For the past two years, Sr. Florentina Marie has been hard at work in our downstairs candle workshop, hand-pouring Paschal candles (as well as all our altar candles, Advent candles and other interesting creations) and letting them cure. This January, she spent time with our Franciscan Poor Clare sisters at St. Clare's Monastery in Duncan learning how to decorate and finish the Paschal candles with a variety of fine wax designs. Thank-you, dear sisters, for your gracious and joyful support! Here are the "first fruits" of this year's candles.
May God bless you and those you hold in your hearts, throughout this Christmas Octave! We hold you, and our world, in our prayers.
Here are a few peeks into our community's celebration of our Lord's Nativity.
It is our joy and privilege to sing the public prayer of the Church throughout the day in the Divine Office. Composed of psalms, canticles and readings from throughout the Scriptures, the Divine Office has its roots in the earliest Christian communities, who continued the Jewish custom of sanctifying certain hours of the day (and, thus, the whole day) with prayer. The Desert Fathers and Mothers took this tradition of praying the psalms into the Scetis desert of Egypt, forming the foundations of what would later grow to be cenobitic monastic life.
Over 1700 years later, we still pray in their footsteps: "I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living."