The monastery’s daily Mass has, over the past few years, incorporated preaching on a frequent basis, through short homilies offered by the monk who is the day’s celebrant. These homilies, together with the more extended Sunday sermons, are available through the monastery’s website, both in video form and in text. Some select quotations from this July provide some of the flavor of this teaching, and an important window into the life of the monastery: “When we come to Mass, we are praying, of course, for ourselves and our dear ones, and all our special intentions. Let us remember that we are also sacrificing for the whole world, for its peace, and that it may become, in time, God’s kingdom.” (Abbot Matthew Stark, July 21) “So we, the people of God, each of us, together the Church – WE are Jesus Christ in the world today. Are we faithful enough to being other Christs, so that the God seeking and truth seeking will recognize Him in us and come to faith? May God give us the wisdom and strength to live our faith to win hearts. Changed minds will not remain if the heart is not changed.” (Prior Michel Brunner, July 19) “He tells us in today’s gospel that they should come to 'a deserted place' – which means they went to pray. Prayer is always a way to connect to God and His power and His life. And that is one of the main means by which we achieve this transformation.” (Father Paschal Scotti, July 18) “Repenting is turning around, right? Repenting means to reverse direction. It is something we need to do all of our lives, constantly, on a daily basis. How do we do that? What is involved in true repentance? Well. it’s going inward and it’s going outward, as is prayer itself. We go inward to listen to our conscience, what Saint Augustine called ‘the teacher within.’ It’s the Holy Spirit in our hearts, as the word of God. Going outward, on the other hand, is the prayerful reading of scripture…; participation in all of the sacraments…; listening to preaching; … doing our spiritual reading.” (Father Gregory Havill, July 13) “Through prayer and the sacraments, through Christ’s sacrifice offered in this and every Mass, we receive God’s grace and become capable of fulfilling our vocations, capable of living out God’s will for us.” (Father Edward Mazuski, July 11)

It is worth reminding ourselves of the significance of this daily and weekly practice. In his Apostolic Exhortation of December 8, 1975, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Saint Paul VI offers a beautiful statement on the preaching of the Gospel, well worth reexamining nearly a half-century later. The pontiff made this statement on the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, whose aim, he summarizes, was “to make the Church of the twentieth century ever better fitted for proclaiming the Gospel to the people of the twentieth century.” As we move further into the twenty-first century, his words in this proclamation still ring true. His exhortation, given not only to the episcopate and clergy, but to “all the faithful of the entire world,” points to the integration of word and action in building up the faith: 

So, while the pace of School life has slowed over the summer, the spiritual journey ongoing here continues apace. We find in the preaching of the Word occurring here at Portsmouth, in continuity with this apostolic exhortation as with our apostolic tradition, both the “living witness of fidelity”, the conversatio morum of monastic life, and the distillation of that life of faith into preaching, the “tip of the iceberg” of Christian witness. We encourage our readers to explore some of these homiletic offerings, updated regularly on the monastery’s website.