2022: A Year of Jubilees at Santa Rita Abbey
We are celebrating three jubilees in 2022!
First off, on February 6, was the 50th anniversary of the foundation of our monastery of Our Lady of the Santa Rita Mountains. Next, in April, is our Sr. Clare’s 70th anniversary of vows, and in December, our Mother Vicki’s 50th anniversary of vows.
Our Foundation
It was on Sunday, February 6, 1972 that our six foundresses, accompanied by Rev. Mother Angela Norton, abbess of Mt. St. Mary’s Abbey in Massachusetts, landed at the Tucson airport and traveled the fifty miles to their new home, Our Lady of the Santa Rita Mountains, in Sonoita, Arizona. We’d love to invite you to come celebrate with us, but since Covid-19 still has the world in its grip, we are postponing public celebration of this joyous occasion to 2023. In the meantime, we plan to celebrate digitally by sharing photos and history of our 50 years through our website, email newsletter, and social media, throughout the year. Keep your eyes open for it! By the way, to be sure that you don’t miss any of these, sign up for our email newsletter by using the button on the bottom of this page. (In the photo are Sisters Beverly, Loreto (Anita), Vicki, Clare, Mother Cecile, and Fr. Bernard Johnson (?); in front: Sr. Celestine with our first dog, Kina, in July 1972.)
Our Sisters’ Jubilees
Among our group of foundresses were Sister Clare and novice Sister Vicki. What a happy coincidence that their 70th and 50th anniversaries of monastic profession (vows) also occur in this year of 2022! We will share more about these two beloved sisters closer to their respective anniversaries. If you follow us on Instagram, you may have already seen their bios during National Vocation Awareness Week this past November. Look them up @santaritaabbey. (Photo: Mother Beverly, our prioress from 1990 – 2000, Sr. Clare and Sr. Vicki on Feb 6, 1991.)
Our Order in 2022
Meanwhile, our Order, the Cistercians of the Strict Observance (a.k.a. the Trappists) plans to hold not only one, but two general chapters in Italy this year. General chapters are attended by all the abbots and abbesses of our international order. There would have been one in September 2020, but Covid-19 made that impossible. Plans were made for September 2021, but that also was cancelled. Now the Order is aiming for two chapters in one year, in February and in September. The first of these, the February 7 – 17 General Chapter, is currently underway. The first order of business was to elect a new abbot general which the Chapter did on February 11: Dom Bernardus Peeters. Until the moment of his election, Dom Bernardus was abbot of Our Lady of Koningshoeven/Tilburg in the Netherlands. Please join us in praying for God’s blessing upon him as he takes up his new responsibilities. For a glimpse of the general chapter, visit the general news page on our Order’s website at https://ocso.org/category/general-news/