Conception Abbey

I apologize for not having written on this blog since early May. Since that time we have closed out the school year, had our community retreat, celebrated the Solemnity of Pentecost and this past Sunday celebrated the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity.

The school year closed with graduation on Sunday, May 16. So another group of students move on, many of them to theological studies in schools of theology, while others will decide that the priesthood is not their vocation so will go into another field of work. Already the prospects for next school year look good as more young people seem to be considering the priesthood as a possible vocation in life. Pray for them.

On Monday evening, May 17, we began our community retreat. Our retreat master this year was Father Ronald Witherup, P.S.S., a Sulpician priest. This community was founded in France after the Council of Trent, especially to train young men for the priesthood. Father Witherup was a wonderful retreat master. His retreat was entitled: Paul and Benedict: The Christ-Centered Life. He has been studying the Rule of St. Benedict in recent years and he is already a well known scripture scholar in the Letters of St. Paul. He is seeing how often Benedict uses Paul and obviously was well acquainted with his Letters.

Then on Sunday, July 23, we celebrated the Solemnity of Pentecost. The Abbot was celebrant for the Mass. With this feast we of course concluded the Easter season and began so called Ordinary Time. Ordinary time simply means we do not have a special emphasis on a particular event in the life of Christ during this time. This season of the Church Year will run all the way to Advent now. This is year C in the lectionary so the Gospel readings will be from the Gospel of St. Luke until Advent, 2010.

Sunday, May 30, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. A beautiful feast which helps to remind us that God is a family of love. God is one, but there are three persons. That is a mystery which we cannot fully understand. Perhaps an important lesson we can learn from this feast is that we have a relationship with that Trinity and so we need to enter into a relationship with the three Persons. The Father sent the Son to redeem us, and then the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit who continues to be with us until the end of time. God is a community of perfect sharing and equality. May we too become more and more a part of that community.

To read Fr. Kenneth personal blog go to: http://kennethosb.blogspot.com/

God bless all our oblates and all of you who read this blog.