SEEK 2026 was a great experience. Each year we have a vendor’s booth for ICS publications, and a number of the young or student friars go to talk with people about Carmelite spirituality and promote the great writings of our saints. This was my first year going and it was a blast; the days were filled with so many good interactions! We also were blessed to encounter many other religious, including our Sisters and Brothers from other Carmelite congregations.
   

Holy Week and the Easter Triduum offer an especially poignant opportunity to enter into Jesus’s life and ministry each year as the Church invites us to share in the great drama of Holy Week and the Triduum, culminating in Easter, the feast of Christ’s Resurrection and of our Redemption. One of the highlights of this most special week is the time, each year, between the end of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and midnight on Good Friday morning, when we have the opportunity to sit with Our Lord in the garden and share in the sacred silence of that time of prayer. This year, I was asked to build the Altar of Repose for our monastery, and though it is only up for a few hours, it was a memorable experience to stay up the night before to begin construction and continue it throughout Holy Thursday morning and afternoon. Last year, a member of one of the OCDS groups who meet in Brighton taught me to make flower arrangements for the refectory (dining room), and I used those lessons to make the vases for our altar this year. Everyone who attended Mass came down to Adoration for a little while, and more people cycled in and out to spend some time with Our Lord as the night went on. Once an hour, one of the brothers read from St. John’s Last Supper discourses, helping each of us to enter more deeply into the night’s significance.

"Therefore, dearest friends, 
standing in the awesome glory of this holy light,
invoke with me, I ask you,
the mercy of God almighty,
that he, who has been pleased to number me,
though unworthy, among the Levites,
may pour into me his light unshadowed,
that I may sing this candle's perfect praises."
— from the Exultet (Easter Proclamation)

I have always had a great love for the mystery of the Resurrection, especially as it is solemnly recalled and made present again in the celebration of the Easter Vigil. Indeed, the Second Reading from the Office of Readings - that powerful passage from the Homily by a Second Century Author - and especially the Easter Exultet have so stirred my heart and attracted me to this mystery that I took it as my religious subtitle. However, this year, I was blessed to experience the Resurrection in a new way - as an ordained minister of the Church. It properly belongs to the deacon's part to solemnly proclaim the Exultet and, although I have proclaimed it before as a lay cantor and practiced it many times, this year was the first time that I could solemnly proclaim the selection quoted above. In that moment, these words: "invoke with me, I ask you, the mercy of God almighty, that he, who has been pleased to number me, though unworthy, among the Levites, may pour into me his light unshadowed..." struck me with a new potency. Indeed, I could see my whole diaconal ministry up to that point reflected in the light of the Paschal Glory, symbolized in the flame of the Easter Candle: preaching at my brother-in-law and sister's wedding last October, baptizing my niece last November, being present for and serving the Mass of dedication for the new parish church of St. Mary of the Hill last December, and having the opportunity all throughout these past six months or so to preach, serve, and baptize at my diaconal assignment here in Boston. And yet, in spite of all of the beauty and joy given to me in this ministry, I am also daily reminded that it is entrusted to an earthen vessel and one with his own fragilities and failures. Truly, I am unworthy to be numbered among the Levites, and yet God has seen fit so to number me. Yet, this is not the end of the story. As this Paschaltide gives way to Pentecost and we prepare to once again enter back into Ordinary Time, me and my diaconal class (Br. John-Magdalene of Mary Immaculate and Br. Isaiah of the Holy Face, both serving at Holy Hill in Wisconsin) are also making final preparations to be ordained to the Priesthood in the coming months. Please keep us in prayer. Again "dearest friends.... invoke with me, I ask you, the mercy of God almighty...." that He may once again pour into us "his light unshadowed..."

After three and a half years of theological studies, I graduated from seminary this past December 2025. I was looking forward to seeing what life in Carmel held for me, and God hasn't disappointed me these past few months! January was a busy month between the SEEK26 conference and an extended stay in the DC area for my sister's wedding and the March for Life. Since then God has opened doors for me and given me various ministry opportunities, whether that be a local Theology on Tap or partnering with the Catholic spirituality app Monk Mindset. But what I've most appreciated about this time is that I can focus more of my life around Carmel. I've had time to pick up some books on Carmelite and religious life again that I haven't read since I first entered the Order; I've been able to pray more; and I've been blessed to just be in the monastery more, present to God and my brothers. God's been very good to me, and I'm looking forward to seeing what new things He has in store, especially as I prepare for solemn vows!

My dear brothers and sisters, in Christ Jesus,

Greetings in the Resurrection Season of God’s Son, Our Savior!

It has been a very busy time, following the Easter Vigil, the Octave of the Resurrection, and now the Resurrection Season.

He has risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!

As he said, Alleluia, Alleluia!

The community greets all of you with the joy of the Resurrection and keeps you in prayer.

The students have just finished their final exams. The solemn professed are ministering in various ways by self-sacrificing service in Word and Sacrament.

All point to our faith in the fulfillment of the type of manna. A type is a prefigurement of an object or image from the past. As manna was the food God provided for the people during the Exodus. The Gospel says the people state “Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, and it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (John 6:31)

Jesus replied: “Amen, amen I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from Heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.”

The type, manna, was fulfilled in the new “Manna,” the Living Bread: Jesus.

Jesus went on to say: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

And later He states: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from Heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” (Jn 6:47-51)

The manna which sustained them in the desert was eaten as a form of bread.

The New Manna Jesus, the Living Bread, sustains us to Eternal Life. Not just life here in a limited time but through Jesus, Eternal Life. This is what we proclaim by our lives.

Paralleling these Gospel passages during the Masses of the Third Week of Easter is the story of Saint Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 7). Saint Stephen gives witness to the truth of Jesus’ words by paying the ultimate price one can pay on this earth. He gave his life witnessing to Jesus, the Bread of Life. He gave it because he believed Jesus’ words and in the Resurrection which was the proof that the Father and the Holy Spirit support and verify the words of Jesus. The eternal life Jesus offers us is contained in the new manna, the Sacrament of the Altar. This continues to spiritually nourish us and grants eternal life. Stephen was not afraid of death because he believed.

This is what we are called to as baptized Christians. We are to live His life and suffer, according to the Father’s Will with His Only Begotten Son, by the Power of the Holy Spirit!

“Take up your cross and follow me”. Jesus invites us to be Stephens in the world today and to give witness to the “New Manna”, and the Resurrection.

Happy Easter Season and beyond. May the Good God continue to strengthen your faith and enable you to witness, in your circumstances and in the way you can so as to give witness to His eternal plan of salvation.

God is with your spirits! A bientôt (See you soon)! Deo volente (God willing)!

With joy in the Espousal of Mary and Joseph,

Your Friar Father Bonaventure, OCD (Prior)

(Photos: Spring flowers around Boston, taken by a brother on his walks.)