On May 24th, the Feast of Mary Help of Christians, Belmont Abbey Basilica’s namesake, the community celebrated Brother Paul’s Golden Jubilee – 50 years of religious life!
In his homily Abbott Placid shared about both the importance of the feast, and the reminder to call upon Mary as our helper in our daily lives, and also connected it to the beautiful example of the vocational life and ‘yes’ of Brother Paul:
“In celebrating our patronal feast and in celebrating the monastic life of our confrere, it is
fitting that we look to the Blessed Virgin Mary as our model. In the first place, the Lord himself,
as he accomplished his great saving dead on the cross, gave his mother to all his disciples as our
mother, to take into our home, that is, into our inmost heart. The acceptance of Mary as our
mother is, in the first place, our profession of faith that the Son of God, the Eternal Word, Jesus
Christ Our Lord truly and fully took to himself our frail human nature for our salvation. To
profess Mary as Mother of God is to marvel at the incomprehensible profundity of God who is
love, that the Creator subjected himself to his creation, the Immortal accepted death for us, the
all powerful limited himself to the form of a human being. Our celebration of Mary as Mother of
God is our expression in celebration and in liturgical praise of the words we will shortly profess:
‘He came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and
became man.’ ”
God bless Brother Paul, and Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us & guide us all in our respective vocations!