January’s Jump into the New Year
On the Feast of the Epiphany, January 5th, we celebrated an annual Christmas meal with the sisters of Mississippi Abbey. This meal is provided through the generosity and kindness of the Michael Burke family. After celebrating Vespers in the church, the two communities gathered in our guest house dining area for the sharing of the evening meal. We are very grateful to the Burkes for this gift.
We held the annual meeting of the shareholders of Trappist Caskets this month. Every professed member of the community is registered as such, and the law requires an annual meeting during which we review minutes, the operations of the Corporation, and voting for officers. As members of the board, Sam Mulgrew and David Schueller joined us under the capable and efficient moderating of our lawyer, Davin Curtiss.
The community approved the installation of a few more new windows on the lower level of the building. The unseasonably mild weather has allowed the continuation of pruning in the orchard and cleaning away dead trees and underbrush from in front of the monastery.
Fr Brendan returned to Ireland for a couple weeks to assist in the process of merging three communities there. He had been superior at Mellifont for some time (one of the merging communities) and his presence would be helpful at this challenging time. Although we have no director or presenter, we are planning to have a week of community retreat from March 2nd to 7th — a special time for prayer and personal reflection.