relationship with his heavenly Father.  He knew who had sent him and he understood his call.  He had an identity with his Father that was deeply etched in intimate love, and it was what gave Jesus strength for his earthly mission. It is a far cry from the many stories of fathers who have never been able to transmit a trusting relationship and a moral compass to their children. The words of Jesus in the Gospel are telling: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.” Jesus wants us to share in the deep bond he has with his Father.  It comes down to our choice.  It is a choice we make anew each day and in this Gospel we are clearly told that nothing about our choice will be concealed, everything secret will be made known. The transparency we call for so pleadingly in our institutions and leaders must be ours as well.

As if to reinforce that message, we are given two striking examples of spiritual fatherhood.  Jeremiah, in our first reading, is surrounded by an insurgency of plotters who throw him into a cistern.  In the face of this, he is fearless and asserts how God will be his vindicator.  He speaks the truth that is the Word of God, one that stops in its tracks any conspiracy or peril for the prophet. Then St. Paul, in the second reading, tells us that for all of the failed expectations we have had from the first father, Adam, the gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflows for the many.

As we celebrate Father’s Day it is important that we both recognize and honor those examples of fatherhood that God has placed in our midst.  We remember fathers who bring their children to worship with them, those who nurture our souls and our bodies as we walk our earthly pilgrimage.  We remember many spiritual fathers such as Pope Leo and the ordained men in our lives who have brought us closer to Christ as they teach us to act without fear and trust in a word of truth that shatters the pretensions of so many who fail to acknowledge the heavenly Father.  As we pause to give thanks to our heavenly Father, to Jesus the beloved Son, and to our human fathers, let us ask for the courage to profess the name of the Father without apologies. Let us ask the one who knows the hairs of our head and the deepest thoughts of our mind and heart to renew our relationship as beloved sons and daughters of a Father whose love has no limits. 

Benedictine Reflection (11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 6/14/26)

“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” (Mt 10:8)

Heading into mid-June is usually a time of optimism and positive thoughts. However, as I take the measure of the country and world that surrounds me,

I am given to concern, if not alarm.  What seems an endless cycle of war continues from Ukraine and the whole of the Middle East. We see an E-Bola outbreak and horrific waves of violence in Africa, a world-wide economy that imperils the majority of the human family while enriching a small slice of the rich and powerful.  What are we to do?  The words of our Opening Prayer this 11thSunday in Ordinary Time articulate our prayer precisely: “Lord, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us the help of your grace, that we may please you with our resolve and our deeds.

It is that combination of God’s grace and our response that lends focus to our Gospel for this Sunday. This past Friday we celebrated the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and we are pleased to see that the American Bishops have consecrated our country and our Church to the Sacred Heart as we prepare to celebrate 25o years of our birth as a nation.  Our Gospel account recounts how the heart of Jesus was moved with pity for the crowds, for they were troubled and abandoned. He then enjoins his twelve disciples to go on mission as “laborers for the harvest,” with the authority and power that come from Jesus.  With that charge comes a healthy reminder: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” In a nation and world where everything and by extension everyone has a price tag, Jesus affirms the bounty of his giftedness, to which each of us has received.  Whatever our array of gifts, they are pro bono, for the good of our neighbor.

It is in this tableau that we need to connect with our Opening Prayer.  We first need to have firm resolve, something spelled out in our second reading by St. Paul when he declares that because we have been reconciled to God, we now are carriers of that same reconciliation.  Reconciliation is not a word heard with any frequency today in the midst of the verbal exchanges we see in government and the military exchanges we see among nations.  However, that is what will always distinguish the followers of Christ. Whatever cost is in our exchange of deeds is measured in souls and not in dollars.  If we can be convinced of that, we will already be tasting of the kingdom of heaven.  

Benedictine Reflection (Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 6/7/26)

“I am the living Bread, come down from heaven.” (John 6:51)

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ affirms a reality at the heart of our human condition and our faith, articulated in the words the priest proclaims at every Mass after the Consecration: a mystery of faith. The readings for this feast unpack that mystery as it found a place in our human condition.  In our first reading, we see the Israelites in their desert journey have their physical hunger satisfied by manna from heaven.  That is the bridge that takes us to our Gospel reading of the announcement by Jesus that the bread he gives is his flesh, a gift not just for daily sustenance, but for the life of the world.  The God who became like us in human form, who experienced hunger and thirst, is the one who died for us and left us a memorial of that death. That memorial is his body and blood poured out that becomes the central ritual of our faith. It is, indeed, a mystery of faith too awesome for many of our small minds to take in.

The challenge for us each time we approach the Eucharist is to translate the mystery of the reality into the marrow of our life.  This weekend I was privileged to be part of a priestly ordination of one of our Academy alumni.  Among the many powerful exhortations given by the bishop to the newly ordained is: “Let your life be as holy as the mystery you celebrate.”  To begin to do that we should strive to promote the other aspect of Eucharist that is brought out by this feast—unity. For Catholics, the Eucharist can never be a private devotion or solitary supper. As St. Paul tells us in our second reading, the loaf of bread is one and we, many though we are, constitute one body. If there is a primary function of every Eucharist, it is to highlight the harmony of the community we are.  It is also the great equalizer. The story in our first reading recounts how everyone received just the right amount of manna he or she needed.  It is a notion reinforced by Thomas Aquinas in his famous sequence written for this feast, Lauda Sion, where he says that the same Christ is received by one and all, no matter how big or small the piece of bread.  Nobody gets cheated. The Eucharist attracts the incredible spread of age, ethnic groups, income levels and cultural preferences. There is no “Church of the Gated Community Elite.”  

A final point to be made when we speak of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is that of self-giving. In a world where so many people take without giving and give only after calculating the cost, we tend to be suspicious of gifts offered with no strings attached.  There is only one string attached in this case.  Itis, again in the words of Thomas Aquinas, “bring him all the praise we know, for he is more than we bestow.” If we can bring “all the praise we know” to every Eucharist we celebrate, if we can bring ourselves to share as Jesus shares his body and blood, then the true greatness of this feast will become a living reality within us. We can then realize the deeper meaning of the words of Jesus in our Gospel: “the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 

Benedictine Reflection (Solemnity of Pentecost, 5/24/26)

“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.” (Acts 2:1)

Most of us have had the recurring experience throughout our life of feeling incomplete.  We strive for fullness of effort and achievement. We seek resolution in times of crisis and closure in times of loss.  Think back on those life lessons.  More often than not, we have the frustration of falling short of the mark.

How similar that feeling must have been for many of the disciples of Jesus in the period prior to Pentecost.  The time with their Master and their effort to follow him carried abundant examples of futility, even failure.  Jesus gave hints of whathe expected them to do and then regularly saw how feeble their ability was to carry it out. Then came that grand day of Pentecost in the upper room when, as St. Luke reminded us in our first reading, they were “all in one place together.” So much of what had previously been lacking was now filled in. What previously was  incomplete was now made whole. There was a harmony of understanding that came out of the chaos of confusion of tongues.  The diverse groups of people in Jerusalem came together as one to listen to the Spirit-filled preaching of Peter and the apostles.  What the risen Jesus had predicted in our Gospel scene in the upper room, that he would send them the Spirit, had come to be.   To use the motto of Pope Leo, “In the one Christ we are one.” It was that same Spirit that led the apostles out of the upper room after Pentecost, the one who allowed St. Paul in our second reading to speak of how the Spirit is at work in the many parts of one body.

In the midst of a world with so many polarized groups and discordant voices, how do we give inclusiveness and completeness a chance to emerge?  We might begin by sincerely asking ourselves what effect the Holy Spirit has as an active presence in my life.  For me, Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, has always been a day that evokes the deepest gratitude.  That is because I can look back on my life and know with certitude that the Spirit has by turns kept me from acting on my worsttemptations to turn away from God and has supplied me with words and graces that have allowed me to weather the fiercest challenges to my faith.

As a would-be historian, I have always been struck by how the Church that represents Christ on earth has been rescued from its own worst sinfulness countless times by the indwelling holiness and guidance of the Holy Spirit. As we pray in the Sequence for Pentecost: “Wash the stains of guilt away, guide the steps that go astray.”

We know that even with the graces of the Spirit, we will never find full completion of our deepest desires this side of the grave.  As Fr. Ronald Rolheiser has reminded us, our earthly pilgrimage remains an unfinished symphony.  But the Feast of Pentecost gives us the assurance that the Holy Spirit can and will supply what is lacking in the measure that we need it, in the measure that we pray and desire it.  

Benedictine Reflection (Solemnity of the Ascension, 5/17/26)

“I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Taking leave of a loved one is never an easy thing to do.  It may be a parent dropping off a young child for the first day of school, or a high school graduate leaving home for college.  Its emotional toll runs higher when it is a newly married soldier taking leave of a spouse before an overseas tour of duty. Or the most trying of all human departures, saying good-bye to a loved one or family member at the time of death. What often happens to us in such situations is that we get fixated on the sense of loss we experience and as a result are not always capable of opening our hearts to a new set of opportunities that come to us once we let go.

In many respects, that is what happens to the disciples in both accounts of the Lord’s Ascension that we are given from Luke in the Acts of the Apostles andMatthew in the conclusion of his Gospel. Both passages take pains to reminds us that the leave taking of Jesus does not so much represent a closure, an end to his work on earth, as much as it signals a new and necessary mission now passed on to those who have followed him. In that respect, every year when we observe the Solemnity of the Ascension, we should see it as a time that gives us a source of hope for our own unique call and mission.

Two questions from these readings capture the nature of our response to this mission.  “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”  This query in Luke’s Ascension scene in Acts has its counterpart in the question posed by the angel at the tomb in Luke’s Gospel: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  We can match these questions with the telling comment made by Matthew in his Gospel.  He says that the eleven, just prior to the Ascension, worshiped Jesus—but doubted. The disciples clearly needed a life coach.  What they did receive from Jesus was the practical directive to stay in Jerusalem and await the promised Spirit who would give them the means to dispel their doubtsand transform their hesitancy.  

This helps us to better understand what is called the Great Commission given at the close of the Gospel of Matthew: “Make disciples of all nations.” The assurance that we can to that comes with the best valedictory message anyone could ask for: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” It is an affirmation that fortifies our hope, a hope expressed eloquently in the words we hear from the Preface of this Feast: “Christ has passed beyond our sight not to abandon us but to be our hope.

Benedictine Reflection (6th Sunday of Easter, 5/10/26)

“The Father will give you an advocate to be with you always.” (John 14:16)

This the time of year when we are caught up in a mix of rituals that make the month of May appear like a revolving door.  On this second Sunday of the month Mother’s Day is always firmly in place.  I know I can speak to all of you in giving thanks to our mothers whose sacrifice and faithful love remind us of our Blessed Mother, to whom this month is dedicated. May also has us turn to a religious cycle of First Communions, Confirmations, Marriages and Ordinations, as well as graduations to end the school year. The roller coaster of feelings accompanying these rituals of transition can leave us with a mixture of hope and exhilaration, along with some bittersweet sense of leaving and starting up again.

It all seems very similar to the early Church.  Once they had come to terms with the physical absence of Jesus, his followers needed to discover new sources of guidance and strength.  Within the first community of Christians in Jerusalem, there were no strategic planning meetings or job-training sessions.  We learn in our first reading that one of the first deacons, Philip, was forced by persecution to take the Gospel outside of Jerusalem and that his work with the people of Samaria brought them great joy.  We are told further that this joy was maintained and intensified when Peter and John came to lay hands on them and brought them the Holy Spirit.  It helps us to remember that it was this same Spirit, the Advocate, that was first promised to Peter, John, and all the apostles at the Last Supper, as today’s Gospel relates.  It was the Spirit of truth that Jesus assured his disciples would be poured out on them in the upper room at Pentecost, and it made all the difference.

I know of some people who question or discount the role of the Spirit in the Church today.  I can only respond that as a monk and minister of the Gospel, as an inadequate director to fellow pilgrims on their spiritual journey, the signs of the Spirit’s activity have continued to surprise and console me over many years.  Uncommon bursts of compassion and unexpected waves of fortitude are some of those signs.  They tell me I am only an instrument of the Spirit and sometime the most important thing for me to do is step aside and allow space for the Advocate to do its work.  The manner of the Spirit’s operation is well described, I think, in our second reading from the Letter of Peter.  “To anyone who asks a reason for your hope, be ready to give an explanation.” I am convinced that such an explanation is inevitably tied to the Spirit’s promptings, especially when it is done, as the words of Scripture counsel, “with gentleness and reverence.” Saintly people in the course of my life have manifested the Spirit’s fruits with remarkable consistency as they visit me with the Spirit of truth and give ample reason for my hope. Such instruments of God’s presence move me to pray to the Spirit, the Advocate, still present in our world, for all mothers, for the newly graduated and the just married, for the newly ordained and the recently retired, that the Spirit will instill in them all His gifts and fruits as they go about the work that God intends them to undertake.

Benedictine Reflection (5th Sunday of Easter, 5/3/26)

“Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” (John 14:5)

One of the most plaintive lines in all of Scripture is the one given by Thomas in this Sunday’s Gospel.  The setting is the scene of the last supper.  It is in response to the assurance given by Jesus on the night before his death that the apostles will know the way where he is going. The response of Thomas is halfway between a whine and a cry for help.  Like so many of the male species, Thomas did not want to admit that he was lost, but he needed a map, or at least the equivalent of a contemporary location App that would direct him accordingly.

What Jesus offers to Thomas and to us is his own unique set of spiritual coordinates.  The first directional aid is the voice of Jesus. The voice print of Jesus and his physical presence were sure and certain guides for the apostles.  They needed a road to reach the Father and their heavenly destination. Jesus lets them know the traffic secret: all roads to heaven go through him. It is a natural companion to last Sunday’s Gospel of Jesus as the sheepfold.  In yet another example of the apostles being adrift, Philip asks Jesus rather impudently “show us the Father.” We can say it is the spiritual equivalent of the classic movie line: “Show is the money.” It prompts from Jesus a lesson on the other coordinate of his spiritual GPS—his words. If you know my words and believe in them, he says, you will find the way, and not only the way, but the truth and the life.

In a world awash with road maps to spiritual bliss, it is a consolation to know that in the Catholic faith we have always had in place directional guides to help us find the way.  In the first rank of these are the lives of the saints, who reminds us of the multiplicity of ways by which we find the Father.  In addition, we have living models of wise and holy people who point the way, especially when we lose our bearings and need to be led outside the selfishness of our sinfulness.  We need such people more than ever who radiate the life of Christ and point the way, much as the first deacons in the Acts of the Apostles in our first reading di.

An ongoing comfort for me is the reality of being part of a Church that is far greater than any particular failing on my part of anxiety over where I am going. The opening words of Jesus in the Gospel, “do not let your hearts be troubled.”

These words reflect, I think, the healthy realism of someone who knows that doubts and fears are the daily diet of our hearts.  If we allow our troubles to overwhelm us, then we can never get to the road that the GPS of Jesus provides. That is why we need to affirm our belief in the Jesus present to us through the consolation of the Eucharist.  We are aware of what happens when we are given food for the journey. If. Like Thomas, we do not know the way on the journey, then we have the assurance that both the words of Jesus and the presence of fellow disciples can position us back on the right road, bringing us out of darkness into his own wonderful light.

Benedictine Reflection (4th Sunday of Easter, 4/26/26)

“I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9) 

We are a far remove from the Middle Eastern way of life that Jesus experienced. Think of the countless references to shepherds and sheep made by Jesus himself.  He directed his mission to the lost sheep of Israel. He took pity on the crowds who were like sheep without a shepherd.  He rejoiced over the one sheep who was lost and found.  On this Good Shepherd Sunday, our Gospel gives us the classic images of the sheepgate and the shepherd as its protector.

We know from Scripture and from history that there are good shepherds and ones not so good.  The Church has never lacked pastors, a word derived from the Latin word meaning shepherd.  Our second reading speaks of the ideal of a pastor as “a shepherd and guardian of our souls.” Sad to say, in every age there have been shepherds who have betrayed their trust. As our Gospel passage relates, they refuse to listen and heed the voice of Jesus, following instead their own interests and gains. The monks at Marmion call that to mind in a prayer we say at Compline.

To get a visual sense of a model good shepherd, it helps to know that in first-century Palestine the typical enclosure for sheep was not a Little Bo Peep like fence, but a circle of stones. Briars—no barbed wire yet-would be placed on top the stones and then at the entrance there was not a gate as we know it but an opening where the shepherd would lie down at night to prevent anyone else from coming in. It is a picture that give a whole new meaning to the phrase “over my dead body.”  What is important for us in finding the lesson of our Gospel in its original setting is to see how Jesus is making the best case to his disciples and listeners that if they wanted the genuine article of the good shepherd, it was to be found in his voice— “I know mine and mine know me.”

The qualities of a bonus pastor, a good shepherd who truly cares for souls, combine those of a parent, mentor ER doctor and security guard.  Most of us know what happens when we hear a voice that initially may appear very attractive. Upon reflection, however, we know that if we heed that voice, we are led into areas that are not good for our souls.  When voices of integrity and trustare not heard and heeded, the potential for calamity spikes.  Jesus was aware of the plight of those who were being beguiled by impostors. Much as he looked on the souls of his own time, he looks on us today and sees that we need a protective enclosure.  To ensure that we stay within that enclosure, we need to listen to the voices that carry Christ’s saving love.  It is good, as we await the Holy Spirit in this paschal season, to pray that we be given the grace of discernment and right judgment, to trust in the Good Shepherd who can lead us safely home, even if it takes us through the valley of death.

Benedictine Reflection (3rd Sunday of Easter, 4/19/26)

“He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” (Luke 24:35)

The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is the story all of us share. It begins like so many stories as a tale of failed expectations.  Things have not worked out according to plan for Cleopas and his companion as we encounter them on the road.  They are leaving Jerusalem, the scene of their disappointment.Their world has shrunk as they try to come to terms with the reason for their despondency, the death of Jesus. Their focus is on failed hopes and at first, they seem oblivious of the stranger who joins them on the way.  A clear lesson is delivered by Luke’s Gospel account of this meeting. When our hopes are not met, we lose an awareness, an openness, to other possibilities, especially when they emerge in people and events we do not anticipate.  The pair of disciples thought they knew what had happened.  Yes, they did know the facts about the death of Jesus, but not its deeper meaning.  That had to come from Jesus himself. To their credit, they took the time and effort to listen to the words of a stranger, and what words they were.

Another lesson from the Emmaus story is the power of a simple gesture of hospitality.  Because Cleopas and his companion offer hospitality to Jesus, the stranger on the way, everything falls into place.  As St. Augustine tells us: “At Emmaus hospitality restored what unbelief had taken away.” The simple ritual of a shared meal opens not only their eyes to the Jesus sitting with them at table, but their hearts as well. These are the hearts that they now realize had been burning within them earlier as Jesus opened the Scriptures to them.  At the table, they are also given a lesson in the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread.

This Gospel also provides us with a striking lesson of how we find our identity in a faith community. It helps us to see that at the end of this passage Cleopasreturns with his friend to the upper room in Jerusalem.  They feel compelled to return to their home community, the one they had left the day before, to witness to what they had experienced.  In doing this, they remind us that we are all pilgrims.  Like so many pilgrims, there may be anxieties and fears that accompany our journey, similar to the bleakness that must have characterized that first community of the followers of Jesus in the dark days after crucifixion.  When we are surrounded by disappointing news—and when we are not—we need to share meals and look to mutual support in the face of failed expectations.

In one sense, the Emmaus story truly is our story because it speaks to us of the triumph of courage over fear and hope over despair.  It speaks to us of how Jesus always meets us as we are and not as we would like things to be. It reminds us of the need we all have to live in communities that nurture us and keep us honest, to reach out to the stranger, the one who is often the chosen instrument of Christ to come into our lives. As often as we open ourselves to discovering the risen Christ in the Word that is spoken in the breaking of the bread, we establish our links with the disciples of two millennia who are no longer strangers, but fellow pilgrims and travelers who help point the way for us.

Benedictine Reflection (Divine Mercy Sunday, 4/12/26) 

“Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believed.” (John 20:29)

When do we allow our lingering doubts about all things spiritual to give way to a faith that takes us beyond the realm of reason? It is a perennial question of searchers of every generation. It was a question at work in the first community of Christ’s followers.  Our Divine Mercy Gospel of the doubting Thomas gives us a more penetrating look at the interplay of doubt and belief and how our God invites us to come to a deeper and genuine faith.

One of the first things we are told in this Sunday’s Gospel is that the doors of the upper room were locked—out of fear.  They were locked, not only for the occasion of the first visit of Jesus to the upper room on the day of resurrection, but also a week later when Thomas was present. We know that it would take the wind of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to finally unlock the doors and unchain the fears and anxieties of the first disciples.  Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles attests to this as the disciples, not Jesus, are now the ones performing signs and wonders.

There is, however, no discounting the lack of trust prevailing in the post-Resurrection accounts we find in the Gospels.  The skepticism exhibited by Thomas is of a piece with the wary attitude of most of his fellow apostles as they cowered in that upper on the first Easter Sunday.  The reluctance of the absent Thomas to accept the oral testimony of the apostles is something we have all felt to a certain degree.  We bring what we consider to be compelling evidence on a matter of importance to a close companion, and it meets with indifference or denial.  Thomas wants palpable proof.  So Jesus extends to him the startling invitation to put his hand into his wounds.  In doing so, he is conveying the stark theological truth that if you want to believe in the Jesus who was raised, you need to believe in the Christ who was crucified for us.  We are reminded of the spiritual maxim that by his wounds you are healed.  An underlying message of the encounter in the upper room is that a refusal to acknowledge the wounds of Jesus and to admit our own woundedness and need for healing is perhaps the biggest obstacle preventing our growth in faith.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, when we see the mercy of Jesus radiated through his wounds in the classic image given by St. Faustine, this Gospel has special relevance. The apostles are given the power, through the Holy Spirit, for forgiveness of sins.  When God’s forgiveness is given and received, fear recedes. Thomas touched the mercy of his master as he was forgiven and became a transmitter of that mercy to others.

As much as we might think otherwise, doubt and fear will surround us to the end of our days. The devil uses it as his tool. There comes a moment, however, when whatever unsettles our faith—scandals, the loss of a loved one, the seeming power of injustice and violence—needs to be handed over to the one who gives us the gift of faith.  We also need to remember that Thomas came to the gift of faith by maintaining membership in a community of followers who became the agents of his coming to believe.  He needed a community and so do we.  Surrounded by a world given to much doubt and cynicism on matters of religion, may the Lord give us the grace to serve as instruments of mercy and healing in a fashion that replaces fear and doubt with conviction and trust.

Benedictine Reflection (Easter Sunday, 4/5/26) 

“The one who had arrived at the tomb first . . . saw and believed.” (John 20:8)

Easter is a feast that invites us to experience community.  However much our memories of Easters past and present are personal and unique, they would lose much of their savor if they were not joined to the reality of a belief that is shared and passed on to others. The striking truth conveyed by the Gospel of our Easter Day Mass is that the original followers of Jesus, overwhelmed by grief and fear on the first Easter morning, needed one another as they tried to make sense of events that had outrun their capacity to understand them.

What I find attractive about John the Evangelist’s portrayal of those who come to the empty tomb is that it gives us the full range of human behaviors that are found in most faith communities and families.  We have Mary Magdalene, the one who is up before dawn, who has the courage to penetrate the darkness and discover the stone removed from the entrance to the tomb.  Like it is in the monastery, there always seems to be someone up and about in the pre-dawn hours to confront whatever challenge the new day brings. I am reminded of St. Benedict’s many exhortations of monks to run when I see Magdalene’s sprint back to the upper room in the city to spread the news. 

Peter and John then enter the drama of Easter morning as two persons very different in their running pace to the tomb and their analysis of the scene.  Once he finally arrives, Peter is puzzled as he enters the tomb first and sees the unlikely combination of body wrappings and no body.  Then the beloved disciple comes in.  He sees the same evidence and believes, even though he does not fully understand what to make of it all.  How redolent the scene is of our everyday life: a lot of running around, clear personality differences on display and seemingly conflicting points of view. 

If we decide to go beyond the ending of today’s Gospel, something the Church invites us to do as we celebrate the Easter Octave throughout this week, we see another striking example of community.  Mary Magdalene stays around the tomb after Peter and John leave.  Isn’t that the case with households and parishes?  There is always someone who stays after church to pray or after meals to clean up. Mary is weeping.  She is trying to take stock of her grief and perplexity, and she becomes the first one to whom the Risen Lord appears.  Her tears of sorrow become tears of joy.  She then returns to the upper room and relays the news to the rest of the community.

Peter, John and Mary Magdalene all needed fellow disciples to help them come to a faith in the resurrection.  We should give thanks this Easter day that we have brothers and sisters who continue to do the same for us.  We make our renewal of baptismal vows together.  We do well to remind ourselves of how fragile our faith in the resurrection can be without models to follow, those who support our final response of belief in “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” It is a good time to give thanks for the gift of community in joining our voices to so many other Christians throughout the world today as we say together: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice in it and be glad.”

Benedictine Reflection (Palm Sunday of the Passion, 3/29/26)

“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken.” (Matthew 21:11)

The sights and sounds of Palm Sunday’s have secure places for many of us in the storehouse of our memory. They mingle with an assortment of languages and processions, with familiar chants and the arresting voices that come to us in the reading of the Passion.  Such memories remind us that good liturgy employs some of the same qualities as good drama: it rivets our attention and draws us to a deeper truth.

Behind all the moving rituals of the Sunday of the Lord’s Passion is the human story of abandonment and sacrificial love.  As that story is played out in the Passion account of Matthew, we can’t help but be struck at the central role of human choice in all the major participants.  In the first place we have Jesus, willingly accepting an abject death, trusting his Father’s will and plan.  There are Peter and Judas, deciding for different reasons to betray their master. There is Pilate, choosing to let the tide of a crowd override justice. There are the women followers of Jesus who, unlike the apostles, make the decision not to flee but to accompany Christ to Calvary and witness what must have been a horrific sight. It makes us think of the words of the old Spiritual: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The question becomes for us: would we have wanted to be there then? Do we want to be there now?

Whatever our answer to those questions, our liturgy of Palm Sunday asserts how fickle we can be.  The crowds in Jerusalem who acclaimed Jesus as king when he enters the city are the same who condemn him to death outside the city days later.  The figure of Peter who swears at the Las Supper that he will never deserthis master denies him three times that same night.

We live in a culture where choices too often seem controlled by equally fickle behavior. The winds of popular opinion or executive whim hold sway over moral

principle and reason.  Quite in contrast to such examples is the image of Jesus that is made present to us today.  Whether as prefigured in the Suffering Servantof Isaiah or the wounded healer of the Passion narrative, he is resolute and singleminded as he carries out his mission.  There is nothing fickle about this Son of God, no playing to the crowd.  He wants us to know that his choice to die for our sins naturally leads to each of us making a choice that is founded on his example. The manner in which we make our choice will go a long way in determining how well we make entry into the rest of the saving events of Holy Week and Easter.

Benedictine Reflection (Fifth Sunday of Lent, 3/22/26)

“Untie him and let him go.” (John 11:44) 

One of the most memorable maxims of the Rule of Benedict is to keep death daily before our eyes.  For generations of faithful who knew of this Sunday’s Gospel account of the raising of Lazarus and of many other Scriptural accounts of death, this maxim was easy to follow.  Washing a body after death, preparing a burialplace, caring for the children of a young dead parent, these were everyday rituals.

Today many of these rituals have been consigned to the sanitized sectors of hospice care and funeral homes.  We live in a culture that wants to disguise our mortality with the illusion of cosmetic surgery and bodily makeovers.  The truth is that quite a few people insist on not keeping death daily before their eyes. Evenas our popular culture has buffered us from talking about and entering into thelives of those who die, we share a faith that has us constantly look at a God whose human corpus on a cross invites us to enter more deeply into a death that came to pass because of our collective sinfulness.  What the last two weeks of Lent invite us to do is focus on how the death of the one we call Jesus is not an optional extra, but an essential part of how we come to enter more deeply into our faith and our own identification with suffering and death. Without it, our experience of Easter and resurrection will be very shallow.

The Gospels of our previous two Sundays detailed the moving encounters of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well and the man born blind.  They laid the groundwork for the human drama of Lazarus and his two sisters.  Martha, Mary and Lazarus appear not as stick figures. In this story, but as a trio “loved by Jesus.” When Martha comes to inform Jesus that “he whom you love is ill,” there is little doubt about the depth of the relationship.  So too, on learning of the death of Lazarus, Jesus weeps, a remarkable sign of the connection he has with his friend.

The stage is set for Jesus to produce the greatest of his signs in John’s Gospel. To heighten the drama, he does it before a considerable audience and within earshot of Jerusalem, where we know at this stage in the Gospel the enemies of Jesus are waiting to put him to death.  The dialogues that ensued between Martha and Jesus is one that draws us into the drama.  We hear the question posed by Jesus: “Do you believe in the resurrection?” It is meant for any disciple of Jesus.  In giving our answer, we come to understand the meaning of the cross and the mystery of faith that accompanies resurrected life.  

Prior to the emergence of Lazarus from the tomb, we have the words of Jesus affirming for us what is to come.  Knowing of what is ahead of him in Jerusalem he does not say “I too will rise” but the theologically more powerful statement: “I am the resurrection and the life.”  The essence of Christian life is resurrected life.

The lesson taught at the raising of Lazarus is that death is a reality, but not the final one.  If we are ready to keep death before our eyes each day, it should lead us to those words we say at the end of our Creed: “We look forward to the resurrection of the dead.” Let us hope in the time leading up to Easter we will be able to keep Christ’s death—and our own—daily before our eyes and to see in that the promise of new life that has no end.

Benedictine Reflection (Fourth Sunday of Lent, 3/15/26)

“This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes.” (John 9:30)

  It is one of the most gripping stories in the Gospel, containing a complex human drama involving intractable Pharisees, diffident parents, a blind man and the propulsive force of Jesus at the center of it all.

  The Gospel account begins with Jesus at his earthy best. Mixing clay with his spittle, he initiates a cure of the blind man and uses the temple area of Jerusalem and what had to be a captive audience to witness the cure on the sabbath.

  Paradoxes abound.  The Pharisees, who claim to see, are blinded throughout the encounter with Jeus and the man born blind, because they are closed to the grace God offers them.  The man who is cured comes to show us the stages of his cure and his conversion to the faith.

  The dialogue with all the major players is revealing.  The intransigence of the Pharisee opposition is clear.  They have little to no idea of this Christ as the one who can lift the veil of their ignorance; whereas the cured bind man comes to a process of seeing who Jesus really is.  The anonymous (does he stand for all of us?) blind man will come by stages to profess his faith in Jesus.  First, he sees him as a prophet, then with his faith and hope restored, he acknowledges him as Lord.His pathway to belief mirrors that of the candidates and the elect who are by stages coming to know the Lord more deeply on their way to the Easter Vigil.

  The scorn visited upon the former blind man has its counterpart in the modern scheme of things.  Cynics and the non-believers are wont to take their swings against the honest and humble declarations of those Christians and other folk because they tell of a power at work greater than any generated by the fragile human condition.  In John’s Gospel this convoluted scene of light shining on truth and darkness covering the whole vision of those who think they can see, is worth our remembering at a time when the darkness of war and devastation in the Middle East is hailed by some as a new channel of light and force for the good.

  To see with the acuity of Jesus and to know of our responsibility to transmit that light of truth to others, remains our task today.  If our light is dimmed by the powers of darkness, we have only to let the Lord’s healing touch illuminate our vision.  It is a vision that should always have us point to Easter and the one whose resurrected light still shines brightly.

Benedictine Reflection (Third Sunday of Lent, 3/8/26)

 “He told me everything that I have done.” (John 4:39)

The Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well gives us a long story line and a concise message: we come to know Jesus through an individual encounter. We see in the Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus a mirror for each of us that speaks of how Christ can come into our life often in ways that are totally unexpected.

In order to appreciate the grace of such an encounter, we need first to reflect upon the very human portrait of Jesus given by John the Evangelist. Jesus is someone tired from a long trek through Samaritan territory.  We know he has already established himself as someone in the business of unsettling the lives of those whom he encountered.  He was especially known for seeking out the undesirables of his day.  There were few people who fit that model better than the woman Jesus encounters at the well.  There were three counts against her.  She was a woman, a Samaritan, and someone with a questionable past, seemingly shunned as we can see by her coming to the well alone, rather than in the company of other women.  She was clearly outside the boundaries of those Jesus would have contact with by Jewish law.

Like many of us, the Samaritan woman lived in a world of her own making.  She no doubt had established the routine of going to this well, getting her water and returning home.  But when she encounters Jesus, there is no play at social etiquette.  Jesus not only engages the woman as an equal in conversation, but he listens intently and allows her to speak of her deepest needs and desires.  In trying to cover the half-truth of her marriages, Jesus ably confronts her with the knowledge of her previous husbands. This bit of truth-telling leads the woman to sense there is something special in Jesus, something that prompts her to call him a prophet. In turn, the sincerity of her search is evident to Jesus, and he rewards her search by telling her—before he tells any of his apostles—“I am the Messiah for whom you are searching.” This is the message that jump starts the woman’s gift of faith.  In a telling gesture, she leaves the water jar at the well and goes back to announce the Good News to her fellow Samaritans, who then beg Jesus to stay with them, and he does. Samaria would never be the same. While the disciples of Jesus are searching for perishable food, the Samaritan woman has found nourishment that takes her to a new level.

What the Church asks of us through this dramatic Gospel is that we engage Jesus at the same deep level as the woman at the well.  It invites us to follow Jesus, who draws out of us our deepest needs and even our most shameful sins. We know that is never an easy undertaking.  It requires us to take down barriers, to draw close to the well of our own deepest desires for God that will slake our spiritual thirst. Lent is the privileged time when we need to encounter Jesus anew and let him into the deepest part of ourselves.  In the process, we can only pray that Jesus will unveil “everything I have done” and have us come back to the well that never runs dry.

Benedictine Reflection (Second Sunday of Lent, 3/1/26)

“His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.” (Mt 17:2)

On my one visit over a half-century ago to the supposed Mount of Transfiguration in the Holy Land our Scripture scholar guide had us get into the mind of Jesus on his walk up Mount Tabor with his three apostles. “He knew that he was on his way to his passion and death.  He knew that his apostles would be traumatized by the events that lay ahead.  As if to steel them for what was to come, he gave them a foretaste of his future glory and theirs.” Reaching the top, we were invited to be one with Jesus in communicating the most important message they were to receive atop the mountain, words that came from a loving Father: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

The scene atop Tabor, with Moses and Elijah, along with the three apostles, cuts to the deepest part of our Lenten observance and our life in Christ.  We see Jesus, the greatest prophet and teacher, linking himself with the law and the prophets as he converses with the revered figures of Moses and Elijah.  The gift that was given to the apostles was not just a sneak preview of the glory that was promised. They were given the gift of a Father and Son intimacy that has no counterpart in our limited human realm.  The Father wanted the apostles and us to listen to the Father, but also to a deeper reality being revealed, what we call the paschal mystery—the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.  In this, Jeus teaches us how to let go of our excess baggage and hold fast to that which is dear to us. In the process we discover that even those things we call most dear cannot measure up to the gifts and the glory to which the transfigured Christ has called us.  

We do need to walk up our own mountains this Lent and know that the journey will always be taken within the shadow of the cross.  But it will also give us a glimpse of the Easter glory, a glory we long for every bit as much as Moses and Elijah longed for the Messiah, every bit as much as Peter, James and Joh were privileged to hear the voice of the Father and the message of the Son.

Benedictine Reflection (First Sunday of Lent, 2/22/26)

“Jesus said to him, Get away, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10)

Most of us are familiar with the traditional Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent about the temptation of Jesus in the desert. We are even more familiar with the reality of our own temptation and sin.  That should make us grateful for the Church’s reminder to us at the outset of Lent that the facts of our existence have not changed. Our struggle is not just one of choosing between good and evil; it is about making a choice between apparent goods and essential goods.

Our first reading takes us back to the Garden of Eden to highlight this.  The serpent’s invitation made to Adam and Eve, to be like God, has reinvented itself throughout the ages.  It remains the root of all temptation. It is the timeless enticement to our fragile egos that we can obtain what we think will fill up the deepest well of our longing. The tactics of the tempter have changed little. They were perhaps most deftly set to words in the classic work of sin and temptation by C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. In that book, Screwtape, the head devil, from his base of operations in hell, instructs his earthly agent, Wormwood, about the skill of successful temptation.  “Vital for success is to make the human soul seek an apparent good.  One can do this only by keeping a steady stream of supposed goods and diversions before the soul, so that after a while the soul’s sense of good and evil will be so blunted that it will fall like a ripe fruit into your lap.”  These words serve as a contemporary commentary on our consumer culture.  They also point us to the temptation scene in our Gospel with Jesus and the devil.  Here we see the devil using his supply three tine-tested examples of apparent goods—food, self-esteem and power. Why not prove his goodness and his “Godness” by turning stones to bread, and resisting a sky-dive off the temple in Jerusalem and having his angels rescue him?  Jesus combats these temptations and the one of power by quoting Scripture, asserting the ultimate power over evil he has with the directive: “Go away Satan.” 

I find it interesting that this is the same phrase we see on a symbol that has for centuries been used to confront the evil designs of the tempter, the Benedictine medal.  Jesus also shows us in his confrontation with the evil one a radical difference from the effects of the sin of Adam and Eve in Eden.  There the first couple undergo alienation from one another and their environment after their sin. In contrast, at the close of the Gospel of the temptation of Jesus, he has the comfort of angels and the strength of the Father’s presence.

We reengage this struggle with temptation each Lenten season as we receive our ashes and take up the spiritual tools of fasting, almsgiving and prayer.  A lesson we need to relearn is that we will not be able to resist temptation unless we willingly take up such weapons so that we can distinguish between the apparent good of our sinful inclinations and the real good of the one who became like us to afford us a human model.  As St. Augustine tells us in the Liturgy of the Hours for this Sunday: “See yourself tempted in Christ and see yourself victorious in Christ.He could have kept the devil from himself, but if he were not tempted, he could not teach you how to triumph over temptation.”

Benedictine Reflection (6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2/15/26)

“Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.” (Matthew 5:37)

“Bless me father, it has been two years since my last confession . . . I missed my morning prayers a few times, I used bad language.  These are my sins.”  Although I am open to the possibility that such holy people still may be found, when I hear such a confession I am inclined to give as a penance the Gospel passage from the Sermon on the Mount for this 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time. For even if we have the best examination of conscience, it is too easy to think of our sins as check marks on a list.  What Jesus proposes in the Sermon on the Mount is a new standard of self-evaluation, one that looks more at the interior motive and attitude rather than the external act. The two elements are certainly linked, but all sinful acts start in the heart.

The prohibition of the fifth commandment not to kill takes up more than just serial murderers or gangland hit men. For Jesus, it includes those who carry within their heart bundles of anger and resentment against their neighbor.  The sixth commandment’s condemnation of adultery and sexual promiscuity is expanded by Jesus to include the interior cause of sexual sin—the lust that turns persons into objects.  Jesus goes on to remind his listeners who lived in a heavily patriarchal society that responsibility for divorce is an equal one, in the same way that marital commitment demands equal and mutual respect between spouses.Similarly, Jesus reduces the eighth commandment to its simplest of forms—sincerity and single-mindedness, yes and no, with no half-truths or hedging.

This part of the Sermon on the Mount should set us back on our heels every bit as much as I am sure it did its first listeners.  It seems to have a special timelinessfor us today, when so many seem to gravitate to a position of talking or texting one’s excuses for any moral accountability.  I find it interesting that Jesus anticipated the twelve–step program by inviting us to make a searching moral inventory and have us see that the law of God is fulfilled by looking at its rootedness in the inner recess of our heart.  We are told that already in our first reading when Ben Sira tells us that if we choose to keep the commandments, they will save us. That is companion to St. Paul teaching us that in sending us the Holy Spirit the Lord is scrutinizing the depths of our heart.  Let us pray that our heart will cohere with these words of Jesus, for on it depends the future of our soul.

Benedictine Reflection (5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2/8/26)

“Your light must shine before others.” (Matthew 5:16)

The image of a city on a hill has long been established as a distinctive symbol of our American character.  First used by the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, it was a knowing reference to the biblical passage from the Sermon on the Mount that is featured in our Gospel for this Sunday.  It is an image that has been invoked countless times in the history of our country by preachers and politicians alike, in an effort to lift us to a higher standard of moral life as persons and at the same time hold our nation and its government accountable to public scrutiny.

As followers of Christ and citizens of what remains a nation blessed richly by God in its people and resources, we can rightly ask ourselves what has happened to this light. The respect afforded us by the democracies of the world’s nations, by the many immigrants longing to enjoy the freedoms we value, has been eroded considerably.  The more apt image from our Gospel is that of salt that has lost its taste and is thrown out and tramples underfoot. This is a saddening turn of events, especially as we prepare to celebrate our bicentennial as a nation. Of course, there are different forms of respect.  There is the pressured respect that we are expected to show by means of force and intimidation. It is an attitude that is triggered by fear and the threat of retribution.  And there is the respect that comes from those who bring the Christian qualities of humility and empathy tothe table.  Sad to say, many people today confuse respectability, the type won by trappings of wealth, power and influence, with the elemental respect that comes from seeing each person through their inherent dignity as children of God. 

If we are looking for a place where the light of the city on a hill is shining, we can find it among those who work among the most vulnerable.  These would include the hungry, homeless and oppressed that are highlighted in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah speaks of how helping the afflicted will lead us to theremoval of false accusation and malicious speech. This is the measure of what the Catholic Church’s social doctrine and the singular mercy of Christ’s entire Sermon on the Mount frames and enlightens. The oppressed and the powerlesswill not likely show up in Super Bowl ads this Sunday. But they form part of a cohort of countless souls, who may be seen by the powerful as threats and irritants, but as blessed by God.

It helps to know that the image of a city on a hill comes right after the beatitudes.

Directed primarily to the disciples, they are to perform good deeds, not to achieve some special status as do-gooders, but to be an example for others to follow.  Jesus asks us with his disciples not to pad our resumé or to make ourselves more respectable in the public eye, but to challenge the darkness of so much of our public and political life with the salt and light that touch the better angels of our nature.  To make that witness credible, it needs to have the goodness of Christlike compassion as our ongoing motivator. If that is in place, then the salt of our witness will not grow tasteless, and the light of our actions will not be dimmed.  Then the truth of the words of Jesus to his first disciples will ring true: those who love their neighbor, regardless of their tribe or politics or respectability, will live in the light.

Benedictine Reflection (4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2/1/26)

“God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong.” (I Co. 1:28)

The Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount have been described as the New Testament equivalent to the Ten Commandments.  They come to us in the Gospel for this Sunday as eight standards for moral behavior.  Perhaps we do better to see them less as lofty principles of ethical aspiration or even norms that measure our holiness. Rather we should consider them as signs or examples of what happens when the kingdom of God breaks into the comfortable confines of our spiritual silo. They then become striking statements that remind us of how we can be radically changed when the reign of God embraces us in its power.

The Beatitudes prompt questions for me every time I ponder them.  Who are the meek and merciful, the single-hearted and the sorrowing, the peacemakers and the ones in our own day persecuted for the sake of justice?  Where would we find them? One can safely say that we are not likely to find them among the lives of the rich and famous, those competing for celebrity status. We would hope they could be found in the pews of the parish church, in the commonplace venues of our workplaces, in the streams of migrants chased from their homes by war and criminal intimidation.  Our search for them might produce a realistic question: is it the very nature of those who embody the blessedness of the beatitudes to be a minority? If so, what difference can they possibly make in a world so dominated by power and prestige?

Our Word of God gives us some hints on how to answer these questions.  The remnant of Israel, the humble and lowly spoken of in our first reading from the prophet Zephaniah, were a minority.  They were the powerless ones who survived Israel’s collapse because they were the only ones to abandon themselves completely to God’s mercy.  They, in turn, are kindred souls to the weak and despised about whom Paul speaks to the community at Corinth in our second reading.  They then become kin to the person of Jesus, the one born into a setting that epitomized meekness and lowliness, one who throughout his public ministry singled out the poor and the weak, not the rich and self-righteous, as the chosen of the kingdom.

The cohort of saints in the history of the Church highlight these same beatitudes. They remind us that it is not so much what we possess that makes us unfit for the kingdom of God as that which possesses us, that is to say, that which we cling to.  The truth remains that most of what we cling to never fills the hole at the center of our being. It has been said that the beatitudes promise happiness but are not about being happy.  Nor are they about being successful or popular.  At the deepest level, we cannot truly be disciples who are meek and merciful, poor in spirit and pure in heart, unless we have the overriding detachment from concerns that place self before all else. 

The precise place where beatitudinal life gives witness is the timeless play of paradox.  It is the place where we see the shallowness of the proud and powerful.It is the place that draws its spiritual energy from measuring the change that comes in God’s time, not our own.  It is the place where we discover the distinctive holiness that emerges from the intersection of our meek and humble hearts with the boundless realm of God’s mercy.

Benedictine Reflection (3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1/25/26)

“They left their boat and their father and followed him.” (Matthew 4:22)

Like a seasoned storyteller, Scripture invites us this Sunday to create a space, onewhere we are to put ourselves in touch with the flow of God’s grace.  In the first reading from Isaiah, we are given a riveting description of a landscape of doom and death, a vision that is soon displaced by the promise of a light so brilliant that it will dispel the power of darkness.  Jesus himself quotes this verse in our Gospel account as he leaves the comfortable confines of his hometown of Nazareth and enters the troubled region of Capernaum and the seaward regions of Gentile Galilee.  In this section of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus embarks on his public ministry. It is no walk in the park. He has just left his confrontation with Satan in the desert and has heard of the arrest of John the Baptist by Herod.  There is a palpable sense of menace and divisiveness in the air, not entirely unlike the moral climate in our public life today. It is in this place and time that Jesus calls his first disciples and begins his mission of caring and curing.

Some of these same feelings of division and fear dominate our second reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians where we learn that Paul’s community in Corinth is enmeshed in factions and polarization.  Paul is addressing the question of a variety of ministers at Corinth—Apollos, Peter, and Paul.  St. Paul rightly asserts that having a variety of messengers is not bad when they are giving only one message, that of Jesus.  We should never let the diversity of voice empty the central meaning and message of the cross.

Perhaps our biggest shortcoming today is precisely that we empty the cross of Christ and the Gospel message of its core meaning by becoming too preoccupied with the petty polarization of our own making.  At its base is our own willful self, a self whose ego resists the call Jesus makes in our Gospel and continues to make to us: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is here.” This remains the challenge for every generation of Christ’s followers: to recognize and respond to the demandsof that kingdom. The shape of that kingdom on earth is darkened by a culture of mindless diversion that diminishes us and leads us deeper into darkness. Perhaps an adjustment of our spiritual night-vision lens can detect how much our own souls have contributed to this darkness. When we recite the descriptive of God in our Creed as “light from light,” we know that his light is the one that accompanies our acts of charity.  It is the light that leads us into our heavenly homeland.

Benedictine Reflection (2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1/18/26)

“Behold the Lamb of God.” (John 1:29)

As someone who has always been grateful for the gift of Gregorian Chant, one of my favorite parts of the Latin text of the Mass has been the Agnus Dei. For me, there is something soothing to the ear in the pronunciation of that Latin term that captures and communicates so much of the central symbol of Catholic faith, the paschal lamb, the one whose mercy we seek the three times we recite or sing the Lamb of God before Holy Communion.  In the section of the Gospel for this Sunday that has John the Baptist heralding the Lamb of God as the Son of God, we should begin to make some connections.  Certainly, the Passover Lamb, the saving sign of the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt, comes to the fore.  More to our own experience, how can any Catholic not be reminded of the moment at Mass before Communion when the priest elevates the Body and Blood of Christ and uses the very words of the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.”  The forerunner of Jesus, the one who had come with a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, comes to know in this Gospel scene the one whose very mission was to take sin away.

What strikes me is how John the Baptist, once he had baptized Jesus, comes to know through that the fullness of the work and the person of Jesus.  In that respect, we should all follow John in wanting to know Jesus more intimately. Our experience of Christ will shape our belief in him.  As countless saints and popes have taught us, it is only through an encounter with the one we call Jesus that we come to know him and believe in his love for us at the deepest level.

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that where there is love, there is the eye.  I would hold that this was the center out of which John the Baptist came to know his cousin.  At the Baptism, as we heard in last Sunday’s liturgy, John saw the Spirit rest and remain with the one on whom the Father’s favor was made known. We can surmise that at that moment John’s desire to be the forerunner was joined to a deep desire to know the one who was greater than he was.  It was a knowledge that led the Baptist from the Jordan to a prison cell and death.  It led St. Paul from a life of observance of the law to a life, described in our second reading, “as an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God,” a life that demanded on his part an ever-increasing knowledge of who Christ was.

When we see the elevated host above the altar and hear the words Ecce Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God), we would do well to reflect upon our reaction to these words.  How deeply do I desire to know the Christ I am about to receive? If we feel inadequate to this encounter, we can take comfort in the phrase that follows: non sum dignus (I am not worthy).  None of us is worthy.  However, if there is one thing that can warm our hearts it is when we see with the eyes of faith and love what is raised before us at each Eucharist, the Lamb of God.  May our encounter with the Lamb of God deepen our desire not only to know Christ more deeply, but to become more like him.   

Benedictine Reflection: Baptism of the Lord (1/11/26) 

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

Among the trove of questions asked over the years in my theology classes at Marmion Academy, one has a distinct timeliness in light of the Feast of the Lord’s Baptism: “Does it really make a difference if we are baptized?” It’s a question that more of us are forced to consider in all its weight at a time when infant baptism is no longer a given in the life of many Catholics.  It’s a question that also invites us to ponder how central a tenet of our faith is the statement we make each Sunday in reciting the Nicene Creed: “I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” It should be an accepted article of faith that anyone who wants to be counted as a Christian, needs to admit of the centrality of baptism.  But what precise meaning do we derive from the symbols of water and the white garment, the sign of the cross and the seal of the Spirit?  To return to the heart of the student question, does it or should it make a difference?

The scene from St. Matthew’s Gospel this Sunday tells us that baptism can make all the difference.  The reason becomes apparent in that Jesus made it so.  One of the few events in the life of Jesus recorded by all four of the evangelists, the baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptizer is a scene striking in its similarity of details in all the accounts.  We see first the figures of Jesus and his cousin John.They are both chosen ones, celebrities of their day.  This is that rare scene in the Gospels where both appear together and are in conversation.  What we get is not a competition of rival egos, but a humble submission that reflects joint awareness of how both individuals are part of a divine plan. This plan then gets personified in a voice from the heavens, the one source the evangelist allows to comment on the event. And what a comment it is: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus has not yet begun his public ministry of proclaiming the kingdom and already he is given an affirmation of unconditional love that any parent would want to imitate.  

Jesus knew that his baptism would make a difference, not because he had need of it, but because he wanted to set an example for us in all things.  He wanted to make the waters of baptism holy for those who would be his followers.  Far from being an empty ritual, it became the most forceful action the Word made flesh could take to rivet our attention on how our bodies, no less than our souls, need this ritual to be purified and saved.  Moreover, in this scene at the Jordan that the Church Fathers call the first epiphany or appearance of the Trinity, Jesus is telling his followers that he is not a solo act.  The voice of the Father and the descent of the dove speak eloquently of the communion of the Three in One.

We can admit that it is quite a stretch from Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem to the Jesus in the Jordan who brings our liturgical season of Christmas to a close.  But this is where the rubber hits the road.  The Church tells us in the ritual for baptism that we have become a new creation by clothing ourselves in Christ.  That is a reality we need to absorb into our life as we enter Ordinary Time in the Church’s calendar and the bleakness of midwinter.

Yes, our baptism does make a difference.  If someone you know is still struggling to make that assertion, then take them to a Catholic funeral, have them look at the white pall, the sign of our baptism, atop the casket, and think of Jesus being able to say to us at the end of our earthly pilgrimage: This is my beloved, the one in whom I am well pleased.

Benedictine Reflection (Solemnity of the Epiphany, 1/4/26)

“They were overjoyed at seeing the star. And on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.” (Matthew 2:9)

We know that there have been figures of political power at every stage in history. So it should not surprise us that at the center of the story of the Magi we encounter King Herod, a puppet of the Roman occupation and a figure whose paranoia surrounding power led him, as we know from the historical record, to kill his own sons. The envy and fear that prompt his violent action against the Christ child have their analogue in the assortment of political figures in history and in our own time whose methods of intimidation, violence and death are visited upon the innocent.

Quite in contrast to this rogues gallery are the three wise men, figures who seemed to have been close to circles of power and prestige, but whose role in the Christmas saga is to be pilgrims on the way to Bethlehem. In many ways, they imitate the other figures in the Christmas story, Mary and Joseph. They have no agenda of power or domination. They are restless in the right way, drawn to the unlikely destination of Bethlehem and its lowly surroundings by a star. They also have hearts and ears that rightly detect the evil designs of Herod and then the loving message that comes first from the manger and then from the voice of the angel that has them return home by another route. As Bishop Sheen is said to have commented: “No one comes to Christ and goes back the same way.” In this sense, the Magi serve us as much more than the figures in a creche or the lyrics of three kings in the Christmas carol. Their deeper meaning was well captured by Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote in his Jesus of Nazareth, “The Magi from the East are a new beginning. They represent the journey of humanity toward Christ. They initiate a procession that continues throughout history. They not only represent the people who have found their way too Christ; they represent the inner aspiration of the human spirit.”

The underlying current of humility and holiness that we see in the Magi and the parents of Jesus in St. Matthew’s narrative subvert the contrasting examples of arrogance and deceit that we see is too many areas of public life today. The message we are given through the Magi is that the true representatives of the love of God are altogether distinct. Their message is communicated not through threats and power grabs but from a quiet undertow of compassion. Moreover, what allows them the strength to do this is an awareness of a plan much greater than the calculation of a jealous king. They rejoice that they are part of that plan and know their place in it. Would that we can do the same, recognize that we are part of God’s plan and carry that as our gift to the Christ child into the new year.

Benedictine Reflection (Fourth Sunday of Advent, 12/21/25)

“He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” (Matthew 1:24)

If we were to imagine the Advent season as a stage play, the final scene would be the one we have described in this Sunday’s Gospel. It presents in compressed words how the birth of Jesus came about. Like all birthing stories, it captures our interest. It is also one of those rare passages in the infancy narratives that sheds light on both Mary and Jospeh as they confront the mysterious plan of God that has touched their lives. It also assists our understanding of this plan that the union of Mary and Joseph starts out not with a glowing engagement announcement but with a crisis.

Jospeh, the one who usually occupies a secondary role in the infancy story of Jesus, here takes center stage. For those of us who treasure our devotion to St. Joseph, we are captivated by his central role here. It is worth noting that all of Joseph’s actions in Matthew’s Gospel emerge from his dreams. As one Scripture commentator has wryly mentioned, Joseph is endearing to us because he shows how God can work with us when we go to bed. Quite apart from the comfort this may give to nappers, I would underline two qualities exhibited by Joseph that are help up for our imitation. The first is his willingness to put aside his own plans. Ever the just and righteous man, Joseph decided after due deliberation to consent to a plan that would save Mary from the ignominy of public scorn. He would divorce her quietly. Like so many of our well-crafted plans, it seems the perfect solution. But an angel lets Joseph know that God has a better plan. For Joseph to fill out this plan, he must do two things: have no fear and trust in the Word of God. This Joseph does, all the while displaying a respect for Mary, one that leaves aside any motivation he may have had to save face for his reputation.

In this sense, the figure of Joseph parallels the figure of Mary we have seen in our other Advent readings. Both are told not to fear in the face of a seemingly impossible future. Both are told that the Holy Spirit is at work in their life. Both hear the Word of God and act upon it. What makes this Gospel scene so crucial to the Advent drama is that it could easily have gone in another direction. Joseph could have clung to his conviction that his notion of putting Mary away was the right way and God’s way was the highway. Mary could have resisted and said that going to Joseph’s home was not “good for the optics.” But they never allowed their egos or agendas to interfere with God’s plan.

Feeble as we are walking our own path, we look forward to the remaining days before Christmas that will allow us to come before the same Holy Spirit that wrote the screenplay for the first Christmas drama. It is a script that holds up much better than anyone we might have produced.