Thanks to the generosity, kindness and hard work of a number of friends in the United States we are pleased to announce the establishment of the Monastere Saint-Benoit Foundation USA, Inc, which has been formed so as “to assist in the education of the public regarding the Monastere Saint-Benoit, including its purpose and vocation, and to raise funds for the Monastere Saint-Benoit, and for all other purposes allowed by law.”
 
We are profoundly grateful to all who have helped in the lengthy and detailed process of establishing this Foundation, which will enable our friends and supporters in the USA to assist us without the need to exchange currency and which may at the same time provide tax benefits to them for any donations made.
 
The Foundation is now legally able to receive donations. While its application for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status is currently awaiting approval by the IRS, donors will receive an interim receipt noting that tax-exempt status is in process. Once the status is confirmed, a tax-exempt receipt will be provided to the donor.

Checks may be sent directly to:
Monastere Saint-Benoit Foundation USA, Inc
9540 Garland Road, Suite 381-272
Dallas, Tx. 75218 USA
 
Wire transfers may be made directly to the Foundation. For the necessary bank account details, or for any other questions, please contact: msbfoundationusa@gmail.com
 
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Retribuere dignare Domine, omnibus nobis bona facientibus
propter nomen tuum, vitam æternam. Amen.
 
Reward, O Lord, with eternal life all those who do good to us
for the sake of your name. Amen.

Monks are by their nature contemplatives. They are called to a life of contemplative prayer. But as any Benedictine knows only too well – particularly in a new and small foundation such as ours where the hands available are vastly outnumbered by the works they would perform – monks can also be very busy.
 
It is important, therefore, that we protect and guard our contemplative life: we may have the work of Martha to do, but we must keep sacred the time and space to sit at the feet of the Lord with Mary and immerse ourselves in the reality of Our Blessed Lord (cf. Lk 10:48-32). The precious hours of the silentium magnum, most especially the golden hours after matins, are given to us precisely to that end.
 
But our Holy Mother, the Church, knows that otherwise monks – and, of course, not only monks! – can be more than busy. That is why she punctuates and permeates our day with her Sacred Liturgy. The ‘little hours’ as we call them are not so little when they recall to us, when they call us back to, when they immerse us anew in, the contemplation of, the immersion in, the saving realities of God.
 
There is perhaps no clearer example of this than in this coming week.
 
The Holy Gospel of the third Sunday after the Epiphany (Mt 8:1-13) commences with the leper coming to Our Lord and praying: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” Without hesitation the Lord responds in one of the most tender and beautiful moments recounted in the Gospels: “I will: be thou made clean.”
 
We have sung this Gospel already, at matins, and listened to Saint Jerome’s homily on the same. We have sung of it in the beautiful Benedictus antiphon at lauds: “Cum autem descendísset Iesus de monte, ecce leprósus véniens adorábat eum, dicens: Dómine, si vis, potes me mundáre: et exténdens manum, tétigit eum, dicens: Volo, mundáre.” (When Jesus was come down from the mountain, * behold, there came a leper, and worshipped Him, saying: Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His Hand, and touched him, saying: I will; be thou clean.)
 
And shall do so again at Vespers: “Dómine, si vis, potes me mundáre: et ait Iesus: Volo, mundáre.” (Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean; and Jesus saith to him: I will; be thou clean.)
 
And we have prayed the collect: “Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, infirmitatem nostram propítius réspice: atque, ad protegéndum nos, déxteram tuæ maiestátis exténde.” (Almighty, eternal God, look with mercy upon our infirmities, and stretch forth the right hand of Thy majesty to protect us.)
 
Throughout today – throughout this week – how many times shall we pray this collect? How many times will it recall to us and recall us to the contemplation of the saving power of the Lord’s right hand? It will do so constantly.
 
Let it then occasion deeper and deeper contemplation of this tender reality. Let it again and again in our hearts give rise to the prayer of the leper “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” – for all the sicknesses of body, mind and soul that are ours, for all the wounds that our vices and sins have inflicted on us – for the Lord waits for us to turn to Him and to seek the healing that we need.
 
Let this collect be the sacred place where we put the needs, the sicknesses, the sins of others, today and throughout the coming week, that they too might be brought to this most necessary and life-giving encounter with  the Lord – most especially in the Sacrament of Confession.
 
Let our ongoing contemplation bear the fruit that we, and that through our intercession they, may hear His saving words: “I will: be thou made clean.” +.

One of the singular blessings enjoyed by our small monastic community this year was the result of our commissioning the artist Daniel Mitsui for a drawing of the Benedictine motif ‘pax inter spinas’, which we now happily use as our logo.

As our Conventual Mass is often a missa cantata, we have employed the medieval practice of the use of the pax-brede (instrumentum pacis, pax, baiser de paix) for some time. The priest kisses the pax-brede at the same time he would give the pax to the deacon in a missa solemnis and the MC carries the pax-brede to those in choir and those assisting to communicate the pax to them. (One may find the current rules for the use of the pax-brede in the usus antiquior of the Roman rite in J.B. O’Connell’s The Celebration of Mass, 1964 edn. pp. 430-31).

It seemed natural to the community, therefore, to seek to have a pax-brede made incorporating Daniel Mitsui’s truly beautiful work. Thanks to some kind and generous benefactors, this became possible and our new bronze silver-gilt 14cm diameter instrumentum pacis arrived in time to be blessed for and used at the Masses of Christmas – a wonderful gift indeed, giving glory to Almighty God and edification to the brethren who by means of it receive His Peace even amidst the thorns that abound this world.

​The pax-brede is often forgotten in modern celebrations of the usus antiquior, but it may be used as explained above, and on other occasions such as in a nuptial Mass. For that reason we asked our craftsmen for the facility to make copies of their work, which we are happy to make available to appropriate persons (please contact us for details of price, production time and shipping costs).

+ What do you want for Christmas this year? That may seem to be something of an unusual question with which to open a Chapter Conference on the Vigil of the Nativity of Our Lord, but it is nevertheless an apposite one. What, as the hours of Advent draw to a close and the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord approaches, do you desire with all your heart, soul, mind and being?
     I ask the question because, whilst monks rightly eschew the materialism that so often smothers the approaching feast, our vocation is nevertheless one of prayer and intercession. Rightly do we ask Almighty God for a further outpouring of his gifts, and we do so with greater fervor and intensity when, prepared by weeks of penance, we celebrate the greatest feasts.
     So monks may, indeed ought to, want things for Christmas: spiritual things – for themselves and their own vocation, for their monastic family including its oblates and associates and benefactors, for all those who have asked our prayers, for our God-given families, for our friends, for the good of the Church and for the salvation of the world. A monk who does not ask for such gifts neglects an essential element of his calling.
     And yet, faced with all that we rightly desire, in asking Almighty God for the goods we so urgently need, we can become overwhelmed, even despondent. We are weak. Sin so often reigns where virtue is desperately needed. Our prayers and sacrifices can seem to effect little. We may well want the best of things this Christmas, but for all our asking, for all our prayers and sacrifices hitherto in Advent, we may well feel in these final moments of Advent that nevertheless very little shall be forthcoming this year, once again.
     My brothers, it is precisely here, in our inadequacy and in our downheartedness that the Lord comes to us in the feast of His Nativity. We are inadequate. Our sins, our human frailty – and those and that of others – surely do depress us, at times inordinately. We ourselves can do very little to rise above this. But the becoming Flesh of God Himself can and does do something – no, everything. This singular event in human history opens the door to our redemption from sin and death and offers eternal salvation. He comes to save us: you and I and all who are open to His grace, all for whom we care and for whom we pray.
     The collect for the fourth Sunday of Advent which we prayed throughout yesterday teaches us this reality most eloquently. If it passed us by yesterday, I recommend revisiting it and contemplating its doctrine today:
​
“Excita, quǽsumus, Dómine, poténtiam tuam, et veni: et magna nobis virtúte succúrre; ut per auxílium grátiæ tuæ, quod nostra peccáta præpédiunt, indulgéntiæ tuæ propitiatiónis accéleret.”
 
“Stir up thy power, Lord, and come, and help us with your great power, so that with the help of your grace that which our sins impede may be hastened by your merciful forgiveness.”
 
(In passing one should note that this collect, in use on the Fourth Sunday of Advent from at least the eighth or ninth centuries, was replaced in the Missal of Paul VI by the beautiful, but significantly theologically different, collect from the feast of the Annunciation – which we may know more familiarly as the prayer said at the end of the Angelus.)
     To be sure the season of Advent and Christmas is replete with rich liturgical texts which bear much contemplation. Those of us privileged to celebrate the usus antquior in its fullness have a true feast in which to indulge. But this collect seems to offer a key which unlocks much of the approaching mystery, particularly the chains in which our helplessness in the face of sin and weakness bind us.
     That key is nothing other than the need, the requirement, the absolute necessity that our hearts, minds and souls be unlocked, that they become wholly open to His “great power”. For only then can “that which our sins impede” come to be. Only then, when I am humbly open to His grace, as was the Blessed Virgin Mary, only when all that stands in the way of God’s Will for me is forgiven and removed, can all that I am called to be in this life and the next come to pass.
     That is why the season of Advent precedes Christmas: so that we might prepare our hearts and minds and souls for His coming through prayer, penance, sacramental confession, and other spiritual practices. That is why today, the Vigil of the Nativity, is traditionally a day of fasting and abstinence – one last reminder of the need to ‘prepare a way for the Lord’ to ‘make our paths straight’ before Him (cf. Mk 1:3).
     Hours remain before we shall sing of He who became Flesh for our salvation. Let those hours be ones of great recollection and of interior preparation. Let them be ones in which we pray with ever more fervor  that the Lord will come and help each of us, and all those for whom we pray, with His great power, that we may receive the necessary help of His grace so that all that our sins have thus far impeded may, by the merciful forgiveness that is the promise of His Incarnation, at last be realised.
     If our desire for this gift this Christmas leads us so to open ourselves to God’s grace and power, it shall be a truly blessed Christmas indeed.  +

​+ The first-class feasts of our diocesan patron, St Leontius, and of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, falling on Fridays this year, have resulted in this being our first Advent conference – half way through the season, as we are. Nevertheless, our life of praying, digesting and contemplating the liturgical texts will have ensured that the riches of this beautiful season have not escaped us thus far.
     This evening I wish to consider the two antiphons that are proper to this ferial Friday of the second week of Advent, that given for the Benedictus and that given for the Magnificat, for I believe they are truly indicative of the spirit and content of the season.
     Dicite: Pusillanimes, confortamini: ecce Dominus Deus noster veniat, we sang this morning. “Say to them: ‘Be strong, you that are fearful of heart, for behold the Lord our God will come.’”
     Who amongst us has not experienced fear, worry, distress, anxiety, dread or any other number of mixed or even destructive emotions in our hearts in this past year – in respect of the situation of my family, with regard to my friends, because of the exigencies of my health or of that of those close to me, in finding or sustaining good employment, in pursing my education or in discerning or having the courage faithfully to follow and persevere in my God-given vocation? Being fearful of heart is part of the fallen human condition. Here on earth, where our hearts are not yet completely filled with God’s life and love as they shall be when, if we persevere in the Faith, we enjoy the beatific vision in heaven, fear is an effect of original sin. We may know better, but the emotion of fear can so easily gain the upper hand in our lives and dominate our thoughts, words and deeds. Where fear reigns, God’s grace is inhibited. Advent 2018 may well find us thus: fearful and not whom we truly could or should be.
     “Be strong!” the Sacred Liturgy insists today. Fine words, to be sure, but words which can bring little comfort to one crippled by fear.     But the Church continues – she obstinately maintains that we fearful of heart must take courage, “for behold the Lord our God will come.”
     For with His coming we shall no longer be alone. The darkness of our fears cannot dominate us when the light of His coming shines upon even the worst of them. Help is at hand. Grace is available to purify, elevate and perfect our fallen, weak and broken human nature. God will become man so to assist each one of us. For this reason, now, even in our fear, we must be strong. For this reason we must turn anew, this Advent, to He who is Hope, that we might receive all that we need in living and persevering in fidelity to God’s Will and Law. In so doing we shall be given all that we need, and more, to strengthen us.
     This feast of the availability of God’s grace is that to which Advent looks forward with an increasing appetite. It is why Advent is such a joyful penitential season. It is why the liturgical texts resound with praise, as does the second of our proper texts, this evening’s Magnificat antiphon: Cantate Domino canticum novum: laus eis ad extremis terrae. “Sing to the Lord a new song: His praise from the ends of the earth.”
     Am I able to sing those words? Is my heart sufficiently free from fear so to do at this point of Advent 2018? If it is not, if the shadows of doubt and fear and anxiety and so on linger, if I am still hesitating in following God’s will in any area of my life, then the Church calls me to use her traditional means of prayer and penance – including the sacrament of confession – to put right that which needs correcting, to repair any damage I have done to myself or others, to take the necessary steps – even risks – in following the God’s Will for me, etc., so that I may indeed receive His grace, so that my heart may sing “His praise from the ends of the earth” with a purity that may well at first astonish me.
     Traditionally the third week of Advent is Ember week and on Ember Wednesday, Friday and Saturday we are called to pray and fast with a particular intensity. Amidst the business of Advent that can even intrude into the monastic enclosure, let these days be days of efficacious purification for each of us. Let their faithful observance open us ever more to the grace that is available to us. Let their disciplines clear the way so that the light of Christ can shine more brightly in our hearts and banish even the darkest fears that lurk in the corners therein.
     Then we shall indeed be strong. Then our lives will be that unique song of praise to Him which only we, our fears banished by the Lord who comes, can sing. +

​The monastery is the privileged custodian of many relics of the saints which are venerated liturgically on their respective feast days and whose intercession we seek regularly .

​Today, in preparing for First Vespers of All Saints we incorporated some newly arrived relics that have been entrusted to the monastery into our reliquaries: Pope Saint Gregory II († 731); Saint Boniface († 754); Saint Thomas Becket († 1162); the Croatian Blessed Aloysius Stepinac († 1960) and of the Italian visionary and stigmatic Blessed Maria Bolognese (†1980).

Omnes sancti et sanctae Dei, orate pro nobis !