Corpus Christi – Abbey of St. Walburga

On the Sacred Heart of Christ

July 1, 2026

A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

We can’t even begin to touch the depth of the Heart of Christ, so great a love is His.
But yet the Scriptures open His Heart to us:

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Matt. 11:28-30).
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.” (John 15:9)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)
“But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
“Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger, abounding in mercy.” (Psalm 103:8)
“But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:35-36)
“I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like those who raise an infant to their cheeks; I bent down to feed them.” (Hosea 11:4)
“At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt. 9:36)
“Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, leading the ewes with care.” (Isaiah 40:11)
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) (Note: When you enter the monastery, you lay down your life. You are actually willing to die, because you are no longer living for yourself. You can no longer strive for your own ambitions. You live for God. It’s not about you; it’s about Him.)

Since the beginning, His love hasn’t stopped. Of all the hearts that have ever moved among men, it is Jesus Christ’s that is most sensitive. So quick to respond to those in need. So perceptive to feel the crushing rejection of those he came to save, and did save, despite the hatred that surrounded Him during His passion. Dying on the cross, His Heart was pierced so that the last drop might be poured out for the life of the Church.

The Rule of St. Benedict provides instructions for how to become holy and how to love. He tells us to “prefer nothing to the love of Christ” (Ch. 72), and “prefer nothing to the Work of God” (Ch. 43). In the Prologue, St. Benedict writes, “Therefore we intend to establish a school for the Lord’s service. In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love” (v. 45-47). How do you safeguard love? How do you safeguard your love for Christ? How do you safeguard your vocation? How do you safeguard His life in you? Safeguarding involves caring for something very precious. It means doing everything you can to keep it safe. What do you put into your heart?

It seems to me that the Sacred Heart the tabernacle of our hearts. Can we say that our hearts are tabernacles for His Heart, too? It has been scientifically verified from some of the Eucharistic miracles that the Host is actually heart tissue. It is His Heart that is hidden in the Host. So we truly consume the Heart of Jesus at every communion, but it never takes away from His Heart. Only God can do that.

Everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants to have someone look at them and say, “It’s you!” Well don’t think Jesus doesn’t do that. And you know, He’s actually jealous when you love something else more than Him (including ourselves!). Mature women have boundaries to safeguard their marriages and families. So should we. Let us learn to love His Heart more than our own. Let us quickly learn to return love for love. He is still looking for those who will comfort Him. May we be among them.

St. Benedict concludes his Prologue with, “Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. Never swerving from his instructions, then, but faithfully observing his teaching in the monastery until death, we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom. Amen.” (v. 48-50).

His Kingdom is His Heart.

Photos of our 2026 Corpus Christi procession, courtesy of a retreatant

On the Eucharist

June 10, 2023

A reflection for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB

Around the year 90 AD, the Didache recounts how important the Eucharistic celebration was for the early Christians:

“On the Lord’s Day of the Lord gather together, break bread and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure. Let no one who has a quarrel with his neighbor join you until he is reconciled by the Lord: ‘In every place and time let there be offered to me a clean sacrifice.”

Also, around 110 AD, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote beautifully of the Eucharist:

“I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood, which is love incorruptible.”
(Letter to the Romans 7:3)

“Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery…”
(Letter to the Philadelphians 4:1)

“They [i.e. the Gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again.”
(Letter to Smyrnians 7:1)

And of course we have St. Justin Martyr’s (c. 100-165 AD) account of the Eucharistic celebration:

“For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.”
(First Apology, 66)

Origen (185-254 AD) writes of the care and concern for every particle of the Eucharist, that it would not fall on the ground:

“You are accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries, so you know how, when you have received the body of the Lord, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall, and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish….how is it that you think neglecting the word of God a lesser crime than neglecting his body?”
(Homilies on Exodus 13:3)

Oh that we had that much care and concern as the Church fathers and early Christians did for the Eucharist. But it begins with seeds. If a field has been heavily trampled upon, farmers have to re-seed it. It strengthens the old seed and makes it come up reinvigorated. We should be that seed. If we show reverence, adore the Eucharist, forgive everyone before we receive Him, have faith and belief, and most especially love, we plant the seeds to reinvigorate the Church. We should not be afraid to be vulnerable – even though it is the thing we most often want to run away from, it is often how God uses us most powerfully. If we learn to embrace this, we are like the seed that dies and is broken open, so that it may flourish. Become a seed. Become a saint. That is what God is looking for to reinvigorate His Church, that it may flourish.

Last year’s Corpus Christi procession at the Abbey of St. Walburga

Signs of Summer

June 15, 2022

The below “photo story” highlights some of the things that make this season special at our monastery:

The sound of singing birds filling our chapel through the open windows is a sure sign that summer has arrived. This year a Red-winged Blackbird nest was found woven through the grass along the bank of one of the irrigation ditches.

Mowing, weeding, and gardening are very time-intensive during the summer months, but even more so this year since we are in the process of moving the location of the main vegetable garden to be closer to our cloister area.

Wooden crucifix in the Sisters’ Refectory

The Blessed Sacrament as seen from one of the upper loft oratories in our chapel

One of the best things about summer is the liturgical Solemnities that are celebrated, including Pentecost, the Most Holy Trinity, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, Saint Benedict, and the Assumption of Mary. In honor of Corpus Christi, here is a beautiful word about the institution of the Eucharist:

Our Lord raised His hands over the apostles, His lips moved in prayer, and He then said: “Do this in commemoration of me”…
By this act Our Lord made possible for all time His stay on earth amongst men, whom He loved to such an excess. And yet He knew with His Divine foresight what that meant for Him. Though He saw that His Body and Blood would be treated with reverence by a multitude of devout souls, yet He realised full well that in many and many an instance in the course of ages He would be placing Himself at the mercy of unworthy and sinful priests who would treat Him with irreverence and sacrilege. He saw in vision all the profanations, outrages and, what was more painful still to His loving heart, the cold indifference that He was to endure…
Love, especially Divine Love, does not halt to calculate and weigh advantage and disadvantage in the balance.
Excerpts from “The Last Supper” by Edward Leen, C.S.Sp.