Dear visitors, believing in or seeking God, linked in any way to our community... or simply Brothers and Sisters in mankind :
PEACE !
Abundant peace!
Peace as an unquenchable source!
Peace as a hand given with respect...
May this peace reach you where it is expected,
Where it will be the unique consolation, the only healing,...
Peace as a whisper, a presence... a Présence ?
« God our Savious has made known his tenderness to all men...
A child, a little child, has made himself know as God.
In this mystery, Lord, you show us the beginning of our Salvation ;
every year you revive in us this joyful hope.
We joyfully welcome your only-born Son who comes to redeem us...
Give us a new breath of life !
In this wonderful exchange, we are made into the likeness of your Son,
In whom our nature is united to yours.
Give us the grace to deepen our faith in this mystery,
Grant us, after a life of increasing faithfulness,
To reach the glorious communion with your beloved Son.
Amen. »
(Mix of the collects for the 3 Masses of Christmas)
Premonstratensians were born at Christmas, Christmas 1121. It was the start of the devotion to the sweet humanity of God, which will lead to a blooming of tenderness. This gratuitous stress could offer an oasis of mankind to our contemporaries. This need of restored mankind, lived as an expectation, is not perceived in the life of the Church only, but it goes through the life of men and women, our neighbours, as a quenched, sometimes wild stream. Meetings, seminars (« The meaning of the ‘human‘ in front of the challenges of knowledge», Maredsous 2006, etc.) are numerous at worldwide, political level... to render man and his humanity to his own background. Maybe we are going to read « Gaudium et Spes » from Vatican II again.
The « Bruxelles Toussaint 2006 » project did not aim at anything else : inviting christians to reflect more deeply on their identity and their responsabilities towards this needed humanisation of the city. For the Christian faith makes people more human and humanises the city. A special look is given to the poor : « A Christian is one who has poor people among his friends » said Andrea Ricardi in his teaching at Bruxelles Toussaint 2006. Jesus said it : « What you did to one of those little ones, you did it to me »..
Benedict XVI wishes a merry Christmas to « the poorest in joy, the victims of war, the sick, those who are persecuted, to young people who have lost the meaning of true happiness end look in vain for it, where it is impossible to fin dit, to those who have been hurt by life, to the orphans of joy.»
In the world you see more and more young mothers who are not more than 15 of age : the presence of a child in their own flesh, maternity, seems to be a valuable project for them in this time... I think of another young lady, 14 or 15 too, Mary ! Being a mother was written for her in the amazing project of God for us. A project which was opened on the life of the world, anchored in the flesh of mankind — A wonderful mystery! Through his incarnation the Son of God has in some way united himself to every man. He worked with human hands, acted with a man’s will, thought with a man’s mind, he loved with a man’s heart. Born of the Virgin Mary he truly became one of us, our likeness in every respect, with the exception of sin. In this wonderful mystery is the peace of Christmas, that we wish you today!
[updated on the 27.12.06]
Write to Père Bruno
To subscribe to the Abbey newsletter (in French) post your e-mail address below:
Beer
In co-operation with the Father Abbot Nys, Albert Lootvoet decides in 1952 to revive the brewing tradition of the Abbey of Leffe by adopting the traditional brewing processes. (read more)
Legal Mentions | Map of website | Admin | Performance Artégo | RSS