“How do you want to end up? At the end of today? At the end of your life? This requires intention. We have in God both partnership and provision for the cultivation of our soul. God’s invitation is to collaborate – to co-labor – with God in the cultivation of our soul: in our growing whole, free, and real.” Br. Curtis Almquist invites us to set an intention to help cultivate the fruits of the Spirit that will make us whole, free, and real.

“It felt like being born again. It felt like being utterly annihilated only to rise again as something new, simultaneously terrifying and beautiful. It was as if God, getting inpatient and tiring of being subtle, grabbed me by the ankles, held me upside down, and shook violently until… well, I’m still not sure, but let’s just say that a lot of spiritual and psychological loose change fell from my pockets.” Drawing on a rich past experience, Br. Nicholas Bartoli invites us to encounter silence not as barren, but instead as a luminous emptiness, pregnant with the fruit of God’s Word.

“Rising global tensions and almost striking Iran. Mass deportations planned. Tragic accidents. Migrants fleeing. Children held by our government in despicable conditions. Political clashes, lies, illness and personal loss. With a week like this, with a life like this, remember Elijah.” In the midst of great turmoil, Br. Luke Ditewig extols the power of silence and other healing gifts that we can receive from God and share with one another.

“Lucas, like Moses and Alban, you have heard the voice of God speaking your name, and as Father Benson reminds us, that is a most blessed thing. It is a most blessed thing to hear the voice of God speaking deep within a heart that it eternally aflame with love, aflame with the love of God, aflame with the love of all whom God has made.” The Community celebrates the Profession in Initial Vows of Br. Lucas Hall.

“Oblation might be too archaic a word for you to use. If so, find another word, another phrase that allows you to live life abundantly on earth, and on speaking terms with life in heaven. The phrase I’ve latched onto is “living my life with nothing to lose.” You cannot lose what you have already given up. Live your life with nothing to lose.” Br. Curtis Almquist encourages us to find the language, the prayer and practice, that enable us to treasure the fullness of life: life for now and life to come.

“Just as we are called to celebrate God’s work of creation, and the work of salvation accomplished in and through Christ, we are called to celebrate the slow and often undramatic work by which God is restoring all things.” Br. Keith Nelson invites us to follow, in our own moment and our way, the brave and inspired example of Marian Rebecca Hughes – the first person to take up the vocation of vowed religious life in the Church of England since the dissolution of the monasteries at the Reformation – by restoring the best of the past to meet the needs of the present moment.

“Like Bernard, Jesus is also calling us to bear witness to the healing power of Christ. We must resolve to cast fear aside and follow him towards connection and relationship, towards the abundance that God wants for us, which is an abundance that transcends the life of the physical and finite, and become one with Him whose bounds know no end.” Br. Jim Woodrum celebrates the witness of Bernard Mizeki.

Proverbs 8: 14, 22 – 31Psalm 8Romans 5: 1 – 5John 16: 12 – 15  One of the great lines from Father Benson, which is among my favourites, is something he said about the Holy Trinity. Writing to Father Rivington in 1875, he says:  I quite feel that the practical neglect of the doctrine of…

“Pentecost is important, not because of what it did once, for a group of people long ago, in a land far way, but what it means for us, here, today. We are not here as antiquarians, to freeze frame the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but to discover how those gifts are continuing to be manifested in us today.” Preaching at the Order of the Holy Cross on the Feast of Pentecost, Br. James Koester celebrates how monastic communities – like all communities and practices of faith – are not vestiges of the past, but living revelations of God, who is ever present and ever new.

“When you are facing life’s trials, when life seems to be an uphill battle, when you fear being overwhelmed by fear or worry or grief, recall this image of Paul and Silas, beaten and bloodied, locked in chains, singing and praising God! This joy can be yours as well. This freedom belongs to you as a child of God. Nothing can destroy it or take it away from you.” Br. David Vryhof looks to Saint Paul for an example of the life-changing freedom that comes with knowing, loving, and following Christ.