St. Benedict’s Abbey is pleased to announce its Share Our Mission capital campaign to make urgent repairs to its monastery and raise support for the education of young monks and the retirement needs of elderly monks.

The three-year campaign is a $3.2 million effort to replace more than 600 windows in the monastery and repair the 80-year-old building’s slate roof.

“Our monastery is looking to the future with hope,” Abbot Barnabas Senecal said. “We currently have three new novices. Three other young men are in simple vows working toward the day when they will profess lifetime vows. At the same time, we have noble men who have served long and diligently and continue to serve our community in retirement.  This campaign is a response to that hope, an effort to care for our home as we care for our community.”

Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Now I want all the children here this morning to stand up. (And so, all the “little children do stand up.)  Oops! Something is radically wrong here. I said I want all the children here to stand up. (And one by one, all the adults stand up, too)

We have a story this morning from the First Book of Samuel about a child, a child of God, Samuel, who is called by God to be someone other than who he thinks he is.  And we are all in that very same position.  Let’s look at it from a different perspective:

Once upon a time, a group of hunters killed a whole pride of lions, except for one small baby lion that survived.  He stayed alone, trembling in fear until a herd of goats came by and adopted him.  So, the lonely lion cub became a goat. He lived as goats lived, ate grass and had a rather quiet life.  But he knew, somehow, that he was different from the rest of the goats because when he saw his reflection in the water, he didn’t look like the other goats.