The Holy Cross Abbey community will observe its annual retreat from Sunday evening, 2 March, through Thursday, 6 March. The Retreat Master is Fr. Stephen Verbest, OCSO of New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Iowa. Fr. Stephen serves his community as Novice Director, among other responsibilities and will be giving us one 30 minute conference each evening of […]
Abbot Robert’s Homily for the 7th Sunday of the Year
Readings: Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18I Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew5:38-48 Saint Matthew’s Gospel continues to teach us from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This is one of the best known sections of all the Gospels. Going the extra mile and turning the other cheek: we’ve grown up with those phrases. The line from the Old Testament, an eye for an […]
Seventh Sunday, Year A, 23 February, 2014
The community Mass will be celebrated at 11:00 AM, Abbot Robert Barnes presiding and preaching.
New Photographs
It is not lost on any of our visitors that the Abbey has been repainted, that there are new members in the community and many of our veterans have died and are buried. Yet the images on the website do not always reflect those realities. Of course, in an era accustomed to HD, not any old snapshot […]
Monastic Immersion Weekend Waiting List
The March 28-30 MIW is full so we have begun a waiting list. If you would like to be placed on that list to get a place should someone cancel (which always happens, by the way), please send email to companions@virginiatrappists.org The September MIW (11-14) for men has plenty of room available.
Homily for the Sixth Sunday, 16 February, 2014
Readings: Sirach 15:15-20; I Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37 In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ teaching is consistent: he’s challenging our preconceptions. He questions our conventions; he questions our expectations of him. He challenges the conventional notions of anger and forgiveness, of respectable appearances covering the sex drive, of marriage and divorce, of swearing an oath to justify […]
The Living Context for Humility
Last Sunday I reviewed why the focus on St. Benedict’s teaching on the monastic virtue of humility is so apt for this moment of out community’s life. We have taken up the challenge to re-founding our community. Holy Cross Abbey has existed for over sixty years. Most of those who were here in the days […]
Snow Conditions at the Abbey
The Retreat House is closed this weekend; there are serious problems clearing the road up to the Retreat House. The staff have been unable to get in and snow clearance in general remains a challenge, In regard to Sunday Mass, visitors would be well advised not to attempt the trip in; there is still limited parking space […]
Sixth Sunday, Year A, 16 February, 2014
The community Mass will be celebrated at 11:00 AM, Fr. James presiding and preaching. Although we are expecting road conditions to be good by Sunday, please double check before driving out here; the road along the River can be treacherous.
St. Benedict for the Rest of Us
As someone who has been an active/contemplative for some 40 years and a ‘monastery junky’ for just as long, I often have conversations with people that ask about the life and that wonder about how it might be part of their own lives. Sometimes they even ask if it is possible to be a ‘monk in the […]