Abbey News

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Interesting Week Coming Up
This past week has been another relatively quiet one but the coming week will be a bit more interesting:

• We'll be laboring on Labor Day as on any other day while celebrating the occasion in the liturgy with special Mass and Office;
  
• Tuesday will be the Feast of the Nativity of Mary which we'll keep with special liturgy and feast day fare. In the morning we'll have our annual meeting with our bread distributors for a state-of-the-bakery report with optional work in the afternoon;
  
• Wednesday our novice master, Fr. Gerard will, be heading out to Wisconsin to give the annual retreat to the Sisters of the Common Observance;
  
• Thursday our new Abbot General, Dom Eamon, and his secretary, Fr. William, will arrive for a five day visit. He will not be making a canonical visitation at this time but will be coming for more of a getting-to-know-you visit. Currently he is visiting monasteries in the United States and Canada. If visitors to the monastery happen to notice the monks on their best behavior they now know why.

A reminder to our local friends that because of Labor Day our Mass schedule has been changed due to the change in bake days. This week we are baking only Wednesday and Saturday. See our Liturgical Schedule page for details.

GLC Retreat
We were glad to welcome our Genesee Lay Contemplatives over the weekend for their annual retreat. They joined us for liturgy and had several meetings including a couple of conferences given by the brothers.

Web Site Woes

Most of the problems regarding the update of our web site Internet Provider have been solved thanks to the gracious help of Greg Walker, our web site designer. It seems that only one problem remains, that of accessing Abbey News from the top navigation bar. All other links seem to be okay. If you come across any I'd appreciate it if you would let me know via the webmaster link below.

It is encouraging to discover that computer folks have an ally to call upon in time of trouble: An official Patron Saint of the Internet, Saint Isidore. As his web site has it: Despite being born over a thousand years before the invention of the computer, Saint Isidore of Seville has been named the Patron Saint of the Internet. The full story can be found at Patron Saint of the Internet.

Mary's birth is the dawn of redemption; her appearance casts a new light upon all mankind: a gift of innocence, of purity, and of grace, a harbinger of the great light that will flood the earth when Jesus, the "light of the world," appears.

Our Blessed Mother, preserved from sin and full of grace in view of the merits of Christ, not only announces the approach of redemption, but bears its first fruits within her, for she is the first to be redeemed by her divine Son. Her immaculate conception is the first flower, blossoming in anticipation of his paschal mystery - a flower which brings joy to the world and is most pleasing to Almighty God.

After the birth of Jesus no other birth was ever as important in God's eyes or as precious for the good of the human race as was Mary's. Yet her birth remains in shadow; no one registered it, Sacred Scripture says nothing about it. Her early years disappear into silence just as all the rest of her life does.

Mary's birth is an even whose magnitude is wrapped in deepest humility. The more any of us wish to grow in God's eyes, the more we must make ourselves small and humble, and hid ourselves both from our own eyes and those of others.

Divine Intimacy
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD