Tag: Benedictine

Advent: Putting Your House in Order

December 6, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

I love reading the great prophets during Advent.  In Isaiah, we hear the story of Hezekiah and how his time to die has come, so he turns and faces the wall and prays.  It reminds me of children when they are in trouble, how they go stand in the corner, and I’m sure in one way their hearts are praying, too, “Oh God let this be over!”  But upon hearing Hezekiah’s prayer, God adds fifteen more years to his life.  The part that stands out to me in this reading, though, is when God says to him, “Put your house in order, for you are about to die” (Isaiah 38:1).

Advent is about putting your house in order, which is why the monastic life is considered a perpetual Advent – we are continually preparing ourselves to see Christ, awaiting His coming with eager expectation.  All the more so during this season of Advent.  It’s about living a life that has everything directed toward heaven.  Focus on the things which will last for all eternity.  Don’t waste your time thinking about things that don’t really matter.

When preparing our hearts for Christmas this year, and pondering what gift we are to bring the Lord, let us remember that He says in scripture, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt. 9:13).  Mercy is to go beyond ourselves, to go beyond our judgments, to give room for what we don’t know.  You may have heard the saying, “Chaste as angels, proud as devils.”  Don’t justify yourself by saying that you fasted all day and so you’re fine, and then go and judge everyone all the way down the hall.  Then what have you really done?  Nothing, you’re just hungry and it hasn’t helped you a bit.  No, we should stand humbly before God.  We need to acknowledge our faults and sins.  We can’t just point fingers and say to God, “Well look at them!”, because God does, and He is looking at you, too.  If you choose to be merciful you will receive mercy (cf. Luke 6:37).  

Remember the power of blessing as one of the greatest gifts.  Sister Angelika, when she was working outside, would see a plane fly over and automatically pray for all the people in it, and ask for God to bless them.  Now that’s a big heart.  That’s how we should choose to live – thinking for the good of others.  Pray for people.  Do your part to change yourself.  Others will follow suit, and you’ll notice it.  It’s the nicest thing to have someone say, “Boy, you’re different” in a good way.  In a house where we live so close in community, it’s far more powerful to live mercifully than to fast all day.  If you can do both, well blessed are you.  But mercy is more powerful. 

Arise, all ye nobles and peasants; Mary invites all, rich and poor, just and sinners, to enter the cave of Bethlehem, to adore and to kiss the feet of her new-born Son. Go in, then, all ye devout souls; go and see the Creator of heaven and earth on a little hay, under the form of a little Infant; but so beautiful that he sheds all around rays of light. Now that he is born and is lying on the straw, the cave is no longer horrible, but is become a paradise. Let us enter; let us not be afraid.

From “The Discourse for Christmas Night,” by St. Alphonsus Liguori

Our Chapel’s 25th Anniversary

November 23, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

The Dedication of our Abbey Church, November 7, 1999

Twenty-five years have slipped by since our Chapel was completed.  The most important parts of our lives take place in this sacred place.  It is here we begin by knocking on the door at our entrance, and here we say our final “good-bye” to our beloved Sisters.

Chapter 19 of the Rule of St. Benedict talks about how we should say the Divine Office: “We must always remember, therefore, what the Prophet says: Serve the Lord with fear (Ps 2:11), and again, Sing praise wisely (Ps 46[47]:8); and, In the presence of the angels I will sing to you (Ps 137[138]:1).  Let us consider, then, how we ought to behave in the presence of God and his angels, and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices” (RB 19:3-5).  I love that.  We are assisting the angels!  And we have to work that our mind might be in harmony with our voices.  We know what a work of love that is.  There is no work to be preferred to this, and we should celebrate the Divine Office with joy and solemnity.  

“I rejoiced when I heard them say, ‘let us go to the house of the Lord’” (Ps 122:1).  We have access at all times to the Chapel.  So we have a reason to rejoice!  In this place, our souls come to rest in the very Presence of Jesus Christ Our Lord…And the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the conversations…What a gift.

It is in this Chapel that we give the best of ourselves.  In Psalm 37 we hear, “Once I was young, and now I am old…” (Ps 37:25).  Our Chapel watches the passage of time.  Our bodies age, but our souls only get richer.  You can feel that.  There is a certain dignity that starts growing in you.  There is no fear in ageing, because there is something beautiful happening within us.

Our Chapel is dedicated to the Mother of God.  The tapestries, which hang along the walls, tell the story of the Blessed Mother’s life.  Her most important moments are in the Chapel as well, and are united with ours.  We have her motherly intercession and her powerful intercession.  Nothing goes unnoticed by her.  And the wonderful thing is that she cares.

So let us celebrate with heartfelt gratitude and joy this day.  Every day, we receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in this Chapel.  Who could want more?  Twenty-five years ago this Abbey Church was dedicated (and believe me, that altar received a ton of oil; I remember the Archbishop spreading the oil all over with great delight…all of the corners, Monsignor Newman and Deacon Bud, they went around to all of the crosses in the Church and put oil on them while we prayed).  May it bear our hearts and souls to the heights of the heavens.  Let us sing with our minds and hearts in harmony, that this day of great blessings will see a showering of graces that we pray shall never end.  This is God’s dwelling place, and He has made it holy.  We call on His name, for scripture says: There, you will find Him.

As you sing, sing very purposefully.  The measure you put in to it is the measure you are going to get out.  There is something special in the liturgy for each person, and it is a jewel ready to be found—Find it and take care of it, because it will be given to no one else but you.  May this bring us all to holiness. 

Archbishop Chaput anointing the altar with oil

Called Forth by God + Video

August 14, 2024

A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB, during the week leading up to the Solemn Monastic Profession of Sister Maria-Placida, OSB on July 11, 2024, the Solemnity of St. Benedict

What a glory it is to be called forth by God, and not merely by man.  Our vocations are God-given, truly given by God, and that’s what makes them so great.  It’s not something we can do without His call.  During Sister Maria-Placida’s Solemn Profession, she will be called forth (literally, from the back of the chapel to the front, carrying her lighted profession candle!) by the bishop—and how beautiful that she responds to this call with a song.  She will come forth singing with joy for being called by God to this vocation.  So we look forward to this moment with rejoicing in our hearts, because it is such a great glory to be called by God.

Jesus has waited from all eternity for his particular relationship with you, and that place cannot be filled by any other.  No one else’s relationship with Christ is the same as yours.  Sit with that.  Nothing can give you joy like belonging to Jesus fully.

Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

All photos courtesy of André Escaleira, Jr. / Denver Catholic

An Eden for God

July 6, 2024

On July 17, we celebrate the 21st Anniversary of Mother Maria-Michael’s Abbatial Election. Below is a reflection she gave this year on the 35th anniversary of our community’s elevation to an Abbey, and it paints a perfect picture of our Abbess’ spirit: joyful, grateful, loving, wise. We are truly thankful that God has blessed us with such a wonderful shepherd.

Today we celebrate the “bar mitzvah” (in a sense!) of our Abbey—the day on which the Church elevated our monastery to an Abbey.  With this gift, we are able to make foundations, we have an Abbess, and we have the responsibility to lead within the Church.  We joyfully take on this responsibility to be faithful to the Church, to Christ.

I think of this place as a little Eden for God, and that we truly have an atmosphere of seeking God.  In Eden, God came every day to Adam and Eve in the garden.  Well He still comes every day to us in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist—You can’t get better.  

We are surrounded by beauty, and the greatest beauty is what each of you brings into the community.  That is the greatest beauty that God gives.  We truly should be a portal of heaven.  An Abbey should be a portal of heaven, a “thin place” where God pulls back the curtain between earth and heaven, so that people can come here and recognize that, and then take it home with them.  

I rejoice in seeing how the Abbey has grown, and how God is so powerful in this place.  It is not we, but He, who has done this; and what a glory that we get to be a part of it.  He has called us to be a lantern, a lighthouse, which the world needs.  We stand for Christ, and people know that when they come here.  They see us in our habits and know what where’re about.  Isn’t there a saying that the greatest sermons are not said, but walked?  Our great witness is to simply live our monastic lives with rejoicing and gratitude.  I can’t thank God enough for what He has done to make this house what it is, and for every Sister who has ever lived in it.  In your prayers, remember to thank God.  Above all, thank Him.  That is the greatest gift we can give Him, when you pray, “I recognize, God, Your goodness, and I thank You.”

 

Obedient to Death

March 29, 2024

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

”The Last Sigh of Christ” by Julien-Michel Gue, 1840. Julien-Michel Gue, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Prayer is about listening to God, and obedience is about acting on what we hear.  Obedience requires that we be free enough in sprit to do what God asks of us.  We need to be free to do the will of God.  When there is right relationship, right order, in our lives, obedience is simple – If we just do what we’re told (unless it is a sin!), we will become holy.  Why do we sometimes try to make holiness harder than it has to be, by avoiding doing what we’re asked because we think there’s a better/holier way?  It’s only when our relationship with God is out of order that obedience becomes a problem for us – when our self-will becomes more important than serving God and our neighbor.  When we allow our inclinations that are not quite in order with God to take the first place, it puts a weight on us that makes obedience too heavy and hard to bear.  We get irritable.  We are unhappy.  It is painful.  But when our lives are brought back into proper relationship with God, and He can ask anything of us through obedience, then our peace is restored.

So the monastic vow of obedience is not a chain – it’s a ray of light.  It shows us the way to God.  It shows us the true path.  It gives us the way through the eye of a needle.  It allows us to practice every day what Christ did during His life on earth.  He who said, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me” (John 6:38), and prayed before His death, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), and then finally became “obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), has gone before us to show us the way.  You can give up all your possessions, your time, your talent…But if you do not give up your will, you have not yet completely surrendered your all to God.  Try offering Him your will, and your will experience the fruit of His promise: “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

When we profess our vow of obedience, we place our hands between those of our Abbess

Clothed in the Benedictine Habit

December 20, 2023

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB, on the morning of Sister Clare’s clothing day, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 2023)

The Immaculate Conception has a lot to do with hope.  Hope, biblically, is a confident expectation and trust in God and His promises.  You will find the word “hope” everywhere in the scriptures.  For God has boundless hope in His creation.  After the fall of man in the garden of Eden, God immediately began the process of restoring man to an even greater glory.  And it was in the immaculate conception of Mary that man began to shine once again with its original beauty, with the perfection that God intended from the beginning.  In Mary, God burst forth with His hope for mankind.  You and I are also part of His hope.  Do you know how much hope He has in you?  As nuns, we sing the “Suscipe” chant when we make vows: “Uphold me, O Lord, and I shall live.  Do not disappoint me in my hope.”  Well, think of turning the “Suscipe” around, and God singing it to you!  “Uphold Me, and I will live in you.  Do not disappoint Me in My hope.”  Can you imagine that?  Can you imagine God saying that to us? 

Mother Maria-Michael and Sister Clare

Mary did not say, “Be it done to me according to Your word” only once, but throughout her whole life.  It should be the same with us.  Even when things are difficult, we have to be able to say with confidence, “Be it done unto me according to Your word.”  Because by our response is how we are transformed into that perfection; and God is staring at us full of hope, saying, “Come on!”  He wants that for us.  He wants that purity.  He wants that love that He intended for man. 

So Clare, today you will be clothed in the garments of one who lives for God, under the guidance of our Holy Father Saint Benedict.  You are putting on what you are hoping for.  Your hope is not alone – we join you in that hope; and heaven, too, is full of hope.  May the habit you will wear remind you of the words of our Blessed Mother, “Be it done unto me according to Your word.”  Your novitiate has a beginning in time, as the immaculate conception of Mary did.  May she guide you through the novitiate, and may God’s hope for your life color every day, and be filled with the breeze of Eden that says, “He is coming.”  And I hope that we all experience this breeze, as when the Holy Spirit comes powerfully into our lives.  Remember that it was a relationship that was lost in Eden; it was a love that was lost.  God expects a different response from us, so that we might reverse the effects of the fall by turning to Him, and continually pursuing that loving relationship.  The next time you feel a soft breeze on your face, think of God coming quickly to see you.  And be ready to respond with love.

Every year on December 20, the Church gives us this beautiful reflection by St. Bernard on Mary’s fiat in the Office of Readings:

You have heard, O Virgin, that you will conceive and bear a son; you have heard that it will not be by man but by the Holy Spirit. The angel awaits an answer; it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for your word of compassion; the sentence of condemnation weighs heavily upon us.

The price of our salvation is offered to you. We shall be set free at once if you consent. In the eternal Word of God we all came to be, and behold, we die. In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life.

Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in their exile from Paradise. Abraham begs it, David begs it. All the other holy patriarchs, your ancestors, ask it of you, as they dwell in the country of the shadow of death. This is what the whole earth waits for, prostrate at your feet. It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race.

Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word.

Why do you delay, why are you afraid? Believe, give praise, and receive. Let humility be bold, let modesty be confident. This is no time for virginal simplicity to forget prudence. In this matter alone, O prudent Virgin, do not fear to be presumptuous. Though modest silence is pleasing, dutiful speech is now more necessary. Open your heart to faith, O blessed Virgin, your lips to praise, your womb to the Creator. See, the desired of all nations is at your door, knocking to enter. If he should pass by because of your delay, in sorrow you would begin to seek him afresh, the One whom your soul loves. Arise, hasten, open. Arise in faith, hasten in devotion, open in praise and thanksgiving. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, she says, be it done to me according to your word.

In Praise of the Virgin Mother by St. Bernard (Hom. 4, 8-9: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 [1966], 53-54)

2024 Calendars for Sale

December 4, 2023

Photos from the 2024 calendar

This year’s wall calendar features photos of our Abbey and surrounding landscapes.  It notes the days of the Church’s liturgical seasons, together with days commemorated by the Order of St. Benedict, as they are observed by our community. 

Order Quantity