Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Reflections

Category: Lent Easter

Filter

Easter Blessings from Abbey of the Arts ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

How to Be a Pilgrim – Poem Video from Christine Valters Paintner on Vimeo. Dear monks, artists and pilgrims, Lent is a powerful season of transformation. Forty days in the desert, stripped of our comforts, and buoyed by our commitment to daily practice so that we might arrive at the celebration of Easter deepened and renewed. In many ways this Lent was far more austere than any of us anticipated. Often, we arrive at the glorious season of resurrection and celebrate for that one day, forgetting it is a span of 50 days, even longer than the Lenten season through

Read More

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Seven – Embrace Mystery

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims, Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God. — from Amiel’s Journal, translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward John Cassian, one of the ancient desert fathers, describes three renunciations he says are required of all of us on the spiritual journey.

Read More

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Six – Embrace Organic Unfolding

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims, * This is the sixth part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season. It was said of Abba Agathon that for three years he lived with a stone in his mouth, until he had learnt to keep silence. (Agathon 15) The silence of the desert elders is called hesychia, which means stillness, silence, inner quiet. However, it is much deeper than just an external quiet. A person can live alone and still experience much noise within and a person can live in the midst of a crowd and have a true sense

Read More

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Five – Embrace Attention

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims, * This is the fifth part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season. It can be so tempting to think, that in our busy lives multitasking will somehow make us more efficient and productive. We bemoan not having more hours in the day, but the hours we do have our attention is scattered, always trying to keep up. We spread our gaze between so many demands that we may get many things done, but none of it is nourishing. St. Benedict wisely wrote 1500 years ago, that we are called to always

Read More

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Four – Embrace Slowness

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims, * This is the fourth part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season Modern life seems to move at full speed and many of us can hardly catch our breath between the demands of earning a living, nurturing family and friendships, and the hundreds of small daily details like paying our bills, cleaning, grocery shopping. More and more we feel stretched thin by commitments and lament our busyness, but without a clear sense of the alternative. There is no space left to consider other options and the idea of heading

Read More

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Three – Embrace Trust

 * This is the third part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season. My word for this year is surplus. It is a word which has been working on me for some time now. A couple of summers ago I was pondering how to make the work I love so much sustainable both energetically and financially. Even with work that arises out of passion, we bump up against our limits of what we can give and how much renewal we need. As a contemplative and a strong introvert, my needs for quiet times are high and I

Read More

A Different Kind of Fast Part II: Embrace Vulnerability

* This is the second part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season. In 2003 my mother became seriously ill quite suddenly and died a few days later in the ICU. I was only 33 at the time, she was my second parent to die and I had no siblings. I was left with a profound aloneness, even with my beloved husband’s faithful companionship. I coped at first in the way that had always served me well. By being strong and holding everything together, keeping busy when I could so that I could distract myself

Read More