Leaning on Him: The Path to Victory

Toward the end of the Rule of St Benedict, there is a short chapter that can easily go unnoticed, but which
is a perfect application of the Gospel: Assignment of impossible tasks to a brother (RB 68). Benedict knew well that if we want to follow the Gospel, sooner or later, we will be confronted with the fact that we are asked to do something that feels impossible to us.

Do you what to know if you are really following Jesus and not a decaffeinated version of his message? You can ask yourself this question: does being faithful to your Christian calling feel impossible at times? If your answer is “yes,” you are on the right track because this is how it should feel—Peter trying to walk on water is a good example.

St Bernard puts it very simply, As long as a man is without experience in the spiritual combat, he thinks that what is asked of him is easy (Sermons on Conversion 8). What then? Are we called to be Christian superheroes? No, the path of the Gospel is for those who recognize their weakness and learn to trust in Another, just as St Paul says, For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10). Being a Christian means learning to lean on Christ, and when we truly learn is when we do impossible things for and with him.

That’s the monastic approach to holiness: you have to make the effort, set out to climb the mountain; dare to do the impossible! But then you will truly experience that the Lord is with you. Lean on him, He can be trusted! ‘Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord?’ If anyone aspires to climb the summit of that mountain, that is the perfection of virtue, he will know how hard the climb is, and how the attempt is doomed to failure without the help of the Word. Happy the soul which causes the angels to look at her with joy and wonder and hears them saying, ‘Who is this coming up from the wilderness, rich in grace and beauty, leaning upon her beloved?’ (St Bernard, Sermons on the Song of Songs, 85.5).

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Friends on Earth and in Heaven

Our Cistercian Fathers like speaking about the benefits and sweetness of spiritual friendship. Often, they refer to Jesus’ friendship with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus of Bethany—the saints we celebrate today. They say that Jesus’ earthly friendships sanctified friendship itself and made it a form of preparation for encountering and welcoming the Lord. How? Saint Aelred explains the process in greater detail in his book on Spiritual Friendship . He gets practical, as monastic writers usually like to do, and offers ways to discern and form good friendships. In an earlier work, The Mirror of Charity , Aelred explains briefly one of the great benefits of friendship: my friend’s soul and good heart give me extra space to welcome the presence of God. In my friend, I can possess graces that would be a bit too much for me on my own. This would be part of the joy in heaven, don’t you think? There, our capacity to receive God’s love, beauty, truth, and goodness would be increased tremendously as

I found him whom my soul loves!

Today is the feast of St Mary Magdalene , the apostle of the apostles! Those of us who follow the monastic way of life consider her one of us. Why? Because she embodies the longing that is at the core of the monastic call. After having been healed by the Master, how could she abandon him? She alone remained, weeping outside the tomb, because her heart and soul were still clinging to the one she loved. Her hope didn’t disappoint. Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her,“Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,”and then reported what he told her. (John 20:16-18) The monastic vocation is the fruit of an encounter that heals and transforms us forever, showing us who we are and to whom we belong

Do We Really Love God?

Do you want to know if you really love God? You can ponder these words of our Father St Bernard. They can work as a form of testing if any love is authentic, but they are particularly good to see if we truly love God. This is what Bernard says in his treatise On loving God , “True love is content with itself; it has its reward, the object of its love. Whatever you seem to love because of something else, you do not really love; you really love the end pursued and not that by which it is pursued.” Are we looking for a reward for spending time in prayer or participating in the Eucharist? Bernard says, “No one, for example, pays a hungry man to eat, a thirsty man to drink, or a mother to feed the child of her womb. . . . How much more the soul that loves God seeks no other reward than that God whom it loves. Were the soul to demand anything else, then it would certainly love that other thing and not God.” In the Our Father and in many other forms of prayer, we present to our Father in he

The Monastic Approach

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