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Cistercian Families Continue to Serve in Time of Crisis

April 27, 2020 | Media

The Tarrant Area Food Bank, whose Director of Development is Cistercian alum Stephen Raeside ’89, recently received a surprise donation from Bishop Michael Olson, Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth, in an effort to support those in need because of the on-going COVID-19 crisis. Bishop Olson presented Raeside with the check at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Fort Worth. “Our fundraising pleas reached to the very heavens,” Raeside wrote to Fr. Abbot Peter, his Form Master.

The Cistercian Class of 2027, better known as Form I, created a thoughtful video capturing wonderfully our beautiful but now too quiet campus for their Form Master, Fr. Ambrose, diagnosed with the coronavirus last week. Please take a look at their moving salute to all of the monks, faculty, and staff of Cistercian here.

 

The Cistercian nuns in Kismaros, Hungary, sporting familiar Cistercian outerwear, send their greetings of support and love to the Abbey and School. A few of the sisters have visited our campus and students in recent years. Mother Olgi travels a great deal giving retreats at Cistercian schools in Hungary. You can read more about this convent and their history at their website.

Hawk Happenings

Summer Programs at Cistercian

Summer Programs at Cistercian are more than books and sports; it’s also board games with monks. Fr. Philip joins the fun in “Board (not Bored) Games,” one of many classes offered June 9–27. Math, rec camp, and more still open for registration

Quiz Bowl

Cistercian’s Middle School Quiz Bowl team traveled to Chicago for the National Quiz Bowl Championship and finished tied for 13 out of 160 teams. Congratulations Hawks!

Athletic Awards

Our Upper School Athletics Awards Ceremony honored this year’s many achievements in sports. Kudos especially to all of our senior athletes, the five Hawk Award recipients who lettered in three (or more) varsity sports, and to this year’s Tom Hillary Award recipient.

Experience Cistercian

Publications

Thy Kingdom Come

The more I reflect on the petitions of the Our Father, the more I’m convinced that I have no idea what I’m praying when I mumble those words multiple times every day.

The current object of my loving mystification is “Thy kingdom come.” In an effort to be slightly less intimidated by this vast and marvelous petition, I will arrange my musings as responses to the time-honored journalistic questions.

Lessons learned in a monastery

One of the most important rooms in a monastery, after the church, is the chapter room. This is the place where monks meet to do various things as a community: hear an exhortation from their abbot; listen to a spiritual reading (often a chapter from “The Rule of St. Benedict”); deliberate and vote on the important material and spiritual questions that arise in a monastery, such as who should be the abbot, whether to welcome a young monk as a permanent member of the community through solemn profession, and how best to structure their lives to promote God’s purpose.

Calling upon the hallowed name of the Lord

Jesus poses a problem when He instructs us to pray to the Father with the words “hallowed be Thy name” (Matthew 6:9). Many Psalms exhort the faithful to praise or call upon the name of the LORD (Psalm 113:1; 116:13; 148:13), and others assert that “Our help is in the name of the LORD” (Psalm 124:8). But how can human beings hallow — that is, make holy — the name of the LORD (in Hebrew, YHWH), Who is already, always, and automatically holy, utterly beyond our ability to add to or subtract from, to influence or change?