Merry Christmas Octave!

Blessed Feast of the Theotokos!

Happy New Year!

Holy Epiphany Eve!

    I hope you don't mind - this blog post is going to be kind of all over the place. Perhaps that is how some of you are feeling on this last day of 2010!  

    Tonight we will have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at 11:30 and "ring in the New Year" by chanting Matins. All of you, our readers, have a special share in our poor prayers. May the Lord forgive all our sins and faults of 2010 and may we respond more generously to the promptings of His radical Love in 2011.

   Now for sundry photos and thoughts...

Our Jesse Tree in our refectory a few days before Christmas

    During the Advent liturgy we heard many Old Testament readings telling of the coming of the long-awaited Messiah. They waited thousands of years for Him to come! 

"Joy to the world! The Lord has come! Let earth receive her King!"

    Even from the confines of His cradle, Redeeming Love begins the restoration of the universe.

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Christmas brought us a little humor too...

    It's hard to believe it has been almost two years since the big ice storm of 2009. Mother Catherine Marie, always the generous one, making sure her spiritual daughters are a little better prepared for "next time", found a good deal on these bonnet scarves and so bought each of us one for Christmas!

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PRAY FOR OUR ASPIRANT LIZ!!!

    I have some very EXCITING news to share with you...we have an aspirant coming this week!  She will arrive Wednesday evening. The aspirancy lasts about 3 months; it is an extended visit to further discern Passionist life.  Please keep Liz and her family in your prayers. Liz hails from Texas - so we will have another Texan in our midst!

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    The Epiphany of Bethlehem is a strange mingling of light and shadow. The Dayspring from on high shines upon a world darkened by sin and death and subservience to the powers of night. The great God-Man is made known to a few men but remains hidden from most. Some welcome and worship Him, while others plot His destruction.  Innocent hearts blaze with the flame of love, and yet corrupted minds fill up with the smoke of hate. Even in His infancy, in the very act of being manifested, the face of the Man of Sorrows is "as it were hidden and despised" (Isaiah 53:3).

    May the Star arise within us to pierce the darkness of our hearts, our nation, our world and lead us to the Bethlehem above.

~ Some of these ponderings are from Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery by John Saward

~ Night photos of monastery courtesy of Sr. Rose Marie's father - Mark Schoppe