Abbey News

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Joy!
If joy is like the rain we should be utterly ecstatic with all the downpours we've had this past week. Actually we do need the rain but not all at once. Our farm brothers have another good reason for being joyful: the day before the rains came they finished the wheat harvest. And an abundant harvest it was, about 70 bushels to the acre. Better than usual.

But as with most joy there was a hint of sadness too. After over fifty years of planting wheat this year's harvest is the last one since we are backing out of farming ourselves. At least until we can build up community ranks with an abundance of vocations. But, as mentioned earlier we will continue renting the farmlands to local farmers until such a time.

Speaking of vocations we had yet more joy this week welcoming Mark Hutchinson into the community as an observer. Mark, 31 years of age, hails from Utah and brings with him certification as a paramedic and fireman.

Now that we have prayed both Mark and Edgar into the observership we need to pray for their perseverance if God should so will. Pray he does!

Here we see Mark facing one of the several challenges of the observership: preparing the liturgical books for the Divine Office.

Grey Friars
Our three Franciscan Friars of the Renewal completed their retreat on Friday and returned to New York where they are making their solemn profession today. But not before another Grey Friar, Fr. Isaac-Francis Ross, FJH joined us for a few days retreat after visiting with his uncle, Fr. Marcellus. Fr. Isaac is a member of a fairly new religious community founded by Father Philip Scott in 1998 under the auspices of Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg in Tampa, Florida.

Fr. Isaac-Francis gave us a lively presentation of his community's foundation, unique way of life and missions in South America. You can find out more about them at their partially completed site at Family of Jesus the Healer.

Fr. Isaac-Francis is pictured here while still a postulant doing one of the chores that postulants do.

Prayerfulness of heart has much to do with finding the Center then living out of that Center in everyday centeredness. Space and time for God are necessary for that centeredness that becomes habitual - the very baseline of one's personal melody in the Spirit.

I once ventured to ask a markedly prayerful married woman how she prayed. She gave a surprising answer: I just putter. She worked and accomplished tasks, but with a free interior heart - free for God, free for holy musings, and free for praying for others.

Puttering is rather right-brained; it is not highly focused, not agenda-oriented, and not a charge up a mountain. Artists, poets, writers - creative and spiritual people - need non-agenda time in which to putter and live in 'interior space' where inspiration can happen. They need to cultivate the vessel of the heart: open, empty, and ready for inspiration - gift of the Spirit.

Sr. Donald Corcoran, OSB Cam.
The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality