Community Retreat 2017

Following this year’s General Chapter, Mother Maureen McCabe OCSO, Cistercian Abbess of Wrentham in Massachusetts, travelled back to Ireland with our Abbess, Mother Marie to give this year’s community retreat from 29 September to 7 October.

Having a Cistercian as our retreat preacher is always a particularly resonant, joyful and helpful experience.  Mother Maureen’s deeply Cistercian spirituality was much in evidence throughout her talks to the community, with plenty of free time during the week for the sisters to digest and pray over her shared wisdom and experience.

Our link with Wrentham is significant: Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey having been the first house of Cistercian nuns to be founded in the United States from Glencairn in 1949.  During our retreat, the sisters of Wrentham celebrated their 68^th birthday as a community; it was especially meaningful to have Mother Maureen here from our daughter-house for the occasion.  We look forward to seeing her again in the future!