The story of Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb is so delightful. She is so intent on finding Jesus. How long does it take her to notice the angels there? But they address her with such honor, “Woman, why are you weeping?” (John 20:13). Heaven is concerned when we are weeping. They don’t pass it by. They want to know why we are weeping. They want to be a part of it. They want to give us direction. I wonder how many times we’ve encountered angels and didn’t know it. It’s a beautiful thing when God breaks through our world and tries to show us the way. And it’s always to Jesus that we are being pointed.
Mary Magdalene’s great love for Jesus is so powerful. She tells the guard that she’ll take His body away; do you know how much a corpse weighs? Her love would have carried Him. It is for us to love Him just as much. It’s for us to care enough to keep searching for Him no matter what. No matter what our emotions are, or whether we’re having a good day or a bad day, it is for us to continue seeking Him, and listening to what He has to say.
Jesus will call our name. Be ready to answer. What are you going to say? “Teacher”? “My Love”? What are you going to answer when He calls your name? And we also hear Jesus asking Mary Magdalene, “Whom are you looking for?” (John 20:15). He’s going to be asking us that too. What is your answer?
At the top of our Stations of the Cross
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love.
A reflection on the celebration of Holy Week by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.
Isaiah 49: 14-15
This reading from Isaiah reminds us that we are never forgotten. Everything is done, or allowed, for our good. But when you think of all the sorrows of Holy Week you might say, “How in the world is this about rejoicing?” Because Somebody has come to save us. We could not do it on our own. We couldn’t bear that weight. God alone could bear the justice; and so there is rejoicing. If Jesus were to go into a prison and say, “You are all free, because I’m going to undergo the death penalty for you,” I don’t think the prisoners would just shrug their shoulders. There would be a real sense of freedom and gratitude. Holy Week should bring gratitude for what He has done, and we should express that gratitude throughout each day. I’m sure you already tell Him many times throughout the day, “I love you, Jesus,” but maybe do it a little more. I think that’s what encouraged Him during His Passion. I read that at one point in His agony He heard all the voices throughout time expressing gratitude. Make sure your voice is there. Make sure He hears how grateful you are to serve and to love Him.
Cross on the monastery property
The Trinity holds nothing back, but pours forth abundantly and completely. We should marvel at that, because that is so unlike man. The world teaches us to protect ourselves, and hold all our cards so nobody can take them—but the Trinity lays them all out. Try to live at that supernatural level. Be brave enough to not hold back. Be brave enough to serve and to be the servant of all. That takes true courage, because it is not the way of the world. Climb. Always climb, and you truly will rejoice. When you die, you won’t be saying, “I wish I had…” You’ll be saying, “I’m so glad I did.”
Exult greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! Behold: your king is coming to you, a just savior is he, Humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Zechariah 9:9
Donkey on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage one of our Sisters made before entering the monastery
On the next day, when the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, [even] the king of Israel.” Jesus found an ass and sat upon it, as is written: “Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king comes, seated upon an ass’s colt.” His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done this for him.
A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB, on the Benedictine’s call to practice some of the least popular virtues in our world’s culture
Statue of St. Benedict in Norcia, Italy (his birthplace), taken before the 2016 earthquake
In Chapter 7 of his Rule, Saint Benedict tells us, “We must set up that ladder on which Jacob in a dream saw angels descending and ascending (Gen. 28:12). Without doubt, this descent and ascent can signify only that we descend by exaltation and ascend by humility. Now the ladder erected is our life on earth, and if we humble our hearts the Lord will raise it to heaven. We may call our body and soul the sides of this ladder, into which our divine vocation has fitted the various steps of humility and discipline as we ascend” (Rule 7:6-9). It says our divine vocation. As some say, the monastic life is the life of the angels. It’s a bit hard on us because we have original sin hanging on us, but really it is like the life of the angels in that we have the ability to be undistracted in our praise of God. A married woman’s first duty is her husband and her family. We have given up things and that particular love, the pleasure of a family– all of those things we have given up because of the divine call. The divine vocation to praise God in a particular way. We have to remember it is a divine call. It’s not something we imagined up together and decided to do. It cannot possibly happen without God’s grace and His call.
I want to share with you this part about what happened after Jacob’s dream: “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, ‘Truly, the LORD is in this place and I did not know it!’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome this place is! This is nothing else but the house of God, the gateway to heaven!’” (Gen. 28:16-17). God’s almighty power and His presence can be fearful, and we should remember who God is. We are not His equal. There should be some true fear of the Lord in our lives. When you really love someone, you fear to hurt them; you fear to do something against them. I think that is part of the fear of the Lord. We should fear to offend Him and to live against Him. We should fear to harm that relationship. This fear is appropriate because we know the consequences. This fear is the foundation of the dear virtue of humility. Humus: we are all made of the same dirt. There is not anybody who is made of something better – unless you’re not a human being. There is nothing that makes us greater, except what St. Benedict says: one can be more loved because of their obedience. This is, because of our nature, a tug of war, due to original sin. We carry within us the desire to be like God—to have all the knowledge, to be equal with Him. Obedience is the recognition and submission to someone being over you—to have someone over you and to have the right to ask of you great (and sometimes difficult) things, and for you to then have the duty to obey. This is our struggle in life, and why obedience is such a great virtue.
Saint Benedict was a wise man and he loved the Lord profoundly. His order continues to this day and it is the order that the mystics say will continue until the end of time. I believe this is because this order teaches man about Eden: the right relationship with God, the work and the prayer, the honor of God and the honor of one another. This is the work that we are showing to the world by our life and example—To teach them again how to communicate with God, how to love God, and how to act appropriately with our beloved Savior. Let’s think of this today: How much are you loving God in your life? May your goal be to love Him with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and your whole body.
We hear in the Gospels about the schedule of Jesus. What was on his work list was very simple: “Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness” (Matthew 9:35). That was His work; that’s what He did.
I was thinking of the importance of teaching, and how according to the Rule of St. Benedict the Abbot does the teaching, but every one of you teaches as well. Your actions teach. Are you a good teacher? What is your class? What are you teaching? These are important questions. We hear from St. Benedict in his Rule what he would like to see in teaching:
…Anyone who receives the name of abbot is to lead his disciples by a twofold teaching: he must point out to them all that is good and holy more by example than by words, proposing the commandments of the Lord to receptive disciples with words, but demonstrating God’s instructions to the stubborn and the dull by a living example. Again, if he teaches his disciples that something is not to be done, then neither must he do it. (RB 2.11-13)
We should all look at this in our lives. What are we actually saying by our actions? Are we saying one thing and doing another? Are we expecting one thing and then not expecting it of ourselves? Think if everyone acted like you all day, how would it look? It might just be the most wonderful thing in the world, but it does help to ask that question. This is a part of renewal and conversion. I think in community it’s hard not to hold ourselves accountable. Somehow whatever we do always comes back to us. But even if this wasn’t the case, we hear from St. Benedict, “Hour by hour keep careful watch over all you do, aware that God’s gaze is upon you, wherever you may be” (RB 4.48-49). So God too is watching. What is the discipline in your life that helps you?
Remember how important your life is. Whether you like it or not, you are sisters!* You have an impact on your community. You do. What is that impact? This is for you to think of. Remember that everything God made is very good, so you have no excuse by saying you were made bad. You are wonderful in the eyes of God. Don’t put aside the impact you have. Don’t belittle it and think you’re nothing or that nobody sees you. That is completely untrue. You are seen and you are loved. Look honestly at your life, and if you’re looking honestly you will see the good as well as the not-so-good. Capitalize on the good – invest in it! Do all you can to be all the good you are; the rest will fade away. I wish this for everybody.
*This meditation was addressed to the community of nuns at the Abbey, where only sisters were present.
“Catholic education is above all a question of communicating Christ, of helping to form Christ in the lives of others.”
Singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” before supper in our refectory
What do we hear in the Liturgy during Advent? “Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain… Come let us walk in the light of the LORD… Come and save us,” “I will come and cure them … many will come from the east and the west,” and, “come, oh LORD visit us in peace.” That word: come. Have you ever said to somebody, “Oh, just come!” and they don’t do it? I wonder if it’s the same with the Lord. When He tells us to come and we look at Him like, “huh?” The word “come” means a movement forward towards something (I looked it up). I think this is the invitation of Advent. Come. Come in every way you possibly can. I think it is what Christ does for us. When we say “come and save us” to the Lord, I don’t think He just stands there with a confused look on His face. I think He truly comes, and quickly. When we pray “come, come Holy Spirit, come oh Lord and save us.” I think He responds more quickly than a flash of lightning. I think this should be our response also—to hear Him say “come” and for us to do it quickly. It is our duty to respond when He tells us to come and climb the Lord’s mountain or to come and walk in the light of the Lord. Our response means something. Come! Let us ADORE HIM. Come, let us sing the praises of our God. It’s good to think about how we respond to this word, come.
A reflection commemorating the Feast of St. Andrew, originally given by Mother Maria-Michael in 2019
I was thinking about the incredible words we sing during the Divine Office on the Feast of St. Andrew (November 30): “Seeing the cross [of his own martyrdom], Andrew cried out with joy, ‘O precious cross! Truly I have always loved you, and I have desired to embrace you.’”
This is a disciple who ran away in the garden of Gethsemane—he didn’t stand by Jesus on the cross—so the greatest gift that could be given to him was another chance to stand by the cross. What did he do with it? He embraced it. He longed for that moment to tell Christ, “I love you, and I want to be with you, wherever that leads.” This is the power of the triumph of the cross. Love is the triumph of the cross. When we love enough that we no longer fear the crosses in our lives but we embrace them and we long for them because they unite us with him who has loved us beyond all love, that is the triumph of the cross. So today we celebrate that we no longer fear the cross; it is truly the exaltation. Of course we cannot do this of ourselves. St. Andrew, St. Peter, none of them, could have embraced the cross on their own, but with divine strength they could embrace and kiss it. And their suffering turned into gratitude. Yes, when we can thank God for the crosses in our life, God has triumphed. When we can see that it is Love that has given us once again the chance to prove our love, we will rejoice and say, “Amen!” and run toward it, because we have a chance to prove our love. Let us pray today that the cross may triumph in our own lives, because it will not happen on our own. It is completely divine strength.
A reflection for the Solemnity by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB
What made the saints? What unifies them is that they all strove to seek God’s will. That is the most important point that unites the saints – the will of God. It takes the grace of God to do His will. We are called to seek it at all times and to remember with confidence that God only wills good things for us, He wills the very best. We have the ability to choose His will or not. Can you surrender completely and hand something to God and say, “What do you want me to do? What is your will for me?” That is what the saints did, and not just once, they made it a lifelong practice.
Saint Benedict is so adamant about us giving up our wills, our pushiness, our desires, our way of doing things, our vision of who we are, so that we can know God’s vision of who we are. Self-will is so strong that if we don’t learn to recognize it and to intentionally do God’s will instead, we’ll always be fumbling, we’ll never be steady. God’s will is steady; God’s will is stable.
One way of discerning God’s will is that what we’re asked to do will require us to depend on Him. You need the grace to do God’s will. And that’s what the saints did so well. They depended on God for everything. They asked God for everything. The Saints were so confident in the help of God. They never tried to do it alone.
I recently read that in the process of canonizing a saint, the person is declared “Venerable” after the Vatican Congregation determines that the Servant of God lived a life of heroic virtue. Heroic virtue doesn’t mean a person was perfect or sinless, but that she worked aggressively to improve herself spiritually and never gave up trying to be better or grow in holiness. That means we’re all candidates! As Benedictines, we take a vow of conversion – no wonder there are so many Benedictine saints. It’s what we do every day. We get up and try again. We keep trying because we want to, we want to be holy, we want to belong to God, we want to sing His praises. We want to intercede for the world. We want to live for Him. We want to care for what He loves, and we want to live with Him forever. Those are the ingredients of a saint right there.
So don’t grow slack. Seek God’s will. He seeks you and He desires only our good, only our good. Pray for the will of God for each other. Join your will with God’s and will it for another and you will be saying the best prayer you could say for anybody.
Thank you for being faithful to end, for persevering and for struggling when it was hard. Thank you for loving when it is hard to love, because that means that God is doing it for you. Let’s celebrate the Saints and ask them for help. Reach up and ask them. And then maybe 200 years for now, this feast of All Saints will be our feast too. I wish it for all of you.
“The Solemnity of All Saints is “our” celebration: not because we are good, but because the sanctity of God has touched our life. The Saints are not perfect models, but people through whom God has passed. We can compare them to the Church windows which allow light to enter in different shades of colour. The saints are our brothers and sisters who have welcomed the light of God in their heart and have passed it on to the world, each according to his or her own “hue”. But they were all transparent; they fought to remove the stains and the darkness of sin, so as to enable the gentle light of God to pass through. This is life’s purpose: to enable God’s light to pass through; it is the purpose of our life too.”
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”
John 14:1-3
This Gospel is so precious. I love to think about how in heaven, all evil will be forgotten, because evil cannot be in heaven. There will be a holy amnesia. You won’t remember anything evil that has been done to you.
It’s like when you’re working with people with dementia, and they greet you with a big, “Hello! How are you? It’s so good to see you!” no matter who you are. Isn’t that sort of a touch of heaven? It’s a touch of heaven when nothing evil is remembered.
And even those who have hurt us, when we get to heaven, we will be able to greet like our best friends. “How good to see you…”
So holy amnesia is a beautiful thing – we can even try to do it today.
A reflection on Luke 10:38-42 by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB
It ran through my mind today that Martha was not able to listen to Jesus when serving because she was so mad at Mary. She wasn’t hearing a word He said—she was too busy thinking, “Look at her, she just sits there all day, and I have to do this, I have to do that, look at how unfair it is!” We can recognize this pattern in our own lives: doesn’t it happen that when we’re angry, disturbed, not happy with life, we are not longer able to hear Christ? Our conversation is one-sided, because we’re just complaining to Him, like Martha did. We need to stop and listen, too. If we don’t, we can let disturbances steal our peace of heart, steal our focus, and have say over what’s important in the moment. It takes a lifetime to figure out the answers to the questions, “Why do I give this thing such importance? Why do I let it steal my peace of heart and mind? Can I just let it go?” There are some things we need to address, and there are other things that maybe we need to just let go.
Pictured below, Sisters prepare the meal and wash the dishes without grumbling or complaining!
A reflection on following Christ and not looking back, by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB
We hear about Abraham procuring a wife for his son Isaac, and how he tells his servant, “never take my son back there for any reason” (Genesis 24:6), that is, into to the homeland where Abraham was from, because God had promised him a new land. I think we need to take that message for ourselves as well. Don’t go back. Don’t disbelieve God’s word to you. Everybody’s journey is different, and God is the only one who can follow each one’s journey, because He’s the one who has given it. He has a specific plan for you, and it’s real. He has a specific work for you. You have to follow through with the vocation He has called you to. Once you say yes and take a step forward, don’t step back. It’s not about you—it’s the work of God in you. So don’t look at yourself all the time, because that can get really discouraging—look at God! Look at the work He is doing in you. Don’t stare in the mirror; instead, open the window. It’s beautiful out there!
I found a quote in Venite Seorsum: Instruction on the Contemplative Life and on the Enclosure of Nuns, about the spiritual exodus that is required of each one of us:
“From the dawn of the Chosen People’s history, Abraham is depicted as being called to leave his country, his family and his father’s house, while the Apostle repeatedly teaches that the same calling was the beginning of a long mystical journey to a homeland which is not of this world. What in this way was merely prefigured in the Old Testament, becomes a reality in the New…The Word of God delivered us from the domination of darkness (cf. Col. 1:13), that is from sin, and through His death (cf. John 13:1; 16:28; and Heb. 9:11-12, 10:19-20) He set us on the return road to the Father, who ‘raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus’ (Eph. 2:6; cf. Col. 2:12-13, 3:1). Herein lies the true-essence of the paschal mystery of Christ and the Church.”
This exodus is true in a particular way for those whom God has called to the contemplative life, those whom He has set aside for Himself. God really does say to those He sets aside for Himself, “I ask you to leave everything, and to follow Me.” It doesn’t matter if home is 10 miles away or another country. Is it hard? Of course it is. But it becomes easier as you get older and heaven becomes closer. Over time you begin to let go of things more and more, and even when someone you love is dying, you have the sense that it’s okay if God takes her, because you know you’re going to see her again.
So the Exodus really is for every single person. Everyone experiences and lives through some sort of Exodus in their lives. But it’s nothing to fear, because you are fed the whole way on the manna. God is Father, and He is a very good Father. He will take care.
Illumination by a nun from the Abtei St. Walburg in Germany
