In this season of joyful anticipation, our community celebrated the First Monastic Profession of Sister Clare, who received the name Sister Cecilia on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 2025). She professed stability, fidelity, and obedience to the monastic way of life for the next three years, to be renewed annually until Solemn Monastic Profession.

This Advent, we pray that God would enkindle in Sister Cecilia’s heart an ever-growing love for the sweet yoke of Christ according to the Rule of St. Benedict. In that same spirit, Mother Maria-Michael, OSB, delivered an address on November 29, inviting us to keep the Advent flame alive in our hearts with vigilance in prayer and service. Below is an abridged version of her reflection.

Staying vigilant

Advent is really the life of the monk. It is what we are all about: being vigilant and being ready.

In the Divine Office, we read, “Sober, just, and godly we live in this world as we live in blessed hope for the glorious coming of our mighty Savior, Jesus Christ. Let us be concerned with inspiring each other to love and do good works” (Titus 2:12-13). That is a holy community! That is one that is truly seeking God and not self.

Likewise, in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers us a timely exhortation:

Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy
from carousing and drunkenness
and the anxieties of daily life,
and that day catch you by surprise like a trap.
For that day will assault everyone
who lives on the face of the earth.
Be vigilant at all times
and pray that you have the strength
to escape the tribulations that are imminent
and to stand before the Son of Man.

Luke 21:34-36; emphasis added

He does not say that we “become drowsy because we have been working hard.” It is not a surprise that we are tired. It is not a surprise that sometimes we feel a little worn out. We should! We are putting everything into the life we are living. That is the gift we give to God. Sometimes getting up for Matins is hard, but that is the choice of one who is vigilant — one who is waiting for God.

That is the Gospel we should keep before ourselves this Advent. We have to live with vigilance.

The fire of unity

I have been thinking so much about the fire of the early Church — the love with which they lived their lives. They were aflame. They were standing strong, and they were truly one. They loved the Church.

And I pray that we, too, reclaim again that love. We should be like a community keeping the Easter fire going — the Easter fire from the beginning, the first Easter fire that shot fire into the world.

We should keep Advent as precious as the Easter fire. And let us be that fire for the Church. We need to be the sparks that make everything go afire. It only takes a spark to start a forest fire — that is all it takes. But what if we are a torch?

We have to live with great love for the Church.

How relevant this is for our day! We are not called to tear the Church apart. We are called to trust in God, and we are called to unity in obedience to the Church. And I would ask that we pray specifically for the Church this Advent. It does not need to be torn apart — and, quite frankly, a lot of schisms are tearing parishes apart and pulling people away.

That is not the Church.

I think it is going to take a lot of prayer to bring it back. But isn’t that our life? It is one of prayer. It is one of obedience. It is one of sacrifice.

St. Benedict was very clear on this when we hear about the kinds of monks:

Third, there are the sarabaites, the most detestable kind of monks, who with no experience to guide them, no rule to try them ‘as gold is tried in a furnace’ (Prov. 27:21), have a character as soft as lead. Still loyal to the world by their actions, they clearly lie to God by their tonsure. Two or three together, or even alone, without a shepherd, they pen themselves up in their own sheepfolds, not the Lord’s. Their law is what they like to do, whatever strikes their fancy. Anything they believe in and choose, they call holy; anything they dislike, they consider forbidden.

RB 1.6-9

I think we should go back to this chapter and read it again, because it has such great wisdom in it. It shows us what unity means. It shows us how you have to be ever vigilant to be good monks.

Do not be afraid to know what you do wrong. Be afraid that you don’t. And be willing to change it. We must say to ourselves, “No, I am not going that way anymore. Is it not God’s call to bring me to holiness? I must continue on the straighter road. I must continue to strive for holiness.”

If we all strive for holiness this way, we become one in unity — one in community. We strive to live well by inspiring each other to the good things.

Eagerness in prayer

I love going to Matins early every morning and seeing everyone coming. It makes me think, “I’ve got to get in there — I want to be a part of that!” I love when the bell rings and everyone is in a hurry to get to chapel. I think that is such a grace.

I also think it is such a grace when we serve each other at table. That is one of the most beautiful things of the monastic life. The world needs to return to serving one another. We need to keep that strong.

And we need to remember, during this Advent, that we are going to serve each other as best we can and keep our minds on prayer.

Let us dive in with joy. Let us pick up this season and run with hearts open wide. Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When we pray “Your Majesty,” we must remember that He is the most majestic. I pray that everyone will have a holy and spiritually uplifting Advent that leads to prayer in which we are full of gratitude for Him who came so humble that He chose to be a child.

There’s nothing more humble.

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”The Last Sigh of Christ” by Julien-Michel Gue, 1840. Julien-Michel Gue, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Prayer is about listening to God, and obedience is about acting on what we hear.  Obedience requires that we be free enough in sprit to do what God asks of us.  We need to be free to do the will of God.  When there is right relationship, right order, in our lives, obedience is simple – If we just do what we’re told (unless it is a sin!), we will become holy.  Why do we sometimes try to make holiness harder than it has to be, by avoiding doing what we’re asked because we think there’s a better/holier way?  It’s only when our relationship with God is out of order that obedience becomes a problem for us – when our self-will becomes more important than serving God and our neighbor.  When we allow our inclinations that are not quite in order with God to take the first place, it puts a weight on us that makes obedience too heavy and hard to bear.  We get irritable.  We are unhappy.  It is painful.  But when our lives are brought back into proper relationship with God, and He can ask anything of us through obedience, then our peace is restored.

So the monastic vow of obedience is not a chain – it’s a ray of light.  It shows us the way to God.  It shows us the true path.  It gives us the way through the eye of a needle.  It allows us to practice every day what Christ did during His life on earth.  He who said, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me” (John 6:38), and prayed before His death, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), and then finally became “obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), has gone before us to show us the way.  You can give up all your possessions, your time, your talent…But if you do not give up your will, you have not yet completely surrendered your all to God.  Try offering Him your will, and your will experience the fruit of His promise: “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

When we profess our vow of obedience, we place our hands between those of our Abbess

In honor of the first anniversary of Sister Maria-Raphaelle and Sister Fidelis’ Solemn Monastic Profession, which was on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, 2021, we made this short video showcasing some of the highlights of the ceremony, accompanied by their singing the Regnum Mundi chant.

During the vow renewal ceremony, the “Suscpie” is sung by the sister before the altar. The full text of the chant is “Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum, et vivam et non confundas me ab expectatione mea,” which translates, “Uphold me O Lord, as you have promised, that I may live; and disappoint me not in my hope.” Below is a beautiful word about the “Suscpie” from Esther de Waal, a contemporary author on Benedictine spirituality:

We stand daily before God with empty hands, just like the publican. “Suscpie me, accept me O Lord as you have promised and I shall live; do not disappoint me in my hope.” [These words] mean more now that I have learnt that the Latin word comes from the verb sub-capere, to take underneath and so with the idea of supporting, raising, and that in Roman usage it was the word for a father taking up a new-born infant from the ground and thus recognizing it as his own…Accept me, receive me, support me, raise me up – wonderful singing words that say everything that I want to say as a prayer for myself.

Esther de Waal, Living With Contradiction

During the celebration of the Eucharist on that day, some of our Sisters sang a motet called “Dixit Maria” by Hans Leo Hassler, in honor of Mary’s response to Gabriel’s message. The video features their singing, along with the tapestries hanging in our chapel woven by a nun from Abtei St. Walburg in Eichstätt, Germany:

Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in their exile from Paradise. Abraham begs it, David begs it. All the other holy patriarchs, your ancestors, ask it of you, as they dwell in the country of the shadow of death. This is what the whole earth waits for, prostrate at your feet. It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race.

Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word.

Why do you delay, why are you afraid? Believe, give praise, and receive. Let humility be bold, let modesty be confident. This is no time for virginal simplicity to forget prudence. In this matter alone, O prudent Virgin, do not fear to be presumptuous. Though modest silence is pleasing, dutiful speech is now more necessary. Open your heart to faith, O blessed Virgin, your lips to praise, your womb to the Creator. See, the desired of all nations is at your door, knocking to enter. If he should pass by because of your delay, in sorrow you would begin to seek him afresh, the One whom your soul loves. Arise, hasten, open. Arise in faith, hasten in devotion, open in praise and thanksgiving. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, she says, be it done to me according to your word.

In Praise of the Virgin Mother by St. Bernard (Hom. 4, 8-9: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 [1966], 53-54)

On this day, the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, two of our Sisters renewed their monastic vows for another year. Join us in praying for them in their final year of the Juniorate as they continue to prepare for their solemn vows.

Visit our website to learn more about the stages of monastic formation in our community: Becoming a Nun