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The step towards the ultimate goal of life always requires a very high act of faith and abandonment that overcomes all despair, and one never crosses the threshold of existence without the tears of the original struggle for survival.

My point is simply to show the marvelous and providential, and you might say improbable intersection of lives, in this case, Norbert Sauvage of Belgium, Elena Gullini of Rome, and Maria Sagheddu of Dorgali, an intersection that shaped the monastic conscience of each and even shaped their particular form of Cistercian holiness.

In his great novel The Great Divorce,C. S. Lewis elucidates that condemnation does not happen through circumstances, feelings, or ideas, but rather through the choices one makes on one’s journey.

What is hope? Is it the feeling of getting away scot-free [as the atheists and hedonists do]? No, St. Bernard underscores, hope is trust in achieving eternal salvation.

Among those crucified, some children looked to be as old as I was—specifically, the youngest one, Louis Ibaragi, was only twelve years old. Yet, despite their suffering, all the people on the crosses seemed filled with joy as they looked up at Heaven, even as they were dying.

How do you believe that contemplating the wounds of Christ can help human beings find comfort and healing in the midst of suffering? To contemplate Christ’s wounds in the midst of our own pain does not necessarily bring instantaneous comfort or healing. Time may be required for these to happen. Time and patience. Let’s never […]

Unfortunately, we live in a world where value no longer comes from listening, but only from having ‘the last word.’ There is an unbounded desire to be heard, a desire that will always accompany us, but remain unsated.

Prayer is really a historical commitment: only truly contemplative men and women are able to speak a new word with their lives every day. Only men and women of prayer discover God’s passage in history; only they know how to read the signs of the times in a perspective of salvation. This is the fruit of prayer that helps us embrace this time given to us, happy to be born today, grateful for this moment in history, happy with our personal history. Prayer generates gratitude for the story we are given.

God’s dream for humanity is basically given for us in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, ‘in the beginning’ of the Bible: “Let us make humankind in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves.” (Genesis 1:1, 26) We are to be God’s Image on earth. Thus do we seek to know God […]

As her superior, I was helping a postulant discern her vocation, as she struggled with the decision of whether to continue her monastic life. I recognized her impatience and desire for instant decisions, both of which are common in secular life today, as well as her frustration at not being able to make her own […]