From the Abbot Living Mercy
Pope Francis in his Bull, The Face of Mercy, announced the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, exhorting us to “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” The Holy Father invites us to proclaim the words that Christ is the face of God’s mercy: “We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it.”
Through this mercy we are able to look upon the face of the Father by experiencing the very gaze of Christ upon us. Standing in this merciful gaze of Jesus, our Holy Father challenges us to understand that this is not a passive position, but one from which we are called to follow Christ by opening ourselves to the Father’s mercy. Mirroring the mercy received, we look to our brothers and sisters, and the Holy Father reminds us, we are to look most especially toward those “who are denied their dignity.” Pope Francis writes, “It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy.” Mercy, he says, is “the beating heart of the Gospel.” As a community, at the beginning of this Year of Mercy, we recognized that to be instruments of God’s mercy, we first needed to be recipients of that mercy from God and from each other. We began this Year of Mercy with a liturgy in which we asked for prayers from each other for the faults we have committed in our community life, and then we rededicated and re-consecrated the community to God through the intercession of Our Lady of Divine Providence, our secondary patron, and St. Benedict, our primary patron. I share with you the introduction to this liturgy and the prayer of we offered Pope Francis, toward the end of The Face of Mercy writes, “At the foot of the Cross, Mary, together with John, the disciple of love, witnessed the words of forgiveness spoken by Jesus. This supreme expression of mercy towards those who crucified him shows us the point to which the mercy of God can reach… In this Jubilee Year, may the Church echo the word of God that resounds strong and clear as a message and a sign of pardon, strength, aid, and love.” As we journey through this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, may we never tire of extending God’s mercy, may we possess the virtue of patience, and be a font of comfort to the afflicted. In Christ, Abbot James Albers, OSB 4
Kansas Monks
A Prayer for the rededication and re-consecration of St. Benedict’s Abbey Brothers in Christ, we have gathered here asking for God’s mercy, asking also forgiveness from each other. Our community has known many blessings throughout our 158 years in Northeast Kansas, and we have given of ourselves sacrificially in our ministries to God’s people and to each other, here and throughout the world. We recognize, though, that there have been times we have failed as a community and as individuals to live our monastic charism; to practice Christian charity; and to offer proper worship to the Father through a holy life. For this we continually seek God’s mercy and ask for his Spirit to descend upon us and guide us forward. As we rededicate and re-consecrate our monastic home and this community during this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, called by our Holy Father, Pope Francis, we ask the Lord that he implant within us the desire to seek Christ above all, so that our hearts might always be inflamed with the inexpressible delight of love. We come before our Loving Father, offering our consecrated lives and the life of our community to him, doing so through the intercession of Our Lady of Divine Providence and our Holy Father St. Benedict… …We stand before you, O Lord, seeking the graces necessary to live our lives in truth. We desire to follow Christ in our lives consecrated to you in a life of faith. We hope to live well our lives in this community of Christian friendship, sharing ourselves with your sons and daughters in true hospitality. Therefore, we humbly come before you, loving Father, to rededicate and re-consecrate our Community of St. Benedict’s Abbey to you in the great mercy of the Sacred Heart of your Son. We so dedicate and consecrate our community to you through the intercession of the Mother of your Son, our mother given to us from the Cross, Our Lady of Divine Providence. Additionally, in this act of rededication and re-consecration, we give ourselves over to you through the intercession of our Holy Father Saint Benedict, our ever-present guide by the wisdom of his Rule and the security of his guiding hand. Shed your saving mercy upon us, that as we seek the presence of your Son in our lives, we might truly see your face.
