Conception Abbey

Stage 2: Last Month I was saying that the summer often falls into two stages. The first stage takes us up through July 4 and from then on it’s all downhill as the second stage slides right into the opening of the school year.

This certainly has been the case this summer. The construction projects, the road improvements, and the handicap accessible ramp construction march forward whether or not there are enough "sidewalk supervisors" to make sure it's done right. Our numbers of monks have been down due to summer studies, workshops, retreats, and of course vacations. Our summer meals are simply served cafeteria style which means fewer waiters are needed. There are of course a number of positions and house responsibilities which must be covered. This means that those lucky ones who are here and available get asked frequently and "get" to help out as needed.

International Priests Program: Br Macario helped me out by describing our summer educational program for diocesan foreign-born priests who were with us.

"Conception Seminary College’s LCCIP (Language, Culture, and the Church, for International Priests) came to a successful close last Friday (July 30). We had 13 international priests. They came from the Philippines, Africa, India, and Latin America. They are now priests in U.S. dioceses. The month long program focuses on two aspects: accent reduction and American sacramental ministry. The morning class sessions were devoted to language. The first session was accent reduction and the second session was a mix of tongue twisters, American idioms, and Rosetta Stone. The afternoons were workshops that focused on ministering the sacraments in the U.S. In the evenings the priests enjoyed socials in the Alumni Union with other participants and with some monks. The director of the LCCIP program was Sr. Maria Armijo, SFCC. She was also one of the instructors for the morning classes as well as Br. Elias, Br. Macario, and Br. Anselm."

Retreats: Retreat groups continue to come for first time as well as repeated visits to the abbey. It is always good to see people finding peace and quiet time for prayer alone or along with the monks during their stay with us.

Parking Lot facelift: One of the logistic challenges of the summer continues to be the need to empty parking lots of all cars from time to time in order to reseal and recondition as well as mark the parking spots. We got that accomplished this summer along with the major project of replacing the service road down around the carpenter shop with a new concrete pavement road. I had predicted that it would be a skate boarder’s delight, but it turns out that the new road has a roughened finish which will be helpful when dealing with snow and ice next winter but it might be less than a smooth ride for the eager skateboarder.