Blessings to you! Finally I am home again at Christ in the Desert, in my own cell and in my own office. Always it is a joy to return home and be with my brothers once more and to fit back into the normal life of Christ in the Desert.

This past week Brother Francis returned from living at Mount Saviour Monastery for a year. It is good to have him back with us once more.

The six brothers who were at Thien Tam for the diaconal ordination of Brother PauLavang have also returned. The choir seems very full now and there are a lot of monks at home!

Betty Lou Norris died on June 13, 2013. Her older sister, Jane Serna, and all of their family were and are incredibly wonderful benefactors for our Monastery of Christ in the Desert over many, many years. Betty Lou eventually was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and had to be cared for during the last years of her life. Please join our community in praying for her eternal repose and for strength and comfort for her family.

There is always such a gift in coming to know and appreciate other people in our lives. When I travel I am always in awe of the goodness and love of others and the incredible spiritual energies that I encounter from all over the world. From the newspapers and from the internet it often seems that the world has mostly bad news, disasters and violence. Yet almost everyone that I meet seems full of grace and love and the desire to grow deeper in a life of prayer and love.

Here at home we are in the midst of conferences on Liturgy given by Father David Anderson, a Ukrainian Catholic priest. They are excellent and help to form our community in an awareness of the liturgy and how to celebrate it and the meanings of the liturgy.

One of the aspects that really touched me was the reference to Christ's words when He was dying: It is finished! These are the same words used in the Book of Genesis when God finishes creating: It is finished! And then begins the great rest, the great Sabbath Day of creation. For us, the great rest comes when we enter into the death of Christ and die with Him. Then it is finished and we come to savor the joy of faith and belief.

In order for all of us to understand better these wonderful connections and references in Scripture, we must take time each day to spend in reading Scripture and in reading the commentaries on Scripture. There are some really find modern commentaries and there are incredibly good commentaries by the early Church writers. It is not a matter of becoming a disciple of one commentator but of coming to know the Scriptures by reading the tests themselves and then knowing more because of reading the commentaries of others who have had, perhaps, more time and focus to read the Scriptures and to study the languages so that their reading has a greater depth.

We do not need to become Scripture scholars! We need to be people formed by the Scriptures and who have a capacity to listen to others who have more training than we do. Saint Benedict adds in his Rule: orthodox Catholic teachers. It is important to recognize that there is a huge amount of material available today about the Scriptures and not all of it is of the same value.

This is true in other areas as well. Sometimes others send to me articles on religious life. I always try to read such articles, eve when from my point of view, the writer is way off base. There can be insights even from those type of authors. But if I do not have time, then I don't read what I would consider articles on the fringe of the Church.

It is completely true that we must be open to the insights and thoughts of others. On the other hand, my philosophy teacher when I was young was fond of saying that unless there are basic presuppositions held in common, it is better to play cards than to discuss!

Monastic life is always changing and evolving, just as the Church is changing and evolving. We monks must be open to such changes. The inner life and our understanding of the inner life also changes and evolves with time. We must be open. Rigidity and unchangeableness are not the signs of spiritual growth and depth. On the other hand, there are limits of change and limits to the ideas that reflect the best of the monastic tradition and the best of the spiritual tradition.

In our spiritual lives, we need to be very open with our feet deeply planted in the tradition. We want to grow in Christ, not just to change because change feels good. We want to have this deep personal relationship with Jesus--because He invites us to have such a relationship. Always a relationship with Jesus implies a relationship with the community of believers, with the Church.

Our internet has been down most of the week. I am not sure that I will get this online this week, but I shall try. As always I promise my prayers for you and for all of your needs and intentions. I will offer Holy Mass for you this week. Please pray for me and for all of our communities and those associated with our communities.