View the 2024 program here.

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.

Day Nineteen | The Great Fast

No one can come to the knowledge of God, except through humility. Today, as we fast, let us do so in an effort to grow in humility.

LENT 2023:
Get Daily Reflections
Filter Results

Day Nineteen | The Great Fast

No one can come to the knowledge of God, except through humility. Today, as we fast, let us do so in an effort to grow in humility.

Audio

Live: Paschal Vespers 2023

He is RISEN! Join us for Vespers every Sunday during Easter.

Video

Fixing Your Gaze on Eternity

An Easter message from Abbot Hayes, O.Praem.

Article

The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Worthy and fruitful holy communions increase our faith in the rising of Christ and the hope of our own rising on the last day. Such faith answers the deepest need of the human heart; such belief is itself a witness and proclamation—heart speaking to heart, deep calling on deep.

Article

The Exsultet: The Easter Proclamation

Let us exult! The Exsultant is a powerful chant--a true expression of joy sung on the cusp of Easter Sunday.

Video

Tenebrae, 2023

The liturgy of Tenebrae (Latin for "darkness"), which dates back to the ninth century, is a special expression of Matins and Lauds unique to Holy Week.

Video

The Paschal Candle Column

Lent concludes, at last, with the Exsultet--an audacious celebration that is honored in the abbey's Paschal Column.

Video

Holy Saturday: A Blessed Night, A Glorious Night

Truly this is a blessed night, a glorious night, when the catastrophic fall of mankind in Adam is revealed in the New Adam to be a happy fault. This is the night whose wonder gleams as bright as the day. 

Article

Helping Him Die

It was in this Gospel, the Passion according to John, that we heard that the Mother of Jesus stood at the foot of the cross, so close that He could speak to her, in an agonizing rasp, and expect to be heard. Ask yourself for a moment, How is it possible that any mother in such a situation could actually stand?!

Article

Popule Meus by Palestrina, Explained

Fr. Edmund guides us through Palestrina's Popule Meus, a striking piece of polyphony and a favorite of Vatican liturgists since the 16th century.

Video

Crux Fidelis

During the veneration of the Holy Cross, we sing the text of "Crux Fidelis" to profess our faith in Our Lord's Passion.

Video

Good Friday: No Answer

We have no excuse for our ungrateful rejection of His kindness. The liturgy’s only answer to His reproaches is to beg for mercy, from the Greek East to the Latin West

Article

Vexilla Regis

"The Royal Banner forward goes..." This begins the Vexilla Regis, sung during Passiontide to mark the sublimity and victory of the Cross.

Video

Holy Thursday: As He Has Loved Us

“A new commandment I give you: love one another…” For this to make sense, we must love ourselves, and love ourselves rightly.

Article

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Article

A Hymn of Grief

By listening to the simple tone and absorbing the tragic sentiment of Tenebrae, we enter more deeply into the wonderful mystery of the Lord’s saving passion and death.

Article

The Chanted Passion of Holy Week

The Chanted Passion is a treasure of the Church, an inspiration to countless composers.

Video

Palm Sunday Vespers

Video

The Norbertine Chant of the Stabat Mater

Sung to honor Our Lady of Sorrows, the Stabat Mater is perhaps one of the most recognizable Lenten chants.

Video

Journey with Christ Through the Triduum Liturgies

We encounter Christ's Passion in every Mass, but the liturgies of Holy Week make the reality of Christ's Passion so clear to us.

Video

Blood of Christ, Save Us

The Blood of Christ is a mystery of total victory over all that could trouble us in life. This Blood is the hope of the penitent, the relief of the burdened, the peace and tenderness of hearts, our solace in sorrow, and will be finally our consolation when we are dying.

Article

This Rivulet of Red

A meditation -- through art, liturgy, and hymn -- on the Sacred Blood.

Article

This Blood Is Christ

“This is the Chalice of My Blood, of the New and Eternal Covenant which will be poured out for you and for many…” How many times have we knelt at Holy Mass when these words were pronounced by the priest over the wine?

Article

March 26 | Lenten Sunday Vespers

Join us for Vespers every Sunday during Lent.

Video

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Article

March 12 | Lenten Sunday Vespers

Join us for Vespers every Sunday during Lent.

Hail Mary

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

Article

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

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.

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

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

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

Getting Back Up

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

Article