May 21 - Happy Pentecost
We wish you a very happy Pentecost and, today, memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church! For the past three days, we've been blessed with the presence among us of Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, Apostolic Nuncio to Canada. It has been an absolute joy and honour to welcome him and celebrate these beautiful feasts of the Church together in communion with our Holy Father Pope Francis and the Church throughout the world. Come, Holy Spirit!
We had other, less expected guests earlier this week, during the middle of our Pentecost retreat. After Matins and Lauds one morning, a sister noticed a dark shape high up in a tree in our middle field. It turned out to be a bear! What this picture doesn't show is that there was another bear, of a similar size, hanging out just a few trees over! The monastery's binoculars were passed around, and as best we could tell, our ursine arborists were cheerfully munching breakfast. They had climbed down by Mass, which was perhaps fortunate, as readings for the day included Psalm 68—and "Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up" suddenly took on a new and unexpected meaning!
Finally, this week we were delighted to receive our first copy of Sr. Jean Marie's new book, The Quest for the Divine: Philosopher, Prophet and Mystic, which explores the "essential connection between contemplation and daily life" through the writings of Etty Hillesum, Meister Eckhart and Eric Voegelin. It is available on Amazon, and will be available in the monastery's gift shop shortly!
And finally, just in case you haven't seen it yet, our spring newsletter is now posted here in English et en Français.
God bless!
