The Benedictine reform movement provided the impetus for the great burgeoning of English learning and literature—in both Latin and the vernacular—during the second half of the tenth century. . . . The beginning the monastic movement in England is conventionally dated to 940, the year in which Dunstan assumed the abbacy of Glastonbury.
Now, if observing the commandments is the essential sign of love, it is very greatly feared that without love even the most effective action of the glorious gifts of grace—even of the most sublime powers and even of faith itself and the commandment that makes a person perfect—will not be of help.
“This is my commandment.” Have you then only one precept? This is sufficient, even if it is unique and so great. Nevertheless he also said, “Do not kill,” because the one who loves does not kill. He said, “Do not steal,” because the one who loves does even more—he gives. He said, “Do not lie,” for the one who loves speaks the truth, against falsehood. “I give you a new commandment.”
A vine by its very nature is going where you do not know, twisting and turning and reaching and growing, surging with life, abiding and yet always on the move. I think Jesus chose this way of telling us who he is on purpose.
In true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as that place where the person you least want to live with lives!
The union of the Christian with Christ is not just a similarity of inclination and feeling, a mutual consent of minds and wills. It has a more radical, more mysterious and supernatural quality: it is a mystical union in which Christ Himself becomes the source and principle of divine life in me.
Unless the branch is provided with the life-producing sap from its mother the vine, how will it bear grapes or what fruit will it bring forth—and from what source? . . . For no fruit of virtue will spring up anew in those of us who have fallen away from intimate union with Christ.
Several years ago I led a retreat whose theme was “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” What on earth can I find new to say about those very familiar words? I wondered. Instead of turning to the Bible commentaries, I took myself off to the local Barnes and Noble and got a few books on viticulture.
There is a place, we believe, at the center of the world,
Called Golgotha by the Jews in their native tongue.
Here was planted a tree cut from a barren stump:
This tree, I remember hearing produced wholesome fruits,
But it did not bear these fruits for those who had settled there;
It was foreigners who picked these lovely fruits.
God chose to be our mother in all things
and so made the foundation of this work,
most humbly and most pure, in the virgin’s womb.