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Category: Abbess love notes

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Winter Solstice and Christmas Blessings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I love the quiet invitation of this time of year to descend into stillness. I will be leading an event on the Winter Solstice with my wonderful friends Deirdre Ni Chinneide and Aisling Richmond who both live in Ireland as well and are deeply enriched by the Celtic imagination and spirit. We will be honoring the ancient invitation to listen for the call in the heart of the fertile darkness. Imagine the ancient Irish – over 5000 years ago – constructing Newgrange and many other stone monuments aligned with the solstices and equinoxes. It is powerful to

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Mary as Mystical Rose Invites Us to Bloom ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and this is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal (which will be published April 2022). It contains reflections on 31 names and titles of Mary including Mary as the Mystical Rose. In December 1531 Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, a Mexican peasant, four times. She spoke to him in his native language and asked him to erect a church on that site in her honor. He went to speak to the Archbishop but was

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Give Me a Word ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered. Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word

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Advent Blessings! Please Join Us on Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow we begin a journey through my newest book Breath Prayer: An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred. We are so excited to be diving deeply into this beautiful contemplative practice in community with our retreat starting tomorrow. I will be leading a weekly live Zoom session on Mondays (always recorded) with poetry, songs, and meditation. John will be reflecting on scripture passages which highlight breath and Amanda Dillon will be inviting us into sacred seeing with reflections on art that illuminate these passages. Wisdom Council member Jamie Marich will be inviting us into embodied practices each

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Embrace the Sacred Feminine ~ A Love Note From Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I am in the final editing stages of my next book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal which will be published in April 2022 by Ave Maria Press. I love all that this project has inspired – another compilation album of songs we are working on and the next week in our Prayer Cycle series – all coming in the spring.  In the book I focus on 31 of Mary’s names or archetypes which offer windows into those qualities we can call upon in ourselves as well. The sacred feminine is not at the expense of

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Monk in the World Video Podcasts (Creative Joy) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, It is with great joy that we share our final video podcasts for morning and evening prayer in the Monk in the World prayer cycle. Our last principle of the Monk Manifesto is Creative Joy! This principle is about cultivating our practice of being a dancing monk in the world and allowing wonder and delight to guide our days. If you’ve been enriched by these free resources for prayer, please consider offering a donation to help support our continued development of the prayer cycle. We are grateful for the generosity of this community.  As the season of Advent approaches, we

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Monk in the World Video Podcasts (Conversion) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today we offer you the gift of morning and evening prayer from our Monk in the World Video Podcasts on the theme of Conversion. Conversion may sound harsh to some ears, especially when it comes from a place of wanting others to be different, to be changed. In the Benedictine tradition, however, conversion is about a lifelong commitment to our own transformation. It is acknowledging that we are always growing and learning, we have never fully “arrived.” Conversion is a commitment to always beginning again, to know that we will falter in our passion and

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