Sacred Stones, Sacred Stories

Today we honor the life of St. Scholastica, St. Benedict’s sister. We will observe a Sunday schedule, meaning we are excused from many of our daily tasks to focus more intently on prayer.

It’s also a day of celebration as we welcome our newest postulant! This is such a happy day, as Maria has discerned her decision for years and has been called to enter our Congregation. It will be an honor to help her continue her monastic journey.

Later this evening we will observe Vespers with our neighbors, the monks at Conception Abbey, and enjoy a meal.

Work crews are going around the monastery making those finishing touches!

Here the company who put in our new front door is adding door sweeps and making sure the doors work properly. We are grateful for their attention to details.

OK, we couldn’t help the pun. It is Halloween, after all, and we’ve been hitting the chocolate around here.

Here’s what our new entrance looked like before the grass arrived:

The sod was delivered this week in two loads, and our workmen got it laid out and made it fit just right.

The roots have to take hold of the soil beneath and anchor each piece.

Until we can actually walk on it and put in other vegetation, we will admire the grass, which has been gone so long but now is back. That is the lawn and short of it!

Creating altar breads is our main source of income to support our contemplative life. However, we also make several handcrafted items, including fragrant soaps and lotions, rosaries and pottery, along with publishing several books.

We sell these items online at www.monasterycreations.com but also have a few available at our monasteries for visitors to purchase.

In the past, these items were on display at our Clyde monastery in what we tongue-in-cheek called the “gift shop hallway.” We didn’t have the appropriate space for an actual gift shop. Instead, we had a few shelves that lined a long hallway. It wasn’t pretty, but it served its purpose.

So we are excited the renovations created a new space for us – an actual gift shop! It will be located off the main entry (you can see the doorway on the right):

The main entry will also include the information and welcome center for the portress, a small office for her and a parlor (through the doorway on the right) where guests and visitors may sit while waiting for Sisters.

All in all, these new areas will be welcoming and filled with warmth and grace – all testaments to St. Benedict’s Rule of treating each guest as if she or he were Christ himself.

This porch once graced the west side of our monastery, greeting visitors at the main entrance.

With renovations, we moved the main entrance to the south side. But we made sure to save some things.

Patiently waiting for a new home are the medallions that adorned the porch and the cross that rested on the top:

It will be wonderful to see these beautiful pieces – those that signify our monastic life and commitment to the Lord – once again grace our home.

This week the crews received a perfect roofing work day from God – cool, sunny and breezy. You can’t ask for a better day for this kind of work.

The crews are putting on the finishing touches on the old west wing and on the new entrance. They are making good progress. This is a good thing as September starts today!

What a difference a few months make.

In December this is what a section of our monastery looked like after workers began installing the ground systems for the new geothermal system:

And this is what it looks like now:

This area was a mud bog for many months but has since grown back to its grassy covering, hiding the geothermal loops underground.  The field is a welcome sight and will be next to the new circular entry drive:

The drive doesn’t look like much right now but in time will be just as welcoming.

The Sacred Stones, Sacred Stories project has provided us with so many changes and WOW moments…but perhaps none greater than the remarkable changes to the southern view of our Clyde monastery:

This is what our monastery looked like just one year ago. To make room for construction equipment, we had to sacrifice some of our beautiful trees. Fortunately, we will see them again – just in another form. The wood was saved, to be used for future projects.

After the areas slated for deconstruction were emptied, taking great care to recycle a variety of materials like bricks, wood, windows, hardware, light fixtures and even bathroom tile, crew members began removing the southern portion that edged the inside courtyard.

By December, the Marian Wing had also been removed. This left us with a clean slate to begin construction of the new entrance.

New footings were poured and work on the new entrance reached this point in May.

We’re so excited to see how this transformation has taken place. All the prayer. All the discernment. All the planning. The long days. It’s wonderful to see how the Lord has blessed us, and we can’t wait to open our home once again to guests, our friends in Christ.

I was wonderfully surprised when I saw the clerestory with the walls in place! Here’s what it looked like just a few short weeks ago.

It is going to make the entry a lovely, warm and welcoming space.  There really is no other way to describe what I felt.  To step over the threshold into the naturally lit area, your eyes will be drawn upward.

May our guests feel as grand and richly blessed by coming to this house of prayer out in the beautiful rolling farm hills of northwest Missouri.

Life was a little “boring” around the construction site in Clyde yesterday.

(Above) Crews used this machine to begin directional boring, which will bore underground and pull in a drainage pipe to connect with a storm drain at the south end of the main building at the outdoor ramp that goes down to the basement receiving room entrance.

We discovered this drain had a collapsed drain tile and was not working properly. This will reconnect it to the storm drain that goes down to the pond. In this particular area with all the large trees and concrete paving, it is much more cost effective and avoids a huge amount of demolition and extensive repairs afterward.

Along with all the crew members, Sisters and guests, there are other entities keeping silent watch over this project:

The Mary statue (top photo) looked on as crews worked on drainage issues and Thy Kingdom Come statue, which visitors will remember seeing at our former west-side entrance, keeps things under control as the new construction takes place behind him.