See you at Anaheim! Trappist West: Monks and Nuns - Anaheim Convention Center - February 21 -23, 2020.  

Abbot Paul Mark and Fr. Stephen arrived from New Clairvaux Abbey in Vina, California, bringing gifts.  They made the 5 hour trip hauling a squirrel (not the animal, but a machine).  It will be used at Redwoods for building maintenance on those high hard to reach gutters as well as for pruning fruit trees.

What was the larger horizon that guided our founders’ decision to leave their monastery of Molesme to the wilderness of Citeaux?  It seems to me that if we can tease out what were the motivating factors in the discernment of our founders to leave Molesme, it will help us, as well, to be sure that we are faithful to this larger vision of what Cistercian – Benedictine life is to be about in its essence.

‘To walk as Jesus walked’ (1Jn 2:6) is to live the incarnate reality.  These holy days of Christmas and now Epiphany all emphasize God’s incarnate gift in Christ to and for us, and for our world.  The importance of these days is to imprint upon our memories (so that we will not forget) that God is always coming, always bidding to become a part of our lives, of our hearts, of our choices, of how we love.

BEHOLD, WHEN THE FULLNESS OF TIME HAD COME, GOD SENT HIS SON INTO THE WORLD!  

The fullness of time is NOW as Christ is ever being born anew in our hearts and our world.  In the words of Abbess Kathy:

Today (hodie) we stand in the ambience and reality of the ‘first Coming’, of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, this great gift of God’s beloved Son.  Today we celebrate this historical reality.  And this is not all: Today (hodie) we stand with open hearts of faith as we behold the ‘second Coming’, the birth of Christ personally to each one of us and to the expanded horizon of our Church and our world.  Let us never forget this: God’s incarnation is on-going and it needs each one of us, alone and together, to embody God’s life that is always coming into our lives.  

May the presence of Emmanuel, God with Us, fill our hearts with joy, give us hope for the future and help us carry the burdens of this life.