Abbey News

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Psalmtones

Yesterday the men's schola from Rochester, NY known as the Psalmtones joined us for our Saturday afternoon Mass and Vespers. In keeping with their annual practice they sang several pieces which included Gregorian chant. As always it was uplifting to hear Gregorian chant sung at its best.

You can hear some of their newest selections by visiting their web site at The Psalmtones. A cd they produce can be purchased by contacting Ralph F. Jozefowicz, MD at Ralph_Jozefowicz@urmc.rochester.edu.

More Comings And Goings
Early in the week we welcomed Fr. Fidelis, CFR into the community for a week's retreat with us. A few days later our observer, Mark Hutchinson, completed his observership and set out for the mountains of Utah to visit with his family and wind up all his "worldly" affairs. If all goes according to plan he is due to return as a postulant in early September.

Finally, Abbot John left Thursday for the General Chapter which is being held in Assisi, Italy from September 2nd to the 23rd. On his way over he is stopping at the only Cistercian community of women in Ireland, Glencairn, located along the lush banks of the River Blackwater to give them a week's retreat. He is scheduled to give fourteen retreat conferences and seven homilies!

Sunflowers Galore. . .
. . .with Br. James right in the midst of them. Having helped Br. Alberic with the planting he certainly has every right to enjoy their cheery presence. But not without a tinge of sadness. Since we are not going to be farming ourselves after this year this is the very last of our sunflowers. Folks upon learning of this have been asking: "Does that mean

(click photo for enlargement)

you won't be baking your delicious Sunflower bread any longer?" Happy to report it does not mean that at all. It seems there are grades of sunflower seeds and only certain ones can be used for human consumption. The seeds from the ones we grow are used for bird feed so it is the local bird population that will be out of luck.

Schedule Change
Due to change in baking day schedule for the week of Labor we've had to make some changes in the times for Mass on a couple of days that week. You'll seem them on our Liturgical Schedule page.

For each of us, our prayer can be realized only in the here-and-now "body-person-conditioned" dialogue with the Triune God in my life. And this life, although limited as a moment in history, is unlimited in its openness to the divine self-communication in all of reality.

The Christian person must stand among men as a prayer that speaks, through his openness to all of reality, of the Infinite dimensions - the "breadth, length, height, and depth" of God's incarnated gift of Himself in Christ. Christian prayer, then, is essentially our openness in faith to receive God within all of reality. This broad description has the capacity to embrace all of the more traditional divisions of the prayer of petition, thanksgiving, adoration, etc.

But what we wish to point out in using this more generic description is that prayer must become sacramentally effective within interpersonal relationships, and that this is possible only when our prayerful response to the divine self-gift is characterized by certain signs that have the capacity to communicate to others this attitude of openness in faith.

Edwin McMahon, SJ & Peter Campbell, SJ
Becoming a Person in the Whole Christ