The Holy Father has designated this year as a time to foster, examine and be thankful for consecrated life.
Ministry in Focus

Rome

In the year 2000, about ten years after my ordination, the

Prior asked to speak with me.  At the time our Sisters were getting established in Tehachapi, and there was wonder as to who would be their chaplain.  I thought that was what might be coming.  The Prior told me our abbey had been requested to supply a Rector for the Roman house, and asked what I thought about it.  I was completely surprised.  After my studies in Rome as a seminarian I thought maybe someday I would visit the Eternal City again, on some trip or pilgrimage.

 

Before coming to Rome I had been living in the Prep School dorm.  During my first year here I received a letter from one of the students in the school asking, "How's your new job as a up-graded dorm dad?"  Not a bad description. Besides the curia (six Norbertines working for the Order or for the Vatican, including the abbot general, the procurator general, an archbishop, an economo, a guestmaster and me), our General House hosts about 30 student residents.  This year six are Norbertines, including our two deacons from St. Michael's.  All except the two deacons are priests, both diocesan and religious, from various countries throughout the world.  As Rector I oversee the aspects of common life, trying to provide an environment conducive to a priestly life of prayer and study.  I also take care of the documentation or authorizations the students may need for visas, permits of stay, and classes.  For me it has been a special privilege to accompany our men from the abbey as they approach ordination. The adjustment to Rome and the Generalate can be challenging, but also enriching.  It is also a joy to introduce them into the spiritual and cultural riches that Rome has to offer.

 

Being Rector of the Roman house has given me a wonderful experience of the Norbertine Order and the universal Church.  Besides the confreres and priests who live here, many other Norbertines and friends of the Order visit the Generalate, as well as the superiors, family and friends of our students.  And, at times, I have been able to visit them. These and others that I have met - from other Roman Colleges and religious houses, in Vatican offices and Pontifical universities, as well as the elderly and poor I encounter on the street - have been a great blessing to me. 

 

Fr. Stephen Boyle, O.Praem. 

 


Photo: Some of the well-known Norbertines living in Rome are: [L to R] fr. Jacob Hsieh, 
fr. Herman Joseph Putman, Fr. Stephen Boyle, Abbot General Thomas Handgratinger.

Featured Homily

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

 

If I were to ask for a show of hands as to how many of you feel the effects of sin in your lives, how many have been struggling since the moment you got up this morning to hold a good thought, to be patient, kind, and merciful to others, you might feel too weary even to hold your hand up. Our struggle is real and ongoing. Sin and the effects of sin are a very heavy burden in our lives-if it were not so, our Lord would not have come to take those burdens upon Himself, at such a cost to Himself.

Here in the synagogue, our Lord knows His audience. Here, in this church, our Lord knows His audience. To appreciate the full impact of our Savior's words in the synagogue, we have to hear them as the words of a Savior-a Savior speaking to us as burdened individuals. "His commands are not burdensome," but designed to set sinners free. He is not speaking to those who have all the answers, but to the blind; He is not speaking to those who have something to be proud of, but to those who feel ashamed and sorry; He is speaking good news to those who have seen and heard enough bad news about themselves.

 

Jesus wants us to hear Him proclaiming these truths about Himself and His mission and to react to them as people who have just heard the best news they've ever heard, the one message they've always been waiting for. By the time our Lord spoke these words, the people had been waiting for thousands of years. The human race had grown old and tired, and was about to be reborn in Christ. We need to be reborn and saved.


 
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Why do religious rise so early?


Each morning, all the priests and seminarians of the abbey rise at around 5 o'clock in the morning.  Waiting in two lines by a side of the church (called statio in Latin - think of it as "battle stations"), all process in at 5:45 to begin the day's prayers.


Now, you might say, "Yikes! That's really early to get up and start praying! Why would you do that?"  A reasonable series of questions, and an accurate observation: it is early. Replies could be made that actually 5:45 is actually very moderate in practice.  Historically, Norbertines used to interrupt their sleep each night and have the first office of the day at midnight, and present day Trappi
sts and some Benedictine abbeys start the day at around 3:15.

 

The ultimate reason for rising so early for communal prayer, even more than the penitential aspect, for the confrere who is not a "morning person", is the sanctification of the day - rendering to God what is His throughout the hours of the day so that all comes under His gentle yoke. Such a practice pulls each member out of himself and purely personal concerns, while the community prays the public prayer of the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours, or "Officium" in Latin, interceding for the Church and the world.  
 

Photo: Before dawn the Norbertine community lines up prior to processing into church for the first prayers of the new day.

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ST. MICHAEL'S ABBEY
19292 El Toro Road
Silverado, CA 92676