Christ is born. Glorify Him!

Dear Friends,
May Christ be born in our hearts and may His life increase throughout the New Year!
The Sisters join me in wishing you a blessed Christmas - joy, peace and all that God the Father has willed for us in the Gift of Jesus Christ!


On each day of the Christmas Novena- December 16th through December 24th - the Divine Liturgy will be offered for you, dear benefactor of our community, in gratitude for your friendship and generosity to us.


Christmas Divine Liturgy with Holy Communion is certainly the center of the Feast - and what our preparation is all about! And so we pray to ready ourselves for this hour!
O Jesus You said
"Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened to you",
through the intercession of Your most holy Mother Mary,
I knock and seek and ask you to grant my petition.

O Jesus You promised
"All that you ask the father in My Name He will grant",
through the intercession of Your most holy Mother
I humbly ask Your Father to grant my petition.

O Jesus You said
"Heaven and earth shall pass away but My Word shall not pass away",
through the intercession of Mary,
Your most holy Mother
 I am confident that my petition will be granted.
Jersey  cow Zoe (our ox)
little asses Jeremino & Justice           JESUS                   Gandalf, pygmy goat
German Shepherd, Taran           Reggie, angora goat       Tequila (mini appy mare)
Guardian dogs, Tuscan & Tiber      two baby pygmies
                                                                         kitten Tiger       colt Spirit-Dancer
This year has seen expansion here at Holy Annunciation Monastery and at our Carmelite Mini Corral. We have been blessed with some beautiful new horses- Blue's Reflection, Moon Dancer, Tator Tot, and Spirit Dancer; Zoë a very wonderful and productive Jersey cow; Maremma Livestock Guardian puppies, Tiber and Tuscan; pygmy goats, Merlin and Gandalf, and three (soon to be eight) angora goats, producers of mohair fleece. And three barn cats! Follow, Tiger and Far-V. It's a full barn, to be sure! Pete won 5th place in Tulsa - in Multi-Color Stallions. Tator Tot took third place in Multi-Color Mares. Many children have visited the barn and that has been delightful.

The providence of God is outstanding, and of course we believe in it, but each new experience is quite impressive. Our postulant Melissa (unknown to us!) is expert in dairy by-product production: butter, all sorts of cheeses, etc. God certainly knew who to send us at this time of our Monastery history!
We hope to have mohair fleece for sale. Perhaps we will even spin the yarn.

We wish you a blessed Christmas and New Year

Mother and Sisters
This is our first Christmas without Bishop Michael Dudick, who so loved this feast. We are including one of his several homilies delivered here and a photo taken when he was resident here. We plan that our next issue of Myrrbearing will be devoted to him. We Sisters have many wonderful memories of his ten years at Holy Annunciation Monastery.
The Nativity of Our Lord

Christ is Born!

Beloved in Christ:
The Birth of Christ is a wonderful mystery. It is the story of "God with us". "A Virgin shall be with child, and give birth to a son and they shall call Him Emmanuel" a name which means "God is with us".
In a Christmas homily Saint Basil the Great said, "The Son of God descended from Heaven and did not leave the Father. He was placed in a Manger and did not step from the Throne; He came down yet remained in the highest; He appeared in the form of a slave yet was equal to the Father."
If we are to properly observe the feast of His Nativity we must keep in mind this dual dimension of Christ, "God and Man" . The birth of Christ our Lord is a supernatural event and not just another moving event in human history. The Angelic host proclaimed the divine dimension: "You have nothing to fear. I have good news of great joy for you and all people. Today in the City of David, a Savior has been born to you- the Messiah and Lord. This shall be the sign: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

Saint Irenaeus further explains this event: The Son of God, only-begotten according to his divine nature, became the son of Mary by a marvelous condescension so that we, who are sons of men by nature, might be sons of God by grace…He became what we are that we might become what He is." Jesus often spoke of the purpose of his coming upon earth: "I have come that you may have life and have it in all its fullness".

Saint Augustine speaks well of Jesus' coming. "Awake mankind! For your sake God has become man. Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead and Christ will enlighten you. I tell you again: for your sake God became man. You would have suffered eternal death had He not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had He not taken on Him the likeness of sinful flesh. You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness had it not been for His mercy. You would never have returned to life had He not shared your death. You would have been lost if He had not hastened to your aid. You would have perished had He not come." Therefore it is proper to awake from lethargy, to open the doors of our hearts and bid Christ welcome.

Reflecting on the above, we realize the extent of God's love for us, and are move to gratitude that "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son so that believing in Him we may not perish but may have life everlasting".

The story of Christmas is really the story of Love Incarnate -Love in the person of Christ Himself. Our very existence is the result of God's creative Love. He is Love in the birth of Christ. Therefore. contemplate His way of love as expressed in His life and follow it to find everlasting joy and peace.

Today we celebrate the Incarnation, the Son of God taking on our human nature for our redemption and salvation. No person in history has touched the lives of so many as the Child of Bethlehem. No other event has changed the course of human history as the event of the first Christmas. It is only through Jesus that we can find the peace which the world cannot give: peace of soul, peace of mind, peace of heart and peace in the world. May He give to all a blessed Christmas season and New Year. Amen.