News: Blog
2/2/10
Today we celebrated the beautiful feast of the Presentation. We consider it the end of the Christmas season. It is a feast we celebrate with lots of candles, symbolizing Christ our Light entering the Temple. This year we had our procession from the chapter room to the church. We had our new ramp to process down with enough room to walk two by two. Doing this for the first time made it very special.
January 30, 2010
We have had a very busy couple of weeks. Moving into our new spaces was a lot more fun than moving out last April. We are pretty much settled in and using all the new spaces. We are waiting for the new library shelves to arrive. They should be here soon. We can then get the books out of the dorm and out of boxes so we can find the books we want to read. I will post pictures when the rooms are completely ready.
On January 26th, the feast of our founders, 22 monks came to tour our new spaces, pray Midday prayer with us and share a festive Italian dinner.
I know many have heard that our Sr. Sherry was diagnosed with breast cancer a few days after Christmas. She had a lumpectomy and will start radiation treatment soon. She has a very good prognosis as the cancer was very small and not the aggressive type. Please keep her in prayer as she starts her radiation treatments.
12/31/09
On this last day of 2009 we wish you a very blessed Christmas season!
We had a very busy and peaceful candy season. Many, many volunteers came to help us and we are very grateful to them.
Our construction project is almost finished. The crew will be back on January 4 and work for 3 more days. They have been gone since December 23rd in order for us to have a quiet Christmas.
We are excited to move in and enjoy the new spaces.
11/23/09
Happy Thanksgiving!
A Psalm of Gratitude
Give thanks to the Lord
For he is good
His love endures forever
.
Works of skill and toil praise him
His love endures forever.
Bricks and mortar praise him
His love endures forever.
Level walkways praise him
His love endures forever.
Wood and nails praise him
His love endures forever.
House for Wisdom’s words praise him
His love endures forever.
Beauty surrounding our table praise him
His love endures forever.
For all God’s gifts we praise him
His love endures forever.
11/06/09
We had our annual procession to the cemetary to pray for our deceased sisters on All Souls Day.
On November 4th we celebrated our 45th anniversary of foundation. Sr. Marjoe, one of our foundresses was visiting from Norway and Sr. Elizabeth, O.P. formerly Sr. Phillip on the foundation came for dinner to celebrate.
All Soul's Procession
Our Foundresses
10/26/09
In the spring we purchsed a flock of baby chics. They are now big chics and are laying eggs for us. Sisters Sherry and Grace take care of the chickens and we all enjoy going down to the farm to see how they are getting along.
We had the pleasure of a visit from Kathleen Norris last Thursday. She is the author of Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace. She read some of her poetry to us. This past weekend she gave a poetry retreat at New Melleray Abbey and three of our sister attended. The report was that it was a wonderful weekend and many poems were written and read.
10/9/09
We have moved back into the Abbey Church and into the dorms. Life still has its challenges. We have experienced no heat and then too much heat. We trust the heating system will be regulated soon. Sr. Regina is back at home after her time with the BVM's. She is busy helping on the coating crew at candy and taking portress at St. Benedict's Center.
9/26/09
During this past week we had the pleasure of getting to know Sr. Catherine Grace from All Saint's convent in Maryland. Her community recently became Roman Catholic after many years as an Anglican Community. Sister shared with us the reasons behind their decision and about the many charitable projects her community have started over the years. Sr. Catherine Grace helped begin hospice in Baltimore in the 1970's.
We are hoping to move back into the abbey next weekend! More on that next week.
Sisters Myra and Charlene are participating in a course with the monks in formation at New Melleray.
The topic for September was theology with Fr. Paul Philibert.
Sr. Rebecca's garden
Please see New Melleray Abbey's web site for pictures of Sr. Columba's burial.
Mother Columba Guare, first Abbess of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, died on September 1 at 1:45 PM.
Margaret Guare was born in Montpelier, VT, Nov. 4, 1926, the only daughter of Thomas Guare and Florence Emmons. Her parents and brothers, Thomas, Richard and Paul have all pre-deceased her. Margaret attended St. Michael’s High School in Montpelier and graduated from Trinity College in Burlington, VT with a BA in Liberal Arts. After college she did graduate work in Social Service at Fordham University in New York City for one year. During that time she visited Mt. St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, MA and fell in love with the contemplative life style she found there. She often said that it was the sight of the sisters working in the dairy barn that convinced her of her vocation.
Margaret entered Mt. St. Mary’s on May 24, 1951 and was given the name of Sister M. Columba on the day she received the habit, February 12, 1952. She made first profession on August 15, 1953 and Solemn profession on June 28, 1957. At Wrentham she held the office of cellarer for many years and was a famous writer of skits for the community. She left Wrentham to make the foundation of Our Lady of the Mississippi on October 18, 1964, with 12 other sisters. She was named superior of the new community by Mother Angela Norton, Abbess of Wrentham. On May 7, 1970, the foundation was ready to become an independent abbey and M. Columba and the sisters made their stability to Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey. On that same day M. Columba was elected the first abbess. Every six years after this she was re-elected abbess until 1982 when her term expired and she chose to leave the office of superior.
In December of 1982 she felt called to help establish a House of Prayer among the poor in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She returned to Mississippi Abbey in Dubuque in 1987 and shortly thereafter she was asked to be the temporary superior for our sisters at Stapehill in England. She resumed her life in the Mississippi community in 1989.
With great joy Mother Columba celebrated her Golden Jubilee of Profession on August 15, 2003. She received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Papal award, along with five other women Religious of the Archdiocese, on April 12, 2004.
Much loved by her family, community and many religious and lay people, she will always be remembered for her wonderful sense of humor and her spirit of courage and foresight during the time of renewal after Vatican II.
Funeral services will be held at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey on September 2 at 10:00 AM.
A Compline-Wake service is planned for September 1 at 7:00 PM in the abbey church.
Last week we had the pleasure of the Pins family visiting us to tour the candy house and our farm. Tom Pins is the manager for our constuction project. He was also in charge of the building of our candy house.
Our prarie along our entrance road is at its best. It is lovely to see the gold finch swooping across it.
Mitchell Pins 2 years old.
Our Sr. Mary Ann is celebrating her 50th jubilee year. She will be traveling tomorrow to our founding house, Mount S. Mary’s Abbey in Massachusetts to celebrate with the 4 sisters who made solemn profession with her at Mount St. Mary’s 50 years ago. All the daughter houses of Mount St. Mary’s and Mount St. Mary’s itself are represented in this group. We will celebrate with Sr. Mary Ann here at OLM when our construction project is finished.
Do look at the new pictures posted of the construction on the galleries page. We have basically had to move out of the new part of the Abbey during construction. We have Mass and most of the offices at St. Benedict’s center. Our refectory is in the candy house warehouse and Midday prayer and Compline are in the candy house prayer room. There is a lot of traveling around the grounds to get from one thing to another.
July 28. This past Sunday we all went over to New Melleray for our Annual picnic. We arrived at 11:30 visited until 12:00 when we prayed midday prayer followed by a pizza dinner. After dinner many of us went over to their new welcome center located at their new casket factory. It is a very beautiful space. It includes murals of New Melleray’s history and murals explaining the monastic values and our way of life. The space also includes a very simple yet elegant chapel which has a glass wall leading out to a garden that has a waterfall and a statue of St. Joseph the Worker.
Those able bodied monastics went back to the abbey to play volleyball. We missed having Fr. Daniel play. He played until his late 80’s. He was the best player. He will be celebrating his 102 birthday this week. We returned home to welcome our friend Sr. Janet Ryan and her family. Sr. Janet made first vows as a Clinton, IA Franciscan on July 25th. We are very happy and proud of Janet. She was a long term guest with us in 2000
June 22. In the past few weeks we have had visitors from our daughter house in Norway. Sr. Sheryl spent a week with us in early June and now M. Rosemary is here and will be with us until Thursday. Tautra now has 2 novices and a postulant coming soon.
It is in the 90's here and this hot weather will continue all week. It must be very hard on our construction workers but they just keep working away. Check out the new Abbey Construction gallery for more pictures.
June 1. Our building project is moving along very well. One of the most dramatic days of deconstruction was the day the bell tower was removed. We will use
