AD CENAM AGNI

An Abbot's Circle Lenten Retreat
NEW CONTENT DAILY

Experience Lent at
St. Michael's Abbey

One of the things that makes the Church so beautiful is its universality--the extent to which Holy Mother Church unites the faithful in a common life. This is particularly evident in the Holy Season of Lent, in which Catholics around the world unite their prayers, fasting, and almsgiving to enter more deeply, as one body, into the Paschal Mystery.

Because they are places of common life and prayer, abbeys observe the season of Lent with a particular degree of reverence and rigor to prepare for the triumph and joy of Easter. And while many monastic Lenten observances can be quite intense, the communal approach to this holy season can be a rich and rewarding experience for all Christians.

This Lent, the Norbertine canons of St. Michael's Abbey invite you to join them for Ad Cenam Agni, a virtual Lenten Retreat from the Abbot's Circle. This new, daily series of reflections, sermons, chants, and conversations is intended to help you draw deeper into the beauty of common prayer and Norbertine abbey life.

Let us hold each other in prayer as we journey, together, toward the Supper of the Lamb!

If you haven't yet, you can sign up for emails to be remembered in our prayer this Lent, and to receive new Lenten content as it is released.

The season of Lent is here: are you ready? Watch Five Ways to Prepare for Lent as Fr. Claude Williams and Fr. Ambrose Criste discuss ways you can better prepare for this blessed season.

March 25 | An Echoing Fiat

The feast of the Annunciation celebrates the very moment in which the divine and human natures came together in Jesus Christ.

LENT 2023:
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An Abbot's Circle Lenten Retreat
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March 25 | An Echoing Fiat

The feast of the Annunciation celebrates the very moment in which the divine and human natures came together in Jesus Christ.

Article

March 24 | The Veiling of Sacred Images in Passiontide

In a counterintuitive action, the Church has us veil the images that depict Christ and the saints during Passiontide. If we are focusing on His Passion, why are we veiling these images?

Video

March 23 | A Wonderful Exchange

God becoming man is only one side of the equation. He became one with us so that we could become one with him. God became man so that men might become gods.

March 22 | God Has Reigned from a Tree

Jesus performed many miracles. One of the purposes of these miracles was to demonstrate his divine power. By freely wielding the power of God through miraculous feats, Jesus meant to show that he was really and truly God.

March 21 | He Humbled Himself

Why was the passion of the Lord a wise and fitting way to save us?

March 20 | True God and True Man

As unimaginable as it may seem, the unchanging God has taken to himself a human nature in order to suffer like us and for us.

Article

March 19 | Lenten Sunday Vespers

Join us for Vespers every Sunday during Lent.

Video

March 18 | Be Courageous. Be Humble.

If we arrive at this charity to our neighbor, the humility of seeing ourselves as we are before God, and the courage to persevere, we will come to a more vivid experience of the Lord’s great love for us, and thus be transformed in love even before our death.

March 17 | Why Did God Have to Die?

Is it true that Our Lord's Crucifixion is also the death of God? And did Jesus really have to die for our sins?

Video

March 16 | Preparing for a Happy Death

The very structure of the daily prayers in an abbey helps remind the religious of impending death. We have to foresee this moment by preparing well, being vigilant, ready.

March 15 | Christ Died for Me

As we prepare for this supreme moment of our death, when we must appear before our Savior and our Judge, wisdom teaches us that it is essential to consider His own death, and to realize that he went through that for us.

Article

March 14 | Never Be Discouraged

We must never be discouraged by our sufferings here below, they help to conform us to Christ, and if accepted with trust in God, they make us holy.

March 13 | Death is Inevitable

Although the crosses each one of us carries are individual, and tailor-made, every last one of us will die. In a very real sense, our death is the supreme moment and the frame of our life.

Article

March 12 | Lenten Sunday Vespers

Join us for Vespers every Sunday during Lent.

March 11 | Hail Mary

The practice of Christian contemplation can eventually permeate our every moment, readying us for the life of heaven.

Article

March 10 | Sacred Art and the Paschal Mystery

Art's ability to unite and engage the heart and mind helps us enter in a deeper way into the mysteries of our Faith.

Video

March 9 | Come Holy Spirit

God, the principal Author of Scripture, knows all times and souls in one eternal moment. The Word of God truly had you in mind when he inspired the ancient prophets to hide his infinite wisdom within human words.

March 8 | Bless Us, O Lord

Even the Old Testament passages that at first appear to be tedious “filler” become beautiful when we understand them as types of Christ!

Article

March 7 | God, Come to My Assistance

This spiritual sense is more than just foreshadowing and symbolism; any good writer can do that. But because God is the Author not only of the Bible, but of Nature and of History, he can make the things described to really be signs of other things!

Article

March 6 | A Reading From...

These are not just edifying stories, but the solid, really historical foundation through which God prepared and worked out our salvation! 

Article

Lenten Sunday Vespers

Join us for Vespers every Sunday during Lent.

Video

March 4 | Getting Back Up

God does not bless human sin, but he is more than willing to pick up children who try and fail.

Article

March 3 | Allegri's Miserere and the Beauty of Penance

Allegri's Miserere is one of the most famous and most beautiful pieces of sacred music ever composed. It is a song of great sorrow and an appeal to God's mercy: poignant at any season of Life, but especially during Lent.

Video

March 2 | Thy Exceeding Great Mercy

Redemption means more than buying each of us back from a bad life; it means restoration. And what needs to be restored most in every human soul without exception is trust in God.

Article

March 1 | The Problem with Power

Valuing power and strength is clearly not wrong. But it is spiritually deadly to seek them apart from God.

Article

Feb 28 | Breaking the Habit

We want God to deliver us from sin now. Right now! But the wisdom of the psalmist submits all desire for deliverance to God’s time.

Article

Feb 27 | Psalms of True Sorrow

Scripture tells us to have sorrow for sin, but warns about going to excess . . .

Article

Sacred Chant Prepares Us for Easter

In Lent, the chants of the Church grow more and more dramatic: driving, slowly, toward a crescendo at Easter.

Video

Feb 25 | A Wider Place for Love

Sooner or later, whether we are inside the monastery or out in the world, God is going to invite us to make that next step forward in giving our lives to Him.

Article

Feb. 24 | Why Do We Fast?

Fasting can be a challenge. But far more than a set of rules, true fasting is an act of generosity.

Video