EPIPHANY

CHRIST IS BORN FOR US! COME, LET US ADORE!

 
Off To A Good Start
 

Vocation wise we begin the New Year with what we hope might well be a harbinger of more to come, namely, an observer. Looking to the months ahead it is likely a couple more observers may be coming along. Our present observer is 29 year old Vincent Cama from Ottawa, Canada. He brings with him experience of community life having been with the Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, Canada for several months and spending a semester at St. Augustine's Seminary, Toronto, Canada. With his experience working as a chef over the years he'll most likely have some of his work cut out for him if he should enter the community. 

Here we see our Novice Master, Fr. Gerard, showing Vincent around our ample, well-stocked library which Vincent is making good use of. 

Media Exposure
We rang out the old year with a newspaper article on our bakery and rang in the new with one on our farm. World Traveler, George Bailey, from Canada writes of his extensive travels in a series, What Travel Writers Say, came through Geneseo recdently for a story on that quaint village and came over to the monastery for a story on our bakery. You'll find his article at Monks' Bread is Heavenly, a caption we hope many of our customers will agree with.

Several months ago the farmers who lease our land proposed building a lagoon on our property for the purpose of fertilizing the fields with digested manure from their cattle operation. After a number of meetings with representatives of the farmers and discussions among ourselves and listening to the responses from our neighbors it was decided not to go ahead with the project. Fr. Jerome wrote a press release for the county paper which can be found at Monks Cancel Manure Lagoon.

Coming & Going
Since our last posting we've welcomed several priests and religious for an in-house retreat with us including two CFR Brothers, Br. William, OCSO from Hong Kong and our good friend of many years, Msgr. Krieg. Tomorrow morning, while still recovering from quite a bad cold, Fr. John will depart for Novo Mundo, our daughter house in Brazil, where he will make the visitation. He plans on returning January 25th in time for the celebration of the solemnity of our Order's Founders, Sts. Robert, Alberic & Stephen, the next day. Our deacon, Br. Isaac will return to Washington for his final semester before his August ordination to the priesthood.