SYLVESTRINE BENEDICTINE CONGREGATION

Dear Brothers in Christ,

As we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 8 September, I extend my prayerful greetings and fraternal good wishes to all who are united with us in faith and devotion.

The birth of Mary is like the first light of dawn announcing the rising of the Sun of Salvation. In the hiddenness of Nazareth, God was preparing the humble dwelling from which His Son would enter our world. Mary’s greatness was not found in worldly prominence, but in the simplicity of a heart wholly surrendered to God.

For us, as sons of the Sylvestro-Benedictine tradition, Mary offers a profound model of our monastic vocation. At the heart of Benedictine life is the search for God, Quaerere Deum. Mary embodied this search through a life of attentive listening, trusting faith, and generous surrender to God’s will. She welcomed His Word, pondered it in her heart, and allowed it to guide the whole course of her life. Her fiat-Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord,” speaks eloquently to the Benedictine spirit of obedience. She teaches us that obedience begins with listening: receiving God’s Word with humility and responding with trust, even when His purposes are not yet fully revealed.  Mary also reveals the harmony of Ora et Labora. Her prayer was inseparable from daily life, and her contemplation naturally opened into service. Having received the Word, she hastened to the hill country to assist Elizabeth. Her encounter with God became a concrete expression of love, showing us that genuine prayer always bears fruit in charity.

This is also the path of our Sylvestro-Benedictine vocation: to seek God in prayer, to encounter Him in community, to recognize His presence in our daily work, and to serve Him in our brothers and sisters. Mary reminds us that holiness is often formed quietly, in fidelity to our common prayer, humble work, fraternal life, and the generous offering of ourselves each day.

May her example renew in us the grace of our vocation. May she teach us the silence that listens, the humility that receives, the obedience that trusts, and the charity that serves. May her fiat inspire us to place our lives anew at the service of God and His Church. On this feast, may Mary lead us more deeply into the mystery of Christ and teach us, in the spirit of St. Benedict and St. Sylvester, to prefer nothing to the love of Christ and to seek God with an undivided heart.

May this celebration become for each of us a renewed “yes” to God, a deeper love for our vocation, and a more generous readiness to serve.

With prayerful good wishes and fraternal affection,

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Fr. Vincent Korandiarkunnel OSB
Conventual Prior
St. Joseph’s Priory, Makkiyad