Abbey News

Saturday, December 12, 2009

First the good news. . .

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Last Tuesday, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, two of our senior brothers celebrated their Golden Anniversary of Solemn Profession. It was fifty years ago to the day that they made their life time consecration to God as Trappist monks. At the offertory of Mass Fr. Marcellus and Br. Christian renewed their vows and placed their vow formula on the altar where it remained during the rest of the Mass, a fitting symbol of their monastic re-consecration.

The celebration continued at dinner where the two jubilarians sat at the abbot's table for our festive meal. After dinner speeches were in order after the meal during which it was remarked that they have lived their long monastic life under five different abbots.

Here we see Br. Christian holding forth with Fr. Marcellus in the center awaiting his turn and Abbot John listening with rapt attention.

We joined them in thanking the Lord for their perseverance all these years and asking for the grace of final perseverance in the peace and joy of the Lord.

Return From Brazil
Who shows up for the office of None on Thursday but our Prior, Fr. Jerome, fresh from a two week's stay at our daughter house, Novo Mundo, where he gave the community a course on canon law. He was genuinely glad to be back in the Genesee Valley despite the fact that it was a lovely 90 degree spring day in Brazil when he left and he arrived in the midst of the first serious snow storm of the season.

. . .and then the bad news.
Also on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception the following notice appeared on the Order's web site:

This morning (December 8) we received the tragic news of the death of Sr. Denise Kahambu Muhayirwa (44). After dark (December 7) three armed men entered the compound and followed the guests to the Guesthouse of La Clarté-Dieu. They demanded money from Sr. Denise, the guestmistress. She attempted to flee and was shot dead. The attackers escaped.

 

Two nights earlier in a nearby parish a priest was killed in similar circumstances.

 

Please pray for Sr Denise, for the community of la Clarté-Dieu, for her bereaved family and for troubled and strife-ridden region.

Later the same day Zenit News published further details at Congolese Mourn Murdered Priest and Nun. So, it is with renewed fervor we pray for the acceptance of the Prince of Peace in our violence-ridden world this Christmas.

Faith, whether by word or by sign, opens the eyes and ears of the heart. Those who believe are said to see and to hear because faith is a light and a word.

It is a light, in accordance with what the apostle says: God, who told the light to shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Co. 4:6).

The time that God told the light to shine out of darkness was when he called us from darkness to his own wonderful light (I Peter 2:9), when he dispersed the darkness of ignorance and said: let there by light, and there was light (Gen1:3).

The Commendation of Faith
Baldwin of Forde - 12th century Cistercian Abbot