Merry Christmas! Here are a few glimpses of our Christmas Eve, Midnight, and Christmas Day celebrations. We hope that your own celebrations were full of wonder, grace and thanksgiving. We are blessed to have Fr. Thomas, a monk of New Clairvaux in Vina, CA, as our Christmas chaplain. Christmas Eve 4:00 p.m. Just before Vespers on Christmas Eve, we had our annual Christmas tree blessing. Fr. Thomas gave the blessing,…
Highlights from October, November, and the Season of Advent at our monastery of Santa Rita October Our annual private community retreat this year was held October 13-19. Our retreat master was Dom Eric Varden, abbot of Mt. St. Bernard's Abbey in England. Fr. Eric offered Mass for us each morning, and gave two retreat conferences each day. His talks were explorations and meditations on Genesis 1-3. We found them very…
Here's some highlights from August and September at our monastery of Santa Rita August We were delighted to meet our new parish pastor, Fr. Alex Tigga. He offered Mass for us on August 24th and stayed for brunch afterwards. We enjoyed learning about his native India and his early vocation to the priesthood. Sister Esther has kept us well supplied with fresh vegetables from her garden this summer. There's nothing…
Forty years ago, in September of 1978, Arizona Highways magazine did an article about our monastery. Tim Fuller was the photographer in 1978, and last year he called Mother Vicki to ask if they could come back to visit us again for another article. Kelly Vaughn interviewed Mother Vicki and wrote the article. Tim Fuller did the photography. We thought they did a great job and so we want to…
We were very happy to host a number of women interested in learning more about our Cistercian way of life for a beautiful and grace-filled Monastic Experience Weekend August 16-19. The days afforded participants with both personal reflection and group sharing time, as well as the opportunity to pray and talk with sisters and to share a meal with the community. Here are a few of their reflections on…
As promised in our July post, here are more fawn photos! Since mid-August there has been only one fawn with the doe. We are afraid that something may have happened to the other fawn, but are hoping that maybe that doe moved her twins elsewhere and the doe and fawn hanging around now are a different family ... ? In any case, this fawn is growing up quickly. Already its…
We've been blessed this summer to have several different visiting priests who have kindly offered Mass in our chapel during their stay. Sr. Hildgard's family friend, Fr. Josephat (pictured above), was here in early July. Not long after, the superiors of seven monasteries of our Order held their pastoral meeting in our family guest house, and the five abbots in the group took turns presiding at the daily Eucharist.…
Feasts of the Lord All of the post-Easter season solemnities fell in the month of June this year: the Ascension of the Lord, Pentecost (photo above), Most Holy Trinity, Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ, along with the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on the last Friday of the month. In addition, June has two solemnities of its own: the Nativity of St. John the Baptist…
Laudato Si' Care for Creation Mass Our friend Msgr. Tom Cahalane, along with several members of the Care for Creation Committee at his parish of Our Mother of Sorrows in Tucson, celebrated a Mass for Creation here on Saturday, May 4th. They invited us, too, along with a few of our local friends. We all gathered on the spacious porch of our family guest house for the celebration of the…
Christ is risen, Alleluia! We had a beautiful Holy Week and Easter this year, and we hope you did, too! We are most grateful to Fr. Thomas, monk of New Clairvaux Abbey in CA, for being our chaplain during these special weeks, and to his abbot and community for sharing him with us. Now as we bask in the over-flowing grace of the Easter season, we'd like to share with…
