Blessing!

“The Lord bless you and keep you!
The Lord make his face shine upon you,
and take you into his grace!
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you
and give you peace."(Numbers 6:24-26)

It is with this blessing that we celebrate the passing of the new year, every 31st December, in the chapel at la Roche d’Or and it is always crowded. Yet this year, just like at Christmas, we were just the community, wearing masks and socially distanced in our large chapel. However, you were all there. Were you not aware? Our blessing is dispersed via various technologies!

At Christmas, we had the idea of putting all of your photos in a digital frame placed in the nativity. Ten thousand photos, rotating day and night, each one passing time and again, at least once every twenty-four hours. Throughout the liturgies and other times of prayer, we noticed one or another of you, named you, thought of memories of you. Our chapel has never held as many of our retreat attendees at the same time!

Some of you will remember that a year ago the town cleaned the cliffs along the road to La Roche d’Or. When that happened we discovered in wonder that we were founded on an incredible rock where a little empty alcove was found. In the rock, under the alcove, these words were engraved: “I greet you Mary” and a date, 1738. The worker who found it and showed us, told us several times insistently: “You should place a statue here!” After a lot of research, it was done four days ago. In its tiny little alcove in the middle of a cliff, on the festival of “Mary Mother of God,” she simply says to us: “Trust that this is my home.”

So many other recent stories, other magnificent gestures could be written there. Despite the pandemic, despite the drama at our doors and the string of violence and injustice that has run through the year that has just ended, there will be so many wonders to come, so many blessing to celebrate.

“The wishes we make to one another for the new year speak of our desire to make the other happy. When we say kind words, we make the good come out of us and this is a strength for continuing to move forwards! God speaks too, and he only speaks the good, words that give encouragement to our lives. This is what we call a “blessing,” “saying something good.” This is a huge responsibility as if we don’t say it well enough it doesn’t happen.

Those are the first lines of Roger’s text that we are sharing, this blessing we associate with all of you.

To each one of you, from us to you, Happy New Year!

Danièle Valès

French to English translation by Debbie Garrick and Cécile Simon

Choose to speak the good...

The wishes we make to one another for the new year speak of our desire to make the other happy. When we say kind words, we make the good come out of us and this is a strength for continuing to move forwards! God speaks too, and he only speaks the good, words that give encouragement to our lives. This is what we call a “blessing,” speaking the good. This is a huge responsibility as, if we don’t speak the good often enough, it doesn’t appear. [Read more... ]