Monastery News

“The Lord is in His holy temple; silence before Him all the earth!”

Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 20

“Under thy protection we seek refuge,
O Holy Mother of God.
In our needs, despise not our petitions,
but deliver us always from all dangers,
O glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.”

SUB TUUM PRAESIDIUM prayer, 3rd century Egyptian papyrus. Oldest known prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“It is not by striving to be someone else but by letting God penetrate you with a loving gaze that you recover that original purity. That is precisely what purity is: not hiding anything from God.”

Belgian Carmelite friar Wilfrid Stinissen

“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens.”

Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verses 1 & 2

“The question, ‘What are you seeking?’ that Saint Benedict asks of a candidate to monastic life is one that we need to ask ourselves often in our lifetime. ‘Ad quod venisti?’ When we lose sight of the goal we are likely thoughtlessly to go astray.”

Australian Trappist monk and author Father Michael Casey

“We plough the fields, and scatter the good seed on the land;
But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand.”

German poet Matthias Claudius, +1815 (translated by Jane Montgomery Campbell in 1861)

“As a deer longs for running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.”

Psalm 42.1

“The Lord fed us with the finest wheat and filled us with honey from the rock.”

Antiphon based on Psalm 81, for Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi)

“Thus says the Lord: I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.”

Book of Leviticus, chapter 26, verse 4

“Our love for God needs to pass from the self-centred to the more ecstatic; real love in its perfection draws us away from ourselves, makes us self-forgetful, totally engaged with the God of infinite lovableness.”

Australian Trappist monk and author Father Michael Casey

“Jesus said to Peter: ‘Feed my sheep, feed my lambs.'”

see Gospel According to Saint John, chapter 21, verses 15-18

“Come, Holy Spirit! Come and take from us whatever keeps us from being one with you.”

Saint Mary Magdelene de Pazzi, +1607

“The earth has yielded its fruit. . .
Let the peoples praise you, O God.”

Psalm 66(67)

“Let us pray that peace very soon may be restored to us…after the rain, fair weather; after the darkness, light; after these storms and tempests, a gentle calm.”

Saint Cyprian of Carthage, +258