17 July. Last Friday was the solemnity of St Benedict, always a holiday for us. Archbishop Daniel Kucera, retired archbishop of Dubuque and a Benedictine, joined us for Mass and stayed to have brunch with us. We had not seen him since he returned to live in Dubuque last year, and it was great to have a visit with our friend of many years. In the afternoon the movie Into Great Silence, a 3-hour documentary about current life in a Carthusian monastery, was shown for any sisters who wanted to attend. It is a powerful and prayerful experience we recommend.

Wednesday the 16th was the actual 50th anniversary of religious profession of Sr Carol, our prioress, although our celebration of it won't be until late in August.

Our Sr Suz left today to make a long stay with our sisters of Redwoods Abbey in California. She has been having some health problems, and at the same time working very hard to maintain and improve all our computer systems, networking etc (she was an advanced computer techy in her Former Life), as well as being in charge of our mail order sales, caramel coating and several other jobs besides. A good rest is well in order! Sr Ciaran has replaced her as our subprioress (that's two under the abbess).

9 July  It seems to be a summer of international travels for us. Sr. Gail, our former abbess, was asked by our sisters in the Philippines to give them their annual retreat. Their monastery, Our Lady of Matutum (no web site, alas) is located in the southern part of the island of Mindanao, and named after the local mountain, Mt. Matutum, a volcanic cone. They were founded 10 years ago by the most prolific house in our Order, Vitorchiano in Italy, and now have a good number of native Filipinas in the community.

Sr. Gail was also asked by our Order to conduct the Regular Visitation for our sisters in India (at the monastery of Makkiyad, in Kerala). Each monastery in our Order has a Visitation every other year, in which a superior or former superior comes and interviews each member separately, sometimes the whole community together also. The idea is to see what the major difficulties in the community are and to be an objective outsider to help the community deal with them. Ultimately of course the purpose is to help each monastery and each sister or brother toward greater fidelity in following Christ.

So Sr. Gail has left for Asia, and she will be away the better part of a month. Meanwhile, our Sr. Grace is also away for three weeks. She is taking summer courses on liturgy at Notre Dame in Indiana. Sr. Grace has been our liturgist for a couple of years now (in addition to being our Chief Cook!) and wanted to have a more solid theological basis for her work. We sent her off with our blessing, and hopes for a very fruitful period of study.

4 July  Happy Independence Day! We started our celebration of the day with special readings at Vigils, and a Gloria and special readings at Mass, to thank God for the many blessings our nation has received, and to ask God's help in using them well. Still to come: a picnic at noon! Today and Thanksgiving are the two days of the year we relax our vegetarian diet and put a bit of meat in. We'll have grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, and brats (bratwurst, beloved here in the Midwest) to choose from.

M. Nettie and Sr Louise have returned home after their times away (see below). This morning at Chapter Sr Louise told us about her experiences in Europe, especially at the International Encounter of Lay Cistercians held at our monastery of Huerta in Spain. Evidently it was a wonderful meeting, blessed by the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit of Jesus.

You've probably heard the saying, "knee high by the fourth of July" - this was the old standard for watching the corn grow. Today, though, corn is normally "waist-high by the fourth of July". That is, as we say, normally. Although up here on our hill we have not been affected by the flooding (nor has our town, Dubuque, which is upriver from the flood areas), still, the very wet spring, very late planting, and cool weather mean that our corn crop is not nearly where it should be. Also there is a great deal more variation in height from stalk to stalk than is normal. However, we are still so much better off than all the poor farmers who have lost this year's crops entirely. At least, God willing, we will have some kind of harvest. We'll try to get some pictures of it for you, maybe later today.

25 June. The Blog is back! We have a few more comings and goings to report. Sr Sherry left a couple of weeks ago for Creighton University, where she will spend 5 weeks studying spiritual direction. This is the last of three such summer courses at Creighton, and Sr Sherry will receive a certificate at the end of it.

M.Nettie is also away again, to attend the abbatial blessing of M.Maureen McCabe, the new abbess of our founding house, Mt.St.Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts. As M. Maureen gave us our community retreat earlier this year, we feel especially close to her, and conficent that she will be an inspiring teacher of God's ways, for her sisters.

For those of you concerned about how we are surviving the Iowa floods, the answer is that we are doing fine, thanks be to God. Actually, Dubuque has not been much affected; and even if it were, we are so high above the Mississippi that, short of Armageddon, we would not be affected by its flooding. We were even fine in the great floods of 1993, when Dubuque was indeed affected (although the flood walls in town did hold). But much of our diocese (which includes Cedar Rapids) has been drastically affected, and our prayers are with all our sisters and brothers whose lives have been so torn up by the floods.

7 June. On June first our Sr Carol became the new prioress of our community, replacing Sr Kathleen, who served us for 2 years as prioress. Sr Carol has been our prioress several times before (maybe 3 or 4?) and may hold the community record for number of times as prioress!

 St Benedict's Abbey, Snowmass CO, in June 

June 4-11 is a regional meeting of US Trappist superiors, preparing for our General Chapter in Assisi in September. M. Nettie is attending, and also Sr Kathleen has gone as secretary for the meeting, a job she has done for the last 4 meetings. This time the meeting is in our monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, so they will be enjoying all the beauty of the mountains at this time of year.

Our General Chapter is held once every three years, and there are usually 2 regional meetings to prepare for it, one about a year and a half before the Chapter, and one about 3-6 months before the Chapter. At every General Chapter each house submits a 1-page House Report on the state of the community. At this regional meeting, the region will read through the house reports of each house of the region, and try to see what are the common themes from our region. They will also look at any particularly difficult situations any houses are facing and try to give help.

30 May. Last Saturday, the 24th, we celebrated the Silver Jubilee of our Sr Kathleen with a beautiful Mass, attended by a contingent of family and friends, and a wonderful dinner. Sr Kathleen renewed her vows after the homily at Mass. And after she did, her sister Margaret and husband Kyle Outlaw (accompanied by their 4-year-old twins) renewed their wedding vows, one day after their 10th anniversary.

On Wednesday Sr Louise left for Spain, where she will participate in the Fourth International Encounter of Lay Cistercians. Sr Gail is presently our liaison with our principal Associate group, the Associates of the Iowa Cistercians (AIC), but Sr Louise is the liaison with the online group sponsored by the AIC, the Conversi, and was invited by them to attend. She will also visit our daughter house in Norway, giving them an extra hand for a couple of weeks.

19 May. Good news about our sisters with surgeries last week. Sr Gail returned home on Friday, and Sr Columba on Sunday, both doing very well indeed.

We have now had almost an entire rain-free week, so by the end of last week had finally gotten into the fields to cultivate them, in preparation for planting. Our garden also got a big boost - we were able to do our major potato planting on Friday. Even though potato planing, unlike the field work, is done completely by hand (and spade!) rather than by big tractors, it too had been awaiting sufficiently dry ground. Like a lot of people, we traditionally try to plant our potatoes on Good Friday. This is not merely superstition - it also involves the moon phase (though we would not rule out the possibility of extra blessings on this holy day!). But this year we still had the winter's snow on the ground on Good Friday and were very far from planting anything. We generally put in a fairly large potato crop, which supplies a good chunk of our carbohydrate needs throughout the year.

14 May. We have been away from the Blog for a long time! We were hoping to post pictures here from Sr Louise's jubilee but don't have them yet.

The Silver Jubilee of Profession of our Sr Louise was celebrated with great festivity here on Sunday, May 4. All her immediate family (mostly from Ohio) attended, and some of the next generations as well. Fr Brendan presided at the Sunday Eucharist, and we had a lovely dinner with our guests at noon. You can read more about Sr Louise in two of our newsletters, 2008#1 and 2002 #2.

Sr Gail, meanwhile, spent a week at Mt St Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts - our founding house. She joined 4 other sisters there, including their abbess, M. Agnes, who celebrated their Golden Jubilee of Profession. We hear they had a beautiful celebration!

On Monday the 5th of May six acres of our land were planted with trees - several thousand trees. The central section of "St Pat's Hill," as we call it, was in cultivation for many years, until we put it in the Corn Reserve Program (it is highly erodable land, so was a natural candidate for this program). Some of the land has now come out of CRP, and with the advice of state agricultural folks, we are making planting trees along those edges of the field which gave it a very irregular shape. Most years we do plant 3-5 acres of new trees, but this was an exceptionally large quantity for us. 

Like our neighbors, we have been anxious to get into our fields to plant and cultivate them. The unusual amount of rainfall we have been getting means that much of the time the ground is too muddy for the tractors to enter. We trust that, with God's help, it will all be done in good time - as it nearly always is!

This week two of our sisters are up in Mayo Clinic for surgery - our two former abbesses, M. Columba and M. Gail. Last week we celebrated the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick for them one evening during Vespers. They have both come through their surgery well, and we ask your prayers for their continued recovery.

28 April  Last Tuesday we met with architects to work on the Master Plan for our monastery buildings. The most urgent matter is that, because of our hilly terrain, the house is built on several different levels and there is no good way for a person with mobility problems to get from one level to another - stairs are the only option. We are only now experiencing what it is to have aged members in the community, so we are learning what needs to be done. We also hope to build a Senior Wing.

Although Tuesday was also M. Nettie's feast day (the memorial of Blessed Maria Gabriella, an Italian Trappist nun of the early 20th century), because of the meetings we postponed our community celebration of our abbess's feast until Saturday, when we had a lovely dinner together and a movie in the afternoon. As it happened, Saturday was the feast of yet another 20th century Trappist - Blessed Rafael, a Spanish monk. Both these young saints are great favorites in our community. Gabriella was devoted to the cause of Christian unity; and Rafael, an artist, left a collection of marvelous spiritual writings.

21 April. Yesterday we were invaded by 24 juniors. This group of men and women in temporary vows from our (Trappist) monasteries all over the US are in the middle of a 2-week seminar hosted by our brothers at New Melleray. Our own recently professed Sr Michele is with them. It was a great privilege to be with so many of our brothers and sisters, to show them our beautiful monastery, to pray together, to hear the news of their monasteries, and to become acquainted with this upcoming generation of Cistercians.

11 April. Our sister Anne Elizabeth, who has been with our sisters in Tautra for a few years now, arrived yesterday evening to spend a few days with us before going to New Melleray to teach at the US Trappist region's Juniorate Seminar, where she will give a week of classes on St Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians. She will return to us for a day or two after the classes, before heading back to Tautra.

Meanwhile, we have definite signs of spring! The early spring birds have been back for several weeks now: robins, mourning doves, song sparrows, meadowlarks, bluebirds, redwings. And the songbirds that stay here in winter (cardinal, chickadee, tufted titmouse) have broken their long silence and are singing there little hearts out. And much of the grass has turned green! Only a couple of weeks ago it was all quite dead, just matted whitish straw crushed by the months of snow. It is still cold, however, and while the crocuses have been opening on the warmer days, the daffodils are only now getting ready to bloom. Apart from the green in some of the lawn, it still LOOKS like winter, minus the snow...

Several sisters are away at the moment. Sr Rebecca, our novice director, has gone to the meeting of US Trappist novice directors (they meet every other year). Sr Gail went with her, as she will be one of the presenters at the meeting.

8 April 2008. Our Visitation ended yesterday morning. Fr Brendan of New Melleray, our Father Immediate, came over Sunday evening for Vespers and a supper party with Fr Peter and stayed the night, to be present Monday morning when Fr Peter read us the report about our community he will send in to our generalate in Rome - technically known as a Visitation Card. The reading of the Visitation Card traditionally marks the close of the Regular Visitation. It was a time of real grace and communion for our community, and we are grateful to Fr Peter for all his hard work and pastoral care for us during these special days.

2 April, 2008. Yesterday our Regular Visitation started. Every other year each house in our Order (the Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a/k/a Trappists) is formally 'visited' by the superior (usually abbot) of another monastery. Each member of the community has a private interview with the Visitor, who also looks into the finances, quality of liturgy, state of the property etc. The main purpose is to help each community stay faithful and grow in our following of Christ in the Cistercian way, and also to help the local superior grow in his or her ministry. It is always a time of special grace.

Our Visitor this year is Dom Peter McCarthy, abbot of Our Lady of Guadalupe monastery in Oregon. We have known Dom Peter for many years and it is always a grace and joy to have him in our midst. 

We ask your prayers for us during this time of especially close listening to the Holy Spirit and whatever God has in store for us at this time.

28 March 2008. We had, as usual, a beautiful celebration of Jesus' passion, death and resurrection. We celebrate the Easter Vigil at 3:30 AM on Easter Sunday, so we never have a big crowd of guests. But this year was our smallest number of guests ever - only 7, 6 of whom were staying on our property!

As of yesterday evening, Dubuque has a new record for amount of snow to fall in one winter. We received over 4 inches of beautiful new snow, for a total of over 76 inches this winter. Certainly it has been an exceptionally pretty winter. We ARE, however, ready for spring! Today the first crocus near our back door bloomed. It is good to see the new life around us as we celebrate the new spiritual and eternal life we share with Christ.

20 March 2008. Blessed Holy Thursday to all! This morning we celebrated together the sacrament of Reconciliation - this has been our community tradition for some years now. Three of priests from New Melleray assist us. We gather in the back of the church, and read a litany. Then any sister who wishes (and pretty much all do) asks the community's forgiveness for some specific faults. We are all always moved to hear our sisters' honesty and see how much each sister is aware of her own weaknesses and failings. When we know a sister is grieved by her own behavior, it is much easier to be sympathetic toward her, and it moves us to be patient with each other - and pray for each other. After this, we move into our choir stalls, the priests go to three stations in the sanctuary, and each sister goes up for individual confession. We used to have a communal absolution at the end, but this year we have heard that is no longer permitted so each received absolution at the end of her private confession to the priest.  

Here is an excerpt from the chapter talk given on the Feast of St Joseph, Saturday the 15th:  

One thing we do know about Joseph is that, once he understood God’s will for him, ‘he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” It is striking that Joseph’s response to God’s commands is so similar to that of Mary, with her ‘Fiat’. These two people, who will be responsible for Jesus in his formative years, are both characterized by obedience to God and willingness to do whatever God asks.

 How can we be with Jesus more closely in his obedience to God? It is unlikely that we will be asked this week to do anything remotely as hard as to face a brutal, agonizing, humiliating death. But this does not leave us without opportunities. We can be united with Jesus by our obedience to our abbess in anything she may ask of us. We can refrain from cheating, in all the little ways we are attempted to cheat, on our obedience to the voice of the community expressed in our “rules and regulations.” We can be obedient to one another, by our ready cooperation and cheerful giving in to one another. We can be united with Jesus by our attentiveness in prayer, both liturgical and private; by all those small decisions we make with our minds, to turn them toward or away from that loving but demanding voice within. We can create a greater silence in our house for all of us to be listening. As we walk down corridors, as we go about our business, we can be engaged in that inner dialogue with God which is the heart of monastic living, which is our way of praying constantly, which is our daily, ordinary, unspectacular form of obedience. 

Joseph “did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” Only the grace of God can accomplish such obedience. Let us ask Joseph to teach us that obedience that he so beautifully models for us, as he did for Jesus. Let us ask that God may accomplish in us what we cannot do in ourselves, so that we too may become obedient unto death, even if it should mean death on a cross. 

13 March 2008.  Our Sr Regina had successful surgery for cataracts the other day, and is now walking around without glasses, for the first time in a long time. And the snow is finally starting to melt, though it will be quite a while before it is all gone.

We are preparing our hearts now to enter into Holy Week. And making mundane preparations too: singing practices, making and shipping candy for Easter orders, cooking... In all this, we try to enter into Jesus' journey, to be plunged into his death with him, and to live in hope of the resurrection.

1 March 2008.  We had a wonderful retreat with Sr Maureen McCabe, a sister from our monastery in Wrentham, Massachusetts - the community which founded us. Sr Maureen used the letter of St Paul to the Philippians as a starting point for her conferences, which centered on the person of Jesus Christ. It was a blessed time for all of us.

21 - 27 February, 2008 - ANNUAL COMMUNITY RETREAT - Please pray for us!

20 February 2008. We are finally back on line, several days after our latest snow and ice storm. Sunday in the wee hours it started to warm up and drizzle, so by the time the snow started and the temperature began to plummet, in the morning, there was a lot of water on the plowed and shoveled parts of the ground, with nowhere to go because of all the snow. Lots of traffic accidents in this part of the world, and even now, 3 days after the storm, the roads are still a bit dangerous.

Which makes it perfect to stay at home and pray! And that's just what we are doing. Our annual week-long community retreat begins tomorrow. Sr Maureen McCabe, from our founding house in Wrentham MA, is here to give us conferences and guidance as we seek to know the Lord more deeply and to love him ever more. We will be praying for all our friends, and for all that needs healing and help in our world, so beloved of God. Please pray for us, too, that we may use this time well and open our hearts to all the grace Jesus wants to give us.

13 February 2008.   Ash Wednesday is always a very special day in the monastic world. The Rule of St Benedict says that each monk is to receive a book to read through during Lent. Most of our Order has retained this practice. Each sister may request which book she would like, but the abbess is free to give her a different book instead. 

The books are covered in white paper, with a holy card or some appropriate picture fixed to the front cover (thans to our novitiate for doing this work!). After Mass on Ash Wednesday we process to the Chapter room, where the abbess gives a spiritual talk to help us enter into the Lenten season. Then the two chantresses come forward and distribute the Lenten books to the seated sisters, each sister receiving the book with both hands extended and covered in her cowl. The chantress and each sister then bow slightly to each other. The formality of the ceremony, and its repetition each year, adds to our sense of reverence for what we are giving and receiving, and our gratitude for the graces that always come in Lent. 

Sr Gail is away for two weeks now, giving retreats at our two monasteries in Virginia: our brothers in Berryville, and now our sisters in Crozet.  And this week our Sr Sherry is also away, giving directed retreats to 4 people, as part of her training for certification in spiritual direction. Both will return next Monday - and our sisters and those on retreat are of course much in our prayers.

4 February 2008. On Saturday, the feast of the Presentation, our Sr Michele pronounced her first vows in the presence of our whole community, gathered in the Chapter Room. We celebrated with a festal dinner at noon. Now Sr Michele has left the novitiate and is a member of the professed community.

18 January 2008. This past Sunday, the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, was the silver jubilee of first profession of our Sr Kathleen. Here are excerpts from reflections she shared with us at Chapter:

I don’t think it’s too fanciful to suppose that the accounts of Jesus’ baptism give us a precious glimpse of a moment that was central to his understanding of himself and his mission. Perhaps when he left Galilee to follow the crowds to the Jordan he had no idea of his own mission. How his divine nature affected his human nature and his understanding of his relation to the Father will always remain a mystery too great for words. No doubt there was always in his heart some kind of amazing awareness of God’s love for him. But as a human being he also needed to grow in understanding of his purpose in life.

So we have Jesus, the sinless one, filled with desire to be baptized – that is already a great mystery. He is tremendously attracted to the Baptist movement, a movement of repentance and renewal. And then, when he in his humility goes down into the water, he receives an astounding gift, a gift that will change his life and change all our lives.

Part of my love of this story comes from my own vocation experience, which was above all an experience of being overwhelmed by God’s love. I love to see this story of Jesus’ baptism as the story of his vocation, to imagine him, at this moment, being overwhelmed with the Father’s love. Surely he was indeed filled with love at this moment in a way beyond anything we experience, because only a heart as large and open as that of Jesus could be filled so greatly.

So overwhelming is the experience that Jesus needs 40 days of intense solitude in the desert to reflect on it. His future, his life, his death, all that will be asked of him, are somehow implicit in his going down into the water, coming up, and hearing the Father’s words of love and election, in the presence of the Holy Spirit of them both. He is God’s beloved Son, and as such he is the voice and presence of the Father to the broken world, charged with bringing the Father’s love into its fullest working out in human history.

Jesus’ own great wish for us is that we might share this experience with him. He gives us this feast so that we can be present, can go down into the waters with him, can share in his bliss at a love so great and so transforming. And we too can ask that this love will change not only our own little lives, but the life of the world.

16 January 2008. This past Saturday several of us went over to New Melleray for None, when two of our Associates made their first commitments. It was a beautiful and moving ceremony. About 6 more Associates who had made their first commitments a year ago also renewed theirs. Perhaps most moving of all, we had the renewal of commitment of the first three Associates ever to make commitments - ten years ago. All three are still active members of the AIC and remember well the growing pains of the group's early years. It took months of prayer and discussion to reach the point where we would allow some members to take the step of making a commitment. Certainly the AIC has come a long way since then!

12 January 2008. Our Sr Columba, our former abbess and our oldest sister, grew up with 3 older brothers and no sisters. Two brothers have died, and on Wednesday the remaining brother took a bad fall and has not recovered consciousness. On Thursday evening we got word that the doctor had said that anyone who wants to see Paul again ought to come home. So yesterday Sr Martha drove Sr Colum to Moline to catch a flight for Vermont, where she grew up. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with her and the family and with Paul as they wait for Jesus to take him home. 

7 January 2008. We celebrated Epiphany with our annual Mass and reception for our volunteers and employees. It is always a joy for us to celebrate with and for our friends whose help is invaluable to us. Since Sr Grace, our 'food housekeeper', had family here, her predecessor Sr Martha prepared the feast, and a wonderful feast it was, held after Mass in  St Benedict's Welcome Center.

At Vespers Sr Christine read the Epiphany Proclamation. This gives an overview of the dates of the major feasts of the coming year, and situates them all in the mystery of Jesus' death and resurrection, and the glory of God's self-revelation to us.

Sisters and our Long-Term Guest Ree enjoy a laugh after wash-up on Christmas day.

31 December. Christmas in the monastery was beautiful, as always, and we are all thoroughly enjoying our Christmas season too. We certainly have a white Christmas this year!

On Christmas Eve we have Vespers (First Vespers of Christmas) early - always an exciting beginning of the great feast. Instead of Compline (which technically is not celebrated if you have a Midnight Mass), we have the blessing of our refectory Tree, then go to bed quite early. A good thing, too, as we get up again at 10:10 at night to start Christmas Vigils at 10:30. Our Christmas Vigils takes us gradually through Luke's nativity account, interspersed with short readings from the Old Testament, psalms, and carols, and ends with the proclamation of the Prologue of the Gospel of John.

We were happy to have a sizable crowd in our guest chapel for Midnight Mass (which we actually start at Midnight), and a number of sisters went down to the guest chapel to greet the guests afterward. It's usually after 2 by the time we are back in bed, and we don't have Lauds until the late hour of 7:30 so we can all get some good sleep.

Our thoughts and prayers at this time of year are especially with all those we love, our families and our many friends. May the Christ child grant you light and peace in the new year!

20 December 2007. We just heard of the death of Fr Nicolaus Kao of our monastery of Lantao in Hong Kong. Fr Nicolaus was nearly 111 years old (110 and 11 months), the oldest monk of our Order and the oldest priest in the Church. He did not enter the monastery until he was 75 years old, and was 100 years old when he made final profession. Who says life begins at 40? Looks more like beginning at 75! We prayed at Mass today for the repose of the soul of our deceased brother.

13 December 2007. Last Friday, December 7th, was our last day of candy production. This year we decided to end production a little earlier than we usually do, and then to give all the extra time to helping ship out our packages. So this week we are still as busy with candy work, but instead of making candy it's 10-12 sister elves spread out at impromptu "work stations" all over the warehouse. And we don't mean computer work stations. This is strictly manual stuff, each sister with a bundle of labels, mailing cartons, stuffing, various inserts, and boxes of candy, busily packing away. Next Monday is our last shipping day, and then we give ourselves over to the practical end of preparing for Christmas - cooking, decorating, and making music. Hopefully our hearts have been preparing for a longer time! 

6 December 2007. Advent is always a very special time in the monastery - it's one of our community's favorite seasons. The darkness just lends itself to more prayer and to becoming quiet with the Lord. Of course, we have our candy business pulling us into activity - somewhat hectic activity for our mail order and shipping departments; but there is also the wonderful sense of all working together for the last push at our candy work. And we have snow!!! Lots of lovely snow, which also adds to the quiet and the sense that Christmas is just around the corner. As one of our many beautiful Advent hymns puts it:

The coming of our God

our thoughts must now employ.

So let us greet him on the road

With songs of holy joy!

26 November. The absence of comment here in the Blog means we sister elves are very busy now with our pre-Christmas candy work. The three weeks after Thanksgiving are the busiest in the year for us, as we start shipping out a few hundred packages each day - while we still have full crews working to produce the candy as well. This year we are planning to end production just before the feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), which will free up more sisters to help in the last big week of shipping before Christmas. And also give us a little breather to celebrate the Advent season, a great favorite with us.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. As is our custom, we worked in the morning, but had a festive coffee break in mid-morning to whet our appetites for dinner. We do eat turkey on Thanksgiving (a big break from our normal vegetarian diet), complete with all the trimmings, and have a wonderful time celebrating together. So very much to be thankful for - we can never even begin to thank God enough. And we are thankful to have this feast on which to be especially mindful of all our blessings.

12 November. We get by with a little help from our friends! When our Associates helped us rake leaves a month ago, many of the trees still had more than half their leaves yet to drop. Last Monday a group of 8th graders from Holy Cross school came for a few hours in the morning and did a wonderful job finishing up. We are especially grateful for this help because at this time of year we can hardly spare time from our candy work to do other big projects. And we have a LOT of tree-studded lawn...

One of our guest facilities, our Stone House, is getting a small addition. The Stone House is the oldest building on our property, constructed in the 1860's by settlers from Luxembourg (our area around Dubuque has numerous such houses). Before we bought the property in 1964 an L-shaped clapboard addition was made on the first floor around one corner of the building, with a bathroom, and an exterior porch and laundry room.

But we have long recognized a need for a second bathroom. The house is the largest of our guest facilities, and can hold 7-8 guests (if they don't mind sharing bedrooms), but that is difficult with only 1 bathroom. Also, the bedrooms are all on the second floor while the bathroom is down the narrow stair to the first floor - risky for elderly guests at night. So we are adding a second bathroom on the second floor.

3 November. Excerpts from Sr Kathleen's chapter talk on the feast of All Saints, Nov 1:

Part of monasticism's great insight into living the Gospel is this sense that as Christians we are called, urgently called, to keep our gaze on Christ. Well, is this just for ourselves' Is it so important to gaze at God just because it's the road to our personal happiness? Because it's the activity of the saints in heaven and we're doing warm-ups?

I think the saints point us in a different direction. We often think of their accomplishments in terms of what they did on earth and the way they have modeled Christ in their time. But surely their greatest works are being accomplished now. St Therese of Lisieux said that she wanted to spend her heaven doing good on earth. Now that they are in heaven, the saints must have tremendous power for doing that good, and surely that is a great, great joy for them - to join in God's own work of salvation with all their new power, free at last from any elements of self-love creeping into it.

And what about us? It seems to me that something all the early Christian ascetics knew in their bones is that there is a great struggle going on, a great conflict between what is right and harmonious and the desire of God for his creation, and on the other hand all the forces of chaos and of evil - all the economic, political, social, psychological, and demonic powers of this present darkness. The greatest contribution any of us can make in this world is all the little ways we align ourselves with what is right, what is loving, what is obedient to God, at any moment. We can do this even if we live inside a drawer. In this world we will never know what great good has been done by some prisoner in solitary confinement who struggles in suffering and loneliness to think and act with integrity and truth, despite the forces of lies and hate directed against them. Less dramatically, it is not given to us to see the good we accomplish all the small times we simply direct our gaze away from our fascinating selves and on to God, all the times we do what we ought instead of doing what we'd like. One of the desert fathers noted that we should expect eventually to make some progress in our struggles with our anger, our lust, our sadness, our greed. "But prayer," said the abba, "is a struggle to the dying breath." It is the most basic struggle, to keep our gaze on God, to do our share in the redemptive work of Christ, turning all creation back to its true orientation.

This is the great drama, the real story of what is happening on planet earth and perhaps beyond. Surely we can serve in many ways, but as Christians we believe that, amazing as it may seem, God has given us the ability to make a difference, somehow, in this great work of Christ. We know the final victory has been won by Jesus; yet we also believe our own efforts are of real, in fact of eternal, value. This is why we desire never to cease doing our part, as long as we live. Even if there seems no hope of changing the ingrained habits of many years, the very fact that we keep trying contributes toward the triumph of good. Our struggles with our vices, our little bad habits, our little ways of selfishness or meanness or inattentiveness, are not just for the sake of making our own lives and the lives of those around us a little happier. They are not just about this life. No, our efforts, whether or not they are victorious, are part of something much bigger than the here and now. This is why the struggle is always worthwhile, no matter how old or tired or discouraged we may be. We have the power to give great joy to God and all his saints and angels merely by our little efforts to be good, to do better. And God has so structured reality that our little efforts make a difference, whether we see it or not, in the real history of the cosmos.

Our sisters and brothers in heaven now have the blessed joy of knowing they will never again turn their faces away from God. This gives added joy and force and glory to their adoration and also to their active work on our behalf and on behalf of the great story of history. This is the glory of all the friends we have in heaven, most of them long forgotten on earth, of whose lives we as yet know nothing - although surely some day we will hear all their marvelous stories and have millions of amazing new friends to make.

31 October. Last night some of the Younger Element in the community created a Haunted House in part of the old wing of the monastery - and several of the Older Element joined them in creating Horrible Scenes. The rest of the community was allowed to enter at 6:10, and escorted by a Witch (Sr Gail) were led through cobwebs and past Alice (Sr Michele), a postulant chained up for 20 years; Mad Dr Remington (Sr Grace) trying to create the Perfect Cistercian Nun (Sr Kathleen); a Vampire (Sr Kathy); a room of jack o' lanterns; and finally to Mad Madam Mim (Sr Columba), a Fortune Teller. We ended up with refreshments around Mad Madam Mim's fire. A lot of laughs all the way through - and a great time was had by all! We brought the evening to a happy conclusion praying Compline together.

Standing: Mad Dr Remington; Witch; Vampire; Alice.

Seated: Perfect Cistercian Nun; Madam Mim

27 October. Day of prayer and fasting for the situation in Burma, in solidarity with the Buddhist monks and nuns there. This was requested by the Monastic Interreligous Dialogue, an international Catholic organization created in response to requests from the Vatican and from the Second Vatican Council for Catholic monastics to participate in the work of interreligious dialogue by initiating dialogue with monastics of other religions. Our community has chosen to participate in this day of prayer by fasting today the way we do on Fridays (i.e., having soup and bread for our main meal), and by remembering our sisters and brothers in our prayers all day.

23 October, 2007. Our corn harvest begins. The weather is lovely, and we pray it may stay so while we and other farmers bring in the crops. Already in our area you can see many corn fields are fresh stubble, while others still have the dried corn standing, awaiting the combine.

Our candy production continues to go smoothly. We are concentrating now especially on coating ('enrobing' is the technical term) the caramels; this takes a fair bit of time and a sizeable crew. We have two coating machines (enrobers), one each for the milk chocolate and the dark chocolate with which we coat some of our vanilla caramels. Three mornings and two afternoons a week we now have crews at both coaters, and the other mornings (including Saturday) we have at least one coater going. It is quieter work than at the caremel wrapper, and often quite peaceful work. If you get into a good rhythm it is easy to repeat a little prayer as the caramels come off the belt...

14-17 October, 2007. Hæge and Rolf Hestnes of Trondheim, Norway are with us these days. H'ge visited us for three weeks in 1998 as we prepared to begin our new monastery on the island of Tautra in the Trondheim fjord, teaching the sisters some elementary Norwegian. She and her husband have continued as members of the Support Group for Tautra, helping our sisters in innumerable ways. Our whole community, plus Sr Lisbeth who of course knows them very well, visited with them together on Monday the 15th. We are immensely grateful for so many who have helped us and our sisters with this major undertaking, now flourishing so beautifully in its beautiful location.

13 October, 2007. Today our lay Associates meet here - usually they meet at New Melleray (we are co-sponsors of the group), as our brothers have much more room to offer. But usually the Associates of the Iowa Cistercians do come to Mississippi for their October meeting - and spend part of the afternoon with us cleaning windows, replacing screens with storm windows, raking leaves, doing other work. It is a blessed time for us all to be together, working together prayerfully for the glory of God. And we are VERY grateful for the help!

11 October, 2007. Our Sr Lisbeth arrives today for a few days's visit. Formerly known to us as Sr Betty, she was one of the sisters we sent to found our new monastery in Norway in 1999, and she 'Norwegianized' her name. It is always a very great joy to us when one of our sisters from our daughter house visits us! Sr Lisbeth was a pillar of our community, serving many years as cellarer (in charge of all maintenance, cleaning, and purchasing) and several years as prioress too. She is cellarer at Tautra, too! Always a calm and competent presence, whom we miss very much.

Otherwise, we have had a quite uneventful couple of weeks. We have started reading a new book in the refectory, Nathaniel Philbrick's The Mayflower - once again, we are listening to a recording. We temporarily stopped reading the Pope's wonderful christology book, to save the rest of it for Advent. So for now we are enjoying hearing about the Pilgrims and their struggles - which put our own in perspective!

30 September - 2 October. M. Nettie drives to Collegeville, MN with Dom Peter and also Dom Brendan of New Melleray. They are on the board of Cistercian Publications, our imprint which publishes English translations of our Cistercian fathers and mothers, and other works related to monastic life. For the last few years Cistercian Publications has been in an alliance with Liturgical Press, the publishing house run by our Benedictine brothers in Collegeville. For many years the editorial offices of CP have been in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at Western Michigan University, which also houses numerous rare books and incunabula on loan from some of our monasteries, to make them available to scholars. The University also has an annual Medieval Institute, and one whole section of that annual conference is given to a Cistercian Institute - a complete series of scholarly lectures on topics of Cistercian history and spirituality.

If you are interested in good spiritual reading to nourish your life in Christ, we encourage you to browse the offerings of both Cistercian Publications and Liturgical Press.

29 September. Dom Peter McCarthy, Abbot of our monastery of Guadalupe in Oregon, visits us in the late afternoon, giving us news of our brothers and their own building projects, and also their land use plans.

21-24 September. Dave Richen, an architectural consultant who has worked with several of our monasteries, visits us to help us work toward a master plan concept. Over the weekend he meets several times with the abbess's council and several times with the whole community. We are excited about the insights and direction we have received from Dave, and appreciate his prayerful approach and his ability to help us toward consensus.

20 September, 2007. It is an ancient monastic tradition to have reading during common meals. Normally the sisters take turn reading on a weekly basis. The books or articles we hear are usually, though not always, of a spiritual nature. In our house we have a committee of 2 sisters who select the readings.

Thanks to modern technology, we now sometimes use audio books instead of having a sister read. We especially like to do this during the fall when we are busier than usual, with our candy production. And truth to tell, the professional readers do a better job!

Recently we began listening to Pope Benedict's book about Jesus. It is simply wonderful, and we are all finding it uplifting and also enlightening. We highly recommend it.

9-16 September, 2007. Sr Gail visits our brothers of Assumption Abbey in Ava, Missouri. Every other year each monastery in our Order has a formal 'Visitation' made by an abbot of the Order. Fr Brendan Freeman, abbot of our brothers at New Melleray, was the Visitor for Ava, but Ava also asked if M. Gail could assist Fr Brendan. She has visited Ava several times before, and provided various kinds of pastoral care and help to the brothers, so she holds their community very specially in her heart and was happy to be of help to them.

3 September, 2007 - Part 2. Fr Scott Meyer, associate pastor at our local parish cluster, has asked to join us for daily Eucharist. So we have invited him to preside, so that Fr Xavier of New Melleray, who has been our chaplain the last couple of years, can stay at home with his own community most days. Fr Xav will continue to come on Tuesdays, to preside and also to be available for sisters wanting to go to the sacrament of Reconciliation. For 6 or 7 years now Fr Jim Barta, chancellor of our diocese, has been coming out for Mass on Saturdays; and Fr John Haugen, another diocesan priest, has been presiding at most of our Sunday Eucharists during the school year since he became chaplain of Loras College here in Dubuque a couple of years ago.  Our brothers at New Melleray continue to provide us with a priest any day our other priests can't come.

It has come as something of a surprise to us to be so content with having our diocesan priests be our chaplains. We have always very much appreciated the services of our Trappist brothers, part of the same religious Order as ourselves, living out discipleship to Christ in the same way we do, understanding our life and its joys and temptations. Our new-found appreciation for the priests of our diocese is partly the fruit of the capital campaign we ran a few years ago, when we became much better acquainted with the local church. It is also true that we are blessed with some outstanding priests here, and we are very grateful for their services.

3 September, 2007. The beginning of 'Candy Season 2007'. We celebrate Labor Day - by laboring! From September through mid-December we set aside all other work that can wait and all pitch in to produce the 35 tons of caramels we will sell by Christmas. It is a blessed time of the year, when we work closely together as a community to earn our daily bread.

Sr Louise started the ball rolling this year by cooking 6 batches of caramel at the end of the previous week, so that on Labor Day the candy crews could start processing the caramel - cutting it, wrapping it, coating some of it, putting it into bags and boxes. We do our best to work in silence, so that even as we work we can pray.

March 19, 2007, the feast of St Joseph, was the 25th anniversary of Sr Sherry's first profession. She gave a talk at Chapter that day. As we celebrate her jubilee on Sept 1, we give you some excerpts:

I chose this feast for my first profession largely because I had been clothed as a novice on the Birth of Mary [Sept 8, 1979]. Joseph, next to Mary, spent the most years with Jesus. These two, together with my feast day saint, Mary Magdalen, would bring me closer to knowing and experiencing Jesus more fully. I knew they would be wonderful companions for my monastic journey...

Initially, Joseph almost refused to become the husband and father God was calling him to be. I imagine Joseph striving to abide by the norms and laws of his Jewish tradition. What profound disappointment and possibly anger he must have held towards Mary when he discovered she was pregnant by someone other than him. How he must have longed for a wife who would bear him his firstborn son, and to live a simple life in the village...What anguish and uncertainty must have gone through Joseph's mind and heart. We know he struggled with this reality because it took an angel in his dream to encourage and tell him to take Mary as his wife.

All of us at some point in our life have faced a major decision that affects not only our own life but the life of others in a profound way. Like Joseph, perhaps we struggled to come to clarity...

I remember the hesitancy, uncertainty, fear that accompanied my inner tugging to travel the monastic path of life. One beautiful day when I came to visit the abbey I had the good fortune to meet Mother Angela, at that time the abbess of Wrentham[founding house of Mississippi], walking near the guest house. Without blinking an eye she asked me point blank if I were going to enter Mississippi. I was caught off guard, not expecting such directness. I replied spontaneously that I wasn't certain, but one of the main things that beckoned to me was the joy I saw whenever I encountered the sisters and I was very attracted to this. She replied that this was a good reason to enter. her words pushed me to take the plunge...You never know when the Spirit will use your presence or words to move another to clarity or action...

Joseph, the faithful one, the voiceless one that most of us will be, is with us bringing his strenght, humility and trust in a God who is ever with us. We don't know what lies ahead on our road of life. We do know that "Life is never mistaken about its road or destination." As I look back on these past 28 years of monastic life, I'm filled with a deep gratitude and a profound sense of blessing and richness for all that God has so abundantly poured out upon me.