Bethlehem Abbey

Vocation Sunday – 25th April 2021

On this Vocation Sunday (often also called Good Shepherd Sunday, because of today’s Gospel reading at Mass – John 10:11-18) we want to ask a very simple question: Are you living your vocation?

Mark 9:2-13 – Transfiguration

In this moment of unparalleled encounter we too, like Elijah and Moses, are invited to be friends with God, speaking with him face to face.

The Mysteries of Holy Week and the Event of the Pasch of Christ

Celebrating the Pasch of Christ – we allow Blessed Guerric of Igny to feed us as we consider Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection, and find our own place in this drama event of our redemption and salvation.

21st March – The Transitus of St Benedict

Had we not been observing today the 5th Sunday of Lent we would probably have been celebrating the feast known as the Transitus of St Benedict. We might loosely translate this as the day of his death, but perhaps more precisely we should note that it is his true dies natalis – his birth day!Continue reading “21st March – The Transitus of St Benedict”

19th March – St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This solemnity brings with it two events of immediate significance: the year already begun of special veneration for St Joseph, and, beginning on this day, a special year celebrating the joy of married love, coming five years after PopeFrancis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

17th March – St Patrick, Apostle of the Irish

There is today a pressing need for all of us to read again Patrick’s own testimony about his life, call and subsequent mission to the Irish.

Mark 8:34-38 – A Lectio for Lent

It seems that our lectio of Mark’s Gospel has happily reached a point which perfectly mirrors this moment in the liturgical calendar: the conditions of discipleship are placed into the context of our common and personal Lenten journey!

Being a Cistercian – FAQs (2)

In this article we want to spend a little time looking at one particular frequently asked question: What’s the difference between being a monk, a priest, or a friar?

The Monastic Life

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, celebrated each year on 2nd February, is also kept as the World Day of Prayer for the Consecrated Life. As such, we pray both for those who are already living this vowed life in the Church and those whom, we know, God is calling, that they may hear his invitation in their hearts and answer, both humbly and courageously.

Mark 8:31-33 – Great Expectations

With these few verses in our lectio we reach the real point of Mark’s Gospel – that the Christ has come to be revealed in his Passion. The verses which have preceded these, of course, form a single unit and each portion relies upon the other for its full meaning: the faith realisation about Jesus’ true identity and then what that identity implies.