+ “The Lord is now close; come let us adore Him.” By the constant repetition of this verse at the Invitatory of matins each ferial day from the third Sunday of Advent the Sacred Liturgy makes clear the objectivity with which our Lord comes. Our response makes no difference to the reality of His Incarnation, and the acts through which He freely gave Himself for us – they are historical events which cannot be changed. Yet we have an obligation to render Him the adoration which is His due as our Creator, as our Redeemer, as our God. Truly the Lord is close to all humanity, even beyond his omnipotence and Fatherly solicitude, He became the lowest of man, born into poverty, and knowing all human suffering more acutely than anybody else can. He is, furthermore, more intimately connected to each individual than the person Himself and guards him like the apple of His eye. Yet it is often very difficult to accept such a reality: how can God allow so much evil in the world? How is it that there can be such great suffering? How is it that God’s own Church through which God offers His channels of grace has suffered so much persecution throughout history? But it is worse when one considers that the Church has at times acted more in a political manner than in the salvific role she is given – even to the point of lording it over the nations. Many of these trials are due entirely to the sin of man – against whose free will God will not interfere. It is rather, in contrast, that the closer a man gets to truly working according to grace the more the evil one will interpose obstacles to prevent the grace of God working through him. Ever will he do all that is in his power to blind us to the proximity of Our Lord without any regard as to what agent he uses as long as it is effective. Indeed, he will try and turn even the very graces God sends us unto our destruction. We can, nonetheless, by trusting in God to grant us, and by praying for, the grace of perseverance no matter how grave the obstacle, render even these very obstacles unto the glory of God. He will never demand of us anything that is impossible, nor fail to offer us the grace to overcome whatever must be overcome on a given occasion – even if that means putting aside some of our natural human concerns and responsibilities. He will stay close to us no matter how completely He is hidden, providing that we never completely give in to discouragement and despair. For these sins can truly be against the Holy Ghost. Not all good works are in our power. It is easy to find even that which is within our responsibility to be beyond our strength. But God has not come to accuse us. When our strength fails, we must do what little we can, filled with the fear of God. On the day of judgment, He will examine the heart to see that in all things one has truly sought God, no matter how incapable we are to accomplish all that seems to be necessary, or that we want to do. This is by no means an excuse for inaction – in contrast it gives an urgency to our actions. The hands follow swiftly from the heart. It is now that the Lord is close: It is now that we must come to adore Him. But this adoration cannot be relegated as something that is accomplished entirely by prayer. Certainly, prayer is necessary, but it can never be used as an excuse to put aside what we can do to assure justice. Our acts must be a response to His grace given to us, as well as to our prayer by which we listen to Him calling to us and inviting Him to walk on the path of life (cf. RB prologue). Echoing the Invitatory from matins, in the Gradual of this Mass we sing: “the Lord is close to all who call Him: all who call Him in truth.” By making the proximity of the Lord dependent on the truth of man’s cry before God, we enter another dimension of what it is for God to be close to us. It is not a denial that God is ever and always more intimate to every one of us than we ourselves; yet it adds another aspect to His treatment of us. Unquestionably, we can in no sense merit or deserve that God should be close to us for He is infinitely greater than us and was under no obligation to even create us. Yet He wants us to love Him freely and to choose Him. He knows if we seek Him for some ulterior motive or self-gain. Rather what He asks is that we love Him for His own sake for there is nothing and no one more worthy of our love. This is why it is God alone whom we adore. God will always listen to our prayer – yet His answer is often not that which we expect or want, it is the answer we need for our salvation and, perhaps also for the salvation of those around us. In these final days of preparing for the great feast of Our Lord’s Nativity we must ever be aware of what it is we are celebrating in the feast – Our Lord is now close; come let us adore Him. Our adoration of Him will be worthy if it is accomplished in prayer and in good works – for the truth of neither can be guaranteed without the other. Let us take courage from knowing that God has become man, in order that He might suffer the cruellest death for us. He will not abandon us for as long as we trust in Him – come let us adore Him. + During the week we have had the joy of the birth of our first litter of Maremma puppies: 2 males and two females
are growing well under the maternal care of Nebbia - aided by the careful supervision of the brethren. Au cours de la semaine, nous avons eu la joie de la naissance de notre première portée de chiots Maremma : deux mâles et deux femelles grandissent bien sous les soins maternels de Nebbia - aidés par la surveillance attentive des frères. A deux semaines de la fin de l'année fiscale, une petite note :
Les dons au monastère par les contribuables français ouvrent droit à la déduction fiscale : 66 % de votre don seront ainsi déduits de vos impôts de l'an prochain. Un don de 1500 euros avant le 31 décembre 2024 correspond à 1000 euros d'impôts en moins qui seront consacrés au soutien du monastère et à la formation des jeunes qui frappent à notre porte - les futurs moines et moines-prêtres. Un reçu fiscal sera envoyé à tous les donateurs qui le demanderont. Les dons peuvent être envoyés par virement directement à notre Fonds de Dotation : « Amis du Monastère Saint-Benoît » IBAN : FR76 1460 7003 7430 4139 4927 341 BIC/SWIFT : CCBPFRPPMAR ou adressés par tout autre moyen sur la page "soutien" de notre site web. Merci de nous communiquer votre adresse postale si vous souhaitez un reçu fiscal. Que Dieu vous bénisse et vous récompense pour votre générosité en cette saison d'espoir et de générosité ! + Gaudete in Domino semper, the Introit of this Mass sings. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything let your requests be made known to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.” This Introit contains all but one verse of the Epistle, which continues St Paul’s letter to the Philippians where the Introit leaves off: “And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Where is Advent here? Why are we rejoicing in rose-coloured vestments? [I am sorry that our new “LIDL” vestments have not yet arrived—there seems to be a delay due to the unprecedented demand!] Why this rejoicing in this season of penance and preparation, so poignantly underlined by St John the Baptist in this morning’s Gospel? Why should we rejoice in the Lord always, when our own sins and the evils present in the world about us, and in Church, give us more reason to weep bitterly and to do penance? We can begin to understand this if we consider St Paul a little. He addressed this exhortation to the Philippians most probably during one of his own periods of imprisonment and at a time when Christians may themselves could rightly fear similar sanctions, or even martyrdom. In addition, St Paul firmly believed that the Second Coming of Christ would occur imminently—hence he would write with expectation to the Romans that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (8:18). For St Paul, the Lord was coming, and coming very soon, once and for all to consummate the victory over sin and death that is His glorious resurrection from the dead. Little else—persecution, imprisonment, martyrdom—mattered. One thing was necessary: joyful perseverance in the faith. Hence could insist that we rejoice in the Lord always. Hence he could teach that “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” It is precisely here that we, who await the coming of the Lord both at the end of our lives here on this earth, and definitively at the end of the world, the day nor the hour of which it is given to us to know (cf. Mt 25:13), are plunged directly into the meaning of Advent. For our waiting for the Lord this Advent is not to be one of fear and trembling, but one of hope and of joy—no matter what troubles afflict us in our earthly existence. Regardless of illness or other distress, of worldly failure, destitution or derision, in spite even of being misunderstood or marginalised by princes or pastors of the Church, we can and must rejoice, making our needs known to God in fervent prayer and supplication without anxiety and rejoicing nevertheless, because—as St Paul insists—nothing is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (cf. Rom. 8:39) that has been given to us at our Baptism. For the “advent”—the coming—of the Lord this Christmas (and at our death and the end of the world) is an occasion for the ultimate rejoicing. It heralds our salvation from all that oppresses us and binds us. But let us be very careful here. We are already well into the season where Advent and even Christmas carols and other sentimental trappings of the season massage our minds and consciences with soft and consoling thoughts of the Saviour of the World being born to right everything. That is true, of course. But the salvation Christ comes to bring is offered to man, not forced upon him. Our Lord came to save us freely, not to take us prisoner! That is to say two things. Firstly, the belief that salvation is universal—that everyone is saved—is false. It is one of the most pernicious and dangerous tricks of the devil in our day in which this season and the coming feast are exploited to anaesthetise people into believing that somehow, regardless of their faith or lack of it, and regardless of their works, all people will be brought to heaven in the end (and that therefore hell is empty and eternal damnation is not a possibility). This heresy is refuted by the entire missionary history of the Church beginning from the apostles themselves and by the blood of countless martyrs. We must actively guard against its seductive spread today. The second thing to say is that salvation requires our perseverance in faith in Jesus Christ as the unique saviour of mankind and in the good works that are the fruit of that faith. Yes, we are weak and have doubts. Yes, we sin and fall back into old ways. But with the grace of God given to us in the Sacraments, particularly in the Sacrament of Confession, healing and perseverance is possible. To enjoy the salvation Christ came to bring I must belong to Him and cling to Him no matter what arrives. I must be faithful to Him, even if, like St Peter, when I hear His call I must confess my utter unworthiness: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8). As we prepare for the coming feast let us be very careful, for only in avoiding this trap of the devil and in persevering in the True Faith and in good works shall we truly enjoy “the peace of God, which passes all understanding,” which “will keep [our] hearts and…minds in Christ Jesus” this Christmas, and for eternity. + A Homily for the feast of the Immaculate Conception
+ The fact that the rubrics of the Missal permit the feast of the Immaculate Conception to supplant the Second Sunday of Advent—with its haunting question of St John the Baptist: “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”—is quite extraordinary. Older rubrics, and even newer ones, would retain the Advent Sunday and transfer the Immaculate Conception to the next free day (tomorrow) as is the rule for other first-class feasts. Why, then, this exception? The answer is not found in the fact that it is a Marian feast. Normally feasts of Our Lady rightly give way to the Sundays of Lent and Advent and to feasts of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She does not stand in His way! Rather, the answer to this seemingly odd rubric may be found in that this particular feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is itself intrinsically ‘advental’, as it were. That is to say that this feast is itself essentially about the preparation for the coming of the Lord—specifically, the preparation by Almighty God of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the bearing of His Son as man by ensuring that she was free from the stain of original sin and was thus a worthy vessel to bring Him into the world. This, as the Church teaches, is a singular privilege given to one human person in the entire history of the human race—only one person after the Fall, that is, for Adam and Eve were created sinless, and only their abuse of the freedom with which God the Father so lovingly trusted them brought sin into being. This privilege granted to the Virgin of Nazareth makes her the model of unfallen humanity, of humanity in the state in which it was created in the image and likeness of God Himself. It is very important to underline this. The Blessed Virgin Mary is not somehow ‘super-human’. She is humanity as it should be. She is not a demi-goddess or a person who is so privileged that she is simply beyond our reach or comprehension. No. She is a human person with free will as are we all. She is singularly privileged, certainly, But she is ‘one of us’, as it were, she is the “first fruit of our race,” specially prepared to receive the Incarnate Son of God and to bring Him into the world. Rightly, then, do we utterly maculate creatures seek to imitate her virtues as they are presented to us in the various feasts and seasons of the Church’s year—from her willingness to accept God’s utterly astonishing plan for her life at the Annunciation, through to her silent suffering at the foot of the Cross on Calvary. And rightly do we turn to her and ask her intercession when we need help in saying “yes” to God, or in persevering in the face of suffering, etc. The Church’s traditional treasury of Marian feasts and devotions is a rich storehouse from which we ought not fail to draw. For the Blessed Virgin Mary is ‘one of us’; she is ‘on our side’, as it were. She is there to help by her example and by her prayers. And rightly too do we turn to the Immaculate Mother of God on this feast in Advent as we concern ourselves with preparing for the coming of her Son at Christmas. We, who do not share her privilege and who are only too used to the stain of sin and the damage it does in our lives and in the world—be that due to our own sins or to those of others—need help. We need encouragement. And if Our Lord is to come to us this Christmas we need to be appropriately prepared. We need to be free from sin. The Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady was and is a singular privilege about which it is not for us to quarrel. Almighty God may choose whomever He wishes for His purposes. Regardless, by virtue of His saving death on the Cross, freedom from sin is offered by Our Lord to each of us through the Sacrament of Baptism, and if we sin gravely after Baptism, through the Sacrament of Confession. After a good, integral confession, our souls are as pure as on the day of our baptism—now matter how seriously we have sinned. Hence, we may worthily receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. Hence we may go out anew bearing Christ and witnessing to Him and to the Truth in the different circumstances of our daily life. We may not have been immaculately conceived, but when our souls are cleansed by the absolution received after a good confession and we are in a state of grace, we lack nothing necessary worthily to receive Our Lord. In celebrating the Immaculate Virgin Mary on this Second Sunday of Advent, then, the Church is wisely calling us to that fundamental preparation without which Christ coming to us this Christmas will be impeded if not blocked. Our Mother is calling us to attend to the necessary cleansing of our souls through a good, humble, honest confession of our sins. May the humble, Immaculate Virgin Mary intercede for us! May her example of trust, faith and perseverance give us the courage so to do! + Samedi prochain 7 décembre à 06h00, Messe Rorate
chantée à la lumière des bougies en l'honneur de la Sainte Vierge. (Les laudes seront exceptionnellement à 05h30.) Messe basse de Saint Ambroise à 09h00. + Amidst the impending distress, fear and troubles prophesied by Our Lord in the Holy Gospel of this Mass—a prophecy which is made anew to each of us this morning by virtue of its liturgical proclamation by the Church—we are commanded to do one thing: “respicite, levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” “Look up,” we are told, “lift up your heads: for your redemption is at hand.”
This is surely not our first inclination. In the face of fear and distress we often bury our heads. When trouble confronts us it is so much easier to look away. These reactions do little to deal with the problem—they probably only serve to prepare us a little to suffer the realisation of our fears. They are natural enough reactions. We employ them in the face of confrontations of all sorts, in suffering serious health problems and even in respect of our continual battle against sin, the world, the flesh and the devil. But the Gospel teaches us that such a natural reaction is insufficient. We who are baptised into Christ are to react to tribulation of any sort in a supernatural manner: “respicite, levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” “Look up,” we are told, “lift up your heads: for your redemption is at hand.” For it is precisely in these moments of danger, temptation and trial that our Redeemer comes to us to save us. He is there to rescue us if only we will look to Him. And yet, how often we look anywhere and everywhere but unto Him! How often we look to ourselves and place our faith in our own self-sufficiency. “I can manage,” I tell myself, knowing all the while that I am utterly afraid of the fact that I cannot. How often we seek redemption elsewhere—in activism, frenetically busying ourselves with anything at all simply to avoid confronting the problems before us; in the pursuit of pleasure (legitimate or otherwise) to dull the pain our inadequacy gives rise in us; or even in aggression for its own sake, for as they say, ‘attack is the best form of defence’ (it at least gives us the consoling pretense of being powerful). None of this is appropriate for a Christian. If we have been given gifts, most certainly we may use them, and there is no question but that we must rightly busy ourselves with many things in this life. So too we may freely enjoy its legitimate pleasures. At times we may need to use the strength and resources we have at our disposal to defend all that is good, true and beautiful and of God. None of these correct behaviours, however, can be exaggerated to the extent that they deny the Source of all that we have at our disposal, or replace Him with ourselves. Rather, the correct use of any capacity, gift or resource at our disposal in good times or bad is in humility and gratitude to Him for what has been entrusted to our care, ever seeking to make better use of such gifts according to His Will. If this first Sunday of Advent has any message for us it is this: “Respicite, levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” “Look up,lift up your heads: for your redemption is at hand.” No matter what illness, evil, persecution, strife or other trouble confronts us today, or tomorrow, the answer is not to run away or to hide or to seek some anesthetising substitute. No, the answer is to lift up our heads in faith and to look to the Lord, Our Redeemer, who comes to save us. The Introit and the Offertory both sing the same message: “Ad te levavi animam meam: Deus meus in te confido…” To you I lift up my soul: my God in you I place my trust… We are to turn and look to the Lord who comes: in Him—and not in counterfeit substitutes or our own or of others’ making, howsoever attractive, innocent or even partially good they seem to be—shall we find salvation. The psalmists often encountered difficulty. The realities they faced were frequently quite desperate, as their verses explain in great detail. But the psalmists sing of greater realities, which is why they are the foundation, the very bread and butter as it were, of the Church’s prayer. Psalm 17, which we sing at Prime on Friday, is one example. “Laudans invocabo Dominum, et ab inimicis meis, salvus ero,” verse four of psalm 17 sings. “I call upon the Lord with praise and shall be saved from my enemies”—words which the Church’s traditional Roman liturgy has the priest pray just before he receives the Precious Blood from the Sacred Chalice at Mass. Let us note that the Psalm teaches us that “I shall be saved from my enemies by calling on the Lord with praise.” This is the attitude of the Christian—not to curse and swear, but to find salvation in being faithful to the Praise of Almighty God. This is our defence in any situation, just as it was the defence of so many martyrs and other saints throughout the ages. Amidst the sufferings in the Church, the world and our families at this time we would do well to adopt this disposition anew for ourselves this Advent. “Levate capita vestra: quoniam appropinquat redemtio vestra.” Our wise Mother, the Church will repeat this call in one of the antiphons at the first vespers of Christmas. Let us heed her wisdom and insistence in the weeks before that great feast and prepare ourselves well—most certainly by making a good confession—so that when the Lord comes we shall ever more ready to turn to the Lord and to look to Him as his sons and daughters and thus partake fully in the redemption He comes to bring. + Notre lettre aux amis pour l'Avent 2024 est maintenant publiée sur ce lien.
SVP soutenir le monastere ici. Our Advent 2024 newsletter is published at this link. Please support the monastery here. |
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