ABBEY NEWS
Anniversary Of Solemn Profession
This past Thursday, August 11th, our Fr. Jerome Machar, OCSO celebrated the 25th anniversary of his solemn profession of vows as a Trappist monk. To mark the occasion he was principle celebrant at the community Mass and was greeted with fraternal congratulations throughout the day from the brethren.
The festivities continued Saturday when a gala reception was held for him with family, friends and community members at Bethany House. Upwards of 40 people gathered for a well prepared picnic lunch. The elements joined in by providing periodic thunder and lightning and occasional much needed heavy rain much to the delight of everyone. No problem as a large tent was erected for the occasion. Never mind that the electrical storm knocked out our internet connection for some four hours.
Today Fr. Jerome renewed his solemn vows during the offertory of the Mass. Thanks, Fr. Jerome, for persevering those 25 years! Seems as though not everyone does these days. Festivities were concluded with a community feast day dinner. AD Multos Annos !
From the Farm
Recently, we were invited to become a member of a Statewide weather detection system. Known as the NYS Early Warning Weather Detection System (MESONET). Consisting of 125 surface weather stations the system is designed to detect weather phenomena across the entire state measuring temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, and soil moisture/temperature at three depths. The system will provide federal, state, and local government officials with current access to high-resolution data, and more robust predictive models.
With this information readily available emergency management decision-makers will be enabled to mitigate and better plan for extreme and devastating weather events. In addition, these stations will empower critical agricultural research and will serve as great educational outreach tools.
The Abbey has agreed to accept the invitation and has provided a small plot of farmland for the construction of the tower and related instruments located along the farm road in front of Bethany House leading to the Greenway. You’ll find further information on the MESONET web site.
Lectio Notebook
What is important above everything else, first and foremost, is faith: faith in the reality of the divine presence in and around us, bringing the acts of our will and mind up to the level of the true life to which Our Lord is calling us.
This act of faith, which transforms our destiny from a purely human one to one truly divine, is painful to nature, and calls for a heroism of which we would not be capable had not God already given us the grace to make the initial effort and maintain it. Utterly incapable d ourselves of making this first act, we could not do better than say with the father of the sick child: Lord, I do believe; help thou my unbelief (Mark 9:24).
The Prayer of Love and Silence
A Carthusian
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