I am about to go on a trip to two of our men's monasteries. One for a meeting and the other to pick up some equipment the monks are kindly giving to us for our candy business. What always is so nice when you go to another Cistercian monastery is that you kind of feel that you haven't left home at all. There is the sense that everything is the same but it is just a little different. After all we all live the same life, pray the office in choir every day, 7 times a day. What is going to be different is that I'm going south and I hear it is in the 70's in Georgia!

I am looking forward to seeing monks and nuns I have gotten to know over the course of the years from other meeting or classes or from their visiting our monastery. Some I've seen a year ago; others for not for many years and others I've never met. It is always an enriching experience to work and pray and share with them. I think that it is one of the most wonderful things about the order, that the monks and nuns are in the same order and that there is much collaboration among the houses.

Sister Maggie