The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23A, October 11, 2026

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23A, October 11, 2026

Click here for an audio of the sermon

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Though it shames me a bit to say, on the surface I sort of sympathize with the first set of guests in today’s Gospel for not wanting to go to a wedding. I’ve never been a big fan of them myself. I don’t begrudge those who enjoy them, and even less those who have them. I just prefer quieter, more low-key events, where there’s less pressure to have fun, dance in uncomfortable shoes, buy gifts, and make witty toasts. Unlike at funerals, which I find generally do a pretty solid job with the food, wedding fare always hits me as pretty underwhelming – usually only a choice between dry chicken and flavorless fish, and always with a side of overcooked asparagus. And while I have been genuinely impressed by the construction of certain wedding cakes, I’ve never found any of them to be particularly tasty. 

There have been the odd exceptions, of course. In Pittsburgh, for example, and really throughout western Pennsylvania, both the entrée and cake play a distant second fiddle to the virtually ubiquitous Cookie Table. There, wedding banquets are remembered – indeed they are judged – for the variety and deliciousness of their cookies. 

First, there must be many kinds of cookies – Italian wedding, lady locks, buckeyes, lemon, pizzelles, chocolate chip, those peanut butter ones with the Hershey’s Kisses squished into the tops, snickerdoodles, thumbprints, glazed sugar, to name just a few. And, equally important, they must be good. Like, really good. Guests make multiple trips to the cookie table, piling their plates with its bounty before returning to their seats to compare favorites. Grandmas and great aunts – often the bakers of many of the cookies – continually scan the church or fire hall, critically evaluating people’s cookie choices and keeping score of whose cookies are ‘winning.’  

Second, there should be an abundance of leftovers, which are taken home in great bundles by the guests. Parents of the happy couple bring at least a small assortment into work on Monday morning, ostensibly as a little treat for their coworkers, but, in reality, just as much a flex on how awesome a wedding banquet they hosted for their kids. Criticizing a cookie table – or, worse, refusing to partake – is a public and unforgiveable affront to a family’s honor, and everybody knows it. Doing so might not get the offenders destroyed or their city burned down but, then again …

Of course, the Parable of the Wedding Banquet really isn’t about unenthusiastic weddinggoers and offended hosts. It’s actually about the very human tendency of placing our own interests and desires above others’, even going so far as rejecting Jesus’ invitation to take our places in the kingdom of God, the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb, and the tragic consequences that always result – namely, broken relationships with God and one another. 

Jesus makes no mention of a cookie table in the Parable. But it’s clear the host – in this case, a king – has laid on the first-century equivalent of a pretty good one. When he sends his slaves around to call those invited to the banquet, he tells them to make sure they mention the oxen and fat calves he’s slaughtered in preparation for them, so they understand how big a deal this is. But as we’ve heard, the guests don’t come. They don’t care about the big dinner and all the work the king has put into to making it special. They don’t seem to give any thought to the fact that a place has been set for them, and that their presence is expected and important to the king and his son. It seems ridiculous to them that they should step away from whatever it is they’re doing to enter into the joy of their own king; they have farms and businesses to run, after all. What actually does seem to matter is simply whatever will benefit them in the here and now. It’s typical human selfishness, and, unfortunately, it’s something we all do. 

I genuinely wonder what is it that lures us humans into this way of thinking and acting, to decide we are better off trying to make and serve our own banquets rather than God’s; that we, who are ourselves created, can somehow know better than the One who creates us. It’s nothing new, though. As we heard in the reading from Exodus, more than a thousand years before Jesus told the Parable of the Wedding Banquet in Jerusalem, the Israelites, impatient for Moses to return to them from speaking with God on Mount Sinai, decided it would be better for them to become gods themselves in order to make other gods, which in turn they would then worship, an exercise in absurdity even Albert Camus would appreciate. The result? Nearly destruction, if Moses hadn’t interceded for them. And, of course, two thousand years on this side of the parable, the compulsion to deify ourselves is alive and well as ever – along with the inevitable brokenness and suffering that always results from it. People really don’t change. But fortunately for us, neither does God. 

It's no surprise, then, that in the sixth century, when Saint Benedict wrote his rule for monks, it was the same familiar story. The western Roman Empire had effectively destroyed itself through centuries of pride and excess, and now the whole place was being sacked by pretty much everyone. Benedict was determined not to let his monks fall into the same disordered chaos he observed around him. They must be in communion rather than competition, seeking to serve God through one another in the monastery. Right up front, at the top of the Rule’s Prologue, he tells those listening that if they’re serious about doing God’s will, they’d better be ready to put aside their own: “The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience,” he counsels. “This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.” 

So, relying solely on our selfish wills leads to destruction, while offering ourselves in joyful obedience to God leads to life. The choice seems like a no-brainer. But how, actually, do we reorient ourselves wholly to living in the love of God rather than earthly gain? As the desert mothers and fathers knew all too well, abandoning the will and freeing oneself from human passions is not easy. After all, we are, it would seem, programmed to chase what we like. And the world certainly rewards us for pursuing things such as wealth, power, status, influence, respectability, and whatever else it deems ‘success.’ But for Saint Benedict, the key to true happiness is obedience to God through humility, the self-emptying of the pride we feel toward our own abilities and accomplishments. This is so we can make room for Christ to dwell more and more within us, allowing us to become the hands, feet, mouths, and ears of Jesus here on earth. 

Of course, we all know that, realistically, to be able to survive in the world it’s necessary to ‘play the game’ to some extent. But using our experienced judgement and wizened reasoning to solve problems isn’t pridefulness. Nor is applying our God-given skills to grow professionally and provide responsibly for our families greediness. And enjoying the pursuit of hobbies, art, and even cookie-craft certainly isn’t a rejection of God’s will. It’s no sin to thrive and enjoy life, and that’s not what got the original wedding guests into trouble. For them, the issue was using their will to choose selfishness over self-emptying and reject God’s better Way. That’s why I’d like to suggest that none of this is really about eliminating our own will – in fact, in pursuing such a goal, I think we may well run the risk of becoming increasingly captive to it. Rather, I have a hunch it's more about choosing to use our freedom to allow God to align our imperfect human will and desires more and more to the Divine Will from which they flow.  

Again, Saint Benedict offers a way for us to see if we’re actually doing this. He counsels the monks to test the spirits of newcomers to find out if they’re from God. We, too must check in with our own spirits every day to make sure our motives and actions are from God. “Who am I serving?” we might ask. “Is my happiness and ability to live comfortably more important to me than someone else’s?” “Do I reject the invitations of others to be in communion with them because I don’t consider them worthy of being in communion with me?” And, perhaps even more challenging, “When I do good things, is it purely out of love for God and others, or am I kind of hoping I might get noticed and rewarded for it?” For my own part, I do find that my motives for performing good works are often at least a little mixed. Does that invalidate them? Probably not, but it is a reminder that aligning my will to God’s is a life’s work.

If it all seems a bit daunting, we can return to the wedding banquet and notice who actually does end up joining in the feast. They aren’t the ones who were originally considered ‘worthy’; those people made the choice to use their privilege to self-exclude from the banquet in favor of serving themselves, with the usual disastrous consequences. Instead, those gathered in were everyone else, both the ‘good and the bad,’ echoing what Jesus had declared to the self-righteous chief priests and elders in the temple just a few verses before today’s Gospel reading. “Truly I tell you,” he warns, “the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” They were indeed. And you know something? They still are; I’ve personally seen it happen time and time again, when those labeled as utterly unworthy have shown forth the Gospel to others in ways I’ve rarely, if ever, seen the self-proclaimed “worthies” do.

The banquet is ready, and Christ the Bridegroom has indeed prepared a place for each of us. May we find ourselves and everyone we love there, and may God’s peace be with us today and always. Amen. 

Benedict of Nursia, Monastic, c. 543.

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

Benedict of Nursia, Monastic, c. 543.

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Let us pray. "We give you thanks, almighty God, for the Saints of the Benedictine family; and we pray that the zeal of the holy monks and nuns of the ages may inspire us to holiness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.” Amen. 

In the 1999 comedy “Office Space,” Peter Gibbons, a young corporate drone working a soul-crushing job in the tech sector, has an epiphany. After years spent sludging through, doing “just enough not to get fired” from his job, he agrees to undergo hypnotherapy with his girlfriend in a half-hearted attempt to rescue his equally frustrating relationship. During the session, he begins to let go of attachments, worries, and cares associated with his job, his managers (he has eight, by the way, meaning that when he messes up, he has eight different people coming by his desk to tell him about it), his toxic relationship, and even the pointless expectations of the prevailing culture. This is, arguably, a healthy new outlook for Peter but, unfortunately, there’s a bit of a snag: the temporary trancelike state that enables him to see so clearly for the first time inadvertently becomes permanent when the hypnotherapist keels over from a heart attack before bringing Peter back out of it. 

Locked now into a perpetual state of hypno-bliss, Peter begins moving through his daily life completely unconcerned about anything aside from pursuing his newfound dream of “doing nothing.” Responsibilities, consequences, money, other people’s opinions about him – none of it matters to him anymore. He does continue showing up to work, but only when he feels like it. He finally asks out the pretty waitress he’s had a crush on for ages and she says yes. Bob and Bob, a pair of “efficiency consultants” brought in by the company basically to fire people, end up becoming enamored with Peter’s aloof, relaxed confidence, and – in a move that says a lot about how much corporate culture just loves rewarding incompetence – actually plan to promote him. 

Of course, the Bobs aren’t the only ones who notice Peter’s new outlook. When his burned-out work friends chide him about his deteriorating job performance and seemingly lazy attitude, he responds with surprisingly deep conviction. “We don’t have a lot of time on this earth!” he declares. “We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.” It’s a really good line. And in a real sense, it’s a line that changed my life. 

You see, during a particularly frustrating time in my early professional career, I began questioning whether the large financial services firm I worked for really had my best interests at heart the way they said they did. According to the HR material, I was one of their approximately 100,000 “most valued assets,” but I couldn’t help noticing that when we posted our first billion-dollar profit, their gratitude for us was mainly expressed by tabletop signs in the cafeteria exclaiming, “It takes a lot of zeros to make a billion!” Not surprisingly, none of those additional zeros managed to find their way into my paycheck.

Like Peter Gibbons, I knew I was a drone, but I also knew I was relatively safe. If I managed to numb myself enough, I could keep working for the company, pumping out tedious copy for marketing material, maybe getting a promotion, and hopefully retiring by the time I was seventy. But try as I might to just accept and bear it, I wasn’t happy. And that line, “We don’t have a lot of time on this earth! Human beings weren’t meant to spend it this way,” kept going through my head more and more often, until I finally decided: If I had only limited time, I didn’t want to sacrifice it to a corporation that couldn’t care less about me. I wanted to do something worthwhile with it. The pursuit of that thing would eventually lead me on a years-long journey through numerous monasteries and houses of various religious orders. But the first one was Benedictine. 

One morning at about five o’clock, in the darkened choir of a large Benedictine Abbey on the west coast, I found out for the first time what it actually takes to live a life of purpose. As the monks rose from their stalls to begin praying the office of Vigils, the precentor intoned the Invititory: “Come, let us worship Christ the Lord, we have left all things to follow him.” Then, in unison, the rest of the monks chanted the beautifully haunting line in response, repeating it several more times during the course of Psalm 95, the Venite. And I knew. 

In time, I gradually came to understand that Saint Benedict’s plan for teaching his monks how to follow Christ – to give up all things and seek God alone – was to establish the monastery as a school of the Lord’s service, a place where ordinary people come to learn how to follow the Gospel in the same way as the community of Believers described in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” This is none other than the ideal Saint Benedict invites us to strive for every day, right here, in this monastery: to hear and study the Word, to be community to one another, to share the Eucharist, and to pray for each other and for the world. 

Saint Benedict understands that the Believers in Acts are living the way they are because they have heard and embraced the Gospel of Jesus, and they are orienting their whole lives toward living as Jesus taught. Indeed, the Acts of the Apostles is a literary continuation of the Gospel of Luke, both written by the same person and intended to be read in sequence. So, they have, as Jesus proclaims in our Gospel reading from Luke today, heeded Jesus’ invitation and left all things to follow him. They are using the Gospel as their rule of life. Saint Benedict’s intention in writing his Rule several centuries later is by no means to replace the Gospel, but to help his nuns and monks follow it as faithfully as possible within the contexts of their own times and places. For fifteen hundred years, this has worked, because it is founded on one thing alone: the timeless desire of the human heart to seek, and to be found by, Christ. 

The shared vision of the Believers and Saint Benedict of simplicity and love of God and neighbor is a far cry from the fundamentally disordered obsessions of our modern social, political, and economic structures, and it was equally counter to the decadence, chaos, and violence of Saint Benedict’s time. And so, for the sake of the salvation of souls, he makes it clear that we have a solemn duty to show forth to the world that another way is possible through lives of peace and prayer. “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way,” he tells us in the Rule. Just imagine what a difference each of us could make if we really committed ourselves, every day, to being Jesus’ presence in the world. 

As appealing as that sounds – and we should do it – Jesus himself levels with us: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” He then goes on to stress just how intentional and disciplined we must be in our quest, or else we’re sure to falter. Our towers will stand unfinished, or we’ll find ourselves making peace with oppressors to keep from experiencing persecution and ridicule. In the Rule, Saint Benedict echoes this warning in the chapter on receiving new brothers, which our community just happened to hear read yesterday: “Do not grant newcomers to the monastic life an easy entry,” Saint Benedict cautions, “[if] they promise perseverance in their stability, then after two months have elapsed let this rule be read straight through to them, and let them be told: ‘This is the law under which you are choosing to serve. If you can keep it, come in. If not, feel free to leave.’” There can be no illusions, no mitigations, and no excuses when it comes to following Christ, in the monastery or anywhere else. 

There’s one more thing to beware of. As I have moved from corporate zero to professed monk, I’ve learned that the decision to leave all things and follow Christ is, unfortunately, not really a one-and-done kind of thing. It’s easy to make; not so easy to keep. For my part, I certainly struggle with distractions, temptations, laziness, and selfish tendencies pretty much every day. Ask a monastic – especially an older one – when they decided to become a nun or monk and they’ll likely answer, “When I woke up today.” As with any committed way of life, if we’re serious about staying the course in the monastery, then always we must begin again. But Saint Benedict reassures us that, even in our human weakness, all things are possible in the One whom we seek: “What is not possible to us by nature,” he tells us,  “let us ask to be supplied by the help of God’s grace … [while] there is still time, while we are in this body and have time to accomplish all these things by the light of life – we must run and do now what will profit us for eternity.” That’s a mission statement we can all get behind. 

So then, having heard this invitation – and what, dear friends, is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us? – let us set our resolve to bear our own crosses, calculate the cost, make our plans, and get about the business of following Jesus. “May we prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.” Amen. 

The Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 2026

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

Saint Joseph, March 19, 2026

• 2 Samuel 7:4,8-16
• Romans 4:13-18
• Luke 2:41-52

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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O God, my Creator and my Sustainer. Amen.

Among the many rites and ceremonies contained in the Book of Common Prayer is a service of Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child (page 439). As envisioned in the Prayer Book, “the parents, with other members of the family, should come to the church to be welcomed by the congregation and to give thanks to God.” The book further states that, “it is desirable that this takes place at a Sunday service,” such as the Eucharist or morning prayer.

In the section concerning adoption, there is a moment where the priest, holding or taking the child by the hand, gives the child to the parents, saying:

“As God has made us his children by adoption and grace, may you receive [this child] as your own son or daughter.”

The service concludes with a Trinitarian blessing over the family, part of which bids, “May God the Son, who sanctified a home at Nazareth, fill you with love.”

With these relatively few words and simple gestures, the Church publicly affirms, celebrates, and blesses the bonds of family in a profoundly sacramental sense. A child, begotten and beloved by God, is entrusted to people with whom they may or may not share a biological bond, to be nurtured, protected, taught, and – above all, loved – in no less than the very same way in which God loves. Here, an adoption ends and a family begins.

I think this beautiful little ceremony models quite well how God desires all of us to treat one another, regardless of whether we’ve ever adopted or been adopted in the usual sense. And I also think it really captures the faithfulness of Saint Joseph in his role as Jesus’ earthly adopted dad. Although the gospels don’t record any of Joseph’s words, their accounts of his, Mary’s, and Jesus’ family life – and certainly of Jesus’ adult life and ministry – speak volumes about how much he accepted and loved Jesus as his own child.

From Saint Matthew’s gospel, which we heard at Matins this morning, we know Joseph was a righteous man. That is, he was committed to living the way he believed God wants us to. So, when he found out Mary was going to have a child who wasn’t his, he sat down and had a good, long think about the best way to proceed. On the one hand, Joseph knew he needed to honor the law, but on the other hand he genuinely wanted to spare Mary from shame and suffering. A quiet separation seemed like the best way to go, until an angel reassured him that all would be well, and he should still marry her and raise the child as his own. And we know from various gospel accounts that Joseph did indeed take the angel’s command, as well as his parental role, very seriously. There was the Nativity, in which Joseph went to great lengths in difficult circumstances to find a safe place for Mary to give birth to Jesus; then there was the flight into Egypt, a perilous journey Joseph undertook to protect his family from Herod’s murderous violence; there was also the Presentation, in which he and Mary brough Jesus to the temple to fulfill the law, and where Jesus was recognized by people who were expectantly awaiting Israel’s messiah. And then, of course, there was the family’s annual trip back to Jerusalem for the Passover.

In today’s story from Saint Luke’s gospel, we find the Holy Family making one of these yearly Passover pilgrimages. Presumably, this had become pretty routine for them by this point, and so Joseph and Mary feel comfortable letting Jesus – now twelve years old and, religiously at least, an adult – travel in the company of his friends and siblings while they walk with the other grownups. When they finally realize Jesus isn’t in the group, they do what most parents would: initially freak out (probably) and immediately begin backtracking. Their exhaustive searching eventually leads to the Finding in the Temple, where they’re stunned to discover Jesus engaging with the teachers.

Mary, understandably, confronts their son, telling him how much anxiety this has caused her and Joseph. It’s in this line, I think, where we come about as close as we can to hearing Joseph actually speak. While we don’t know exactly what words he used, we know he was a worried, panicked parent. Whatever any of us thinks we’d say in a similar situation, Joseph probably said it, too. I really wonder what went through Joseph’s and Mary’s heads when Jesus responds, basically, that it’s no big deal and they obviously should’ve known where he’d be anyway. I can imagine Joseph thinking, if not actually saying, “Oh, I know exactly where you need to be, mister! At home! With your mother and me! In Nazareth!”

Whatever the exchange, it seems Joseph and Mary’s relief at finding Jesus far outweighs any anger they may have been feeling and, with Mary treasuring all these things in her heart, the three return to their home in Nazareth, where Jesus would spend the rest of his youth “increasing in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”

This is the last we really hear about Joseph. Scholars figure he probably died by the time we meet Jesus again in his early thirties more than a decade later, as he begins getting ready for his public ministry. But while Joseph may have been physically out of the picture, I think his influence remains present as ever.

I suspect it’s there in the way Jesus gathers his own adopted family of disciples. I also think we catch glimpses of Joseph whenever Jesus shows mercy to people society doesn’t think deserve it, like the Gerasene man afflicted by demons or the woman about to be stoned for adultery. He heals and corrects, but he doesn’t condemn – and I’ll bet he learned that from Joseph, a person we know was both genuinely righteous before the law and profoundly caring toward others. And then there’s Jesus with the little children; and when he calls anyone who does the will of God in Heaven his family. And let us not forget his great priestly prayer in chapter seventeen of Saint John’s gospel, where Jesus makes intercession for all of us (yes, that includes you, me, and everyone else, ever) before God, whom he is completely comfortable relating to as a son, as if he really knows from experience what it’s like to talk with a truly loving father. Then, at last, on the cross, when Jesus tells Mary and John that they’re nothing less than mother and son, and to take care of one another. I think in all these instances, and many more, we feel the far-reaching effects of Joseph’s parental faithfulness toward Jesus.

Much is often made of Joseph’s royal lineage, both in the readings for Christmas and today’s feast, as well as in the substantial popular devotion millions have had toward him over the centuries. But I really think it’s his faithfulness to honoring God by doing what was best for Jesus and Mary (and probably many others) that matters most of all. And that’s good news for the rest of us. Regardless of where we come from, what our socio-economic backgrounds are, or who we’re related to by blood, Saint Joseph shows us that we can – and do! – have a positive influence in the world simply by treating others with the same dignity and love God has for all of us. And in times such as these, that’s more important than ever.

Perhaps it’s worth reflecting on the Saint Josephs in each of our lives: those people who, despite not necessarily having to, nevertheless have chosen at some point or another to accept us as we are, to ‘adopt’ us in a very true sense. These could, of course, be parents who have literally adopted us into their families, as well as teachers, mentors, friends, ministers, co-workers, and even bosses. For me, my first supervisor comes to mind, as well as older and more experienced friends I’ve had over the years who welcomed me into their homes and social circles and made real efforts to support me as I began discovering who I was and how I could best fit in with the world around me. I’m both indebted to and grateful for these Saint Josephs. The wisdom they’ve shared and the lessons they’ve taught remain with me today, and they do have a very real influence on how I’ve come to know and approach God, as well as how I engage with and pray for others.

The story of Saint Joseph is one of loving faithfulness and accountability – both to God, and to others – as well as an example each of us is invited to follow. With the words quoted earlier from the Prayer Book in mind, may we, like Joseph, freely welcome Jesus in all whom God sends our way. And may we all, in supporting and caring for one another, come to fully see ourselves as members of God’s one Holy Family, created out of love and called to increase in wisdom and in years, and in human and divine favor, together. Amen.

The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1, 2026

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1, 2026

• Numbers 6:22-27
• Galatians 4:4-7
• Luke 2:15-21

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“O God, our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the World!” Amen.

The feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is one of several observances on the Church’s calendar known as “feasts of our Lord.” Others include the Presentation, the Transfiguration, the Nativity, and, the biggest one of them all, the Sunday of the Resurrection, or Easter Sunday. Like these other special days, the feast of the Holy Name helps us to meditate on and better understand a specific aspect of Jesus of Nazareth’s earthly life and teachings. Feasts of our Lord, as well as the feasts of the saints, invite us to pause and reflect on the unique role each of us plays in fulfilling God’s vision for the Church and the world. After all, Jesus’ first-century ministry was for our benefit, not his, and his special feast days help us see how we can become partners in that ministry right now in our own time and place.

But what’s really in a name? I mean, why the name ‘Jesus’ specifically? As with all names in the Bible, Jesus’ is rich in meaning and indicative of God’s particular job for him in the greater scheme of things. In Saint Luke’s Gospel, the assignment of Jesus’ name, which means “The Lord Saves” in Hebrew and Aramaic, is revealed to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel during the Annunciation. And so, right from the beginning, the naming of Mary’s child carries an important sacramental significance, and hints about what the future has in store for him.

Jesus’ name is no less meaningful today than it was back then. As probably all of us can attest, just hearing the name of Jesus is sure to evoke some kind of emotional response. Its mention can just as easily summon powerful memories based on how it’s been used with and around us (and possibly even against us) in the past. If Jesus’ name has been used rightly to teach us about love for God and neighbor, generosity of spirit, mercy, and service toward others, the memories are likely mostly positive ones. Sometimes, though, Jesus’ name is used wrongly, and then the memories around it aren’t usually so good, such as when it’s appropriated to incite fear or justify greed, domination, and violence. These are frankly blasphemous ways of using Jesus’ name, and today’s feast reminds us of our duty to restore it to its true, divinely appointed purpose of proclaiming God’s unconditional love for everyone.

In Sermon Fifteen on the Song of Songs, the twelfth-century monastic reformer, mystic, and early Cistercian, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, reflects on this transformative message of love inherent in the name of Jesus, saying:

“In some mysterious way the name of [God’s] majesty and power is transfused into that of love and mercy, an amalgam that is abundantly poured out in the person of our Savior Jesus Christ. The name ‘God’ liquefies and dissolves into the title ‘God with Us,’ that is, into ‘Emmanuel’ … Servants are called friends in this new way, and the Resurrection is proclaimed not to mere disciples but to [beloved sisters and] brothers [of Christ].”

As we can see in this quote, Saint Bernard marvels at God’s willingness – eagerness, even – to forgo majesty and power by dwelling with us humans in the person of Jesus. The utterly ineffable – and, ultimately, unnamable – Eternal God becomes true flesh and blood, fully relatable, and definitively namable. In short, the entire mystery of the Incarnation becomes accessible to us in the name of Jesus.

So, too, as we have heard and sung this morning, does the psalmist marvel at God’s desire to draw all of us into the fullness of creation, the source and summit of which is God’s own name; and, amazingly, to entrust us as stewards and heirs of the Divine Wonders, the greatest being the Divine Name itself. Truly, in spite of all our flaws, each of us by our very existence is shown to be utterly, undoubtedly, and unconditionally loved by God. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

But Jesus’ name isn’t meant simply to be a statement or even a summary of deeper truth, though it certainly is both of those. Rather, just as Jesus of Nazareth Incarnates and shows forth in his person our very God, Jesus’ name in its very self is an outpouring of his ongoing ministry among and through us. Using the example of oil, a basic and multifunctional staple of twelfth-century life, Saint Bernard goes on to expound on the efficacy of the Holy Name, saying:

“The likeness between oil and the name of [Jesus] is beyond doubt … I hold that the likeness is to be found in the threefold property of oil: it gives light, it nourishes, it anoints. It feeds the flame, it nourishes the body, it relieves pain: it is light, food, medicine. And is not this true too of [Jesus’] name? When preached it gives light, when meditated it nourishes, when invoked it relieves and soothes.”

When I stop and reflect on these words of Saint Bernard, I’m amazed at how true they really are. I can think of times when Jesus has been preached as the Way of Love, and I have seen God, those around me, and even myself in a new and gentler light; when I have managed to quiet myself in my cell or in the woods or by the river and meditated on Jesus as a devout Jewish mystic with a profoundly personal experience of God burning within him to be shared, I have indeed been renewed and nourished in my own spirit; and when I have uttered the name of Jesus the Great Physician in times of sickness, despair, brokenness, and trouble, I have never failed to feel the healing balm of Gilead at work deep within my sin-sick soul.

The name of Jesus, which is poured out by God as a source of healing, truth, and light in the world, is a reminder for each of us of our vocation to be sharers of that Good News; we are all siblings and partners of Jesus, not merely disciples and certainly not slaves, and so we are both commissioned and empowered to join in Jesus’ ministry of proclaiming the message of God’s love, and to do so boldly and joyously in the name of the one who first taught us. And, having received the Name of Jesus as our inheritance, we may, like the shepherds in Luke’s Gospel, glorify and praise God for what we have heard and seen.

But, it’s important that I add just one more thing. For as wonderful as all this may sound, we all know that sometimes it’s a lot easier said than done, especially when we’re weighed down by life, or struggling with challenging circumstances. And if that’s where any of us finds ourselves this morning (or this week, or this decade), that’s okay. When singing Glory to God in the Highest happens to feel just a bit too much, then simply doing as Mary does is enough for us, treasuring all these words as best we can and pondering them in our hearts.

As we begin the Two-Thousandth Twenty-Sixth Year of our life in Christ together, I pray that the peace and goodness of God, who indeed dwells among and within us as Emmanuel, be upon and remain with us. May each of us discover, feel, and share forth the light, nourishment, and healing beauty of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. Amen.

All Saints Day, November 1, 2025

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

All Saints Day, November 1, 2025

• Daniel 7:1-3,15-18 Psalm 149 Ephesians 1:11-23 Luke 6:20-31

Click here for an audio of the sermon

“Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness.” Amen. (2 Chronicles 6:41)

Regardless of anything that happens during the next several minutes, I’m happy to be able to assure you with the highest level of confidence possible that we’ll all be going to bed tonight convinced that we heard an amazing sermon here on All Saints Day. And not only will we remember the sermon as being pretty great, but we’ll also recall with wonderment at just how eloquent and wise the preacher was. Yes, we’ll all agree it was one of those sermons that leaves an impression, makes us think. Indeed, today’s sermon has the power – the likelihood, even – to change not only our lives, but also the lives of those around us. 

The sermon is, of course, the one Jesus just preached to all of us in Saint Luke’s Gospel: The Sermon on the Plain. As it’s obviously a perfect sermon, it will not be improved upon by anything anyone – and especially I – could possibly have to say about it. Jesus has just told us that true joy and purpose are to be found by living in love for God and one another rather than for the false and fleeting honors of the present age. In short, Jesus says, if we want to be “blessed” – that is, if we want to be saints (which is the whole point after all!) – we must strive to do the right thing, not worrying about the inevitable inconveniences it causes or the nasty reactions it sometimes incites in certain people, and to treat everybody – especially those who mistreat us – as we would like to be treated ourselves. 

And that’s pretty much it! There’s nothing else to add to the message. The only thing for us to do is to take Jesus’ words to heart, believe and understand them, and decide how we’re going to put them into practice. As we know, of course, this is far easier said than done much of the time. But, as it happens to be All Saints Day, we have the benefit of learning from so many people who have gone before us – as well as many who are journeying to Heaven with us in the here and now – to discover what living into the Reign of God in everyday life, as Jesus has just invited us to do, actually looks like. 

First, of course, there are the great saints of history, including those from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Take Daniel for instance. The passage immediately preceding today’s first reading contains Daniel’s famous ordeal in the den of lions. He was made to endure this by people who were angry that he was continuing to pray to God rather than to the earthly king Darius. And, sure enough, Daniel suffered. But because he was faithful to who he was and how he knew God wanted him to live, Daniel was indeed “blessed” in spite of being mistreated, and, through his example, he even eventually helped the king and others see and acknowledge the greatness of God. 

But the saints don’t only live in Bible stories and hagiographical legends. I can think of many times when complete strangers have unknowingly preached the Gospel to me simply by doing to others as they would have others do to them, or to their loved ones. In many ways, these are my favorite examples of the saints at work because, if we pay attention, we can see them happening almost anywhere – little Gospel vignettes playing out in real life. 

I remember riding the bus home from work on a very rainy afternoon, and people were getting on wearing raincoats and carrying wet umbrellas. But one man got on who hadn’t been prepared for the deluge and he was soaked to the skin. As he sat down, I could imagine how uncomfortable he was pressed against the seat with his wet clothes, his waterlogged socks squishing inside his work shoes, and the air conditioning chilling him out. But I wasn’t the only one who noticed him. There was a woman sitting across the aisle and a row back who immediately began pulling paper towels from her bag and handing them across. Even though he still stayed pretty wet, he could at least dry his head, face, arms, and hands. The gratitude on his face and in his voice said it all: he was profoundly thankful to have been unexpectedly blessed by this kind and caring saint. 

Then, of course, there are the saints we know more personally – our relatives, friends, classmates, coworkers, baristas – whose saintliness can often be a bit disguised, but who nevertheless bring Jesus’ words to life for us. Here in the monastery, I’m often touched and, frankly, shocked, by the many acts of thoughtfulness shown to me by my brothers when they notice that I could use a little extra kindness or understanding in a given moment, such as offering to cover a work assignment because they know I’m not feeling well, or patiently rearranging part of their own schedule to help me cope with a project or task that’s gotten away from me – and all without grumbling (at least outwardly) or expecting anything in return. In such cases, I can see the spirit of Jesus’ instructions to “Give to everyone who begs from you” being put into action in a real and holy way, and both the brother and I are indeed made “blessed” by this. 

In the beginning, I promised we’d go to bed thinking about the sermon we heard from Jesus this morning. But why wait until tonight? I’d like to invite all of us to spend time today thinking about some of the saints who have preached the Sermon on the Plain to us through the examples of their lives. These could be the celebrity saints of history, as well as our grandparents or parents; siblings, cousins, and other family member; friends; classmates; co-workers; people on the bus, train, or street – anyone whose actions, words, or presence have helped us see the path to God a little more clearly. 

And while we’re at it, let’s also honor those times when we, as saints-in-training ourselves, have been the bearers of Christ to others. Yes, it’s almost certainly a fact that, somewhere out there, a stranger still remembers you because you once smiled at them on a bad day; or you pulled their suitcase off the baggage claim belt when others were crowding it and they couldn’t get through; or maybe you casually waved them into your lane on the freeway when they were rushing to the hospital, desperate to see someone they loved for the last time. You just never know. As we think of all these saints – those both known to us and unknown, alive and at rest – let’s join with Saint Paul in praying for them and never cease giving thanks for the ways God’s love has shone – and continues to shine – through their lives. And may peace and all goodness be upon each and every one of us, now and always. Amen.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 2025

 Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 2025

• Isaiah 45:21-25
• Galatians 6:14-18
• John 12:31-36a

Ave crux, spes unica! Hail to the cross, our only hope! Amen. 

Amidst some of the bleakest and most uncertain days of 2020, gold-and-black signs bearing the words, “Tough Times Didn’t Break Us, They Made Us” began appearing in and around the city of Pittsburgh, where I was then living. To an outsider, this message may have seemed like a nice little bit of encouragement for an unprecedented and trying time. But for Pittsburghers, those eight words, fittingly framed by the city’s iconic colors, were an immediate reminder and rallying cry of who they were: A people shaped over years of enduring times such as these, and how, like the steel forged by generations of their forebears, each pass through the blast furnace had only made them stronger. In fact, nearly everything Pittsburghers have come to be known and celebrated for has roots in the countless challenges they’ve met and overcome; as a result, Pittsburghers understand as well as anyone that the road to the best of times invariably runs through the worst of them. And, with the pandemic showing no sign of letting up any time soon, it was important for Pittsburghers to reflect on that truth and to hang on to the sure hope it offered them. 

I say sure hope because, unlike vain hope, sure hope has much more going for it than mere wishful thinking. Hope that is sure, or certain, is built on a sound and reliable foundation. Simply put, we can be assured that there’s good reason to believe in it, even if at that precise moment it’s unclear how that hope can possibly pan out.

Hope’s capacity for being born out of the worst of circumstances never ceases to amaze me. One might wonder, for example, how something like the cross – devised as an instrument and symbol of imperial power and intimidation – can possibly be embraced, even celebrated, as a sign of sure hope in God’s loving-kindness. After all, its original purpose was quite the opposite: to inflict one of the most agonizing deaths imaginable on its victims, while simultaneously encouraging anyone else who might be thinking about challenging the state to think again. It was certainly never intended to inspire hope. And yet, we find ourselves here today, in a monastic order named for the cross, in the presence of two very large depictions of the cross, while exalting it in one of the principal celebrations of the church’s calendar. Like the outsider reading those Pittsburgh signs without fully grasping their true significance, we could be forgiven for finding all this cross-honoring a bit odd, especially since its most famous victim just so happens to be the founder of our religion. 

Luckily, it’s Jesus himself who provides the key to understanding the deeper meaning of the cross for us today. In our gospel reading, Jesus has already entered Jerusalem for the last time and is fully aware of the plotting that’s going on against him. Knowing of the Pharisees’ plan to turn him over to the Romans as a revolutionary, crucifixion is almost certainly the death that’s in store for Jesus. And so, he makes a point of proclaiming that God has already defeated the plotters’ plan. “Now is the judgement of this world,” Jesus tells them. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth (that is, up onto the cross), will draw all people to myself.” Even as they scheme to silence Jesus by killing him on a cross, they’re unwittingly playing into God’s purposes rather than their own. Despite the crowd not quite understanding Jesus, he urges them to pick up and carry his light into the world once he’s taken from them. “While you have the light, believe in the light,” he says, “so that you may become children of light.” Jesus is no lamb being led gently to the slaughter; he’s defiant in the face of injustice, and wants people to realize that they have not only the power, but the duty, to carry on his prophetic mission after he leaves them. 

In saying this, Jesus helps us understand that, regardless of how bleak things may seem in any given moment (and, facing impending crucifixion is definitely pretty bleak), God’s capacity to lead us through our present suffering and into new life is never bound by any human power. For Pilate, the cross seemed the obvious instrument for crushing Jesus and his message. But for Jesus, accepting with sure and certain hope that God would use even his forthcoming crucifixion to lead him – and all of us – more fully into God, the cross became a far more powerful means of subverting Pilate’s plans. In so doing, Jesus transforms the cross from a public spectacle of shame and death into a beacon of hope and new life. In other words, Jesus our High Priest has ripped the cross away from Pilate and offered it directly to God.  

Of course, as we know, humans do have a stubborn tendency to appropriate and misuse the good things of God, which means that even the cross we celebrate here today as a sign of hopefulness has at times been used for purposes more aligned with the cruel cowardice of Pilate than with the merciful message of Jesus. Sadly, and because of this, the cross has come to symbolize for far too many not the Reign of God, but rather cruelty, intolerance, judgementalism, exclusion, violence, and even death. I hope all of us, as a people who have hope in Jesus’ promise to draw everyone to God, will accept his invitation to become children of light and courageously live the cross’ true, transformed meaning in the world with compassion, respect, understanding, and, above all, love. 

Jesus and the disciples lived in a strange and seemingly apocalyptic time, as do we. Initially, the cross must have felt like utter defeat for those closest to Jesus, but it was an absolutely necessary step along the way to the bigger future God had planned for them. Even as the world itself seemed to be falling apart and there appeared to be no certain hope on the horizon, God’s people were being led toward something far better than the past they were already mourning. And God was doing this by overturning and glorifying one of the worst things imaginable in first-century Jerusalem: the cross.

Even as we try – and, at times, struggle – to look ahead with hope at the future God has already prepared for all of us, it’s important that we not lose sight of God’s presence right now, in the struggles themselves. After all, it’s the small moments of grace building one upon another during these stretches of suffering that ultimately move us into the better times for which we long. Although it can be difficult for us to stop and notice them in the here and now, if we dare to, we will surely recognize the presence of God. And, looking back later, we may even be astonished to see all the ways God was here, acting, the whole time. As Saint Augustine, patron of this very monastic church, reminds us in a sermon on Jesus’ Passion: 

“What God promises us for the future is great, but what God has already done for us in Christ is greater still. Who can doubt that he will give us his life, since he has already given us his death? … So my brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge without fear, indeed, let us announce publicly that Christ was crucified for us. Let us proclaim it not trembling, but rejoicing; not shamefacedly, but boasting. As the apostle Paul said, ‘Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’”

Yes, God is here with each of us even now in both our personal and collective struggles, just as God was fully present to Jesus even as he was raised onto the cross. We must never doubt that Jesus is already using our own crosses to lead us more fully into the knowledge and loving presence of God. With sure hope in God, tough times – even these tough times – can never break us.  

May peace and all that is good remain with us, and all those we love, and may we keep the cross of Christ ever before us, showing forth the light and hope of God into our world. Amen. 

The Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2025

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

The Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2025

• 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a
• Galatians 3:23-29
• Luke 8:26-39

Click here for an audio of the sermon

“Most High, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart, and give me true faith, certain
hope, and perfect charity, sense and knowledge, Lord, that I may carry out Your holy and true
command. Amen.” (The Prayer before the Crucifix, 1205/1206)
In the words of this simple prayer, uttered before the crucifix of the crumbling church of San Damiano near Assisi, Italy, in about the year 1205, Saint Francis gave voice to a new desire that was taking hold within him: namely, to offer himself completely and absolutely to God.

By asking to be emptied of everything that was not really him at all – that is, of all his
worldly thoughts, fleshy desires, and his prideful will – Francis would at last be free to
become the person he was truly meant to be, the real Francis who had been made by God for
the exact purpose each and every one of us has been created: to use our whole beings to love, and be loved by, God. To be fully human involves nothing less than this.
Francis, who was around twenty-four at the time, was just emerging from a period of
profound personal conversion. Having only recently recovered from a severe illness preceded by a failed military expedition involving a mysterious vision, this charming, handsome playboy son of a wealthy cloth family, the “King of Youth” as he had been known in Assisi, had now rejected his privilege and patrimony – even his family name – and become the penniless “Fool of God.” 

The main event in his conversion had been an encounter he’d had with a leper on the road outside of the city walls, in whom he had recognized not an object of fear as he previously would have done, but instead the very person of Christ. Francis’ response was to show mercy to the poor soul. And with that, he could no longer look at anyone ever again without seeing the face of God. Now, as he knelt before the altar of San Damiano, he could hardly know all the remarkable things the future had in store for him, things far greater than the glorious knighthood he’d always dreamed about for himself. But, in that moment of surrender, he had all he needed: complete faith in God’s loving mercy.
The conversion of Saint Francis has always been very special to me, and I couldn’t help
thinking of it as I reflected on this morning’s readings. Much like Elijah, Francis was finally
ready to say yes to God only because he had finally become aware of his complete
dependence on God. Both had to be shaken from sleepful complacency in order to
understand just how utterly not in control they actually were. Similar to Francis, Elijah had
also been acting as he thought he was supposed to, which in his case meant being a prophet
and demonstrating God’s true power and authority in Canaan. But now, after believing he
had achieved his purpose, he finds himself alone in the wilderness, being hunted down like a
criminal. It’s no wonder he wants to give up, saying, “It is enough.” But God doesn’t give up.
Through more than a little persistence (faithfulness, really), God leads Elijah from his sleep
beneath the broom tree to the top of Mount Horeb, the very place where Moses had
experienced his own theophany, where God is finally revealed to him in a sound of sheer
silence. Definitely not what he had been expecting.
We see another, and, in my opinion, profoundly touching, example of God’s particular love
for outcasts in today’s Gospel reading. As we’ve heard, the Gerasene Demoniac (let’s call
him Gerasene Guy, since no one should be defined by their challenges) faces a set of
absolutely heartbreaking circumstances. Although Elijah’s life and credibility as a prophet
are at stake, Gerasene Guy is in danger of losing all connection with something far more
fundamental: his very personhood. For a while now, he’s been existing not as a living human
being, made in the likeness and image of God, but as essentially a zombie. Devoid of
everything we associate with humanity, including family and community, clothing, and even
his reasoning, he’s instead been cast entirely outside of the social order. No longer seen as
acceptable to society and continually tormented by demons, he is for all points and purposes,
dead. (Incidentally, this is exactly how the lepers of Saint Francis’ time were looked upon;
there was even what was essentially a funeral liturgy for the newly diagnosed.)
But, even for all that, Gerasene Guy is not truly dead. There still remains, deep within him, a
spark of the Divine and, thus, of the human as well. As Jesus and his companions near the
shore in their boat, the Divine force within Gerasene Guy awakens. Then, as his human
heart, restless and long-tormented, recognizes the one sent by his Source, he goes to meet
him, and throws himself at Jesus’ feet. I can only imagine the anguish, fear, and, perhaps,
even the tiny bit of hope, he must have felt in that moment. And Jesus – understanding that
the demons are not the person – actually sees him, sees both the humanity and the divinity
within Gerasene Guy, and uses his power to cast out from him that which is not really him at
all. As he would inspire Saint Francis to do twelve-hundred years later, Jesus shows love to
the marginalized by first showing mercy.
While this doesn’t necessarily result in the best outcome for the swine, it does do something
amazing for Gerasene Guy: it makes him truly human and whole again. In fact, he has gone
from screaming and throwing himself before Jesus as a demoniac to sitting at his feet as a
disciple, dignified, clothed, and in his right mind. When people who know him – or, perhaps
more accurately, who think they know about him – see this, it fills them with fear because,
for the first time in years, Gerasene Guy is fully and undeniably human; but unfortunately,
they’ve lost the ability to see him as anything other than what they’ve decided he is. I must
admit that this forces me to consider how often I allow my own ideas about others to blind
me to their true humanity.
Naturally, Gerasene Guy wants to join Jesus on his mission, but Jesus – rightly recognizing
the need for people to understand the truth about what they had seen – tells him to return to
his long-forgotten home and practice his discipleship there, among his own people,
recounting what God had done for him. After all, the Gospel isn’t going to be spread very far
if all of Jesus’ disciples insist on clinging to their Teacher.
So, for Elijah to understand God’s purpose for him, he first needed to be woken by an angel,
drawn through the wilderness, and taken up a holy mountain. Gerasene Guy had to be brave
and run toward Jesus, who showed him mercy, made him a disciple, and told him to return
home to proclaim the reign of God to people who had so long feared him. And, of course,
Saint Francis could only become a living witness of the Gospel once he had been purged of
his love of the world’s vanities by coming to despise what he had once loved, and to love
what he had so feared. God never fails to favor most highly those who have dwelt in the
lowest places.
As I’m sure is true for all of us, there have been plenty of times when I’ve been so certain of
my own plans, ideas, and actions, only to watch them go up in smoke, leaving me to wonder
what else I’m wrong about and where in the world I’m going to go from here. True, none
were ever as serious has having to risk my life defending the worship of the God of Israel
over Baal Peor; or proclaiming the healing message of an itinerant Jewish preacher amongst
a community that had once cast me out for being full of demons; or even renouncing my
inheritance and every form of comfort and security for the sake of the Gospel. No, mostly
I’ve simply failed to recognize my complete reliance on God, and to see how much more
lifegiving it is just to live boldly into the simple events of everyday life.
Elijah, Gerasene Guy, and Saint Francis all bear witness to the fact that there are no
insignificant lives. And nothing – and no one – in our lives is truly insignificant either. In
fact, as our readings today show us, one of the most amazing truths of the human experience
is God’s never-failing preference for using the least likely people to achieve the most
extraordinary things. This ought to be a reminder to all of us that, though we can sometimes
feel hugely discouraged and ineffective within our chaotic and unjust world, our efforts –
even our most flawed efforts – at being bearers of the Gospel are revolutionary and holy acts.
Having begun this reflection with Saint Francis’ initial prayer of self-offering alone before
the crucifix, I’d like to close with a prayer written by him some twenty years later, after God
had sent him thousands of brothers, more than a few hardships, and many, many more
blessings. And as he asked the grace for him and his companions to know their dependence
on God in showing mercy and proclaiming the Gospel, may it be so for all of us today:
“Almighty, eternal, just, and merciful God: give us miserable ones the grace to do for You
alone what we know you want us to do and always to desire what pleases You. Inwardly
cleansed, interiorly enlightened and inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, may we be able
to follow in the footprints of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and, by Your grace
alone, may we make our way to You, Most High, Who live and rule in perfect Trinity and
simple Unity, and are glorified God almighty, forever and ever. Amen.” (A Letter to the
Entire Order, 1225-1226.)