Journal Archives, 2000

December 16, 2000

Our Christmas tree, gift of our dear neighbors, Clem and Wayne, will arrive this afternoon. Dom Bernard whose visit as chaplain has been a joy from beginning to end, gave a lovely homily this morning about the great O Antiphons which give such special emphasis to the liturgy during the
last week before Christmas Eve.

He told the poignantly tragic story of a Northern Ireland mother who lost her two children and her husband within minutes of each other, and asked us to pray these great antiphons for people whose burden in life is so heavy that they could not possibly enter consciously into the celebration
of this liturgical symbolism. We must hold them in our hearts and draw their wounds deeply into the kind of salvation which is being proclaimed in the liturgy. Their wounds and ours together slip quietly into the wounds of Christ, wounds so soon to be foretold to the Mother of this infant of the night. If the songs of Christmas are triumphant, they also hold an undertone of sorrow and bewilderment in face of the mystery too deep to face without awe.

We hope to have our Altar Bread work done by Thursday, and the Christmas preparations completed by Saturday, so that Sunday can be our Desert Day-when we can listen in silence for the Word which this year's celebration means to speak to us.

The jubilee year has been for us a year which defies adjectives. We know it must have been so for many of you too. We wish you every blessing of past and future, and every beauty of the present moment which trembles between both, and is the only reality we have to deal with. This moment
is sacred. We share it with you with great gratitude for your friendship.A blessed Christmas!

December 3, 2000

It's the First Sunday of Advent, and outside the outside the window, a sunny, mild, Arizona winter is humming to itself. The cottonwood trees (introduced by Fr Romain, the first chaplain, many years ago) are dropping their last gold leaves, and the ornamental pear in St Joseph's
Garth is now bare of anything but birds. That tree puts on the most spectacular autumn show on earth, its inner leaves bright gold, its outer leaves a vibrant maroon, with various mixes in between. When you don't have MUCH in the way of autumn color, what you do have should be intense.

We have been dumped rather unceremoniously on the doorstep of Advent. A bit busy.

In October, we had the community retreat. Fr James of Spencer gave us daily conferences which were exactly perfect. The community dispersed for the week to various places on the property, and we thinned the liturgy to its essentials so as to provide as much interior space as possible. Our
meals were all pick-up, but dinner had been pre-prepared so that volunteers could put out a hot dish, a salad and dessert each day. Other volunteers managed the clean-up and (at night) the lock-up. Altar Breads took a holiday.

Then Sr Miriam went off to a wonderful workshop on Spiritual Direction given to a group of Cistercians by Sr Maureen Conway, RSM, At its end, Miriam, Dom Bernard Johnson, and Brother Ronnie Fogarty all flew in from their various points of the compass on the same day. Dom Bernard was here to act as temporary chaplain until January First, and Brother Ronnie to
give us his annual workshop.

This year we spent two weeks with him on Celibacy and Our Life in Christ. When Ronnie is here, we have class all morning, spending the afternoons on homework and private interviews with him. After he has gone, we work over the material in small groups and put it into practice day upon day.
We can never be grateful enough for what he has given us over the years.

Since the workshop, we have been zipping around making up the altar bread work-especially now, when parishes are waking up to the fact that this year's Advent is only three weeks long, and are calling in a panic for more hosts.

The building enterprises are zipping along also. We are very happy with what is becoming an extension of the kitchen-the elderly freezer compartment turned into a small bakery. A large window lets in light and air, the walls are newly wall-boarded and plastered, and the leaky roof
is fixed. Now to move in the large bread mixer, upon which we traditionally trip in its present position, and when you add in the new freezer compartment (yes, it's finished!) on the other end, behold-a renovated kitchen.

Bill Kunk, the landscape artist, is currently working on our cemetery. It will involve a low wall faced with native stone, the harmonious placing of small boulders, and a bit of native plant life. The idea is to proclaim this area of earth as particularly sacred, without creating a visual conflict with the natural desert and mountain landscape. A path curves gently from between the two sections of the wall off toward the rustic gate which closes our back fence. We will then find a stone for Beverly's grave - perhaps a large native rock with a bronze plaque attached. The area will be completed by a few small boulders and desert bushes. We are already excited, since the masonry had been so beautifully
executed. The stones were taken from our property, and the small rocks which marked Fr Tom Rice's grave were used in the foundation of the wall, which embraces his grave as well.

September 21, 2000

THEY ARE PUTTING IN THE FREEZER!

The swallows are glorious. Wonderful engineering. They zoom around at great speed and never hit the things they skirt so closely. Do they keep going all day long? Part of their enthusiasm is pure enjoyment, and part is bugs on the wing.
September 19, 2000

The freezer house is in great shape. We'll be glad when they can assemble the freezer, thus getting it out of the car port and letting us put the cars in side by side. As it is now, the aesthetic effect of the new freezer house is destroyed by the back end of the van sticking out beyond it. A retreatant recently commented that the addition blends beautifully with the rest of the monastery, so we want to preserve the blend.

Sr. Cecile chose September Eighth (Our Lady's Birthday) for her renewal of stability at Santa Rita’s, and her big day was lovely for us all, a real community renewal of commitment.
For those who don't understand our practice of stability, the Benedictines (of whose tradition we are a branch) make five vows, and one is the vow of Stability. It means that we will remain in the monastery of our profession unless we are sent to another monastery for a serious reason-such as a new foundation. The founding superior of a new house
may, if she chooses, return her Stability to the founding house after she retires. Cecile chose to do that about ten years ago, and the Santa Rita sisters, though they missed her very much, respected her choice.

But when Mother Bev became so sick, the community here asked Cecile to return. They needed her calm presence and the living link she was to their heritage. Mother Agnes and the sisters of Wrentham were grieved to lose her, but with their characteristic generosity, realized that this was a call from God and gave her graciously. On the day of Cecile's transfer of Stability, they sent a lengthy fax on which each had written a loving message. And Cecile herself, whose heart has always been deeply rooted in this monastery, is again happily home.

Sr Gabriella had the dogs snake-proofed. As I understand it, a gentleman from Patagonia comes with his de-fanged snake, fastens collars on the dogs, into which he can send an electric charge, and introduces them to the snake. They smell it, rush over to attack, and experiencing a charge which is modest but sufficient for the purpose, lose all interest in snakes for the rest of their lives. You feel kind of sorry for the snake. After all, day after day to have dogs rushing towards one with murderous intent. How does the snake know they'll always be stopped in mid-rush? One could wish that the man had added a porcupine to his entourage. Un-quilling our wandering mutts after their last excursion seems to have taken a month. Naturally they got the quills in their mouths, and needed several trips to the vet.

We look forward to a few days of theology from Lawrence Cunningham of Notre Dame. He will be coming during the second week of January to help us begin the new year with a wonderful series of talks on Creation and Christology. We are going to cut down the work for those days, and use it as a semi-retreat. Attention to theology, when integrated with our liturgical life and our daily Scriptural and monastic lectio, enriches the contemplative vision in an indispensable manner.

We have had special gifts prepared for the two doctors who so lovingly cared for Mother Bev during her illness. A close friend of the community has hand-woven a beautiful tellit (prayer shawl) for Doctor Surwit, who is Jewish, and our Esther has sculpted an exquisite Madonna and Child for Dr Croghan, who is Catholic.

We are dialoguing within the community and with a fine landscape artist for the renovation of our cemetery. It will be simple and natural, carrying out the horizontal lines of the mountains and the fence behind the property. Our designer, who is well attuned to the Southwest, has been taken by the elderly gate which opens on the former national forest property so laboriously acquired under Mother Beverly.

"Enter by the narrow gate," he quotes. And so Bill has incorporated that gate by means of a simple path winding from the grave sites off into the distance. It would be hard to miss the symbolism of the outward journey; or of the contemplative search itself. The path winds outward not only into the mountains within whose embrace we spend our lives, but to the sunsets which so often crown those hills with glory.

September 5, 2000

Each Cistercian house has what is known as a Father Immediate-an abbot who makes Visitations, and is in general a helping friend. For the monks this is the abbot of the house which founded theirs. For the nuns, it is an abbot appointed for the position. We have had to change ours recently, and are very happy to have welcomed as our delegated Father Immediate, Dom Thomas Davis of the monastery of Vina in California. He is an old friend to the sisters and has accompanied us on our monastic journey from the beginning.

The other great news is that Dom Bernard Johnson will be coming from November 4th until after Christmas to fill in our famous chaplain's spot. This will be wonderful for us, since he has been a witness of and a participant in so much of the Order's modern history, and is one of the best raconteurs in the world. The first two weeks of his chaplaincy we will be having Brother Ronnie Fogarty's workshop, and after that, we'll ask for conferences with Fr Bernard to put us in immediate contact with the most recent events of our heritage. And our wonderful neighbors are
very anxious to meet him.

The second week of October, Fr James is coming from Spencer to give us our retreat conferences. We are thrilled, and are already making plans. In addition to us, he should surely see something of the local Southwest, especially the White Dove of the Desert, the restored Mission church of San Xavier del Bac.

We are having Altar Bread meetings, to field any suggestions about the process, express our personal experience with the work, and share on the spirituality of manual labor. It is in the workplace that the real labor of spiritual and human growth plays itself out. How do I get along with someone else, how do I accept the frustration of my managerial capacities (everyone will NOT agree with me on everything!), how do I put into
practice the fine thoughts I had this morning at prayer, how do I find the face of God disclosing himself in the ordinary, obscure and laborious? The work situation carries an enormous emotional charge, providing ample ground for the implementation of communication skills and for making concrete our life's goal of truly seeking God.

September 4, 2000

They tell us the monsoon season is over. That's too bad because it hardly began. At least the grass must have been fooled by the thunder, and is fairly green.

Tomorrow the carpenters come to begin the roof of our freezer-house. Almost all the masonry is done, and the yard looks like what places under construction usually look like. The workmen arrive about 5:45 AM. The trick in this climate is to begin early and quit before one's brains have been melted.

What should turn up the other day in the middle of the road but a big green frog, possibly asleep. This was not an ideal place to sleep, because a car coming by might not respect its interest in going on living, but since no remains were found later, it must have gone off after its nap.

And further about critters, we have some interesting squirrels. Now, squirrels are a pest except in city parks. They eat things like insulation. However, to the biologist, ours might prove to be of interest, since they are two-toned.

Arizona grey squirrels (which we also have) are normal and OK, even though their coats are grizzled. But our odd ones have grizzled grey in front (as if they had a jacket on) and red in back (as if they had red pants on). They must be either hybrids or mutations

August 24, 2000

The contractor's men have come to build the housing for our new freezer which arrived in sections yesterday, and which we re-stacked out of potential rain in the afternoon. It is now safely covered with big blue sheets of plastic over which the grasshoppers scamper at will.

The grasshoppers are formally known as dactylotum bicolor. We are entertaining three sub-species of this, in addition to one that's pure black and doubtless is formally something else. Some get into the house-there are little corpses here and there. Most cover the outside west-facing walls, if they are not in the grass and leaping up in clouds wherever you walk. Pam took down the screens on the refectory west windows and got aluminum subs. The screens we had were evidently edible to grasshoppers.

With a bit of scientific interest, you can study the various color patterns with pleasure. One rather phlegmatic gang is so brightly patched that it could hire itself out as an air balloon. And after all, they could be snakes.

Yesterday Clare said, "The monsoon season is ending now." "What monsoon season?" We've had about three full rains since June, with a few scattered showers to convince us that indeed there is such a thing as water. Some of the trees (non-native) are dropping yellow leaves, but on the whole, the vegetation has held up admirably. We feel great compassion for the places to which the drought has brought economic and ecological disaster, along with terrible fires.

Four of us attended the Solemn Profession of Sister Mary Francis, who is a member of a lovely, innovative community sharing our southern Arizona Benedictine presence over in Saint David's. This group (Holy Trinity Monastery) belongs to the Olivetan Benedictines, wear white habits, and has formed a community of monks, nuns, and lay Oblates. The sudden death of their founder and charismatic leader, Father Louis, last year, was a trauma, but Father Henri, his sub-prior, has carried on, and the vitality of the little group is very evident.

Their location seems almost tropical with lush vegetation, very nicely landscaped, in which they have established a complex of buildings to house their various activities. The Profession ceremony was both sacred and warmly informal in character. A lively group of singers from Phoenix's Pongan community led the singing, Sr. Mary Francis met her guests at the door of the church before the Mass, and a lovely dinner followed the ceremony.

Fr Henri had called us, in something of despair, a few months beforehand, wondering if we knew a place which could make Sister's cowl. Our Cecile graciously offered, and it looked exquisitely beautiful as Sr. Mary Francis stood by the altar after the usual struggle of the newly Professed to get inside all those yards of fabric. It hung just perfectly. We drove home under one of those incomparable Arizona sunsets. We have elected Sr. Margarita as delegate to the Regional Meeting.

The men don't use boom boxes, T.G.--Rich respects our life style. A very good man.

At this point, the floor of the freezer compartment has been laid, and they are building up the walls.

I found a nice book in the library on how to recoup one's creativity. I will let you know how it goes. I listen to a lot of music.

August 18, 2000

The grasshoppers with which nature has provided us this year are, technically, dactylotum bicolor. Their popular name is rainbow grasshoppers, and you can't deny that they are pretty. The first wave
(grey backs, yellow bellies, and black and white striped legs) was followed by another group which are colorful in the style of Navajo blankets. These animated works of art are, however, inconveniently numerous. We have had to replace the screens on the western side of the refectory. They eat whatever the screens were formerly made of.

This is the monsoon season, and the most flamboyant thunderstorms blast you out of bed only to leave a third of an inch of rain behind. They are perfectly glorious to watch, rain or no rain. The sky and the mountains take on a particularly rich shade of Prussian blue. Clouds boil, the setting sun sneaks in a banner of peach, and you feel that no place in the world gives you a better show.

On the 21st of July, we received word from our founding house in Wrentham, Massachusetts that their lovely young Sister Margaret had died. She had gone on portress duty at noon, called the infirmarian shortly afterwards, and was rushed to the Emergency Room. Twelve hours later, she had gone to God. The community was in shock.

Our Santa Rita Sisters Cecile, Rita, and Miriam had been scheduled for a later trip to Wrentham; they revised their tickets and left immediately, wanting to be a loving presence to our sisters, and especially to Meg's lovely, grieving family, to whom she was the world and more.

Sr. Margaret was exceptionally pretty and that was what you noticed first. She was small and slim with delicate features and luminous eyes. Never one to put herself forward in a group, beneath the initial reserve she hid a champagne personality--warm, witty, full of the joy of life. The slightest effort could uncover this delightful presence.

Sent to Virginia on the new foundation, she was driven back to Wrentham thirteen months later severely ill. A routine check for the community's blood donation had disclosed a dangerously low level of red cells, and at the age of 33, she was returning to a diagnosis of acute leukemia. At this point in her life, Meg's monastic journey took a unique turn. Her road was to end in splendor twelve years later, a road crafted for her, for her wonderful family, and for her monastic communities, all of whom walked it with her.

We waited through chemo and radiation and the testing of her siblings for a bone marrow match; rejoiced at the news that the last and youngest of the family could save her life with the donation of his own blood-producing marrow; and held our collective breath the day he watched as his sister received a transfusion of his own life. Then came the months of isolation and the balancing of medication, the return to a life that was normal, but never wholly secure.

Meg remained at Wrentham, and continued to do what her sisters did. She loved the liturgy and served enthusiastically the community's daily liturgical needs. She took an intensive correspondence course in liturgy, a course which she finished shortly before her death. Her last service to the community moved her from liturgy work to the kitchen as food cellerer. She had done so well, but then came a slowing-down, as her body resisted the spunky spirit that had kept it going all those years.

Meg was no stranger to crises, but from them all she had come smiling back. This time the home she was to come back to was heaven. The cerebral hemorrhage that took her life sent her running into the arms of God. She was 45 years old.

Our monastic funeral customs have undergone renewal. Meg's family could sit in prayer beside the bier, could enter all the ceremonies with the sisters, hug and cry with them, knowing themselves one heart and mind with their daughter's monastic family. The two families merged in their love and their grief, and in the faith which in spite of the shock, could know that this lovely creation of God which was their Peggy and our Meg had fulfilled her life and had enter into a secure and joyful eternity.

That was what you not only felt but knew. You saw, above her youthful face, the grey hair which had been the result of radiation therapy, and knew that she had lived a long, full life in spite of anything the calendar might say. Her illness had been a demanding tutor, her monastic fidelity and her loving heart had cooperated in the formation of a full life in a short span.

Meg had asked for monastic burial-an open bier. The funeral people had tilted her head slightly to the right, and she looked like a young, sleeping princess. Her small feet wore the mocs in which she had carried out her daily service for so long. As we practiced the burial ceremonies, we could look into the grave and see its floor blanketed with fern. The cemetery was lush and green from a rainy summer.

Meg's two brothers, Marty and Michael (who also did the Mass readings), and her sister Mary Kay, acted as pallbearers together with two Wrentham Sisters. The Cloister through which the bier was carried to the cemetery was shadowed, and when the procession left it, brilliant sunlight embraced Meg, and her father whispered, "It's so beautiful here." The sister who held Meg's mother's hand throughout the burial will always cherish that unique and beautiful privilege.

The luncheon after a funeral has always seemed to our communities a healing and sacramental thing. It was so here also-a kind of Eucharist in which everyone who loved Meg could break bread together and realize their union with a loved being who had gone before only in body and was closer
to us than before. The sorrow and the pain are not washed away but sacramentalized. And a little of the sun comes through.

May 25, 2000

Some months are longer than others. Some minutes are longer than hours. Our loved and loving Mother Beverly has led our community as prioress for the past ten years. During the previous eighteen years, she had served as novice director, welcoming our new sisters and forming them to the Cistercian heritage. Now her service on earth has ended, and she has found forever the great desire of her heart.

At five of four on the twenty-first of May, as the community was beginning the last nocturne of Vigils, the Resurrection Nocturne, Mother Beverly went to God. It was the anniversary of the death of our martyrs of Atlas in Algeria, to whom she had a strong devotion. They had come to take her home.

Beverly suffered long and generously with the cancer which led her on the final stage of her journey. She said at one point that, "No one should preach the Gospel without knowing what the words mean: ‘I thirst.’" She was not referring simply to the physical thirst which tormented her, but also to something deeper in the human heart. The minutes and the hours were indeed long, as she responded to the last and greatest call of Him whom she so loved.

A medical technician came one evening to set up her IV. He had lost his lovely young daughter to an automobile accident, and he and Bev talked about death, and how it was not something to be feared. She wondered aloud what heaven would be like, could she walk on the shore by the ocean, could she do a lot of the things she loved about earthly life, would she meet John of Ford.

Both her oncologists came out to see her. The radiologist, a woman, came on Mother’s Day: "This is my Mothers’ Day present to myself." The oncologist who managed the chemotherapy came the day before she died. He is a very large and devout Jewish man, and he was there practically before Sr Gabriella, her nurse, finished her phone call telling him that Bev was dying.

He knelt beside her bed for what must have been two hours, in perfectly silent prayer, resting his huge, gentle hands on her head and on her tumor. It was a perfect image of the Heavenly Father taking her into his arms and saying, "My child, it’s almost over. It’s all been worth it, and you can come home. I am so proud of you." At one point she opened her arms in a position of crucifixion, and he cradled her wrist next to his chin.

That evening, Sr. Cecile, our founding superior, who had also been caring for Beverly with her special charism for the sick, said she hoped Bev would go the next day, the anniversary of the Atlas Martyrs.

Gabriella had beeped us in church when she saw Beverly slipping away, and we came just as she had gone home. While the bells tolled, we knelt around her bed. Father Robert arrived to recite the prayers for the departed soul. We even assisted in placing her body in the funeral director’s van and watched as it drove off. Her sisters wanted to serve her as long as they could.

On Monday at Four PM, we received the body with a simple ceremony, presided over by Dom Joseph of Snowmass, and began our all-night Vigil. The guest chapel was full for the funeral next morning at ten. Our Father Immediate, Dom Leander presided as principle concelebrant, and Dom Damian Carr of Spencer, at our request, preached the homily--on Bev as listener to the Word. We had a simple reception, comforted the comforters, and received the deeply felt tributes to our Beverly. Her brother Gary, his wife Martha and her step-mother Phyllis were all with us, as well as a group of abbots and abbesses from the US region. Several others wanted badly to come but were stymied by the suddenness of a death on Memorial Day Weekend.

Mother Marion of Our Lady of Angels gave us a lovely talk Friday on Bev’s self-disclosure as "biographer" of John of Ford. And on Ascension Day, we had something Bev requested: A community supper with open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream. And shared memories of Bev. Keep praying please. This is just one stage of loss. The sisters are magnificent, but we cannot expect the pain to evaporate at once. It has lessons for us all.

HELLO, I’M NEW HERE

I wish I could meet each one of you face to face, but under the circumstances, I’m glad we can meet through Santa Rita’s home page. My name is Sr. Miriam, and I have been busy sinking my roots into Santa Rita’s glorious landscape and her incomparable community.

They say God is full of surprises. I know that. First there was the month after my abbess, Mother Agnes of Santa Rita’s founding house at Wrentham, Massachusetts, told me that the inconceivable was indeed possible, and that I was being considered for election as prioress of this beloved daughter house. I decided that whatever the outcome, it would not hurt to clean and clear, sort and dispose of, arrange and dispossess myself of everything unnecessary. No one seemed to notice this unusual activity, which was just as well.

The morning of May First was fairly strained for Mother and myself. "Santa Rita's is three hours behind us. When will the election be over?" Just before dinner the call came. "And please would you come as soon as you can?" The reason was poignant: Dom Leander was there and could wait a day, but if the Installation had to be postponed until Dom Peter came for the Novice Directors’ Meeting, Beverly might well have gone to God.

At five thirty AM on May Third, I left Wrentham, and arrived at Santa Rita’s in time to greet Beverly and my new sisters, then find my way through the installation at five PM. I know that none of us will ever forget that ceremony, with Bev in her wheelchair, and she and her sisters promising obedience to her successor with equal parts faith and tears.

We received the Novice Directors’ Meeting for a week beginning May Ninth. Yes, Bev was dying, and we had been asked if we were being imprudent, but she was well cared for, and her condition provided a climate of extraordinary grace in which these Cistercian formators could exchange and assist in each others growth. They experienced the sisters’ hospitality and warmth, said it was a wonderful meeting, and went home to help pray us through the last steps of Bev’s road to death and glory.

So here we are, picking up the golden threads of Cistercian life in the desert, praying for rain, singing the liturgy, hoping to complete Bev’s plans for replacing a couple of decrepit buildings, and living out the heritage she has left us.

The community has been wonderfully welcoming, I am learning new things every day, and planting my heart deep in this beautiful place.

Sr. Miriam

January 9, 2000 - Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Well, the good news is that the new altar bread equipment arrived, along with the technician from France who designed it. Mr. Bertin who spent ten days with us set up the new baker, the mixer and computerized cutter, and taught us to use them. Now we're on our own!

The New Millennium entered quietly. As is our custom, we spent New Year's day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, for world peace.

Two big events this month: Our Sister Kathy's Solemn Profession on January 9, feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and then a family celebration of our Sister Clare's fifty years of monastic life. She entered at Wrentham--our mother house--on January 10, 1950, and is still going strong! Ad multos annos, Clare!!

A very loving thank you to all who were so good to us over the Christmas holidays. We keep you specially in our prayer.

November 11, 1999 St. Martin, Bishop of Tours

November is a beautiful month here in the desert - the live oak are a green as ever, the cottonwoods all in their autumn yellow, the days sunny and warm, and the nights quite cool at our 5000 ft. elevation.

The main community endeavor right now is preparing for the imminent arrival of our new automated altar bread equipment. The 'written pole motor' which is to provide three phase electricity has been installed. We want to send out a very special thank you to all our friends who made it possible for us to get this new equipment. We'll keep you posted on how the new machinery works!

Another imminent arrival to be celebrated - tomorrow! - is our Sister Vick's return from the General Chapter - the triennial meeting of all the Superiors of the Order which was held this year at Lourdes.

Tomorrow we begin practicing for our Christmas carol service which begins a half hour before the Mass at Midnight on Christmas Eve. Advent begins early this year!

And so, the daily monastic round continues in its steady, quiet pace of prayer, work and studying the Word of God.

October 9, 1999 Saturday of Our Lady

Today we launch our long-planned web site and initiate the first page of Abbey Journal!

The summer rainy season is over, the desert range land has lost its unaccustomed green, and the afternoon sun glints through the golden grass heads; the cottonwoods and sycamores are just beginning to turn color. Inside the monastery preparations are under way to send off our delegate to the General Chapter a triennial meeting of Cistercian superiors being held, this time, at Lourdes, France.

Of the seventeen monasteries of our Order in this country, at least two are celebrating their 50^th anniversary of foundation; Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina, and our own mother house at Wrentham, Massachusetts. We ourselves have been down here, in the high desert country, for nearly 28 years planted firmly on a mesa in the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. Fifty years of monastic life is in fact a milestone approaching for one of our sisters who entered the mother house back in 1950. Where does the time go?

See you next time!

Journal Archive - 2000

Santa Rita Abbey

Sonoita, Arizona