ABBEY NEWS
Holy Week Schedule
The schedule for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday has been posted for those of you joining us for the celebrations. You will find it on our Daily Liturgical Schedule page.
Stations of the Cross
Often visitors to our Abbey Church notice the absence of the stations of the cross and wonder why. Praying the stations is a
Catholic devotion going back to the middle ages and is still popular today and they can be found in most Catholic Churches.
For the sake of simplicity the only figures traditionally to be found in Cistercian Abbey Churches are a crucifix and icon or statue of Our Blessed Mother along with the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament.
It is a common practice to have a side chapel or cloister where the Stations are displayed for those wishing to pray them, especially during the Lenten Season. Here at Genesee we have them displayed along a wall of the east cloister of the cloister quadrangle and is commonly referred to as the Stations Cloister where those wishing to pray them can do so in relative peace and quiet.
Information on the devotion of the Stations can be found on the Our Catholic Faith page.
Progress Report
For the past few weeks the Building Committee has been meeting with our interior design consultants working out the details for the proposed renovation of the reception room, now known as the welcome center, and bread store. This past Tuesday we had our final meeting for this phase of the project. Next on the agenda will be working with the architect on formulating detailed plans for the actual construction. No date for the meeting has been set just yet.
Monks’ Bread Easter Sale
Our on-line Monks’ Bread store is running an inviting sale: 4 loaves of Monks’ Bread and 3 Trappist Jams for only $33.99 including shipping. Orders can be placed our Easter Sale page.
Lectio Notebook
Enmity with God is the source of all that poisons man; overcoming this enmity is the basic condition for peace in the world. Only the man who is reconciled with God can also be reconciled and in harmony with himself, and only the man who is reconciled with God himself can establish peace around him and throughout the world.
But the political context that emerges from Luke’s infancy narrative as well as in Matthew’s Beatitudes indicates the full scope of these words. That there be peace on earth (cf Lk. 2:14) is the will of God and, for that reason, it is a task given to man as well.
The Christian knows that lasting peace is connected with men abiding in God’s eudokia, his “good pleasure.” The struggle to abide in peace with God is an indispensable part of the struggle for “peace on earth”; the former is the source of the criteria and the energy for the latter.
When men lose sight of God, peace disintegrates and violence proliferates to a formerly unimaginable degree of cruelty. This we see only too clearly today.
Jesus of Nazareth
Pope Benedict XVI
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