Is now...                                                             Monday, February 20, 2012 - Week 28

St. Michael's Abbey
 

examination2Q: Where do the ashes of come from?   

A: Each year, at the onset of Holy Week, the Church celebrates Palm Sunday - and palm branches are blessed for the faithful to carry in procession before the Mass, commemorating the triumphal entrance of Christ into Jerusalem before His Passion.  These palms are kept, and on Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday) they are burnt down to ashes, which are the ashes used to sign people's foreheads at Mass at the beginning of Lent.  Thus, the very matter that brings one Lenten season to completion one year is used to open Lent the next year.  

Roses for Mary 
Marie van Houtte
Marie van Houtte is a Tea rose bred by Jean-Claude Ducher in 1871. It was introduced in the United States by Conard & Jones in 1903 as "Winter Gem." Marie van Houtte is one of those tea roses in the abbey collection that needed to be put in and forgotten about - a watched plant never grows.  It gets immense, for certain, but in a slow steady accumulation of twiggy growth building on itself.  It is different in this respect from some of the other, later Teas that throw up huge canes from the start and then fill in.  The flowers are a pale cream yellow and they blush around the edges, rather like a pastel version of the famous "Peace".  If you have the climate (zone 7 or higher), the room (a mature Marie van Houtte can top out at about 9' x 14'), and the patience (it will take a few years to build up some substance and will look small and insignificant for the first few seasons), it is one of the finest Teas ever bred.


Transforming Lives for Christ 
maria SagliettoMaria Saglietto

Maria came to know about St. Michael's in the mid 1990s because of contact with Fr. Francis and his home school religion classes.  She and her husband Aldo were attracted to the vibrancy of the faith they saw at the abbey, and they wanted to become more involved.  When her elder son, Paolo, was old enough, she and Aldo sent him to summer camp at the abbey and eventually enrolled him and his younger brother Marco at St. Michael's. Maria became very involved as a parent in volunteer work for the annual Vantage Point Gala where she is the local "fac totum."  Blessed with a bubbly personality and a "can do" attitude, Maria brings hope and joy wherever and whenever she is involved, because she is willing to work hard, and always keeps unflappable good cheer.
NORBERTINE NOTABLES 
The Martyrs of Allerheiligen

In the late 1500s, the Protestant revolt had spread in Alsace in the region of Strasbourg.  The upheaval was so extensive that fully half of the members of the cathedral chapter became Protestant.  In 1594, the few remaining Norbertines in the abbey of Allerheiligen (All Saints) elected James Jehle as provost, an election which local Protestant nobility protested.  Since James swore allegiance to the Roman Catholic faith and would not be cowed by threats. Brandenburgian soldiers came and arrested him, threw him in a dungeon at Dachstein, where he was murdered in 1595.  Allerheiligen Abbey had seven parishes which also refused to accept the "new creed." Subsequently two other Norbertines, Lawrence Metzger and James Stamber, were murdered for their defense of the faith.
 
 
UPCOMING EVENT   
February 22: Ash Wednesday, 7:00 a.m. Mass
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St. Michael's Abbey

949-273-5450