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Abbess love notes

The Blessings of the Ancestors + Prayer Cycle Day 4 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

“This morning, let the great cloud of witnesses be as near to us as our breathing, help us to feel the presence of our wise and well ancestors pulsing within us. Help us to feel their abundant blessing on our lives as they grieve with us and celebrate our joys. We ask them to bless our feet and guide us on our path ahead.”  (Opening prayer for Day 4 Morning of the Love of Thousands prayer cycle)  Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we release Day 4 of our Love of Thousands prayer cycle. Click the links above for morning and

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Christine Interviewed on Our Sunday Visitor

Christine was interviewed by Charles Camosy on Our Sunday Visitor about her book The Love of Thousands. Here is an excerpt: Charlie Camosy: I suppose I am not the first to suggest that one of the fundamental challenges that a book like “The Love of Thousands” faces is the fact that consumerist Western culture has been largely “disenchanted.” That is, many of us find it very difficult even to take seriously the ideas at the center of your book. Christine Valters Paintner: Indeed, one of the reasons such a book is needed at this time is precisely because the capitalist

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Inspiration for connecting with ancestors on this All Soul’s Day

Christine published an article with Religion News Service titled This All Souls’ Day, experience moments of connection with those who have gone before us. Here is an excerpt: In Celtic tradition there are many moments considered to be a “thin time,” which means that heaven and earth feel closer and we might experience moments of connection to those who have gone before us in ways that we don’t usually. These moments include the daily portals of dawn and dusk as the world moves from dark to light and back to dark again. They also include the eight threshold moments of

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Christine Interviewed about The Love of Thousands in the National Catholic Reporter

Christine was recently interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter about her book The Love of Thousands and building bridges beyond the veil. Here is an excerpt: NCR: In your introduction you mention that this book began as an exploration of your relationship to your ancestors. How did that circle widen for you to include the angels and the saints? Paintner: I’ve had a long devotion and relationship to various saints — Hildegard of Bingen being the prime one, and also Benedict because I’m a Benedictine oblate. But when I was working with the ancestors, I suddenly realized that some of

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Christine Interviewed on the Three Association Podcast

Christine was interviewed by Maria Tattu Bowen and Vanessa Carusoon on the Three Association: A Supervision Podcast for Spiritual Direction to discuss the ways art and creativity can bring fresh awareness, freedom, and delight to the practices of supervision and spiritual direction.

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Katharine Weinmann

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Katharine Weinmann’s reflection and poem “A Holy Balance.” Grieving the loss of my professional vocation due to Covid and needing to find my footing with the world’s unravelling, I enrolled in the Abbey of the Arts Fall 2020 intensive online retreat, “Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist.” During a session of Lectio Divina in which Christine read Ecclesiastes 3, A Time for Everything, I reflected in my journal: “… Humming to the Byrd’s musical interpretation,

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Abbess love notes

Listening at the Threshold + Prayer Cycle Day 3 ~ A Love Note From Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  I love this time of year as autumn envelopes us in the northern hemisphere and the days grow shorter. I find the dark nights inspiring. I love that in the Christian church November is the time of remembering the saints and ancestors.  My new book – The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk With Us Toward Holiness – is the culmination of many years of practice and healing. We are thrilled to also have a new album and prayer cycle as well (day 3 of the prayer cycle is now available!) These rich resources are to help provide

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Katharine Donovan Kane

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Katharine Donovan Kane’s reflection In Search of the Ordinary Mystic. I’m a mystic. It sounds right to say but none-the-less it feels uncomfortable. In my family’s Catholic heritage, I learned that only special people are mystics. And they are almost always saints. My mother used to read an old text called Lives of the Saints to my siblings and me when we were little. Does anyone else remember that book? It was filled with the challenges of men and

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Abbess love notes

Decolonizing Contemplative Practice + Prayer Cycle Day 2 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we release Day 2 of our Love of Thousands prayer cycle. Our theme for morning prayer is wrestling with angels, inspired by the ancient biblical story of Jacob who wrestled with a powerful being all night and then demanded a blessing in the morning. I imagine, many of us have had those kinds of seasons of our lives where we walk away wounded but also with new gifts to carry forward.  The theme for evening prayer is we are all called to be saints. St. Paul wrote that we are all “called to be holy”

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Angels, Saints, and Ancestors

The Love of Thousands Reviewed by Spirituality & Practice

I’m honored to share this beautiful review by Jon M. Sweeney at Spirituality and Practice of my latest book The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk With Us Toward Holiness. Here is an excerpt: Christine Valters Paintner is one of our favorite spiritual writers, winner of several of our “Spiritual Book Awards,” and a member of our Living Spiritual Teachers Project. Her latest book is wonderful. Particularly if you find yourself lonely or losing hope, her words of support and encouragement from angels, saints, mystics, and other friends along the spiritual path will buoy your spirits. This is

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