Notes, Homilies, and News

Spring has officially begun and flowers are beginning to appear in our cloister garden. We await some weeks for the fuller blooming that will bring many and varied flowers to our gardens. We are now in the planning stages for Spring planting in our large greenhouse,...

Having had a dryer than normal Winter 2024-25, we were happy to have gotten recently some consecutive nighttime snowfalls of an inch or two. Each time the snow was completely melted by midday, but it provided at least some moisture to our land. Sometimes we even say...

Spring cannot be too far off, with the return of robins to our cloister courtyard and the days growing longer and warmer. Indoors, the orchid in today's photo is nearly in full bloom and will remain so for the next few months. The liturgical color of Lent is purple or...

Although we occasionally make and enjoy pumpkin bread here, we don’t sell it. However, we do know a source of excellent pumpkin bread for sale, coming straight from Hollywood, California! See today’s photo and the contact information below, and give Carlos a call or...

Several times each week two of our monks prepare and bake bread for the monks and guests on retreat to enjoy. One brother prepares the "no-kneading crusty bread," and another bakes the loaves in our new trusty Southbend Convection Oven. As a means to enhance the...

The blooming of the abbot's orchid, featured in today's photo, holds hope of the coming of Spring. Daytime temperatures here are now reaching near 60 degrees, though nights are in the low 40s. Clearly the earth is awakening from slumber as the days are lengthening....

We are grateful for having received some snow both the nights of February 13th and 14th. The snow tends to melt rather quickly after sunrise, as the earth is beginning to warm up. In any case, even minimal moisture is very welcome at this time. A mixture of snow and...

Three saints are especially remembered on February 14th each year, whose heavenly intercession we seek. The first saint, popular in both religious and secular realms, is Saint Valentine, a valiant Roman martyr who died for his faith around the year 270 A.D. First...

Despite predictions and promises from forecasters, we've yet to see snow or rain in the Chama Canyon, but we keep hoping and praying for a reversal of fortune. We have been having gusty winds of late, which acts to dry up the land even more. It is by no means a...

To those on retreat here and day visitors, we monks might seem like "carefree creatures," who simply file into and out of church and refectory throughout the day, and not doing much else in between. Behind the scenes, though, we all have jobs, some with more than one...

Each year on February 10th, Benedictines around the world recount the memory of Saint Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict. They both lived from about 480 to 547 AD, natives of Nursia (present day Norcia), in the Umbrian region of Italy, north of Rome. Some posit...