Blessings to you! Here I am in Mexico still, writing from La Soledad. This coming Saturday I will return to Christ in the Desert. The time here has been very good for me personally. When I am away from home, I think about things in new ways and I have new experiences of God's love.

Back at Christ in the Desert, five of our brothers went to our Monastery of Thien Tam over this last weekend. They were able to be present for the diaconal ordination of our Brother PauLavang and then share in the Eucharistic Days celebrated at Thien Tam every year at the beginning of June.

One of the hopes of our monasteries is that in time, together with Mount Saviour Monastery in New York, we may be formed into a province of the Subiaco Cassinese Congregation. When that will happen is in the hands of God. In our own ways, we are preparing for such a new province by having more interchanges between our houses. It will be important that we come to know one another just a bit so that we can function well as a group of associated monasteries.

Brother Christian has been out of the monastery more than usual working on the business aspects of our Abbey Brewing Company. We really hope that this business venture will finally take off and that we can begin to receive income from our work. This will help not only us but all of our houses.

Brother Gregory has gone to the Archabbey of Saint Vincent in Pennsylvania to participate in a course on Gregorian Chant. Almost all of our music at Christ in the Desert is Gregorian Chant or this same style in English. Some people don't want to call the English form Gregorian Chant. That is fine. It is English Chant in the style of Gregorian Chant. What we call it is not important. But the style of music is very important and sets the tone of our liturgical life.

The goal of our monastic life at Christ in the Desert is simple: a life which unites us deeply and personally with Jesus Christ and which is expressed in the form of monastic life indicated by the Rule of Benedict. Each one of us must live our life of faith in some external expression. We are not pure spirits! We are humans who express ourselves and our values and our choices by the way that we live.

The goal of each human life is this deep union with God in Jesus Christ. It never crossed my mind when I was young that I would be a monk. I had never even heard of monks. Even after our family became Catholic in the summer after my second grade in school, I did not hear of monks. As I grew to understand the Catholic faith, there was still no mention of monks. Only when a religious sister told me that I would be able to skip a day of school if I took the examination for the seminary did I come to hear of monks. Yet, when I saw a monastery for the first time at the age of 13, I knew that was what I wanted to be: a monk.

Like many people when they are young, I had no idea of the sacrifices or sufferings that such a choice would bring me. Yet even today I have never turned back on that road. I have not always been very good. I am still a sinner. There are times when I wish I were not on the road. However, whenever a decision has been necessary, I have decided to keep walking on the road with Jesus Christ as a monk.

This same type of commitment is needed in our life of faith. We don't have to think that we will be perfect, that we will never sin again or that somehow we will be so transformed that the walk with the Lord will have not cost. No, we simply have to keep walking.

In our life of faith, we come to recognize that there is no other road possible. I cannot turn aside from the life of faith. There is no other road except Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life. I may turn away from Him but He never turns away from me.

One of the early monks of the 3rd or 4th century told the story of his thinking about leaving to get married. Finally he realized that he needed to think about the reality of a marriage rather than just the joys or the pleasure of marriage. This is a realistic way of thinking. My faith is not something that I can throw away. It has to be the deepest commitment of my life. It has to be my whole way of living. Even when I fail, I fail even as I believe.

Again I want to repeat the perseverance in the spiritual life, in the life of prayer and in the life of love and service for others is at the heart of walking with Jesus Christ and at the heart of any deeply spiritual life. We must not give up and think that we such a life depends on us and that we fail. Rather we must trust in Jesus every day that He will continue to help us, no matter how many times we fail. He always walks with us and delights in our feeble human attempts to respond to His love.

At the end of our lives, we will be judged on love only. Love is a commitment to another. For us it is first of all the commitment to Jesus Himself. Because we love Him, we try to walk in His ways. Because we love Him, we can love ourselves. Because we love Him, we can love our neighbors and even our enemies. There is no other road to eternal life.

Always I continue to beg your prayers for me and for all of the women and men associated with our communities. I promise that I will celebrate a Holy Mass for you and for your needs and intentions. May the Lord draw us all into the joy of His life.