December 2010

Question:

Abbot Pennings,

What would you like for Christmas?

Jess Kropp ’12

Answer:

My dearest Jess,

First, may I be among the earliest to proffer all appropriate compliments of the season. I wish you and yours a most blessed Christmas.

This is indeed a most joyous feast, no less so for we who are privileged to belong to the abbey community. Our beloved church will be most beautifully decorated with wreaths, pine branches, poinsettias and candles. As is our custom, we will observe the Liturgy of the Hours, also celebrating Mass at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve and at 10 a.m. on Christmas Day.

Our community is delighted to enjoy nativity scenes in the church and in our dining room. There will be Christmas trees in our dining room and in our place of recreation, so we will have wonderful reminders of the date wherever we congregate.

My first and whole wish, in accordance with my motto, is that there be love not only during the Christmas season but always. But you have asked of me an extremely kind question that I must also address.

Each member of our community does receive a Christmas gift. I fear I must confess to one small, but perhaps rather worldly, hankering for this season. I have noticed that among my confrères there are those who, when attending college athletic events, sport fetching items of attire that evince their school spirit. I should be so pleased with some such modest item.

Perhaps a baseball cap ordered from what, I am told, is referred to as the online store might not look too unseemly atop my robes, and I would deem it a wonderful gift. It would enable me to support our dedicated Green Knight athletes in their contests, and I would treasure it dearly.

Responses to “Ask the Abbot” questions are penned by St. Norbert College staff in the name of Abbot Bernard Pennings, O.Praem., who founded St. Norbert College in 1898.