Notes, Homilies, and News

"The monk does not come to the monastery to 'get' something which the ordinary Christian does not have. On the contrary, he comes there in order to realize and to appreciate all that any good Christian already has." Trappist monk Thomas Merton, +1968

"My life is not just about myself, trying to achieve salvation, trying to upgrade my living so as to serve others better. My life is mystical participation in the life of Christ, a reality that is not mine alone, but is shared with all who are 'in Christ.' "...

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight. . . and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 1

"The Lord is in His holy temple; silence before Him all the earth!" Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 20

"We have what we need, we just need to look and see it." Scottish actress Tilda Swinton

"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...

"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...

"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

"All occasions invite God's mercies, and all times are God's seasons." English poet John Donne, +1631

"The pertinent question is not how to do things right but how to find the right things to do, and to concentrate resources and efforts on them." Educator and author Peter F. Drucker, +2005

"The point is that where you are, in the very situation in which you find yourself, God is there, whose nearness to you is there and yours to God."   Swedish author Hjalmar Ekstrom, +1962