FACEBOOK FRIDAY- A little lesson from life in the monastery- At a Saturday morning Mass some years ago, the brother assigned to read the Scripture passages forgot to recite the Responsorial Psalm after the first reading and promptly sat back down at his place in choir. Adjusting to the situation, the lead cantor speedily decided to step in and so got up to sing the Responsorial Psalm instead, but his fellow cantor whispered he was not familiar with the psalm melody. He had only been a cantor for a few months. The lead cantor said not to worry. To make a long story short, they butchered the psalm. The singing was a disaster. The presider was trying not to laugh, so he gave no homily. After the mass, the young cantor was a bit dismayed. The lead cantor, for once, did not mince words, “Well, that was awful.”

Sometimes, a moment of decision comes and we are not sure what to do. One of two things could have prevented the singing mishap: First, one of the brothers could have prompted the forgetful Mass reader to go back up and recite the psalm. Second, the cantors could have sung the Alleluia option instead and dropped the Responsorial Psalm. In the heat of the moment neither happened, but with clarity of thought, they should have.

Since the Saturday Mass in question was a Marian memorial, Mary’s own way of responding to crises can instruct us here also. When she found herself pregnant with Jesus, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, she trusted the angel’s message and believed that God would be with her. When crises happen upon us, we should do the same. Doing so can produce the peace and calm necessary to make more prudent decisions.

Blessings to all,

your brothers of New Clairvaux!

#LifeLessons #monks #trappists #NewClairvaux #Abbey #BVM #crisis #calm

Br. Christopher responds to the question, Why do cloistered monks vow to live out their whole lives within the monastery and not to leave?: “To paraphrase St. Benedict, the place in which we monks engage in the spiritual combat, our battlefield, is the enclosure of the monastery and stability in the community. Some folks may think that leaving the world for the monastery is an attempt to escape from life, but actually, the opposite is true: enclosure ensures that we engage in the fight for Faith, Hope and Love in an especially focused way. All of life is here, in needlepoint, at concentrated intensity on these 590 acres, these few people, this land we know so intimately. We find here a depth to our struggle rather than a breadth.”

Blessings from your brothers of New Clairvaux!

#monks #cloister #SpiritualCombat #stability #StBenedict #Trappists #NewClairvaux

Brother Christopher speaks on the Two Hearts: “Unquestionably, one of the most frequently recited prayers in the Catholic world is the ‘Hail Mary’. When we recite it though there is one phrase that tends to be overlooked that I would like to highlight here. It is “The Lord is with you”. What does this mean? More, I think, than simply, “the Lord is next to you”, or “the Lord accompanies you”. I think there is a tremendously deep significance behind these words addressed to Our Lady. I think these are immensely hopeful words both for her and for us. I would invite our friends to ponder their meaning. For myself, I could only dare venture a little consideration, limited and partial as it is: Our faith teaches us that Our Lady’s Heart is completely pure, without any trace of sin. There is absolutely nothing in her to cause the slightest obstacle to Grace. All the Love and Grace of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is able to pour into her Heart without stint, overflowing her into the world. Grace is the Divine Life of God in us. To be Full of Grace is to be full of God. God is with her.

Peace and Blessings,

Your brothers of New Clairvaux

#HailMary #BVM #Lord #prayer #grace #NewClairvaux #Abbey #Trappists #monks #2Hearts #ImmaculateHeart #SacredHeart

Fr. Thomas speaks on how we can experience the Trinity in our daily life: “In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, will speak what he hears and declare it to us. ‘Everything that the Father has is mine; for that reason, I told you that the Holy Spirit will take from what is mine and declare it to you.’ (Jn. 16:15)

The word “declare” means that the Holy Spirit will proclaim what He had heard between the Father and Son, and interpret this mystery in our lives. This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works within the Church, and within each one of us, proclaiming and revealing the Holy Trinity.

Speaking humanly: The Holy Spirit, the bond of love between the Father and Son, overheard them agreeing that the Son would not cling to the form of God, would empty himself taking the form of a slave, would be like any other human person, save for sin, would even humble himself to death on the cross and the passion that death implies. The Father would exalt him, raising him to new life on the third day, and exalt him to a place at his right hand.

To interpret this mystery, the Holy Spirit makes it possible for each one of us to experience in our lives this humility and exaltation of Christ.

By the gift of grace, we enter into this sacred process of humility and exaltation utilizing the forms of humility that come our way, forms of humility that enable us to embrace this Trinitarian mystery. If we look upon Christ Crucified, we see the Face of God, and if we experience Christ crucified in our lives, we find ourselves IN the Face of God.

This is a magnificent way for us to experience the Trinity daily, although no one usually likes to embrace humility. As St. Bernard says: humility always implies humiliation and, I might add, no one like humiliation. We were baptized in the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are challenged to be one with Christ in his great humiliation and exaltation.”

May the Grace of God strengthen your life in the Most Blessed Trinity,

Your Brothers of New Clairvaux

#Trinity #Humility #Glory #Jesus #Christ #Crucified #Trappists #Monks #NewClairvaux #Vina #FaceofGod

Fr. Paul Mark on the coming summer celebrations: “The liturgical season of Easter concluded with the solemnity of Pentecost, AKA the nativity of the church. The day after Pentecost we celebrate Mary, Mother of the Church which inaugurates the return to Ordinary Time that began after the Baptism of the Lord but interrupted by the Lenten and Paschal seasons. Numerous solemnities, the Church’s major liturgical celebrations, follow in succession in the month of June: Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi Sunday, the Sacred Heart, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and Saints Peter and Paul.
Our monastery’s liturgical calendar adds two additional solemnities. On July 2 we mark both the anniversary of the foundation of the monastery in 1955 and the dedication of our church in 2018. July 11 we celebrate the solemnity of our father, St. Benedict.
All these celebrations develop different aspects of the Gospel. Trinity Sunday celebrates the mystery of the communion within the Triune God. Corpus Christi celebrates the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ, God sustaining his people with the very life of God. The Sacred Heart celebrates the Heart of God which teaches us the love of God poured out for us. The Nativity of St. John the Baptist celebrates the encounter between John and Jesus and the proclamation of conversion that prepares us to meet the Lord. Saints Peter and Paul commemorate the preaching and witnessing of the Gospel and our own call to evangelize. The dedication of the monastery’s church celebrates both our monastic witness to the Gospel in this place of Vina since 1955 and what it means to be a faith community in the Cistercian school of charity. The solemnity of St. Benedict celebrates how we monks are called to live daily the gospel of Jesus Christ in the 1500-year-old Benedictine tradition.”

Wishing you Holy and Blessed celebrations of God’s Love,
Your brothers of New Clairvaux

#Liturgy #trappists #monks #NewClairvaux #Abbey

Fr. Placid talks to us about a singular monk: “In Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s Steps of Humility and the Degrees of Pride, the fifth degree of Pride is called ‘singularity’. It is the opposite of the eighth step of Humility: “a monk does only what is endorsed by the common rule of the monastery and the example set by his superiors.” (RB 7:45). He is presenting singularity as the opposite of this step.
The word singularity comes from the Latin word ‘singularitas’, which Lewis and Short’s Latin Dictionary translates as: solitary, one in purpose or single-minded. In itself it may be a positive quality to have. However here, Saint Bernard gives a negative twist to the word. Singularity might be praiseworthy, but it depends on the motives. Bernard says that when vanity creeps in, a Pharisaism upturns every motivation for virtuous actions. “I am not like the rest of men” (Luke 18:11) is in the background of his remarks, referring to the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican from the Gospel of Saint Luke.
In a humorous and sarcastic way, Saint Bernard portrays the singular monk as wanting to be seen as holy. Whether he is or not is beside the point. Bernard views the singular monk as hoping to fast harder than others. This monk gets up too late for early morning community prayer because he is staying up late in the night for his personal prayer, and makes sure to groan his prayers loudly for others to hear when the common prayer is over.
For Bernard, singularity makes us individualistic in our approach to living a Christian life. Striving for holiness needs to be more about how we relate well to those around us. Its remedy is Humility, accepting that we are like others who need God’s mercy and others’ help and love.”

Blessings from your brothers of New Clairvaux

#singularity #Placid #NewClairvaux #Vina #monks #trappist #abbey #StBernard #humility #pride #vanity

*photo courtesy of Frank Geiser*

A May sharing by Father Paul Mark Schwan: “The month of May has arrived. Memories from childhood flood my mind of the close of the school year, a flurry of outdoor activities to clean flowerbeds, prepare the vegetable garden for planting, work the fields, plant the crops, and watch the cows as they calved. I also remember the annual May crowning of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the parish church. This was done with great pomp on Mother’s Day, a special feat and privilege for the president of the Sodality of Mary. I remember the president, a high school girl, dressed in her very best, removing her high heel shoes, to ascend the ladder to crown the statue of Our Lady of Grace on the side altar dedicated to the Mother of God. I wondered if that girl would slip and fall from the top of the ladder. Perhaps it wasn’t the most edifying of thoughts at such a poignant moment but this is how the mind of a six-year-old kid works.
The month of May remains a month in popular Catholic piety dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In our austere Cistercian rite there is no annual Marian crowning nor a month set apart for special devotions to the Blessed Virgin but just the same every day a Cistercian monk renews his consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary by the chanting of special Marian antiphons that conclude each hour of the Divine Office, the ringing of the Angelus three times daily, and the solemn chanting of the Salve Regina every night to conclude the monk’s long day.
Medieval monk theologians stated that Mary is the Rule of the Monk. Her dedication to God, humility, attentiveness to God’s word, readiness to do God’s will, shows any Christian how to live the Gospel. May you have a Mary month!”

Blessings from your brothers of New Clairvaux!

#Mary #MarysMonth #MayCrowning #May #Trappist #Monks #NewClairvaux #Vina

There is an intimate connection between the Divine Mercy devotion and Image and the Mercy Sunday Gospel reading (Jn 20:19-21). In the Mercy Image, Jesus is pictured as standing in front of a locked door. In the Gospel we also heard that “on the evening of that first day of the week, the doors were locked where the disciples were gathered”. The disciples had run away and abandoned Jesus when He was arrested in the garden and are still hiding, cowering in fear. We are like them. We are afraid and ashamed because, through our sin, we have also abandoned Jesus and left Him to die alone, so in fear and shame we have locked the door of our hearts to hide, not to face Him, to expose our vulnerability. But what happened? “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” WHAT!? Jesus enters into their hiding place anyway, to give them the message of His unchanged love. He also enters through the door of our hearts although they be securely locked, and gives us the message of peace.
Sin is a turning away from God. Sin is an act, and acts have consequences. But God also is able to act! He does not undo our act but adds to it His Act: He forgives, He does not quit the relationship, He comes into our hearts, He gives us His Presence, His Peace and Love. And if we are astonished by this, He shows us His Wounds and repeats it, “Peace be with you!”
Then, He does something even more amazing: “As the Father has sent me, so am I sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain they are retained.” He empowers us to pass on the same understanding and forgiveness He has freely given to us to others, or not if we choose. We can retain the sins of others, or set them free and not quit the relationship. Now this is Divine Mercy!
Beloved brothers and sisters, on behalf of the monks of New Clairvaux Abbey, I say to you, “Peace be with you!”
#DivineMercy #Jesus #Peace #Love #Forgiveness #Gospel #sin #NewClairvaux #monks #trappists #abbey

From the Latin Hymn ‘Vexilla Regis Prodeunt’, which we sing at Vespers during Holy Week:

Hail, holy altar, victim hail,
for all the glory of that cross;
by which Life chose and welcomed death,
and dying gave us life once more.

Hail, Holy Cross, our only hope,
wash all our guilt and crimes away;
increase our grace while we adore,
the mystery of Passiontide.

All blessings as we enter into the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Redeemer King,

Your brothers of New Clairvaux

Brother Christopher shares on Joyful Penitence: “One of the ways the Constitution of our Order describes our Trappist-Cistercian life is one of “joyful penitence”. Usually people do not immediately associate penance with joy! Penance, self-denial, and mortifications may be more readily associated with sorrow and pain and seen as a burden to be avoided, or at best, a duty to be endured. Certainly sorrow for sin, what the monastic tradition calls ‘Penthos’, a sorrow leading to Compunction of Heart, is an essential element. However, another element of the practice of penance is truly JOY. How is this so?

Early on in my monastic training, I was taught that penance really means ‘setting things right’. Disordered loves, that is, unhealthy preoccupation and attachments to our own appetites, needs, wants, desires and compulsions can create obstacles to the complete freedom God wants for us; the freedom to follow Jesus in loving God and neighbor with our WHOLE being.

The penitential discipline practiced in the Order, such as fasting and vigils, assiduous dedication to prayer, manual labor, a hidden life in the cloister, humble obedience to superiors, willing service to all the brothers, and other such practices, are all designed to take us out of ourselves and open us to the Other: to Jesus Christ, Who is at the center of all our practices, and to our neighbor. The purpose of voluntary penance is meant to be medicinal, a healing grace from God, interiorly “setting things right”. From this point of view, it is truly a joyful work!

God bless you!

Your brothers of New Clairvaux Abbey

#lent #penance #joy #trappist #monks #freedom #penthos #compunction