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Category: Abbess love notes

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Easter Blessings: Practicing Resurrection ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, 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. But 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 which we just traveled.  Easter is not just the day when the tomb was discovered empty, but a span of time when days grow longer in the northern

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St. Colman – New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, St. Colman lived in the 6th-7th centuries in County Galway in the west of Ireland. His parents were king and queen of that region, and while his mother was pregnant, his father heard a prophecy that his newborn son would one day surpass him in notoriety. In a jealous rage he had his servants throw his wife into the lake with a stone tied to her. But in a miracle, the stone floated like a cork, and so she was brought safely to shore. Once she gave birth, two priest pilgrims wandered by and she asked

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Spring Equinox Blessings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. —Isaiah 35:1-2 I believe deeply that the seasons have a great deal of spiritual wisdom to offer us if we make space to listen. They teach us of the cycles and seasons of the earth and of our own lives. We are invited into the movements of blossoming, fullness, letting go, and rest, over and over again. Just like the lunar cycles of the moon’s waxing and waning,

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Feast of St. Patrick ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Holy Mountain* I want to climb the holy mountain ascend over weight of stone and force of gravity, follow the rise of a wide and cracked earth toward eternal sky, measured steps across the sharp path, rest often to catch my heavy breath. I want to hear the silence of stone and stars, lie back on granite’s steep rise face to silver sky’s glittering points where I can taste the galaxies on my tongue, communion of fire, then stand on the summit and look out at the laboring world. I want to witness earth’s slow turning with early light brushing

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St. Enda – New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, We are in the process of sharing our four new Irish saints which Marcy Hall has painted, inspired by my new book forthcoming this fall – The Soul’s Slow Ripening: Twelve Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (through Ave Maria Press.)  Each of the twelve chapters includes a story of an Irish saint. In addition to the release of new icons, we are also releasing an album of Celtic songs compiled from several friends of the Abbey. Please see more details below! This week I introduce to you St. Enda: St. Enda Arrives on Inismor

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St. Dearbhla – New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, We are in the process of sharing our four new Irish saints which Marcy Hall has painted, inspired by my new book forthcoming this fall – The Soul’s Slow Ripening: Twelve Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (through Ave Maria Press.)  Each of the twelve chapters includes a story of an Irish saint. In addition to the release of new icons, we are also releasing an album of Celtic songs compiled from several friends of the Abbey. This week I introduce to you St. Dearbhla: Dearbhla is said to have lived in the sixth century,

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St. Sourney – New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, In January I shared two of the new dancing monk icons of Spanish mystics Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. We also have four new Irish saints which Marcy has painted, inspired by my new book forthcoming this fall – The Soul’s Slow Ripening: Twelve Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (through Ave Maria Press.)  Each of the twelve chapters includes a story of an Irish saint, so we added four more to our original eight. In addition to the release of new icons (which are available as prints or cards), we are

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