+ The end of the Octave of Pentecost yesterday marks the conclusion of the great liturgical cycle of the mysteries of our redemption which we commenced with the obscure rite of burying the ‘Alleluia’ at Septuagesima in preparation for forty days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in Lent so as to all the more be able to grasp the realities of the suffering, death and resurrection from the dead of Our Lord, before His glorious ascension into heaven and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the infant Church, transforming somewhat shell-shocked men into strong and courageous apostles of the Gospel of Christ.
 
This part of the liturgical year is the most intense, as it were, and rightly so: it immerses us in and indeed confronts us with the fundamental truths revealed by God in human history for the salvation of every man and woman and child. Year after year through our active participation in the Sacred Liturgy of Our Holy Mother, the Church, in these great seasons and feasts, we are able to become ever more rooted in these great and world-changing salvific events so that our Christian lives can bear ever more fruit in the particular vocation to which we are called (or indeed, give us the courage and strength selflessly to pursue that vocation regardless of the various enticements of the world, the flesh and the devil).
 
In the faith and devotion of the Church, however, these fundamental feasts seem not to have themselves been enough, as it were. Just as the feast of Christmas is a later development than the ancient feast of the Epiphany, so today’s feast of the Most Holy Trinity is an early medieval development, an overflow if you wish, of the great Easter cycle of feasts, celebrating and contemplating the most profound mysteries of the nature of God Himself, just as the coming feast of Corpus Christi is a later medieval development that acclaims the extent of the gift of God Himself that is the Sacrament of the Most Blessed Eucharist.
 
It is instructive that the Church repeats part of the Gospel of the feast of the Ascension today. Most certainly this is because we have here the most explicit reference in the Gospels to the reality of the Holy Trinity—and there can be no question other than that this reality, this Truth, revealed by Christ, is the faith of the Church from her very origins, no matter how many centuries it took to find an appropriate vocabulary more fully and accurately to express it in the classical Creeds. God is one being and three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This Truth is fundamental. It is, and always has been, the literal foundation of Christianity. One cannot be a Christian without adhering to this doctrine—as the great Christological controversies of the earlier centuries underlined so clearly.
 
The Gospel of the Ascension (and of the Holy Trinity) contains more, though, than the explicit mention of the Most Holy Trinity. It consists of a command. No, it is the command, the imperative laid down by Our Lord before He ascended to heaven, in which He states that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” and then orders the eleven to “Go…and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
 
This is the great missionary commandment. It is not a wish, or advice, or a desire. It is a commandment, an order. It does not ask the eleven to live good lives of quiet Christian witness in the midst of a polytheistic or pagan world in the hope that curiosity will lead people to conversion. No: it commands them. It directs them to make disciples of all nations, to baptise people, to teach them all that He who has all authority in heaven and earth has commanded. It commands them to be proactive in the proclamation of the Truth revealed by Jesus Christ, not to be passive in the private pursuit of a peculiar personal faith.
 
Because Truth is Truth! It is not an opinion or a theory. And the Truth revealed by Jesus Christ is the Truth that saves all of mankind from the just effects our sins, from eternal damnation, and which opens to us the doorway of forgiveness and eternal life and joy of which the best of this life is but only a foretaste. As the Office of Matins has repeated so many times in recent days, “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved”! And as the Office of Prime sang this morning in the crystal-clear words of the all too often sidelined and somewhat inconvenient Athanasian Creed: “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith unless everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity…”
 
This is not to deny that, in God’s mercy, salvation may, in certain exceptional circumstances, be possible without the explicit profession of the Catholic faith in the Trinity. But it is most certainly to say that we have no permission to presume such extraordinary acts of God. We are commanded to “Go…and make disciples of all nations…”—nothing less. We must each be missionary, calling people to the Faith, inviting people to discover the Truth that salvation may only be found with certainty in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. +

Our new edition of the 1963 Breviarium Monasticum is in production, however it will now be published later in July than previously planned, by July 31st. Orders will be despatched as soon as possible thereafter.
 
Notre nouvelle édition du Breviarium Monasticum de 1963 est en cours de production, mais elle ne sera finalement publiée que plus tard en juillet, c'est-à-dire le 31 juillet. Les commandes seront expédiées dès que possible après cette date.
 
In part this delay in production is due to the new material we are publishing in the appendices to each volume—each of which comprises more than 100 pages—containing parts of the ordinary, temporal and sanctoral that were omitted in the original 1963 edition (details have been given in previous updates). These extra pages have been added without increasing the publication price.
 
Ce retard est dû en partie aux additions que nous publions dans les annexes de chaque volume - chacune comprenant plus de 100 pages - et qui contient des parties de l'ordinaire, du temporal et du sanctoral qui ont été omises dans l'édition originale de 1963 (les détails ont été donnés dans les mises à jour précédentes). Ces pages supplémentaires ont été ajoutées sans augmentation du prix de publication.
 
We are also happy to announce that the pre-publication discount of 50 euro per set has been extended until August 15th 2025.
 
Nous sommes également heureux d'annoncer que la remise de 50 euros par jeu de bréviaires avant publication a été prolongée jusqu'au 15 août 2025.
 
Be sure to order your copy before publication so as to benefit from the 50 euro discount. Further details here: www.monasterebrignoles.org/editionspaxinterspinas.html
 
N'oubliez pas de commander votre exemplaire avant la publication afin de bénéficier de la réduction de 50 euros. Plus d'informations ici : www.monasterebrignoles.org/editionspaxinterspinas.html
​

+ “Keep sane and sober for your prayers. Above all hold unfailing your charity for one another, since charity covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who utters oracles of God; whoever renders service, as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
 
These exhortations of St Peter, with which the Sacred Liturgy of our Holy Mother, the Church, exhorts each one of us this morning, are as simple and straightforward as they are sublime. One might be forgiven for thinking that they were written especially for monks—but let us not forget that the monastic life is nothing other than a distillation of the Christian life itself: a more intense living of it, as it were. So yes, through the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit St Peter’s exhortations were most certainly written for monks, just as they were written for each baptised Christian down to our age. In the Providence of Almighty God they challenge each of us this morning. We would do well to contemplate their import more profoundly.
 
It is instructive that the first thing St Peter requires is prayer. Prayer is not something to be ‘fitted in’ or ‘added on’: it is fundamental, and we are to be prudent and watchful in respect of ourselves in order to fulfil this duty—the first duty of mankind: to worship Almighty God. One can ‘do Christian things’ as it were, indeed one can do much that is of itself good in the world and for others, but a Christian is one who first and foremost prays, who worships God together with all the baptised in the Sacred Liturgy, above all at Holy Mass at least on Sundays and on the feasts of obligation as set down by the Church.
 
Worship of Almighty God and the prayer that it gives rise to in our hearts, minds and souls, is literally fundamental: it is the solid basis for every element of Christian life—be that perseverance in times of persecution or be it the flowering of charity towards the other. Prayer roots us in the fertile soil of the very life of God from which all grace and virtue comes. Without it we risk becoming another shallow activist, ephemeral lobbyist or passing politician. Whereas when prayer—most particularly the public prayer of the Church (the Sacred Liturgy)—is the source and summit of our Christian life, we can draw deeply and ever more fruitfully from the very “strength which God supplies.”
 
And it is with this “supernatural strength”, with this grace given by God, that we can in fact be unfailing in our mutual charity. Quarrels emerge in monasteries just as they do in families. Disputes erupt in places of work or leisure. Sometimes, indeed, we must bear clear witness to the Truth in the midst of such turmoil: not to do so could be to allow falsehood to fester, to condone the lies upon which many base their lives and to allow them infect others.
 
But, as St Peter instructs, in bearing witness to the Truth we must do so with unfailing charity. Charity is supernatural love for the other practised in the light of Truth. It is not charitable to pass over morally wrong or criminal behaviour in silence. Patience may be necessary at times, but it must be that loving patience of the father of the Prodigal Son hoping and waiting and praying for the return of his errant son, ever ready to run to embrace him whilst he is still on the road, and to celebrate his return (cf. Lk 15: 11-32). Patience must not become that all-too-common counterfeit form of charity that fears to speak the truth under the pretence that nothing is wrong.
 
This does not mean that we ought to launch the type of puritanical moralistic crusades that repels the weak and seems to exalt ourselves with a pride that is not at all of God. No. We are all sinners. Each one of us is called to conform our lives to the Truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ and, as we ought to know only too well, most if not all of us have a long way to go yet. But if we have at least begun to convert our lives then we can and should bear humble witness to the Truth whom, by God’s grace, we have encountered before those who know Him not. We should bear the evangelical invitation “come and see” (cf. Jn 4:29) to others as true missionaries of the Truth.
 
This is true charity—to bring people to Christ and as St Peter assures us, “charity covers a multitude of sins”! For Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life for all men and women of all times and places, and it is only in seeking ever more to conform ourselves to Him, and in bringing others to Him, that we shall come to enjoy that Life, now and for eternity.
 
As we go now to the altar, let us humbly beg for an increase in that charity so that in us and through our worship of Almighty God in prayer and in bearing witness to the truth, indeed, in everything, Almighty God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. +

+ As the Sacred Liturgy continues to contemplate the unprecedented and defining reality of the Resurrection, our Holy Mother, the Church, has St James address us this morning with the stark injunction: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
 
In secular terms, one might say: ‘There are those who talk, and there are those who do…’ In respect of the Faith we might say that there are those who are baptised and there are those who live out their baptism… Now, the fact that we are at Mass this morning presumably means that we have at least made the choice to leave our beds behind and come to worship God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the first duty of any baptised person. Deo gratias. The Church and world would be far better if the primacy of this duty was well understood and acted upon—for if we are not prepared to make the necessary effort and sacrifice to worship God, our creator, we shall end up worshipping ourselves and the person we have created.
 
But there are other duties that flow from the worship of Almighty God, and it is precisely here that St James addresses us with his injunction: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” For it is all well and good for us to be present at Sunday Mass—or indeed for a monk to be present at seven offices a day and one at night—but if we do not open our hearts, minds and souls so as to be permeated and transformed by that in which we participate, if we are not motivated to act on that further that conversion of life that is so necessary in each of us, if we do not allow that which we touch and taste to take root and grow into deeper faith and more fruitful good works, then yes, as St James says, we are deceiving ourselves.
 
Of course, we are well used to forms of Christian activism whereby all manner of practical social good is done by many, and we often support such causes. We must be prudent in so doing, however, for even some Catholic care organisations include activities that are morally unacceptable amongst their apparent good works. Nevertheless, practical charity is indeed necessary as St James instructs this morning us later on in the Epistle.
 
Yet, as necessary and as good as such practical charity is, a follower of Christ—a Christian—is not a social worker and the Church is not an N.G.O. that exists to bandage the more unpleasant cuts and bruises of life. A Christian is someone who has heard the word of God. He or she is fundamentally someone who, in response to the Good News, in response to the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, simply cannot not fail to worship Him—beginning in the Church’s sacred rites and continuing throughout each and every circumstance in which they find themselves.
 
Certainly, practical charity and social action are intrinsic to Christian life, for as St James teaches us later in his Epistle: “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (2:17) But we must not forget that the primary act of Christian charity, the first social activity to which we are called, is to be missionary—a reality that, happily, we have heard on our Holy Father’s lips quite frequently in the past two weeks. Yes, indeed, we must give a cup of water to those who need it (cf. Mt 10:42) but we do so in witness to the realities of Christian faith, in the name of Our Lord (not our own!). Thus, our practical charity, our ‘doing’ of what God’s Word requires of us in whatever circumstance, becomes missionary. It becomes a sacramental of the love of God. It calls the other to respond to that love with faith. It is ordered to the salvation of their souls, which is the fundamental missionary goal of the Church.
 
For, if Jesus Christ truly rose from the dead, if He is the definitive revelation of God in history, if He is the unique saviour of mankind, our conduct must needs be practically missionary. We are indeed deceiving ourselves if we sit here contemplating the wonders of the Christian faith, of the person of Jesus Christ and of the salvation he offers and do nothing at all about it. For some, to be sure, that doing involves a call to enter deeper into that mystery in the prayer and work that is the monastic vocation (and any monastic can assure you that there is plenty of the latter, plenty of ‘doing’, in our life). For others the doing must be done in the home, in the family, in the workplace and in other circumstances in the world.
 
Wherever our particular vocation takes us in this life, the principle is the same: the reality of the Resurrection of Christ which the Word of God makes known to us must result in a radical transformation of our lives. Our lives must be lived in the light of the Resurrection, as it were, so that what we do and what we say—indeed, the very person we have become—reflects that light and invites others to enter into all that it makes clear.
 
Let us pray, then, as does the collect of this Mass, for the grace to hold fast to the One, True, Faith, and to be able to put it into practice—for otherwise, we are deceiving ourselves. +