Welcome to our Home@theDome. We'll keep you posted on the ordinary and extraordinary happenings in our monastery on the hill.

—Sister Paulette Seng

Our sisters in initial formation gathered at the monastery this weekend for a program and some time together. Prioress Sister Kristine Anne Harpenau and Sister Jane Will, subprioress, presented and facilitated dialogue on the topic of intergenerational living. As part of their formation in community, these sisters come together periodically throughout the year for various programs.

Front center, Postulant Alex Larsen; second row, Sisters Kimberly Ann Mandelkow, Kathleen Marie Cash, Jill Marie Reuber; back row, Sisters Gail Hamilton, Jeana Visel, and Doris Schepers.

The six temporary professed sisters are engaged in ministries away from the monastery. Postulant Alex, who entered the monastery last August, is in the first stage of membership in the community; this period of eight to nine months promotes integration into community life, prayer, and work at the monastery and includes studies in Scripture, Benedictine history and spirituality, and the Liturgy of the Hours.

This view of our town, totally obliterated by a dense fog, brings to mind Carl Sandburg's poem. Except this fog is reluctant to move on.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

The Celebration Singers presented a Christmas program to a full house in our monastery church this afternoon. This "community chorus" features approximately 85 men and women from more than a dozen communities in Dubois and surrounding counties who come together to "sing for fun" and to share performances with audiences in many and varied places in Southern Indiana.

In keeping with a tradition associated with the feast of the Epiphany, celebrated this year on January 3, we blessed our monastery and prayed for "blessings of health, goodness of heart, gentleness of spirit, and concern for others" and that our guests and visitors find Christ's light and love in our home. Sister Kristine Anne Harpenau, prioress, marked the entrance doorway — 20 + C + B + M + 10 — the date of the new year and the initials for the Latin words "Christus mansionem benedicat," translated as "Christ bless this house." Legend has also associated those initials with the initials of the three Epiphany magi — Casper, Melchior, and Balthasar.

At Mass on New Year’s Day, our sisters who will celebrate special anniversaries of their monastic profession in 2010 were recognized. From left, Sister Susan Mary Hooks (25 years); Sister Mary Francis Williams (50 years); Sisters Theresita Schenk, Wilma Davis (assisted by Sister Mary Claude Croteau), and Mary George Kissel (70 years); Sisters Shirley Ann Schultheis and Mary Lee Hillenbrand (50 years). Sister Mary Leah Baehl (60 years) and Sister Louise Laroche (25 years) are missing from the photo.