Thanksgiving & Advent at Santa Rita Abbey Christmas is just a week away! We plan to publish a Christmas photo journal sometime afterward. In the meantime, however, here’s a little update on the last several weeks. Thanksgiving Day was the lovely feast it always is, celebrating God’s wonderful gifts to us throughout the year. On the first Sunday
Third Sunday of Advent Candle and flame. Light and relationship. Our third Advent Candle burns with the desire of the God-who-waits that we yield our substance to the flame of his love in relationship. Relationship which takes its expression in how we relate to God’s presence in us, in others and in the circumstances that make up our lives. We
Second Sunday of Advent Another candle expands the circle of light we call the Advent Wreath. One more candle welcomes the flame of our God who waits. Last week we spoke of yielding our inmost depths to God-with-us in the silence of our being. Our second candle invites us to open out to the God who surrounds us in all
First Sunday of Advent The first flicker of light tops the candle among the greens of our Advent Wreath. Our candle has yielded its substance to fire and casts its gentle glow. The candle and the fire have become one. We stand at the threshold of a season of longing, of waiting. “O Come Emmanuel, God with us.” He is
October/November 2016 News from Santa Rita Abbey How did the year zoom by so quickly that Thanksgiving Day is next week?! Yet here we are! Fr. Casimir will return for another stint as our chaplain just in time to celebrate Mass for us on Thanksgiving Day. He will stay for all of Advent, Christmas and into the New Year, leaving
A REFLECTION ON LUKE 12:49-53 Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” We are surrounded by fire–the fragments of the ball of fire that Jesus cast upon the earth and of which he speaks in this Gospel passage. It was his mission and it consumed him–this passionate desire to
September/October 2016 News from Santa Rita Abbey What beautiful weather we are having at Santa Rita Abbey right now! There’s something special about blue skies in October. Thanks to the rain in September the grass is still green, and there are yellow wildflowers, of all sizes, in bloom everywhere. Last spring we planted muhly grass in the old rosebush beds at
A Reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Mark 9:30-37 Jesus was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.” When you look at today’s Gospel, what do you see? I suppose there are many fruitful