Mother Maureen Retires as Abbess

Friday, January 25th was the last day of Mother Maureen's abbatial ministry to our community.  She served faithfully, wisely and lovingly for eleven years.  Having reached the age of seventy-five, she submitted her resignation, as required by our Constitutions.  We have now entered into a period of 15 days with the abbess' place vacant before our abbatial election, scheduled for February 11th.

Maureen McCabe, originally from Atlantic City, New Jersey, entered the community in 1972, having spent ten years with the Sisters of Mercy.  She spent many years milking cows and baking bread - two jobs she loved very much,  In 1986 she was appointed novice director, a position in which she served for seventeen years, before becoming vocation director and prioress.  At the time of her election as abbess in 2008, she was food housekeeper for the community.

We are so grateful for those spiritual characteristics that have been most consistently evident in her monastic life and ministry: prayerfulness, discernment, joy and absolute trust in God's love.  In her final Chapter talk to the community, given on the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, Mother Maureen spoke of the understanding she came to of the nature of her abbatial ministry:

"My vision of my ministry is so non-conceptual.  It is, rather, day by day loving and esteeming these particular sisters God has entrusted to me so that they can come more fully into their own in Christ, each one in her own secret name and path.  Then through my teaching and my decisions, somehow, I hold all these secrets together so that they may support and complete one another in a profound communion in Christ.”

The final day of Mother Maureen's abbatial term was one of gratitude and celebration of the gift she has been to us during these past eleven years.  This period between the retirement and the election will be one of deep silence and intense prayer as we seek the Spirit's guidance for the next chapter of our community's life.  Please join us in prayer!

Read Mother Maureen's final Chapter talk here >