Good Zeal

You’ve probably heard the old adage that meditating on scripture is meant “to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.” It takes courage and patience to sit with our discomfort in the presence of God. For Saint Benedict, “seeking Christ above all else” meant seeking Truth found at the…

Sister Eleanor Harrison is an icon of our community. She also is one of our elders – both in age and in grace but definitely not in mind! A native of Birmingham, she has spent most of her life in the Diocese of Birmingham except for a short time of…

When I was first asked to do a blog for the week of June 21, 2020 my thoughts immediately went to some great feasts around that time: the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (our community’s patronal feast) and the Nativity of John the Baptist, the precursor of…

Death is not extinguishing the light: it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come” (R. Tagore). Dawn came for our Sister Brigid Clarke on Tuesday, May 19th, at the age of 91. It is hard for me to believe she has died. It is harder to…

The English words monk, monastery, and monastic all come from the same Greek root word monos, which means “one.” For monastic women and men, this oneness has multiple aspects. Most obviously, this oneness expresses itself in singularity of life.  Monastic women and men are unattached to an exclusive other in…

Jesus is no longer in their midst. They can no longer reach out and touch him. They can no longer see his expressions of love, concern, patience, or mercy. His body is no longer on earth. Oh, but his spirit remains. They can remember the fun they had, the mysteries…

Good zeal, like beauty and love, is manifested in a multitude of ways. For St. Benedict it is summed up in this: “preferring nothing whatever to Christ” (RB 72.11). In each member of the monastery good zeal is demonstrated with particular uniqueness because she (or he) is an utterly unique…

A casual visitor to our monastery chapel might not notice the “Good Shepherd” stained glass window among the side aisle windows. It always has been one of my favorites, depicting Jesus as deeply compassionate, always willing to take the lost sheep upon his shoulders, always ready to lay down his…

The other day I read this familiar passage from Isaiah 42:1-4: “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased. Upon him I have put my Spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out, nor shout, nor make…

It is hard for many of us to believe that we are already in the fifth week of Lent and on the threshold of our Holy Week pilgrimage. As we began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday, we had no idea that our usual Lenten routine would be overshadowed by…