JULY 2015
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At the Résidence Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur |
Wednesday 1st. Brother
Stephan has leveled out the surface of the ground outside the scriptorium, which was dug up last year for the geo-thermal
pumps' drilling. He leveled it up by eye and now Maurice will put in a bit of fill to touch it up. Looks good already.
Thursday 2nd. Not long after we got a new condenser for it, the walk-in
freezer malfunctioned once again. Father Clovis returned by train. This evening we started a video of Father Timothy Gallagher
on Saint Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. Brother Léo encouraged us to put in practice what we heard.
Friday 3rd. A regular guest has returned after a long absence. Some guests
are almost a part of the place, part of the time. This afternoon a happy group used our grotto for taking their wedding
photos. This is a regular summer event here, a powerful moment for the different couples with their circle. It is striking
to see so many people and cars parked at the top of the stairs to the grotto. Some fishermen also were casting a line down
there this week! Saturday 4th. Brother Glic has been painting part of
the railings inside the milking parlour with rust-proof paint. After milking the cows pause to smell the new, dried paint.
Brother Stephan has been priming a reconditioned hay wagon with wooden floor, and today he got in to Moncton to see Dom Bede,
who'll be back with us in just a few weeks. Father Bill Brennan completed a retreat with us. He is the pastor of
Saint Dunstan's, where Father Shawn Daley is currently serving. Father Bill says he also knows Father Maurice and the
Guimond family from way, way back. Sunday 5th. Father Roger presided
and Father innocent did not have to go to the sisters so we were at our full force of seven for Mass!
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At the Résidence Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur |
Monday
6th. In Chapter, Brother Stephan spoke to us about silence. Silence he said is above all a community thing, not just
about ‘me and God'. He also showed us farm review documents that were discovered recently in the barn: they were
in a frame, inside a wall that had been opened up. He also explained how things would work tomorrow as regards a five-hour
midday power outage. NB Power are going to take out the old transformer, on the lawn outside the front door, and install a
more powerful one. This afternoon, Maurice Gallant was dragging the newly leveled ground outside the scriptorium in order
to smooth it out. Tuesday 7th. Early this morning, a striking group
of hardhat-wearers assembled in front of the monastery. They were talking with our friend John. With a ladder truck they cut
the electrical line just about on time, at 10:15 and went to work putting in the new transformer. Meanwhile, there was a little
light in the basement as corresponding work went on. The outage lasted around 5 hours, during which time our phones didn't
work either. By 3:30 we had a new green transformer box sitting on the front lawn. Wednesday
8th. For weeks now, Brother Léo has been looking out the window towards the lake in hopes of seeing the eagle
again. Our farm-hand's prediction (summer once arrived, the eagle would move to the Miramichi to fish) seems to have come
true. With summer, family returns: next week several members of Brother Henry's family in the United States will be up
to see him. Thursday 9th. Mornings are beautiful, stepping outside. All
you hear are a few birds, and the fans in the barn. If you step out early enough, you see some fireflies. Father Innocent
has added two hanging baskets to the greenhouse exterior. He also has added some garden boxes around the greenhouse this year.
In refectory we continue hearing read Christendom Destroyed. A light-hearted ramble through the past, it is not! Friday 10th. At Foyer Assomption Father Doris offered Mass for Father Adrien.
Adrien's family was well-represented. Father Graham assisted, too. Adrien's family are as united as always, and merry.
They are still surprised at how quickly Adrien went. It has been seven weeks. Back here, one of the lights in the refectory
faded out briefly as we were eating, while the other two stayed on. Was this Father Adrien's doing? Some sense he has
done little things like that from beyond. Here's hoping he goes easy on us. Saturday
11th. Masons repaired the brickwork on four windows in the annex this morning. Brother Michael débuted the cross
he's made for Father Adrien's grave. This winter, he will make matching crosses for each of the other fourty-some
monks' graves, and the white crosses we have now will disappear. Sunday
12th. Brother Glicerio is tiling some areas of the milk-house. Things elsewhere on the farm are a bit quieter today,
after hay this week. With surprising ease, the John Deere tractor bale spear attachment allows transport of big, round bales
in a manner quite unlike tossing little bales around not so long ago.
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At the Résidence Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur |
Monday
13th. The area is full of trees, and partly for that reason bugs are plentiful here. Some of the less popular insects
are: big spiders. They seem to relish life on the exterior of our buildings. Often just one spider will stake out a window,
but now they're getting more ambitious. You can walk into their webs just going out the door, so efforts are being made
to clear some away. Tuesday 14th. Summer's weeks are flying by faster
than at any other time. In Dieppe, where three of us live, mosquitoes are rare; unlike here! Bede, Maurice and Henry have
watched Downton Abbey Season 5 there, so soon we will slowly wend our way through those DVD's in our turn. Brother Henry's
cable channel EWTN keeps conking out. It has been out for five days, but help is on the way. Wednesday 15th. We don't have much or any direct contact with the guests. It can be striking to only hear
them sing in chapel, or see them pray. The same people who raised the hermitage and refounded it are now lifting up
part of the south wall of the dairy barn and putting in a new foundation. By the end of the first day's work jacks were
in place to serve as a temporary foundation, and viewed from outside the tip of the roof was no longer dipping the way it
was, west to east. At the same time, most of the wall has been removed because rotted, needing replacement. New windows and
wall will soon go in. The windows' covering will be of a sort you roll up and down like a blind, allowing optimal light
and ventilation according to the time of year. Because of present work a detour was necessary for cows exiting the milking
parlour, causing some temporary cow traffic problems. With a tractor, some of the cedar hedges were pulled out by the
roots from in front of the guest-house. Brother Léo gives this move a thumbs-up. There was quite a bit of foliage for
a modest strip of ground. Some of the hedges were looking less than glorious. Dom Bede's rose bush is still there. Years
ago a colorful friend brought a truck-load of decorative plants, including rose bushes with each monks' name next to them.
Bede's is the only rose bush to have survived. Thursday 16th. A
newborn calf whose hutch door was partly closed to protect her from the elements decided to climb out her window, which demonstrated
a certain robustness that is not uncommon for newborn calves now. She was helped back inside. She's off to a good start.
Friday 17th. In Chapter, Brother Stephan spoke to us about stability
and perseverance, the concrete details of solemn profession, the depth of its ramifications, stay or go. He announced that
we will be replacing a few of the cracked windows in the guest house: other cracked windows there will have to wait for another
year. Brother Michael has had the scaffolding up in front of the guest-house. He was re-calking some windows. The
geo-thermal system has been gurgling or hissing now and then as work proceeds and the dry run of the heating system approaches.
Saturday 18th. Brother Léo's friend the hedgehog was in Father
Innocent's garden this morning. I don't think he was working! Sunday
19th. At Vigils this morning the power failed: instant black-out, back on, then a bit later off again; on again; we
went to get lights at one point but no real outage this time.
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At the Résidence Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur |
Monday 20th. At lunch-time,
some neighbouring farmers who have international farmer guests brought a little family to see our farm. Not long before our
bedtime, swallows were singing and flying around the barn as the Chiassons continued working away, stripping wood from the
original wall. The dairy barn, like Brother Léo, is nearly 90. Tuesday
21st. In Dieppe today, Father Maurice was sitting out front of the residence in the covered swing reading Abbot Gregory
Polan. Brother Henry was with his brother and his brother's wife. Dom Bede was saying Daily Mass, and absorbing the Dieppe
ambience. The residence is situated near the Petitcodiac River, which makes for a nice walk. Wednesday 22nd. Pouring the cement is underway at the barn, courtesy of Newcastle Ready Mix. The Chiassons
who do the work of lifting buildings are sharp and friendly: country living seems to be good for people. We are also going
to have made a little cement step outside the milkhouse door. Thursday 23rd.
Fresh tomatoes have arrived from our greenhouse. The mood is more upbeat in our corridors as the geo-thermal workers
put the finishing touches on our system, in the largest building they've worked on to date. Letting the water flow through
the system turned up a few leaks, which were duly repaired. Installing a water heater and a water storage tank are important,
final steps, along with getting all the air out of the system. All looks good for completion by the end of the month. Brother
Léo had been hoping for completion by the end of November 2014 and he now better understands the muted response when
he voiced these hopes last year! Friday 24th. The number three barn,
unused in recent years, is being emptied. It is one of the long, grey chicken barns that were a familiar sight in New Brunswick
in years past. In the annex, Brother Michael is varnishing the new road sign with a special marine varnish in preparation
for its début overlooking the highway. Several coats, sanding between coats. Saturday
25th. In refectory we've paused from the book we've been reading to begin listening to the Pope's encyclical
on the environment. In the fields, the corn is now waist-high in places. Harvest is a ways away. Sunday 26th. Saint Teresa of Avila taught that conditions such as weather can affect the ability to pray.
This week we had some unusually damp and cool July mornings: hard to say just how the prayer went interiorly, but the birds
outside have been less prompt to sing some mornings and that I guess is part of their prayer. This morning some warm sun
broke through and it felt good.
Monday 27th. A new bed
was delivered and set up in room 111 of the guest-house. This was formerly the room Msgr. Chiasson lived in after moving here
as newly retired archbishop of Moncton twenty years ago. He was offered a stall in the chapel with the other monks, but said
no thanks; he preferred to sit close to the front of the pews. His booming laugh outside of chapel is still remembered by
guests of the time. His stay was a special chance for us and for him. Tuesday
28th. Facing north from the monastery a metal elevator shaft hugs the building, and just next to this there now is
a pile of crushed rock, some rebar and wood. We're going to build a shed for: a second-hand generator that's been
acquired, which will supply the dairy and the monastery, too during outages, which will be great. Our present generators supply
basically only the farms. The geo-thermal team are hooking up the units in our rooms. There are also hoses and ladders here
and there which were not there before. On the highway, the guard rails next to our entrance have been dismantled. New ones
going up, I guess. Wednesday 29th. This evening Michelle Rebidoux and
her mother and a friend arrived from Montréal, with a U-Haul, bound for Saint John's Newfoundland. They stopped
in two nights, giving Michelle the chance to deliver her third set of conferences here, on Thursday, this time on Teresa of
Avila. Her guests sat in on these morning and afternoon lectures. Our raspberry canes are yielding their fruit, so we also
encouraged them to go out and pick a few. Thursday 30th. Michelle has
not lost her touch. This evening, Dom Bede re-appeared in community, putting an end to a certain experience of poverty here.
Happily, he has now moved from Dieppe back to the monastery, participating at Vespers this evening, sharing a festive meal
to celebrate his return. We talked during supper, and even talked about Margaret Thatcher. Friday will make four months (16
weeks) since Bede was hospitalised for what turned out to be pulmonary embolisms. He told us a bit about what he has faced
and is facing health-wise, and spoke highly of the Moncton City Hospital, where he had his gall bladder removed the last week
of May. Friday 31st. Bede set out on his inaugural bicycle ride, to a
nice lake on our property. Inside, the new geo-thermal system was switched on in room after room in order to test it. It makes
a little sound, essentially the sound of a fan, though the louvres also move up and down to circulate the warm air making
the faintest "whir-r, whir-r". The oil radiators made a lot more noise than that at times! The acoustics in chapel
bring out the fan's sound a bit. But simply having them on there can make the chapel in summer a better place. Without
them, there's basically no air moving, so you can sometimes feel there's a bit of oxygen missing.
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