Look For The Gentle Light!

I’ve always loved the beginning words from the first reading of the Midnight Mass, The people who
walked in darkness have seen a great light. But this year they have acquired a new meaning. I have come to understand that for those who are in darkness, a small gentle light is a great light. In fact, a great big light would blind us. This is why Jesus came as a gentle, humble, and loving light, ready to warm our hearts without overwhelming us. As St Bernard wrote, He wanted to be our brother before becoming our Savior, one with us even in the humble fragility of our flesh!

I need to remember to look for his gentle light ever present, even during the darkest hours, because his light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn. 1:5). In its apparent weakness and vulnerability, his light will never die out, because it’s fed by the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ, our sweet hope, let your light shine on us, reenkindle your light and life within us so that we can bring your warmth to our world. Can't you see it already happening? Look for his gentle light, right there in your heart, and let it shine!

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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 be...

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...

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