NPR's Weekend Edition to Feature Saint Vincent Gristmill

On Sunday, August 2, 2009, Weekend Edition host Liane Hansen of National Public Radio will profile the first Benedictine monastery in America. 

Weekend Edition: Sunday Morning is carried locally on WDUQ, 90.5 FM, and airs from 8 to 10 a.m. The segment on the Gristmill is scheduled for 9:40 a.m. It will be available online after 2 p.m. on Sunday on National Public Radio.

In the mid 1800s, a Bavarian Benedictine monk, Boniface Wimmer, came to this country to serve the German immigrants and in the process built a church, seminary and college on land in Latrobe.

The monastery and campus was to be self-sustaining. The brothers had livestock, a vegetable farm, and fields of grain. A gristmill was also built to grind that grain into flour, which provided bread for the monks.

The Gristmill is now on the National Register of Historic Places and is still in operation, providing flour for the Benedictines' daily bread.

Investiture 2009!!!

Just a few pictures from this year's investiture ceremony. Our community welcomed 4 new novices (Br. Romuald, Br. Michael, Br. Matthew, and Br. Matthew).  Please pray for these 4 young men (all in their 20's) as they pray and work in our community and discern more intensely the call to monastic life.

 

  

  

 
 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Priest Day 2009

Each year at the Archabbey, the monks welcome priests from the various local diocese for a day of prayer, refreshment, and fellowship.  This special day for our priests has been appropriately titled "Priest Day."  Today, July 28, 2009 we welcome over 100 priests to our monastery in order to  say "Thank You" for your ministry and for providing the sacraments to our Lord's people.

 

The dignity of the priest is estimated from the exalted nature of his offices. Priests are chosen by God to manage on earth all his concerns and interests. " Divine," says St. Cyril of Alexandria, "are the offices confided to priests." St. Ambrose has called the priestly office a Divine profession. A priest is a minister destined by God to be a public ambassador of the whole Church, to honor Him, and to obtain His graces for all the faithful. The entire Church cannot give to God as much honor, nor obtain so many graces, as a single priest by celebrating a single Mass; for the greatest honor that the whole Church without priests could give to God would consist in offering to Him in sacrifice the lives of all men. But of what value are the lives of all men compared with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is a sacrifice of infinite value? What are all men before God but a little dust? As a drop of a bucket, as a little dust. They are but a mere nothing in His sight: All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all. Thus, by the celebration of a single Mass, in which he offers Jesus Christ in sacrifice, a priest gives greater honor to the Lord, than if all men by dying for God offered to Him the sacrifice of their lives. By a single Mass, he gives greater honor to God than all the Angels and Saints, along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, have given or shall give to Him; for their worship cannot be of infinite value, like that which the priest celebrating on the altar offers to God. Moreover, in the holy Mass, the priest offers to God an adequate thanksgiving for all the graces bestowed even on the Blessed in Paradise; but such a thanksgiving all the Saints together are incapable of offering to Him. Hence it is, that on this account also the priestly dignity is superior even to all celestial dignities. Besides, the priest, says St. John Chrysostom, is an ambassador of the whole world, to intercede with God and to obtain graces for all creatures.. The priest, according to St. Ephrem, "treats familiarly with God." To priests every door is open. Jesus has died to institute the priesthood. It was not necessary for the Redeemer to die in order to save the world; a drop of His Blood, a single tear, or prayer, was sufficient to procure salvation for all; for such a prayer, being of infinite value, should be sufficient to save not one but a thousand worlds. But to institute the priesthood, the death of Jesus Christ has been necessary. Had he not died, where should we find the victim that the priests of the New Law now offer? a victim altogether holy and immaculate, capable of giving to God an honor worthy of God. As has been already said, all the lives of men and Angels are not capable of giving to God an infinite honor like that which a priest offers to Him by a single Mass. (The Dignities and Duties of the Priest, by St. Alphonsus Liguori, C.Ss.R)

Prayer of St. Jean Maria Vianny

 

I love You, O my God,
and my only desire is to love You
until the last breath of my life.

I love You, O my infinitely lovable God,
and I would rather die loving You,
than live without loving You.

I love You, Lord
and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally...

My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You,
I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.

Feast of St. James the Greater (July 25)

O Glorious St. James, because of your fervor and generosity, Jesus chose you to witness His glory on the Mount and his agony in the garden.  Obtain for us strength and consolation in the unending struggles of this life.  Help us to follow Christ constantly and generously, to be victors over all our difficulties, and to receive the crown of glory in heaven. Amen.

www.americancatholic.org

This James is the brother of John the Evangelist. The two were called by Jesus as they worked with their father in a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had already called another pair of brothers from a similar occupation: Peter and Andrew. “He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him” (Mark 1:19-20). 

James was one of the favored three who had the privilege of witnessing the Transfiguration, the raising to life of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemani. 

Two incidents in the Gospels describe the temperament of this man and his brother. St. Matthew tells that their mother came (Mark says it was the brothers themselves) to ask that they have the seats of honor (one on the right, one on the left of Jesus) in the kingdom. “Jesus said in reply, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?’ They said to him, ‘We can’” (Matthew 20:22). Jesus then told them they would indeed drink the cup and share his baptism of pain and death, but that sitting at his right hand or left was not his to give—it “is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father” (Matthew 20:23b). It remained to be seen how long it would take to realize the implications of their confident “We can!” 

 

The other disciples became indignant at the ambition of James and John. Then Jesus taught them all the lesson of humble service: The purpose of authority is to serve. They are not to impose their will on others, or lord it over them. This is the position of Jesus himself. He was the servant of all; the service imposed on him was the supreme sacrifice of his own life. 

On another occasion, James and John gave evidence that the nickname Jesus gave them—“sons of thunder”—was an apt one. The Samaritans would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to hated Jerusalem. “When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?’ Jesus turned and rebuked them...” (Luke 9:54-55). 

James was apparently the first of the apostles to be martyred. “About that time King Herod laid hands upon some members of the church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword, and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also” (Acts 12:1-3a). 

This James, sometimes called James the Greater, is not to be confused with James the Lesser (May 3) or with the author of the Letter of James and the leader of the Jerusalem community.