ABBEY NEWS
September 20, 2015
Celebrations
This past Thursday we celebrated our annual Local Day of Prayer for the Fruits of the Earth. A highlight of the celebration was the community procession through the bakery and out to an adjoining field on a beautiful pre-autumnal 80 degree day with bright sun and clear sky.
During the procession we prayed the office of Vespers stopping to bless the bakery and fields. During the blessings we thanked God for the success of our baking operation and the fertility of our fields the primary sources of the Abbey’s income. While asking Him to continue blessing the work of our hands and the produce of our farm we were reminded of the psalm verse: I will greatly bless her produce, I will fill her poor with bread (ps. 132:15). While in the bakery a blessing was invoked upon employees and brothers who work there as well those who purchase Monks’ Bread.
During the Mass that followed our Fr. Stephen gave a timely homily for the occasion. If you haven’t seen it already you can find it at September 17th homily.
Then yesterday, the 60th anniversary of the untimely death of our founding Abbot, Dom Gerard McGinley, we had the annual commemoration of all the Deceased of Genesee. It is always a moving part of the Mass when the names of all 32 deceased brethren are read aloud; sort of a local litany of the saints. There is a brief bio of each of our deceased on Our Deceased page if you haven’t seen it already.
Lectio Notebook
There is no private redemption, no limiting the healing love of peacemakers and liberating non-violence to our own self and our own little circle.
In the end, the whole of the Our Father is about the all-encompassing plan of salvation of God, for his Kingdom, for the glorifying of his Father-name. Each and every one of us has an irreplaceable calling to the all-encompassing drama of world-history, which is ultimately concerned with the victory of good over the powers of Doom.
Our Father
Bernard Haring, CSsR
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