Gethsemane

In the Steps of the Master

H. V. Morton

A timeless account of a journey through the Holy Land by the world's favourite travel writer .

(Extract: Garden Gethsemane, Mount of Olives, pp. 42-43)

. . . the warmth in the air, for the sun in Palestine leaps up into the sky like a ball of fire and is warm to the skin from the first second of his arrival.

I hear the call to prayer from the nearest minaret. As I turn the corner, I see the muezzin standing in his little railed-in balcony, lit by the first light of the sun, an old blind man who cries in a loud chanting voice: "AIlahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar ; ashadu an la ilaha illa-llah, ashadu anna Muhammedarrasulullah ... hayya 'alas-sala ... Allah is great; testify that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet . . . Come to prayer! "

And as he calls he does not cup his hands to his mouth, as artists always paint him, but he holds them behind his ears, the palms to the front and the fingers up.

I go on over the rough cobbles and, passing through the Gate of St. Stephen, I see ahead of me a blinding sandy road and the Mount of Olives with the sun above it.

In mountain country there is nothing older than a road.

Cities may come and go, the most splendid buildings may live and die, but the little road that runs between the rocks lives for ever. One is shown all kinds of sites in Jerusalem which may be open to doubt-such as. the very spot On which the cock crowed when St. Peter denied his Lord-but one looks at them with respect for the piety which created them, and with distaste for the principle which profits from them. On the Mount of Olives, however, one knows that these little stony tracks that twist and turn over the rocks are the very paths that He must have taken and that they are marked more truly with the imprint of His feet than any rock within a golden shrine.

The road runs downhill from St. Stephen's Gate into the Kedron Valley. It bends to the right, leading down to the stony place, and, when I look up, the walls of Jerusalem, with their crenellated sentry-walks, stand like a challenge, golden in the morning sun. At the bottom of the valley the road rises over the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives, and a little to the right stands a clump of cypress trees with a wall round them. This is the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Franciscan friars, who touch everything with beauty, grace and reverence, own the little Garden and, while they have built a church near by, they have not touched the Garden except to make flower-beds among the ancient olive trees.

In a land where the footsteps of Christ, real or imaginary, can be traced by huge churches built over stones and caves and legends, this quiet little Garden on the Mount of Olives stands out as an imperishable memory. Time has not altered this Garden. City has followed city on the hill opposite, but the Garden, so near that in the evening the shadow of Jerusalem's wall falls across it, has remained to-day as it must have been in the time of Jesus. There would have been a wall round it and probably an oil press to which the people on the Mount would have carried their olives to be crushed. Dotted about the garden are eight aged olive trees of tremendous girth. They are more like rocks than trees. Slim new shoots spring out of apparently dead wood, and the old trunks, vast as ancient oaks, are propped up with ramparts of stones and stout wooden poles. These trees still bear fruit from which the monks press oil.

An old monk, who is working in the Garden, unlocks the rate for me and turns again to his weeding basket and his rake.

He is a French monk who has spent many years in the Holy Land, and when I talk to him he straightens himself from the hedge of rosemary and stands, politely anxious to get on with his work, his brown gardener's hands folded across his brown habit, the fingers locked together.

He points out to me a rock which marks the place where Peter, James and John slept, and not far off is a column in the wall which is the traditional spot on which Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss.

" And is it true," I ask him, " as so many believe, that these nre the actual trees that were growing in the time of Our Lord? "

" They may well be the trees," he replies, " for their age is lost in antiquity. I will tell you a very interesting thing about them. They have never paid the tax which, since the Moslem .on quest, was imposed on newly planted trees. That means that they were not young trees many centuries ago. That, my son, is an historic fact, but whether they sheltered our

rd I cannot say; but, for myself," and here the old man smiled gently and bent towards his rake and basket, " I believe they did."

There is no sound in the Garden of Gethsemane but the click of the Franciscan's rake among the sharp flints and the drone of bees among the flowers and, intermittently, that hot sound like a whip-lash that will always remind me of the blazing Sun of Palestine-the noise of grasshoppers.

And, as I stand in the shade of the olive trees, I look up and see, through a screen of leaves, the great yellow wall of Jerusalem on the ascending slope opposite, and the walled-up Golden Gate, the site of the triumphal entry into the city. In this quiet garden, striped with cool shadow, that wall seems cruel and terrible.

It Occurs to me that there could be no greater contrast than the proud, hard, yellow wall and this little garden among trees, where the lizards come out of holes in the stones to stare in the sunlight with their small frogs' heads lifted, listening and watching; where every leaf and every flower achieves an added beauty by reason of the barren harshness and the cruel heat beyond the garden.

"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. ... "

I finish the chapter of St. Matthew and close the Book. The monk has weeded to the end of his row. He stoops down, picks a stone from his sandal and bends again to his work. And above us the gaunt, cavernous trunks of the eight olive trees that will not die rise up like the columns of a crypt.

As the Franciscan lets me out of the garden he gives me a little slip of paper, which I place in my pocket as I walk back up the hot road to Jerusalem. Remembering it, as I pass in under the gate of St. Stephen, I open it and find pressed inside a spear-shaped olive leaf and a blue flower from the Garden of Gethsemane.

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Beloved Disciple at Empty Tomb

Beloved Disciple at Holy Sepulchre

Comment to William.

How wonderfull to ponder your exciting Easter Greeting poem.
Now I would love share this Easter Message with others.
Since it is an exceptional focus on words of the beloved disciple's proclaim of his belief (Jn 20:8) it raises my interest. I searched for a picture of the experience of the tomb of the Resurrection. There are countless depictions of Mary Magdalene's encounter "noli me tangere", (Jn 20:17) (1000s such on www). It was amazing to discover I found only one painting ‘the beloved disciple in the sepulchre’ among artists ancient or recent. See the picture opposite .

The contrast in popular perception between Mary Magdalene and ‘the beloved disciple’is so striking.
Thank you, William, to allow me to use your lovely contemplative (mystic) comment and poem. To add a picture may provide pictorial note for an Easter Greeting for friends.

After this it was a surprise of the appearance of a very recent painting of Empty Tomb, beloved disciple-Peter-Mary Magdalene. A surprising view of the three together.

Chancing on the current Aberdeen Diocesan Newsletter, Easter 2009, I found one painting when thinking about “the other disciple also went into the tomb: he saw and he believed.” (Jn 20:8), from an unusual source. It is the paining of the Empty Tomb among the the collection of artist, Dr He Qi

Chinese Christian artist, Dr He Qi presents us with art that connects us to the biblical story in a fresh, even a surprising, way. He is both story-teller and evangelist in his art. He is not only preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, but he is also conveying a message that transcends cultural types. In seeking to de-westernize the Christian story. . .

He Qi said, "There are two different ways in China for people to become a Christian;' he says. "One is by the strong influence from his family background; another way is by his own choice-'step by step: I belong to the second way.”

William’s lines will inspire more reflections and illuminate more light and sense of the heart of ‘the beloved disciple'.

Easter Blessing

Easter Blessings
Our good friend, William, shares a very thoughtful and prayerful Greeting.
He reflects on Easter morning in a way that the experience of 'the beloved disciple'
speaks from his heart in the empty tomb.
William writes that may our faith in the Risen Lord fill us with hope and joy.

The Entrance

From darkness to light, this is the gift of faith's enlightenment as we come with the disciples to discover the intimate mystery of Our Lord's death and resurrection. There is one particular time and place in which the meaning is revealed - in the darkness of the sepulchre on Easter morning - for the light to shine upon the entrance to our mind.

John 20:8 .. the other disciple also went into the tomb; he saw and he believed

I love to enter the deepest realms of faith

Of the meaning of Your death and resurrection,
Standing in the shadows within Your sepulchre
As the morning rays lighten upon its entrance.

Man amongst men You lived on earth,
Eternal God committed by the trial of life
Through the witness of Your living testimony
To Evil's enslavement of humanity.

Condemned You bore the burden of our guilt,
Cast out and crucified You healed the wounds
Which we inflict upon You and upon each other
As we wrestle in the embrace of Your cross.

I am overwhelmed by the aura of the tomb
For Your death reveals what life conceals
The emanation of the Essence of Your Being
Shining in glory upon the entrance to my mind.

Ps 56: 12 .. 0 God. arise above the heavens; may Your glory shine on earth!

Ps 16: 15 .. in faith and righteousness
/ shall see l'our face and be filled,
when I awake, with the sight of Your glory.

Passion Laetare Sunday

Passion Sunday - fifth Sunday Lent

Liturgy Note (christusrex-org)

Today is Laetare Sunday: the joy at one stage of our Lenten journey accomplished and a foretaste of the joy of Easter, which springs from the Cross of Christ. Every Mass, every Sunday, even in Lent is an experience of the joys and splendor of the new Jerusalem, the Church on earth and the heavenly city. We celebrate that today, Laetare Sunday, with the rose colored vestments, the playing of the organ and the flowers on the altar, all signs of the Church's joy, alive with the Resurrection, which cannot be contained even in Lent, though we still refrain from Alleluias and the singing of the Gloria until the magnificence of the Easter Vigil. Our entrance antiphon sets the tone: "Laetare Jerusalem; Rejoice Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her; rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow; that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation."

Abbot Raymond had speaking on three occasionsthis Sunday, first for the monks in morning Chapter, for the Homily in Guesthouse, and for the Pilgrims from the Parishes who came for the Way of the Stations of the Cross in the abbey grounds. Later,by Tuesday, he has put his thoughts in writing.

The Gospel. John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. . . .

The Church’s Mission

We learn from St John that just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday some Greeks asked to see Jesus. At first this seems a strange little incident to be recorded in such detail by the Evangelist. Surely the whole world wanted to see Jesus; the crowds were clamouring for him. But, as always, St John is looking deeply into the incident to bring out its implications.

What was so striking to the apostle and made him record it in such detail was, not so much the fact that a couple of Greeks wanted to see Jesus, as the incredible reaction of Jesus to their request. Up to this point Jesus had jealously kept himself for his own chosen people and for no one else, except for an occasional healing of a gentile here and there. He put his position in very strong terms: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” He said, and even more strongly: “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the house dogs.”

This explains the behaviour of Philip when these Greeks approached him. Philip knew very well what Jesus’ attitude to the gentiles was and so he was afraid to approach. So he went to ask Andrew for moral support. Andrew, we might presume, was a more senior Apostle and had been one of the very first to meet and spend time with Jesus. With him in on the act Philip felt he had a much better chance of being heard. Andrew agreed and so they went together and put the request to Jesus: “Master, there are some Greeks here who want to speak to you”

They are immediately astonished to hear Jesus, far from being offended and saying something like: “How often do I have to tell you that I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”… but no, he launches instead into an enthusiastic response: “Now. Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified….If I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all things to myself.” If his enthusiasm was strange the words he spoke were even more strange. We might have expected him to say something like: “Now, now, the time has come for me to preach to all peoples to the ends of the earth”. But no, He speaks immediately about his passion and death as though that was the answer to what the Greeks wanted.

And indeed, when we think closely about it, that truly was the divine answer to the needs of the Greeks and all the Gentile world. The preaching of the Good News is of the utmost importance, of course, whether by Jesus himself or by the sending of his apostles to the ends of the earth. But Jesus by limiting his preaching to the House of Israel alone shows us that all preaching and teaching, yes even his own, is very limited by time and circumstances. The preaching and teaching mission of his Church will always be limited by the number of preachers; the resources to hand; the accessibility of the hearers and so many different factors. But, by focussing on his passion and death Jesus reveals that this is the most powerful and efficacious role of the Church’s Mission. She is to perpetuate on earth this one great saving sacrifice.

The saving power of this sacrifice “reaches from end to end mightily” to all men of all time past present and future. The preaching and teaching mission of the Church never has and never can reach all and every soul. There always have been and always will be those who are never touched by it. But all people of all time are touched by the blood of Christ and, even without knowing it, they can take hold of it in their lives by living with a good conscience.

This is a very encouraging thought for every one of the faithful: that every time we assist at Holy Mass, every time we join in offering up this saving sacrifice to the Father in union with Christ we are co-operating in God’s work of Redemption. The saving work of the Church’s preaching and teaching is limited to those who hear it. But the saving power of the Mass reaches to the ends of time and space. The Church, and that means all of us, is busy about the saving of all mankind every time she re-enacts that “perfect sacrifice which is offered from the rising of the sun to its setting”.

Tuesday Fifth Week of Lent

Tuesday Fifth Week of Lent

John 8:28 So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he.

Passiontide awakes every response to Jesus. Many believed in Jesus and some openly mocked him when he warned them about their sin of unbelief.

Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit that we may have power to be his witnesses of Christ's Cross.

Moving quickly from controversy, on the Mount of Olives Jesus suffers his agony for all souls.

This Prayer speaks in the language of the Sacred Heart. (Imprimatur: local Bishop. 1963. San Giovanni Rotondo 1965, may suggest St. Padre Pio source).

PRAYER TO JESUS, AGONISING ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Stay here and watch. (St. Mark XIV-34).

O Jesus, through the abundance of Thy love, and in order to overcome our hardheartedness, Thou pourest out torrents of Thy graces over those who reflect on Thy most Sacred Sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemane, and who spread devotion to it. I pray Thee, move my soul and my heart to think often, at least once a day, of Thy most bitter Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, in order to communicate with Thee and to be united with Thee as closely as possible.

O Blessed Jesus, Thou, who carried the immense burden of our sins that night, and atoned for them fully; grant me the most perfect gift of complete repentant love over my numerous sins, for which Thou didst sweat blood.

O Blessed Jesus, for the sake of Thy most bitter struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, grant me final victory over all temptations, especially over those to which I am most subjected.

O suffering Jesus, for the sake of Thy inscrutable and indescribable agonies, during that night of betrayal, and of Thy bitterest anguish of mind, enlighten me, so that I may recognise and fulfil Thy will; grant that I may ponder continually on Thy heart-wrenching struggle on how Thou didst emerge victoriously, in order to fulfil, not Thy will, but the will of Thy Father.

Be Thou blessed, O Jesus, for all Thy sighs on that holy night; and for the tears which Thou didst shed for us.

Be Thou blessed, O Jesus, for Thy sweat of blood and the terrible agony, which Thou dist suffer lovingly in coldest abandonment and in inscrutable loneliness.

Be Thou blessed, O sweetest Jesus, filled with immeasurable bitterness, for the prayer which flowed in trembling agony from Thy Heart, so truly human and divine.

Eternal Father, I offer Thee all the past, present, and future Masses together with the blood of Christ shed in agony in the Garden of Sorrow at Gethsemane.

Most Holy Trinity, grant that the knowledge and thereby the love, of the agony of Jesus on the Mount of Olives will spread throughout the whole world.

Grant, O Jesus, that all who look lovingly at Thee on the Cross, will also remember Thy immense Suffering on the Mount of Olives, that they will follow Thy example, learn to pray devoutly and fight victoriously, so that, one day, they may be able to Glorify Thee eternally in Heaven. Amen.

PROMISES TO DEVOTEES OF THE AGONY OF JESUS ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

Again and again calls of My Love flow from My Heart. They fill the souls in which the fire of love lights up and sometimes even sets ablaze the heart. It is this, the voice of My Heart, which travels and also reaches those who do not want to hear Me, and who, therefore, do not notice Me. However, inside of them I speak to all, and My Voice will speak to all, because I love them all.

He, who knows the Commandment of Love is not surprised that I cannot help knocking at the door of those who resist Me, and forced me, so to speak, by their rejection, to repeat My loving invitation to them.

Why, what else can My calls be, full of flowing love, than the will of love of a loving God. Who wants to save His Creatures? However, I know very well, that not many wish to follow My generous invitation, and that even the few who do accept, must strive hard to receive Me.

Well then! I shall show even more, generosity (as if I had not been generous enough up to now), and I shall do this by giving all of you a precious Gem of My Love. I have decided to open a dam, in order to let flow the torrent of My Graces, which My Heart can no longer hold back.

Look what I have to offer you in return for a little love from you:

1. To all those who remember My Agony, with love and devotion, at least once a day; forgiveness of all sins and the certainty of salvation for their souls in the hour of their death.

2. Total and everlasting repentance to those who will have a Mass celebrated in honour of My Agonising Suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane.

3. Success in spiritual matters to all those, who impress on others, love and devotion to My Agonies on the Mount of Olives.

4. Finally, and in order to prove to you that I want to break open a dam of My Heart so as to let flow a flood of My Graces, I promise those who spread this devotion to My agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the following three graces:

a Total and final victory over the worst temptation to which they are subjected;

b. Direct power to save poor souls from purgatory;

c. Great enlightenment and strength to fulfil My Will.

All of these, My precious gifts, I will definitely give to those who carry what I had said, and who, therefore, remember and venerate with love and sympathy. My great, incomprehensible Agony on the Mount of Olives.

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On following years, a Guest has attended Nunraw Retreat in Lent, and loved to obtain and distribute copies of this Prayer Leaflet.

Passiontide

Sunday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Passiontide is upon us. The Liturgy is in the full stream in these fifteen days. Our hearts are attuned to the mystery of the Cross, of Jesus suffering and of his mother. The special Preface of the Mass today presents the Passion of Christ as the healing of the world, and his Cross as the sign of victory.

Through the saving passion of your Son
the whole world has been called
to acknowledge and to praise your majesty;
for in the ineffable power of the Cross
the judgment of the world
and the power

This Sunday of March 29th has been different. This morning, we lost one hour by the GMT change of the Clock. It was moved forward one hour in our UK clocks. The most noticeable effect has us filled with light from morning until Compline. Daffodils are in full strength and at evening even Compline Salve Regina was sung in full daylight.

At Vespers and Benediction the Church was crowded. Following their tradition of Fifth Sunday of Lent the people of the Midlothian parishes made their usual pilgrimage of making the Stations of the Cross along the drive from the Guesthouse to the Abbey.

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Robert of Molesmes

Top of Cistercian Blogs.
Later after the celebration of the Solemnity of the Founder Abbots, Robert, Alberic and Stephen, it was an outstanding Blog. Fr. Mark, who identifies his Blogspot on Vultus Christi, gives an mystical view of Saint Robert of Molesmes.
More significally is that the painting here allegorizes the founding of the Cistercian Order. This visualing prompt must lead onto the endless connections and reflections in Cistercian life.
Our thanks to Fr. Mark for his discovery of the painting and for his wonderful understanding of such Cistercian context.

LINK: Results matching “San Bernardo alle Terme” from Vultus Christi. By Fatheer Mark on January 26, 2009

I Love Them that Love Me

San Bernardo alle Terme

One of my favourite churches in Rome is San Bernardo alle Terme. It is a luminous round church, built in 1598 on the site of the hot steam baths of Diocletian. Immense paintings by an artist named Odazj dominate the two side altars: the one on the right is dedicated to Saint Bernard, the one on the left to Saint Robert of Molesmes, the first abbot of Cîteaux. The first time I visited the church of San Bernardo I was so taken by the magnificent painting of Saint Bernard in the embrace of Jesus Crucified that I failed to understand the significance of the one depicting Saint Robert. It was on a later visit that I discovered it. It has, with the passing of time, become rich in meaning for me.

Saint Robert of Molesmes and the Virgin Mother

Saint Robert, whom we celebrate today with his two immediate successors, Saints Alberic and Stephen, was the founding abbot of the New Monastery at Cîteaux in 1098. The painting in the church of San Bernardo alle Terme shows Saint Robert clothed in his white cowl. Abbot Robert's face is entirely recollected; his head is bowed, illustrating the twelfth step of humility in Chapter Seven of the Holy Rule. At the center of the painting we see the Virgin Mother of God in all her beauty. Her face is radiant. She wears a rose coloured dress with a blue mantle and pale brown veil. The Infant Jesus, leaning on her knee, is in conversation with an angel. Angels surround the Queen of Heaven on all sides, fascinated and thrilled by what she is doing.

Mystical Espousal to the Virgin Mary

Our Lady is placing a wedding ring on Saint Robert's finger. Robert, overwhelmed by so tender a love, offers her his right hand. The painting depicts the Mystical Espousal of Saint Robert to the Virgin Mary, a theme not often represented in art. Even in the annals of holiness, mystical espousal with the Virgin Mary is not encountered very frequently. We hear of it in the lives of Saint Edmund of Canterbury, of the Premonstratensian Saint Hermann-Joseph of Steinfeld, and of the Dominican Alain de la Roche. In the seventeenth century, Saint John Eudes wrote of Our Lady as the spouse of priests, and bound himself to her by means of marriage contract. Does not the liturgy attribute to Our Lady the words of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs: "love them that love me" (Prov 8:17)?

Saint Joseph

In the painting I am describing it is clear that the initiative is Our Lady's. She appears to have drawn Saint Robert upward to herself to receive this ineffable grace binding him to her. Now, the most extraordinary detail, to my mind is this: just above Saint Robert and a little to his right, none other than Saint Joseph is looking on! He is pointing to his staff, the top of which has flowered into a pure white lily. What does this mean? Saint Joseph is saying that intimacy with the Virgin Mary is the secret of holy purity. He is pointing to his flowering staff to say that one bound to Mary, as if by a marriage bond, will be pure. She is the Virginizing Bride. One who obeys the injunction of the angel to Joseph -- "Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost" (Mt 1:15) -- will find that she communicates the grace of a fruitful purity to those who bind themselves to her in a permanent and exclusive way.

Not Good for Man to Be Alone

Already in the second chapter of Genesis, God said to Adam, "It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself" (Gen 2:18). The complement to this word of God to Adam is the word of Jesus Crucified to John: "After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own" (Jn 19:27). Every union of a man with a woman, even, and I would say especially, the union of hearts and souls, is ordered to a spiritual fecundity. "Whoso findeth me, findeth life," says Our Lady, "and shall obtain favour of the Lord" (Prov 8:35).

Saint Benedict

Perhaps this is why the artist shows the Patriarch Saint Benedict, the father of a progeny too great to be numbered, accompanied by an angel holding his pastoral staff and the open book of his Rule, in the lower left hand corner of the painting. Saint Benedict gazes upon what is happening to Saint Robert with an expression of gratitude and wonder.

New Beginning and Authentic Renewal

What exactly is the message of this extraordinary painting? You may recall what Pope Benedict XVI said on the occasion of his visit to the abbey of Heiligenkreuz in September 2007:

Where Mary is, there is the archetype of total self-giving and Christian discipleship. Where Mary is, there is the pentecostal breath of the Holy Spirit; there is new beginning and authentic renewal.

Saint Robert's mission was to launch a new beginning at Cîteaux; it was to foster an authentic renewal of life according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. He could not do this apart from Mary.

Mediatrix of All Graces

In the Gospel given us for this feast, Our Lord says: "I have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain" (Jn 15:16). Robert's mystical espousal with the Virgin Mother is the promise and guarantee of spiritual fruitfulness. The same Jesus who says, "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5), wants us to understand that, by reason of the Father's mysterious over-arching plan, without Mary, the Mediatrix of All Graces, we can do nothing. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman" (Gal 4:4). Just as the first creation required the presence and collaboration of Eve at Adam's side, so too does the new creation, and every particular manifestation of it, be it personal or corporate, require the presence and collaboration of Mary, the New Eve, at the side of Christ, the New Adam.

Our Lady and the Holy Spirit

Cîteaux was a new creation, a particular corporate manifestation of the Kingdom of God in all its newness. The same may be said of every authentic reform and renewal of monastic life, sacerdotal life, and apostolic life in the history of the Church. Whenever and wherever the Blessed Virgin Mary is welcomed and loved, she attracts a mysterious descent of the Holy Spirit. Our Lady prays for us at every moment, saying, "Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth" (Ps 103:30).

Saint Robert's Legacy

In 1099, one year after the foundation of the New Monastery at Cîteaux, Saint Robert was obliged, by a bull of Pope Urban II, to return to the abbey of Molesme as abbot. He remained there until his death in 1111. Saints Alberic and Stephen Harding succeeded him as abbots of Cîteaux. Abbot Robert's love for Our Lady, the Virgin Mother who had placed a ring on his finger, was part of his legacy. Cîteaux flourished because Mary was present there, present as she was in the house of Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse; present as she was in the house of Saint John, the Beloved Disciple; and present as she was in the midst of the apostles on the first Pentecost.

Earthen Vessels

Weakness, fear, tribulation, and humiliations are unavoidable in the Christian life. Each of us carries the precious gifts of God in his own peculiar frailty. Saint Paul says:

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us. In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not (2 Cor 4:7-9).

The Blessed Virgin Mary is accustomed to carrying earthen vessels. The secret of holiness is to place our weakness in her immaculate hands.

All Things Made New

She who placed a wedding ring on Abbot Robert's finger will not deny us the grace of a fruitful intimacy with her Most Pure Heart. It is with His Mother, and through her, that Our Lord fulfills the promise made to Saint John on Patmos: "Behold, I make all things new" (Ap 21:5).

San Bernardo alle Terme, Rome