Fourth Sunday of Advent The final candle has received flame into its heart and completes the circle of light. In one week we will celebrate the coming of the fullness of Light into our universe in the Person of Jesus. God from God. Light from Light. The coming of the God who longs and the God who waits for us will once more be celebrated at Christmas. Our last candle…
Thanksgiving & Advent at Santa Rita Abbey Christmas is just a week away! We plan to publish a Christmas photo journal sometime afterward. In the meantime, however, here's a little update on the last several weeks. Thanksgiving Day was the lovely feast it always is, celebrating God's wonderful gifts to us throughout the year. On the first Sunday of Advent, our Sr. Clare celebrated her 89th birthday. She…
Third Sunday of Advent Candle and flame. Light and relationship. Our third Advent Candle burns with the desire of the God-who-waits that we yield our substance to the flame of his love in relationship. Relationship which takes its expression in how we relate to God’s presence in us, in others and in the circumstances that make up our lives. We have moved from experiencing God in our depths, to experiencing…
Second Sunday of Advent Another candle expands the circle of light we call the Advent Wreath. One more candle welcomes the flame of our God who waits. Last week we spoke of yielding our inmost depths to God-with-us in the silence of our being. Our second candle invites us to open out to the God who surrounds us in all creation. Can we hear God’s comforting voice beckoning us to…
First Sunday of Advent The first flicker of light tops the candle among the greens of our Advent Wreath. Our candle has yielded its substance to fire and casts its gentle glow. The candle and the fire have become one. We stand at the threshold of a season of longing, of waiting. “O Come Emmanuel, God with us.” He is present in every atom of his creation. He surrounds us…
October/November 2016 News from Santa Rita Abbey How did the year zoom by so quickly that Thanksgiving Day is next week?! Yet here we are! Fr. Casimir will return for another stint as our chaplain just in time to celebrate Mass for us on Thanksgiving Day. He will stay for all of Advent, Christmas and into the New Year, leaving on January 9, 2017. We are looking forward to having…
A REFLECTION ON LUKE 12:49-53 Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!" We are surrounded by fire--the fragments of the ball of fire that Jesus cast upon the earth and of which he speaks in this Gospel passage. It was his mission and it consumed him--this passionate desire to ignite all creation with the recognition that the spark at…
September/October 2016 News from Santa Rita Abbey What beautiful weather we are having at Santa Rita Abbey right now! There's something special about blue skies in October. Thanks to the rain in September the grass is still green, and there are yellow wildflowers, of all sizes, in bloom everywhere. Last spring we planted muhly grass in the old rosebush beds at…
A Reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Mark 9:30-37 Jesus was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.” When you look at today's Gospel, what do you see? I suppose there are many fruitful avenues to explore and certainly ones that Jesus was urging…
Here at Santa Rita Abbey we celebrate a Sister's feast day, that is, the feast of her patron saint, more than we do her birthday. In August we have two feast days: Sr. Clare's on August 11 (the feast of St. Clare of Assisi), and Sr. Esther's on August 15 (the feast of the Assumption of Mary.) The…
