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Reflections

Category: Abbess love notes

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Join Us On a Virtual Pilgrimage to Ireland ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are thrilled to be offering a second virtual Celtic pilgrimage starting a week from tomorrow which will be the eve of Samhain and the Feast of All Hallows. Journey with us over nine days as we deepen into Celtic wisdom and hear the stories of Kevin, Ita, and Enda. Each day’s live session (via Zoom) also includes film footage from various sacred sites in Ireland including Glendalough and two of the Aran Islands as well as our wonderful guides Dara Molloy, Deirdre Ní Chinnéide, Pius Murray, Fr. Michael Rodgers, Pádraigín Clancy, and Órla Mc Govern. (All

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October 23, 2022

This Here Flesh ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Next Saturday, October 22nd I will be leading a retreat for Spirituality & Practice on The Wisdom of the Body: Contemplative Practices for Deep Listening. Buddhist teacher Reginald Ray describes the body as “the last unexplored wilderness.” For the desert monks of the Christian tradition, the wilderness is the place where we can have a radical and intimate encounter with the divine. What does it mean to take the incarnation seriously? To live as if our flesh is holy? St. Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th century Benedictine Abbess believed there was a greening life force, very similar to

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October 16, 2022

Teresa of Avila and Deepening Intimacy with the Divine ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We began our Mystical Heart 10-month series of retreats on Love as a Creative Force in September with St. Hildegard of Bingen on her feast. This month we are delighted to be hosting the wonderful Claudia Love Mair (who is my Lift Every Voice book club conversation partner and a gifted writer) next Saturday, the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, for an online mini-retreat on Teresa’s wisdom.  Claudia wrote a delightful book about Teresa (when her name was Claudia Mair Burney) – God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila. Here is an excerpt from the

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October 9, 2022

Join Us for Writing with the Ancestors + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Some of you who have been following my work for many years know that honoring my ancestors and engaging in healing has been a central part of my spiritual practice. I recently completed the manuscript for a book that will be published Fall 2023 by Ave Maria Press tentatively titled The Love of Thousands: Honoring Angels, Saints, and Ancestors. I offered some of this material for our Lent retreat online this past spring and have since doubled the materials written.  Most religious traditions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and most indigenous traditions all have

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October 2, 2022

Hildy Tail + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love note from your online Abbess and Prior

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, This week we are featuring one of our Hildy Tails. This series of essays were composed last year for our Sustainers Circle. They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized, humorous perspective on

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September 25, 2022

Please Help Us Sustain this Work ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, One of my heart’s great joys is the global nature of this community. To know that there are monks and artists spread all over the world who commit to this way of life brings me tremendous comfort and encouragement.  I feel grateful daily for this vibrant and meaningful work and the amazing people I get to collaborate with to help create our programs and offerings. I am thankful every day for you and for the many notes of encouragement I receive about what our work means to you.  We will be adding a fourth week to

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September 18, 2022

Join Us For The Mystical Heart and Hildegard ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

St. Hildegard Strolls Through the Garden Luminous morning, Hildegard gazes at the array of blooms, holding in her heart the young boy with a mysterious rash, the woman reaching menopause, the newly minted widower, and the black Abbey cat with digestive issues who wandered in one night and stayed. New complaints arrive each day. She gathers bunches of dandelions, their yellow profusion a welcome sight in the monastery garden, red clover, nettle, fennel, sprigs of parsley to boil later in wine. She glances to make sure none of her sisters are peering around pillars, slips off her worn leather shoes

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September 11, 2022