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White Double THE VALLEY OF WORMWOOD has lost its bitterness; having become Clairvaux, or the bright valley, its light shines over the world; from every point of the horizon vigilant bees are attracted to it by the honey from the rock which abounds in its solitude. Mary turns her glance upon its wild hills, and with her smile sheds light and grace upon them. Listen to the harmonious voice arising from the desert; it is the voice of Bernard, her chosen one. “Learn, O man, the counsel of God; admire the intentions of Wisdom, the design of love. Before...

White Double MARTYRS ARE NUMEROUS on the cycle during the Octave of St. John. But not alone in martyrdom’s peerless glory does our Emmanuel reveal the potency of his grace, or the victorious force of example left to the world by his Precursor. At the very outset, we have here presented to our homage one of those countless athletes of penance, who succeeded John in the desert; one of those who fleeing, like him, in early youth, a society wherein their soul’s foreboding told only of peril and annoy, consecrated a lifetime to Christ’s complete triumph within them over...

White Greater Double FORTY DAYS AFTER the white dove of Cassino had mounted to heaven, Benedict, her glorious Brother, ascended by a bright path to the blissful abode where they were to be united forever. Both of them reached the heavenly country during that portion of the year which corresponds with the holy Season of Lent. It frequently happens, however, that St. Scholastica’s feast is kept before Lent has begun; whereas St. Benedict’s day, the twenty-first of March, always comes during the Season of Penance. God, who is the Sovereign Master of time, willed that the Faithful, while practicing...

Memory eternal! Память вечная!

White Double THE CALENDAR’S LIST of martyrs is interrupted for two days; the first of these is the feast of Romuald, the hero of penance, the saint of the forest of Camaldoli. He is a son of the great patriarch St. Benedict, and like him is the father of many children. The Benedictine family has a direct line from the commencement, even to this present time; but from the trunk of this venerable tree there have issued four vigorous branches, to each of which the Holy Spirit has imparted the life and fruitfulness of the parent stem. These collateral...

White Double THE EAST AND WEST unite today in honoring St. Antony, the Father of Cenobites. The Monastic Life existed before his time, as we know from indisputable testimony; but he was the first Abbot, because he was the first to bring Monks under the permanent government of one Superior or Father. Antony began with seeking solely his own sanctification; he was known only as the wonderful Solitary, against whom the wicked spirits waged an almost continued battle: but in course of time, men were attracted to him by his miracles and by the desire of their own perfection;...

SAINT MAURUS—one of the greatest masters of the Cenobitical Life, and the most illustrious of the Disciples of St. Benedict, the Patriarch of the Monks of the West—shares with the First Hermit the honors of this fifteenth day of January. Faithful, like the holy Hermit, to the lessons taught at Bethlehem, Maurus has a claim to have his Feast kept during the forty days which are sacred to the sweet Babe Jesus. He comes to us each January to bear witness to the power of that Babe’s humility. Who, forsooth, will dare to doubt of the triumphant power of...

White Simple THE ROMAN CHURCH confines herself today to the Office of the Feria; but to that she joins a Commemoration of St. Sabas, Abbot of the celebrated Laura of Palestine, which still exists under his name. This Saint, who died in 533, is the only one of the Monastic Order of whom the Church makes any mention of her Liturgy during the whole period of Advent; we might even say that he is the only simple Confessor whose name occurs in the Calendar of this part of the year; for, as regards St. Francis Xavier, the glorious title...

White Double GOD OFTEN brings the world to those who flee from it, as Sylvester Gozzolini among others experienced. In the thirteenth century, the world, all in admiration at the sanctity and the eloquence of the new Orders, seemed to have forgotten the monks and the desert. God, who never forgets, led his elect silently into solitude, and the wilderness began again to rejoice and flourish like the lily; strength was restored to the weak hands and feeble knees of the sons of the cloister. The austerities of olden days and the fervor of prolonged prayer were revived at...

White Simple “MONKS were unknown in Syria before St. Hilarion,” says his historian St. Jerome. “He instituted the monastic life in that country, and was the master of those who embraced it. The Lord Jesus had his Anthony in Egypt and his Hilarion in Palestine, the former advanced in years, the latter still young." Now our Lord very soon raised this young man to such glory that Anthony would say to the sick, who came to him from Syria attracted by the fame of his miracles: "Why take the trouble to come so far when you have near you...

Arizona, long a hotbed of anti-immigrant sentiment, finally swallowed its pride and sent a delegation to Mexico City, a mission designed to beckon Mexican shoppers north. The 2013 trip was known as the apology tour. Last year, California retooled its Mexico City office and hosted the Mexican president for his first U.S. state visit. Following years of acrimonious relationships with Mexico, U.S. states along the Mexican border are finding that a little good-neighbor outreach serves their economic interests. Texas is about to take what some experts call a similar mea culpa journey as Gov. Greg Abbott visits Mexico with a...

Governor elect Greg Abbot said that he supported open carry when he was running for governor.   Some said that he did not mean it.  Shortly after he was elected, he took the time to re-iterate his support for an open carry reform, saying that he would sign such a reform if it came to him from the legislature.   He said:  If it is good enough for Massachusetts, it is good enough for Texas. “If open carry is good enough for Massachusetts, it's good enough for the state of Texas,” Abbott said. Now he has solidified and expanded his remarks,...

Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbot said words, which convey truth that was until that day rejected in West and censored in East. Like Reagan over thirty years ago, Prime Minister Abbott reminded about the boundary between the good and evil in a public life:...

As governor I will provide the tools and manpower we need to secure our border. I will enforce the rule of law in the state of Texas.

For those who do not pay close attention to insider politics in Texas, both parties' likely candidates for governor have now endorsed the policy of restoring the legal open carry of sidearms to Texans.  The open carry of sidearms was banned by the  reconstruction government after the civil war (war between the states), when the reconstruction government effectively neutered the state constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms by writing a new constitution. After the reconstruction governor was forced to flee the governors mansion (he lost the election, refused to concede, and an impromptu Texas militia...

PRIME Minister-elect Tony Abbott has personally instructed his new departmental secretary to make preparations to axe the carbon tax and activate Operation Sovereign Borders to stop asylum boats. Mr Abbott got down to business this morning after his landslide election victory, with a briefing with Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary Ian Watt. Meetings were scheduled with Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson and Finance Department head David Tune, while Mr Abbott was also due to hold talks with senior Coalition colleagues later in the day. He told Dr Watt to prepare the ground for the Coalition to implement its agenda...

Extraordinary discovery of 12th century abbot's grave For something like seven centuries he had lain undisturbed. He – or at least his remains – survived Henry VIII’s destruction of his abbey in 1537, eluded the grave-robbers that followed, and avoided discovery by Victorian archaeologists. Even deep excavations and the underpinning of the crumbling building in the 1930s failed to unearth him. But the abbot who headed Britain’s second richest and most powerful Cistercian monastery may soon be unmasked... [...] The skeleton of a portly figure was discovered almost by fluke when emergency repairs had to be made to the abbey...

July 11, 2006 Memorial of Saint Benedict, abbot Psalm: Tuesday 29 Reading 1Hos 8:4-7, 11-13 Thus says the LORD:They made kings in Israel, but not by my authority;they established princes, but without my approval.With their silver and gold they madeidols for themselves, to their own destruction.Cast away your calf, O Samaria!my wrath is kindled against them;How long will they be unable to attaininnocence in Israel?The work of an artisan,no god at all,Destined for the flames—such is the calf of Samaria! When they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind;The stalk of grain that forms no earcan yield no flour;Even...

July 11, 2005Memorial of Saint Benedict, abbot Psalm: Monday 31 Reading IEx 1:8-14, 22 A new king, who knew nothing of Joseph, came to power in Egypt.He said to his subjects, "Look how numerous and powerfulthe people of the children of Israel are growing, more so than we ourselves!Come, let us deal shrewdly with them to stop their increase;otherwise, in time of war they too may join our enemiesto fight against us, and so leave our country." Accordingly, taskmasters were set over the children of Israelto oppress them with forced labor.Thus they had to build for Pharaohthe supply cities of...

January 17, 2005Memorial of Saint Anthony, abbot Psalm: Monday 6 Reading IHeb 5:1-10 Brothers and sisters:Every high priest is taken from among menand made their representative before God,to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,for he himself is beset by weaknessand so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himselfas well as for the people.No one takes this honor upon himselfbut only when called by God,just as Aaron was.In the same way,it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,but rather the one who said to him:You are...