Monastery of the Holy Cross

Archives for November 2025

Homily for the Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today we celebrate the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the temple. Our knowledge of this event is taken not from the canonical Scriptures, but from an important text, called the “Protoevangelium of James,” written in about the year 150. The Protoevangelium also gives us the names of Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna. The book is an excellent witness to the importance of the Blessed Virgin in the earliest decades of the Church. We see the earliest Christians reflecting on her role in God’s plan, requiring her to be set apart. Like the prophet Samuel, she is dedicated by her parents to God, to live in the temple and serve the priests who ministered at God’s altar. One of young Mary’s tasks was to weave the temple veil, the veil that would be rent at Jesus’s death.

The Church has always seen in this dedication of the Virgin Mary a foreshadowing of consecrated life. Those called by God to leave the world are to live, like Mary or the apostles after Pentecost, in the temple, praising God at all times. There, we wait upon God’s will, and following the pattern of Mary’s motherhood, we dedicate ourselves to welcoming the life of Christ given at baptism. With the help of God’s grace, we aim to bring that divine life to term by a life of sanctity and purity of heart.

Today we also conclude the monastery’s annual retreat. As it happens, this year’s retreat is shorter than usual, as we are planning to move it back to February. But it has been unusual in many other ways, and perhaps not as quiet and reflective as most of us would have chosen. This might be a reminder from God that no life of sanctity comes without a struggle to accept what is. It might be a reminder that as monks, we can’t afford to use the retreat as a time to “refuel” before we get back to work. We have to be the ones in the Church who say “no” to whatever distracts us from our primary purpose of serving God alone. Is there a difference in kind between withdrawal from the world and retreat? I think that they are both the same thing, differing only in degree. If God has seen to it that we haven’t had as much time for spiritual exercises this week as we would have hoped, this is perhaps a reminder that, for us, spiritual exercises must come first at all times, and not just on retreat.

I don’t want to be too elliptical for our guests: Fr. Edward is doing fine after having surgery on Wednesday night, and while he has a lot of rehab ahead of him, we have reason to expect him back. Other distractions have been more elective, and, as I say, a spur to imitate more fully the example of Our Lady: to put our own plans to the side and say, “Let it be done to me according to your will,” so that we may be a true sign to the Church that God’s will is our peace and not any accomplishment of our own. For whoever does the will of Jesus’s heavenly Father is His brother, sister, and mother, kindred of all the saints in heaven and destined for eternal life.

Homily for the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

Today, as we celebrate the anniversary of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, it seems like a good moment to reflect on the subject of ecclesiology. Ecclesiology means the study of the ecclesia, the Church.

What is the Church? What does it mean to be a member of the Church? These questions are not as easy to answer as we might think at first blush.

For example, when we ask what the Church is, the answers that we get from theologians vary, depending on the perspective from which we view the Church. It is the mystical Body of Christ. It is the sacrament of salvation for the world. It is the People of God, or the Perfect Society, through which we, the members, receive grace and are sanctified and perfected in union with our shepherds, the bishops, under the special care of the Holy Father, Christ’s vicar on earth. And of course, any one of these “models” is itself a mystery, and therefore open to ongoing reflection.

I would like to offer the idea of the Church as a kind of fractal, just to make things at first even more mysterious and perhaps overly complicated.

What is a fractal? In certain popular usages of the term, it refers to a shape that is made up of several connected versions of the same shape on a smaller level. Imagine, for example, a snowflake, with it six points. Now imagine taking six of the same snowflakes and connecting them around a center so that it makes a new hexagonal snowflake. And imagine that this new snowflake has the same shape as each of the six smaller snowflakes. That’s what I mean by fractal in the case. As we zoom our or zoom in, we see the same shape emerge each time. That shape is repeated at different levels.

So, there is one Church, as we say in the Creed. That is because Christ Himself is the One mediator between God and Man, and the Church is His Body and His Bride. There can only be one Bride for Christ and that is the Church.

Now, a brief side note on the Lateran Basilica. Just over two thousand years ago, in the City of Rome, there was a family that had recently become a part of the wealthy class in pagan Rome, and their name was the Lateran family. They built a palace on the site of what is today the Lateran Basilica. This palace was confiscated by the Emperor Nero and became part of the government’s property. Three hundred years later, when the Emperor Constantine became Christian, he donated that former palace to the pope at the time, Pope Miltiades, and it became the seat of the bishop of Rome. The building was destroyed several times, and the current building was built over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the fourteenth centuries, the building was destroyed by two fires while the pope had moved his administration to the city of Avignon in France. When Saint Catherine of Siena persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, he found the Lateran Basilica completely in ruins. So he moved his administration to Saint Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican hill, and this is where the pope continues to exercise his governance of the Church. However, the Lateran remains the cathedral church of Rome, and therefore is the Mother Church of the entire Roman Catholic world. Hence our celebration today. It is a sign of the unity of the Church under one pope, and a sign of the Incarnation, inasmuch as there can be only one Mother cathedral, and for God’s purposes, He chose Rome to be the home of this church.

Now, let’s return to the idea of a fractal. So, you remember that I said that when either zoom in or zoom out, we see the same shape emerge. This is what we find in the ecclesiology, when we look at the Church. When we zoom all the way out, we see the universal Church, with billions of members all around the world and in heaven and in purgatory. A glorious sight to be sure.

But when we zoom in, we don’t find an isolated “piece” of the larger Church. We find a diocese. And at the head of the diocese is the Bishop. And by dint of his ordination as bishop, he is just as much a successor of the Apostles as is the bishop of Rome. One of the principles vigorously enunciated at the Second Vatican Council is that each bishop receives his power and authority directly from Christ, not from the pope. The pope receives particular powers reserved to him, but the normal powers of a bishop, to teach and preach, to celebrate the sacraments, and to govern the Church, comes directly from Christ. This means that each diocese is, in some way, the fullness of the Church in a local, miniature setting. The whole, single, Church is present, and this is especially visible when the bishop celebrates the sacraments. For Christ is acting in the fullness of His power through the bishop.

Now, if we zoom in yet another level, we get to the parish. Again, the parish is not simply a piece of the diocese. There is, again, a sense that the fullness of the Church is present locally, through Christ’s ministry, now through the instrument of the priest. Now, we should say that the parish is a more inadequate symbol or instantiation of the universal Church. For example, a priest cannot celebrate the sacraments without the permission and mandate of his bishop, and certain sacraments are reserved to the bishop, such as ordination or the consecration of an altar. Certain decisions belong to the bishop. But even if the picture is slightly dimmed, this does not mean that the fullness of the Church is not actually present when the priest acts in the person of Christ, whether teaching governing or sanctifying.

This fractal nature of the Church is denoted by the fact that we celebrate three church dedications each year. Today we celebrate the Church’s unity at the highest level. On October 11 each year, we celebrate the dedication of the diocesan cathedral, in our case the archdiocesan cathedral of Holy Name downtown. And last but definitely not least, we celebrate the dedication of each parish or religious church. In our case, this is on October 24. And this celebration at the most local level is the highest-ranking, liturgically speaking, of the three.

This means that while today’s celebration is a feast in this church, in Rome it is a solemnity, the highest-ranking category of a liturgical celebration. This once more connects us to the Incarnation. It is God who has chosen to consecrate this place to Himself, and it is likewise God Who chose to consecrate the Lateran basilica. He does this to deepen His relationship with the actual people who come here. But we are never, for that reason, isolated from the other churches. We recall on this day each year that our small community is not just a piece of the universal Church, but in some way makes present the entirety of the Church, which is best understood from the perspective of the ministry of unity given to Saint Peter and his successors.

So, we can give thanks to God this day for calling us to be members of His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and for reminding us that what we see here, however humble it may appear, is in fact an opening to the grand and glorious city of the redeemed, an opening to the kingdom where we hope to enjoy God’s glory forever. Amen.

Homily for the Solemnity of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church

[The dedication of our church took place on June 19, 1910.  The monastery now transfers the Solemnity of the Anniversary of the Dedication to October 24.]

The Church’s liturgical directives instruct us to celebrate each year the anniversary of the dedication of the church building. This year we celebrate 115 years since this building became what Saint Benedict calls an oratory: a place consecrated to prayer. Saint Benedict goes on to say that the oratory should be what it is called: we come here to pray.

Eleven years ago, Cardinal George consecrated our new altar, and so we had a smaller-scale experience of what a church dedication looks like. The first thing to notice about it is that it can only be done by a bishop, in other words, by someone who is a part of the line of apostolic succession. A bishop is the spiritual descendant of those men upon whom Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit, commissioning them to teach, govern, and sanctify. The bishops share this commission with their helpers, the priests and deacons, but the most important actions are reserved for the bishops, who bear the fullness of Christ’s sacramental priesthood.

When any item is blessed, it is set apart in some way as dedicated to God, and therefore it bears something of God’s holy presence. Holy water, for example, can drive out the simpler demons. When we were baptized, we were set aside for God, and God took up residence in our souls. When this happens, it is as if a light goes on inside us, and we become spiritually alive. Certain latent powers, rooted in the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, are activated and begin to grow. This illumination that takes place is signified by the candle, lit from the Easter candle, Christ Himself, and given to the newly baptized.

When a priest is ordained, this process takes on a specific contour: not only is God present in the soul of a priest, but Christ now promises to act through the priest in specific ways. Again, a certain latent potency in a man is activated, and God’s sanctifying power now manifests itself in the priest changing the elements of the Eucharistic sacrifice into Christ’s Body and Blood, to note the most radical example.

And so it was with this church, when the bishop anointed its walls and the stone of the altar. In the case of our new altar, the relics of Saint Benedict and Saint Vincent of Saragossa were buried inside it, incense was placed on the altar, and finally a candle. And at this point this building came alive spiritually, as it were, and became God’s dwelling place. Every time we light the candles at the altar, we recall this in a profound way—this is one reason why the Eucharist is never celebrated without the candles being lit.

When the lights come on in the Church, or when the sun streams in through the stained glass windows, we see signs that this is a holy place. The images, the altar and the canopy above it, called a reredos, the twelve columns signifying the twelve apostles: these are those latent objects that become illuminated, alive with God’s presence because they are in a holy space. And all this ornamentation is meant to show us who we are as a Church. For we are being built into God’s dwelling, we are the stones being sanctified.

There is so much to dwell on in this theology, but time being limited, let me offer two brief final observations.

First of all, you are aware that this building has undergone a lot of repair in the last few years. In this world that has become infected with sin, objects are subject to decay and decomposition if they are not regularly repaired and renewed. Sometimes this work requires vigorous scraping, even removal of decayed brick and wood, before new brick, wood, and paint can restore the original beauty. This is a sign for our souls: sin has caused all of us to lose the original glory that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden. But God’s rescue mission is restoring this glory and spiritual beauty. Sometimes this requires scraping and extraction from us of improper attachments and so on, and this can be painful. In our suffering, it’s important to set our eyes on the goal, which is the beauty and glory that we will enjoy for all eternity with God and the saints. A beautiful church assists us by giving us a glimpse of what this will be like.

Which brings me to my second point. For this encouragement to take root in us, it is helpful to expose ourselves to it. The brothers will tell you that I frequently remind them not to close their eyes at the liturgy. I don’t bring this up to shame anyone, but to point out that in our modern context, our tendency is to seek God within ourselves, and more or less exclusively within ourselves. I have already said that He dwells within us because of baptism, so this is not entirely wrong. But interiorly, we are not yet fully purified, or at least I’m not, and I’m guessing that most of us aren’t. All the visual, aural, and olfactory cues in the church, dedicated to God’s glory, remind us that the goal of salvation is much greater than ourselves. Not only that, but the church is a symbol for a well-ordered soul, and therefore helps us to know how to identify God’s presence within us. What should we look like interiorly? Are we ornamented with images of salvation history and the examples of the saints? Is the incense of constant prayer filling us? Are we offering regular sacrifice to God upon the altar of our hearts? How might we grow as Catholics by today’s celebration? How might the illumination of our souls bring God to the world today?

Natural contemplation, the meaning of creatures, and the end of the virtues

When I initially read Cassian’s first Conference, I found the discussion there of the goal (scopos) and end (telos) of the monk to be interesting but not particular engaging on a personal level. Over the years, as I re-read it, it occurred to me that the problem was the entire worldview that formed me. This worldview sees no goals to anything in the cosmos, depicting it as the open-ended development of initial conditions and inputs of force and motion. That matter and energy happened to produce human beings, gemstones, scorpions and tornadoes is a quirky and ultimately inexplicable part of this random development.

It was through reading Dante, Charles Williams, Chesterton and MacIntyre that I gradually came to understand the perfections of creatures, first on an intellectual level of assent, and eventually at the level of the heart, of appreciation and gratitude. This helped to open up for me what Evagrius calls natural contemplation: the graced ability to see creatures from the spiritual perspective, the perspective of God and the angels, the perspective of eternity.

Natural contemplation means accepting that creatures have meaning. They have ways of flourishing and ways of failing to flourish. We participate in God’s life-giving grace when we work towards this flourishing—or even simply allow it to happen, take note of it, and give God glory.

An example that I have frequently used to illustrate this is that knives are meant for cutting things, and they work best when we understand the type of knife that we are holding. When we use a serrated knife with the right pressure, allowing the blade to gain purchase on the bread crust, we can gently guide it, according to its nature, through the bread. But when we use it like a guillotine, pressing straight down until the piece of food pops apart, the knife, as if objecting to being handled incorrectly, issues a loud report from the plate (which is perhaps also objecting to our misuse of its nature).

We go a step further when we use a knife as if it were a screwdriver or prybar. Sadly, this is a common mistake, to judge by the number of knives in our kitchen that are missing tips. But it is an outgrowth, even if a somewhat trivial one, of a worldview that gives objects no meaning, no goal, no nature. Since they have no inherent telos, we are free to make use of them as our wills desire. And so a knife becomes a screwdriver, and in secular culture men become women and women men.

If we lack the ability to be receptive to the goal or end of other creatures, is it really a surprise that we struggle to see our own lives as goal-driven? Human beings flourish in predictable ways. We will move toward this type of flourishing life not by examining our inner movements, but by attending to objective standards like the virtues.

All of the activities of the monastery gain their worth from what they contribute to a growth in virtue and an awareness of our final destination. At the judgement, God will not ask us if we got our work done on such and such a date, but if we labored to serve our neighbor in love, or if we sacrificed ourselves for the poor. We will not be asked if we were true to ourselves, because who we are in Christ is something beyond our ability to discern at the moment.

Fr. Timothy recently mentioned a reading from Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She says that, at the end times, God will reveal our proper name to us: we won’t understand fully who we are until then. But virtue will help offer us glimpses along the way. If we are growing in virtue, we are more likely to understand creatures from a proper theological perspective. If we are growing in virtue, we are more likely to be asked to step out of our present comfort zone and take up a task that will stretch us, perhaps quite a lot. But if we lack virtue, others will be reluctant to give us those opportunities to learn whether we have the skill to serve the community and the Church at a new level.

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