New Novices join our Abbey Community

Three new novices have joined our community  this year. On February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Sr. Catherine Marie Carlin of Lufkin, Texas, received her habit, followed on April 17, the 4^th Sunday of Easter, by  Sr. Brandi Lynn McWhorter of St. Louis, Missouri. On September 8, the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  Sr. Hillary Kunz of Austin, Texas, joined the novitiate as well.

Sr. Catherine Marie got to know our Abbey several years ago when she was attending Wyoming Catholic College north of us in Lander, Wyoming. As the youngest of a family of ten, she is already well acquainted with community life, and we are all benefiting from her musical and culinary gifts, among many others.

Sr. Brandi Lynn became acquainted with Benedictine life through our brother monks of St. Louis Abbey in her hometown. A convert to the faith, she  worked for several years as an accountant, and is our house expert in Microsoft Excel.

Sr. Hillary Kunz  studied education at Baylor University and has worked as a camp counselor, and in outdoor recreation programs for disadvantaged youth in Austin, Texas. Her extensive travels include walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain and visiting her cousin, Fr. Martin, a Benedictine monk at Norcia, Italy.

Life in the monastery makes use of any and all experience, and we pray for our three new Sisters as they run the course of this more intensive period of their Benedictine formation.

New Novices at the Abbey

On Good Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, April 17, 2016, Postulant Brandi completed her year as a postulant and was given the habit of a Benedictine novice. For the period of her two-year novitiate she'll be known by her full baptismal name,  Sr. Brandi Lynn.

Sunday, April 17. Mother Maria Michael and Sr. Maria Columba (who celebrates the anniversary of her final commitment to our Abbey on this day) gather around the Good Shepherd with new novice Sr. Brandi Lynn.

The ceremony of clothing took place after Lauds on a very snowy morning. The weather had disrupted the travel plans of many, including our large weekend retreat group from Loveland, and the new novices parents, who had planned to fly in from St. Louis for the occasion. The result was a quiet and prayerful day, which has its own beauties.

Sr. Brandi Lynn joins Sr. Ann and Sr. Catherine, who have been novices since October, 2014, and also Sr. Catherine Marie, who was clothed on February 2, 2016. It is seldom that a relatively small community such as ours can boast of four novice Sisters; we are grateful for this unmerited blessing.