Archabbey featured in Sports Illustrated!!!

Steel Memories made at Latrobe

By Peter King - Sports Illustrated

Do you know how rare it is to stand on the sideline of a football field and have to move your feet quickly to dodge a tackle in front of you? Do you know how often it happens that there's a fight five feet in front of you, and you have to have incredible peripheral vision to avoid the bodies flying into the fight? And do you know how rare it is to stand alongside the head coach of a National Football League team as he twirls his whistle, with cornstalks one long spiral behind him, as he prepares to start his team's afternoon practice?

Welcome to the best site to watch America's most popular sport. That's what I'd call St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., the camp of monks (really, there are cloistered monks here) and Steeler faithful an hour east of Pittsburgh in the rolling Laurel Highlands of west-central Pennsylvania.

I've watched the Steelers here over the years -- I actually interviewed Mike Webster in his dorm room in 1984, the first year of the camp, and showered alongside the players before their morning meetings in the same shower where St. Vincent freshman lathered up. My annual though is this must be what it was like to watch NFL teams before the days of fame and fortune and $700 Super Bowl tickets. "It doesn't get any better than this," former Steeler coach Bill Cowher told me in 2003 after one practice, as he looked out at the cornfields to the southwest of his practice field. "This is football, classic football. I know there's been a lot said recently about where teams practice, and some teams are going back to their facilities to have training camp. But look at this place. How can football get better than this? Four weeks of being together, no distractions, everything within walking distance? Fields all here. Nothing but football. Nothing. Just four weeks of you, your roommate and football. I think there's a lot to be said for how you start your season, and every year we feel like we get a great start to what we're going to be as a football team by being up here."

Come here around 8 in the morning some early August day. Watch the mist rise from the highlands. Sit on one of the hills surrounding the practice fields. Soak it all in. One of two or three things will happen. Joe Greene will stroll by, rolling an unlit cigar in his fingers, and say, "How are you today?'' Or a St. Vincent monk or priest will say hello and ask if you need anything. Or you'll see a player hustling to morning meetings--a player or maybe a coach, and you'll be pleasantly surprised that neither will ignore you.

It's the best training camp in the NFL, the best venue for watching real football in the NFL, and my favorite place to soak in what sports should be.

The Richness of Benedictine Liturgy

Interview With the President of Pontifical Liturgical Institute

SANTO DOMINGO DE SILOS, Spain, OCT. 1, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Is there a Benedictine liturgy?

In this interview with ZENIT, Benedictine Father Juan Javier Flores Arcas, president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Rome, explores this question.

Q: Can one speak specifically of a Benedictine liturgy, or is it an inadequate expression?

Father Flores: There is no "monastic liturgy," as there is no Benedictine liturgy, nor has it ever existed, as the liturgy belongs to the Church and is planned, acted and lived for all Christians. What does exist is a monastic or Benedictine way of celebrating the sacred liturgy.

Monks do not distance themselves from the liturgy of the Church; rather, they take advantage of it and live from it, as the liturgy belongs to the Church.

With this principle as base, I believe that, in today's monasteries, the liturgy must be one that reflects the spirit and letter of the liturgical books renewed after the liturgical reform.

Without nostalgias or returns to a romantic past, monasteries were in the vanguard of the liturgical movement and, in line with this, must continue to be places where the liturgy of today is celebrated and lived with the same spirit as always.

St. Benedict's Rule has no peculiarity in regard to the Eucharist or the rest of the sacraments. It is a 6th century document; immediately reflecting the ecclesial situation of the moment.

Only with reference to the Divine Office, which we now call Liturgy of the Hours, does it have a great peculiarity and originality. In the course of time and until today, there have been two types of offices in the Latin Church: the monastic office and the cathedral or clerical office.

The Benedictine Office is based on principles of the previous monastic tradition; it brings together and orders liturgical elements that, at the time, were in use in different churches. Both as a whole as well as in innumerable details, the Divine Office of the Benedictine Rule has great originality.

Q: What has been the influence of the Benedictines in the history of the liturgy?

Father Flores: Since their beginning, therefore, Benedictine monasteries have had a Divine Office different from that of the diocesan clergy and other religious, based on the distribution of the Psalter made by St. Benedict.

The principle of the Rule which has been categorically maintained over the centuries until now is that "care be taken that each week the whole Psalter of 150 Psalms is recited ..." (BR 18).

And one must also acknowledge that from the beginning monastic piety has been marked to a great extent by the piety of the Psalms.

Given that it is true that Benedictine monasteries should not be museums of Church history or of the history of the liturgy, they should consequently not be transformed into this. Nevertheless, the hope is very legitimate that the Psalterium per Hebdomadam, which has more than 1,500 years of tradition, might be maintained in Benedictine monasteries, at least in the monastic office.

However, Benedictine monasteries adapt to time and place. The possibility to move away from the principle assumed by monasticism of praying 150 Psalms in a specific way, was already foreseen in chapter 18 of the Benedictine Rule: "Above all we note that if, perhaps, some one might not like this distribution of the Psalm, that he order them in another way, if it seems better" (BR 18,22). But, St. Benedict adds, maintaining the previous principle of the weekly Psalter.

Q: How is the distribution of the Psalms organized?

Father Flores: The reform of the Divine Office in Benedictine monasteries is based solely on the "Thesaurus Liturgiae Horarum Monasticae," prepared by and for the Benedictine Confederation, where other ways of distributing the Psalter were not being set out according to the possibilities of the different monasteries.

Among the four possibilities that monasteries can choose is plan A -- or of the Rule -- plan B -- Fuglister -- which distributes the Psalter in one or two weeks with different exegetical and biblical criteria other than those that St. Benedict had in his day, in addition to two other plans that have had less resonance.

Therefore today the different monasteries have the choice to opt for a Divine Office that responds more to the exigencies of time, place and work of each monastery.

Some have opted for maintaining the traditional Benedictine plan; a great majority today follow plan B with the distribution of the Psalter in one or two weeks. Some have actually opted for adopting the Roman Liturgy of the Hours itself.

It is, therefore, more the responsibility proper to each Benedictine monastery to choose one or another plan, knowing that among the elements of Benedictine life the Divine Office must occupy first place (BE 8,20; 43,3) , and nothing must be preferred to it.

Q: What repercussion do Benedictine monasteries have in the liturgical life of the Church?

Father Flores: In the course of the centuries Benedictine monasteries have been places of spiritual and liturgical radiance; more than that, they maintained culture during the Middle Ages and from their schools arose the personalities of the Church of the moment. Let us think of the great monasteries, such as Cluny, Saint Gall, etc.

In 1909, specifically around the Belgian monastery of Mont Cesar, a "liturgical movement" arose led by Dom Lamberto Beauduin who from being a priest dedicated to the labor world became a Benedictine monk in the said monastery. From this liturgical movement the Church moved to the liturgical reform stemming from the Second Vatican Council.

The Benedictine monasteries were centers of spiritual -- and therefore of liturgical -- radiance. Let us think of Solesmes (France), Beuron and Maria Laach (Germany), Montserrat and Silos (Spain), Montecasino and Subiaco (Italy), Maredsous and the already mentioned Mont Cesar (Belgium), etc.

All these monasteries have their doors open to their most precious treasure, their liturgical prayer, so that the prayer of the community living there is shared with guests and visitors, who are thus introduced to the great prayer of the Church.

This can be considered the monastic apostolate par excellence; monasteries have evangelized in this way. Also today there is an excellent way of spending one's "vacations" by staying in a monastic guest house and participating in the different Hours of the day, to the rhythm and with the help of the Benedictine monks and nuns.

Q: Has Pope Benedict XVI been influenced by this Benedictine liturgical spirituality?

Father Flores: Benedict XVI has expressed great love and appreciation of the Benedictine Order and St. Benedict throughout his trajectory. The fact that he chose the name of the father of Western monasticism is very significant, as he himself explained a few days after his election.

The liturgy has been part of his life, as he himself says in his autobiography, already from his seminary years. He regularly visited the German Benedictine monastery of Scheyern in Bavaria and every year, for the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, now living in Rome, he went to the convent of the Benedictine nuns of Rosano, near Florence, where he participated in the nuns' liturgy and presided personally at the Corpus Christi procession.

New Vocations Site features St. Vincent Archabbey

 
Check out this new website: www.religious-vocation.com which features great information, pictures, and media all about discerning a religious vocation. We are also happy to announce that St. Vincent Archabbey is featured on this great website via the pictures sections and links. Thanks to Davide A. Bianchini who runs the website.

Papal Wisdom and call to vocation!!!

From the Holy Father's homily at the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2008:
"Dear young people, let me now ask you a question. What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations, building something that will endure? Are you living your lives in a way that opens up space for the Spirit in the midst of a world that wants to forget God, or even rejects him in the name of a falsely-conceived freedom? How are you using the gifts you have been given, the “power” which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within you? What legacy will you leave to young people yet to come? What difference will you make?
The power of the Holy Spirit does not only enlighten and console us. It also points us to the future, to the coming of God’s Kingdom. What a magnificent vision of a humanity redeemed and renewed we see in the new age promised by today’s Gospel! Saint Luke tells us that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all God’s promises, the Messiah who fully possesses the Holy Spirit in order to bestow that gift upon all mankind. The outpouring of Christ’s Spirit upon humanity is a pledge of hope and deliverance from everything that impoverishes us. It gives the blind new sight; it sets the downtrodden free, and it creates unity in and through diversity (cf. Lk 4:18-19; Is 61:1-2). This power can create a new world: it can “renew the face of the earth” (cf. Ps 104:30)!
Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith’s rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished – not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends, the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father and building a future of hope for all humanity.
The world needs this renewal! In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair. How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns (cf. Jer 2:13) in a desperate search for meaning – the ultimate meaning that only love can give? This is the great and liberating gift which the Gospel brings: it reveals our dignity as men and women created in the image and likeness of God. It reveals humanity’s sublime calling, which is to find fulfilment in love. It discloses the truth about man and the truth about life.
The Church also needs this renewal! She needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity, so that she can always be young in the Spirit (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4)! In today’s second reading, the Apostle Paul reminds us that each and every Christian has received a gift meant for building up the Body of Christ. The Church especially needs the gifts of young people, all young people. She needs to grow in the power of the Spirit who even now gives joy to your youth and inspires you to serve the Lord with gladness. Open your hearts to that power! I address this plea in a special way to those of you whom the Lord is calling to the priesthood and the consecrated life. Do not be afraid to say “yes” to Jesus, to find your joy in doing his will, giving yourself completely to the pursuit of holiness, and using all your talents in the service of others!"

Our Holy Father and the Creatures of God

World Youth Day in FULL SWING!!!

Brothers visit with Francis Cardinal Arinze!!!

Br. Elijah and Nathanael are all ears as the Cardinal speaks about the Catholic Family.

Myself (Br. Gabriel Myriam, O.S.B., Br. Elijah, O.S.B., Br. Nathanael, O.S.B. and Br. Maximilan, O.S.B. pose for a picture)

Br. Elijah, O.S.B. and Br. Nathanael, O.S.B. on beautiful Mt. Washington overlooking the city of Pittsburgh.

Four of the junior monks (Br. Nathanael, Br. Elijah, Br. Maximilan, and myself - Br. Gabriel Myriam) had the opportunity to attend the Catholic Family Apostolate's 2008 dinner which honored the 50th priestly jubilee of Francis Cardinal Arinze. The event was held in Pittsburgh and the brothers were extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with and receive the blessing of the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The Cardinal is good friends with our Archabbot and has been a visitor to the Archabbey on a number of occasions. Congratulations Your Eminence.

Father Archabbot and the Cardinal during one of his visits to the Archabbey

The Cardinal celebrating Mass at the Archabbey Basilica

Investiture 2008 - New Novices!!!

We intend to establish a school for the Lord's service (RB Prologue)

The same set of scissors Archabbot Boniface Wimmer used to tonsure the first American Benedictine Novices in 1846.

New habits waiting for new brothers to wear them!!!

The new habits and the Holy Rule of our Holy Father St. Benedict prior to investiture

(L-R)Peter (now Brother Pio), Scott (now Br. Albert), and Ryan (now Br. John Paul) prayerfully wait for vigils

We also accept them...Thanks be to God.

Father Archabbot instructing the new Novices and giving them their monastic names: Br. John Paul, Br. Isidore, Br. Albert, Fr. Jean Luc, Br. Pio

Br. Albert receives the Monastic Tonsure which reminds him of his consecration to God Almighty and his renunciation of worldly ways
(L-R) Br. John Paul, Br. Albert, and Br. Pio receive the holy habit of our order.

Br. Albert is invested in the cincture and scapular. The Brothers will not receive the monastic cowl until first profession - the cowl signifies that the monk is completely covered and consecrated, by his vows, to Jesus Christ

Br. John Paul is invested in the Scapular

Father Sebastian Samay, O.S.B. (Novice Master) presents the new brothers with a copy of the Holy Rule which they will study for a year in preparation for first profession.

Pax et Gaudium!!! Fr. Jean Luc receives the Benedictine Pax from Br. Sub-prior Anthony

First day on the job...the novices serve the community breakfast following their investiture.

The 2008-09 St. Vincent Archabbey Novitiate Class (L-R) Br. Albert, n.O.S.B., Br. Pio, n.O.S.B., Br. Isidore, n.O.S.B., Br. John Paul, n.O.S.B., Fr. Jean Luc, n.O.S.B....please pray for these brothers that they will persevere in their prayer and truly find be attentive to the Lord's voice.

World Youth Day 2008 is here!!!

 
Please pray for all the pilgrims who are in Sydney, Australia for the 2008 World Youth Day events. Our own Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B. will be representing St. Vincent and we hope he will take some nice photos that we can share with you all upon his arrival back to the states. We are also proud to note that our neighbor diocese (Pittsburgh) has sent over 700 young people to this years world youth day making them the largest group of young people in the world to attend the events excluding the Australians...Way to go Pittsburgh!!! Please check out EWTN's full coverage of WYD '08 by clicking here. Also, please check out the blog of Jamey Stewart, a Duquense University Grad student and faculty member (as well as a good friend of our Br. Gabriel Myriam who is in Sydney covering the events for Youthtown)

This is the official World Youth Day 2008 Song and Video

A Brief Refelection the Night Before Investiture

 
The following was written on July 9th, 2008 by one of our new Novices as he prepared to receive the holy habit of our order and enter the Benedictine novitiate.

"One can prepare, and prepare, and prepare all he wants to, but one is never quite ready for some events" This piece of wisdom used to annoy me greatly. I thought it was false in most, if not all, instances; however, as I sit here about to be invested in my habit and truly begin my novitiate at Saint Vincent Archabbey, I think, for the big moments in life, we are never quite ready. It seems there is always a little discomfort and a little doubt - and this is intentional. God keeps us little and humble by reminding us how dependent we are upon Him.

My vocation has been confirmed through signs and wonders. I have been abundantly blessed in my preparation for this moment. Yet, despite all of this, I feel unready; but i don't think anything could make me ready. Everything I have endured and experienced in twenty years of living have prepared me for this moment and I simply trust that Our Lady, who holds my poor and miserable heart in her own, will act powerfully through me in my new life as a Benedictine monk of Saint Vincent Archabbey. Totus Tuus Maria!!!

The Feast of St. Benedict!!!

Happy Feast Day!!! What a Blessed 2 days for our Community!!! Last evening (during Solemn first vespers for the feast of our Holy Father St. Benedict) we witnessed the first vows of our brothers (Br. Maximilian Maxwell, OSB - Br. Jeremiah Lange, OSB - Br. Michael Antonacci, OSB - Br. Gabriel Myriam Kurzawski, OSB. That morning our community welcomed five new men (Br. John Paul Heiser, Br. Isidore Minerd, Fr. Jean Luc Zadroga, Br. Albert Gahr, and Br. Pio Adamonis)...pictures of the various celebrations and liturgies are on the way!!!

Profession and Investiture

This Thursday, July 10, our Community will welcome our 5 postulants into our Monastic family as they enter the Novitiate. Please keep these men in your prayers as they prepare to receive the Holy Benedictine habit during Lauds. They are: Mr. Ryan Gray, Father Clinton Zadroga, Mr. Peter Adamonis, Mr. Scott Gahr, and Mr. Matthew Minerd. We are also blessed to announce that our 4 Novices (Br. Maximilian Maxwell, Br. Jeremiah Lange, Br. Michael Antonacci, and Br. Gabriel Myriam Kurzawski) will profess first vows during Vespers in the Archabbey Basilica. The next day, July 11, is the Feast of our Holy Father St. Benedict in which our brothers Fr. Peter Augustine Pierjok and Br. Bonaventure Curtis will profess Solemn Vows during Holy Mass. Please pray for these men as they strive to unite themselves more closely to Christ in the Monastic Life here at St. Vincent Archabbey!!!

(l-r) Br. Maximilian, Br. Jeremiah, Fr. Sebastian Samay (Novice Master), Br. Michael, and Br. Gabriel Myriam

Novena to St. Benedict

Glorious St. Benedict who taught us the way to religious perfection by the practice of self-conquest, mortification, humility, obedience, prayer, silence, retirement and detachment from the world, I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection (mention here). Vouchsafe to recommend it to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and lay it before the throne of Jesus. Cease not to intercede for me until my request is granted. Above all, obtain for me the grace to one day meet God face to face, and with you and Mary and all the angels and saints to praise Him through all eternity. O most powerful Saint Benedict, do not let me lose my soul, but obtain for me the grace of winning my way to heaven, there to worship and enjoy the most holy and adorable Trinity forever and ever. Amen.

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Pray One Our Father, One Hail Mary, and One Glory Be.

O Come Let us Adore Him!!!

God Bless America

Almighty God,

bless our nation
and make it true
to the ideas of freedom and justice
and brotherhood for all who make it great.

Guard us from war,
from fire and wind,
from compromise, fear, confusion.

Be close to our president and our statesmen;
give them vision and courage,
as they ponder decisions affecting peace
and the future of the world.

Make me more deeply aware of my heritage;
realizing not only my rights
but also my duties
and responsibilities as a citizen.

Make this great land
and all its people
know clearly Your will,
that they may fulfill
the destiny ordained for us
in the salvation of the nations,
and the restoring of all things in Christ.

Amen

The Feast of St. Thomas

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,

was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks

and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside

and Thomas was with them.

Jesus came, although the doors were locked,and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side,

and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
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July 03, 2008

Feast of the Apostle, Saint Thomas

Eph 2:19-22; Ps 117:1-2; Jn 20:24-29

"Tell the Good News!"

Every Sunday in the Creed we call ourselves, one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Such a powerful self-awareness is so often lost in the day-to-day living out of the mystery we call Church. On the feasts of the Apostles, we are once again summoned to affirm and embrace our apostolic identity. What does it mean to be apostolic? At the very end of his gospel Saint Mark remembers the commission of the Lord Jesus, "Go out to all the world and tell the Good News." We are apostolic because we are sent, and we are sent because we have truly good news for the whole world. That good news echoes in our hearts every time we gaze upon the Body and Blood of Christ and joint the Apostle Thomas in praying, "My Lord and my God." Indeed, the good news we bear is the good news that we become in communion with the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. As a successor of the apostles, Saint Augustine, has taught us, when we eat any other kind of food that food becomes us, but when we eat the Body and Blood of Christ we become what we eat. The one we consume consumes us. Indeed, we are more like Christ than we are like ourselves. Our true identity is hidden with Christ in God. As we are sent out from every Eucharist we are sent to give apostolic witness: "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!" By what we say and do everyday, we reveal to all the nations that the LORD is here with us, and we are transformed by his steadfast kindness and tender fidelity. This divine love is at the center of our lives today, and it is the bright glory of our future. Christ Our God wants all men and women to share in the splendor of truth and the beauty of his love forever. This is truly good news for every nation all through history until the consummation to the ages and the end of the world as we know it. For the world as we know it is not totally transparent to the mystery of the Kingdom or the splendor of the Church. Indeed, it is the witness of the blood of the apostles in every age that is startling and constant before a harsh and violent world.

The Apostle Paul cries our to this brothers and sisters in every age to recognize our true dignity in the Body of Christ. Like Saint Thomas and the entire apostolic band we must summon all men and women to Christ. This is our apostolic identity. Indeed, we are no longer strangers and sojourners. We are fellow citizens of the heavenly Kingdom. We stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb along with all the Apostles and prophets. Indeed, we are at home and familiar with the saints in glory and we have a permanent home with these holy ones. We are not just passing guests in the court of heaven. Christ Jesus himself is the capstone of our lives. He is the very one who holds us together and binds us into one organic whole. Our very life is in the LORD; outside of Christ we have no life. Cut off from Christ, we are dead and dried up branches fit for the fire. Through Him, with Him, and in Him, we are growing into a temple sacred to the Lord. In Christ we are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Indeed, it is the very mystery of the Trinity that shines through the splendor of the Church at this time in history and forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

This is the message of today’s celebration, and this is the good news we have to offer all who are lost and in the shadow of death.

Perhaps Saint Thomas had to struggle with the good news so that we could hear the good news. Perhaps, we never would have had the blessing upon us that we hear after Thomas received his blessing. "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Indeed, it is the gift of faith that enabled Saint Thomas to see what no man can see—my Lord and my God. No human eyes alone can behold the face of God in Christ. It takes faith that alone can expand our vision beyond its natural capacity to behold in faith the revelation of God in the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus, crucified and raised. The Lord Jesus blessed his disciple Thomas and in this blessing he became an apostle. Before one can be sent out with the good news, one must taste and see that the Lord is good. Before Saint Thomas was ready for his blessing and commission, he had to spend a week waiting for the Lord to come through the locked doors. Indeed, we lock the doors out of fear that someone would take advantage of our weakness and vulnerability. We have been disappointed and we feel abandoned just like the apostles. Disappointed that we did not have enough courage and faith to stand at the foot of the cross with the beloved and his mother. Abandoned by the teacher who had promised to remain with us and had proclaimed that we need not fear, anyone or anything. This Lord Jesus was executed in public before the scorn and mockery of the leaders. This Lord Jesus was absent for a whole week while many had given witness and proclaimed his resurrection. It is impossible to believe. Indeed, without faith no one could see him come through locked doors and breathe, "peace". Just as the Apostle Thomas doubted, even longer and more intensely have we doubted. Just as the Apostle Thomas believed because he saw, we believe without seeing. Only with eyes of faith can we see and cry out, "My Lord and my God!"

Homily of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI