Sacred Stones, Sacred Stories

Area Columbiettes and other friends recently shared their time and talents to help our Tucson Sisters harvest dates at our monastery.

A bucket truck makes this job a lot easier!

Friends from A&Z Landscaping offered the use of their time and truck.

Friend Libby Davison mans the wheelbarrow.

Prioress Ramona Varela (far right) takes a moment to survey the work done by volunteers.

This is always a fun day, full of hard work and fellowship with great friends. We thank them all for their friendship and generosity!

Guest access to any property is of the utmost importance when extending hospitality, and that is something a Benedictine monastery does often and continuously.

With the new south entrance being at ground level all the way into the Adoration Chapel, the three difficult sets of steps to navigate are now removed!

Plus, we now have bus parking for tours!

Before the renovation, busloads of pilgrims and tourists had to navigate an employee parking area and walk all the way around to the front entrance.  We now have bus parking areas so the sightseeing folks can come up the front walk along with everyone who arrives by smaller vehicles.

And we also have additional spaces for disabled visitors:

Parking and entering our monastery are now blessings for those who are physically disabled.  We feel grateful for being able to do this.

If you know us, you know that we all have household chores we are assigned to keep our house clean and operating even while we have lived in our guesthouses. I am sure you all have these little jobs and chores.

Several of us are helping with the cleaning chores to ready the monastery for reentry in the next few weeks.

This weekend we washed and polished the chapel’s floors…

And dusted more furniture and moved more boxes. We will do this often as we begin the countdown to reentry. We are so excited!

What a week it’s been! Please excuse our blog absence. We launched our new website this week (hurray!) and had to take a few days off during the process so the switchover could occur without losing any new posted information.

Meanwhile, several of us helped dust off furniture in the monastery one Saturday.

It was furniture that was in storage or rode out the deconstruction mess in the midst of the work.  As we cleaned things off and moved some tables and equipment to where it now belongs, our hearts were stirred with much anticipation of the day we can move back in.

Our prioress, Sister Sean, helped touch up some windows too!

We are so happy to announce our Adoration Chapel will be open and functional early in 2012.  While we must wait a couple more months to open back to the public, words cannot express how joyful we are in anticipation of spending the holidays back in our beautiful chapel!

Keep watching…and praying.  We so appreciate your prayerful support.  Know we hold you in prayer as well.

As our THANKS to you, all first-time buyers receive a 5 percent discount!

www.prayerfullypopped.com