The Procession Continues

Yesterday's dawn was memorable but the camera was not at hand. With the clock change of last weekend, dawn is now just about 6am here. Today I took the camera to the breakfast table and ran out into the frosty air just at the right moment.

Later I came to the computer to view the photos and found among my e-mail messages the following prayer poem from Elizabeth Goral Makowski, Associate Director of the Redemptorist Office for Mission Advancement (ROMA). She has been watching the procession of the season in Esopus documented here. How serendipitous!

A Morning Prayer     

God of goodness and new life,
each day, your plentiful grace
pours a generous libation
upon a thirsty world.


You plant abundant
fields of colorful grace
whose wild array
greets my senses and my soul.


Encourage me
to recognize
your extravagant gift, and
to drink deeply
of the wisdom of
groans and joys
planted within grace.


Stir me to see, touch,
taste, smell, hear and proclaim --
and yes! -- to be a stream,
flowing Love from your side,
watering the earth


Give me fortitude
so I may give myself,
confidently, unreservedly,
and be a place of you
where souls may come
to rest a while,
to drink your sweetness,
and to grow
in you.                   Elizabeth Goral Makowski c2009

For All the Saints

Celebrating a Solemnity

All Saints' Day

This is the stained glass dome over the sanctuary of the chapel of Mount St. Aphonsus Pastoral Retreat Center. Our monastery of Mother of Perpetual Help is on the property of the Mount which opened in 1909 as the major seminary for the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer). It was transformed into a retreat house in the late 1980s. It is surrounded by hundreds of acres on the west shore of the Hudson River in Esopus, south of Kingston, NY.

Depicted here is the arrival of the soul of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, religious founder, moral theologian and Doctor of the Church, into the realm of heaven where the three persons of the Blessed Trinity and the Blessed Mother welcome him with all the angels. Below them is an array of saints; on the left martyrs and apostles and on the right well known saints like Teresa of Avila and St. Francis Xavier and also Redemptorist saints, most prominently St. Clement Hofbauer and St. Gerard Majella. Just below the dome are seen just the heads of twelve mosaic angels, each representing a virtue. It was the custom of Redemptorists and Redemptoristines to focus on one of these virtues each month of the year.

This work of art is an appropriate image for this great feast - "the saints in vast array." We all have our favorites, our patrons, our courts of last resort when the chips are down. Some may have a very particular devotion to a saint like Therese of Lisieux. Others have made a study of a saint like John of the Cross whose depths can never be fully plumbed.

But today I suggest that we think of the saints we ourselves have known, the saints we may have in our families, in our circles of friendship, in our church communities, or even in the larger culture around us. Those who have died are in the Communion of Saints. We do see and experience and benefit from the saintliness of others. We need to think about them, remember why we call them saints, what made them saints. Maybe in the thinking some of it will rub off on us. For them we owe a prayer of thanks to God. We owe thanks to the 'saints' who may live with us or befriend us or serve us in some way. The age of miracles has not passed. IF we think about it, we will remember some. If we look around we may see some in action.

A Dark and Rainy Day

At this time of year differences in day time and night time temperatures often produce a morning landscape seemingly conjured for special effect in this 'spooky' season. Sometimes the mist literally rolls up the hillside from the river, passing across the meadow, around and over us, eventually leaving the sunshine a straight and clear path. But today was not one of those. The mist prevailed and rain came pouring down on and off throughout the day. But even grey sky is suitable contrast for the yellow and gold leaves that remain on the trees much longer than in years passed. Soon a shift in the weather and a brisk north wind will mean their downfall.

The masthead photo was taken just before dusk when grey clouds briefly moved away and, at least in some places, the sun could do its fancy work, playing over the colorful hillsides. Inspite of the raindrops that kissed the window, I could not resist trying the camera and using its zoom action to focus on the mighty river. 

Peak of the Fall Season

As promised the masthead photo has changed. Wish I could line them up so the procession of the season would be obvious. In today's photo more of the trees are in full color. Yesterday's rain did not do them in. So today's glorious sunshine puts the spotlight on all the golds, oranges and reds. And how about that cloudless blue sky! 

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Another 'Peak' Experience

In the 1880's a cantilever suspension railroad bridge was constructed spanning the Hudson River from Higland on the west bank to Poughkeepsie on the east.

It served commercial traffic in a mighty way especially during WWII when as many as 300 trains a day crossed its span. Gradually it fell out of use and its derelect fate was sealed by a fire in the 1970's that ravaged most of the track. Yet the structure was sound. I remember back in the late 1990s there was talk of a bungee jumping operation to take advantage of the bridge deck's 215 height from the surface of the river.

Then about six years ago a new idea began to percolate in the minds of some imaginative and highly motviated people. Why not construct a new deck across the entire length of the bridge exclusively for pedestrian and bicycle traffic linking extensive railtrails on the west bank with the city of Poughkeepsie on the east bank? The project ultimately required $39 million in grants from federal, state and local governments as well as grants from philanthropic and civic groups, private donors and organizations specific created to preserve our landscape patrimony. The final push came with a determination to open the Walkway in 2009, the year of the quadricentennial anniversary of the discovery of the river by Henry Hudson. With the deck, fencing, and banners in place a hge crowd made the first formal walk across the longest pedestrian brige in the world on October 3, 2009. There is no charge to cross the Walkway which will eventual be designated a state park site.

On Thursday, October 22, 2009, on the spur of the moment, eight members of our community decided to take advantage of perfect weather and follow the advice of an enthusiastic friend who said, “You must walk over that bridge.”

We were not disappointed. In fact we were over whelmed by the beauty of the project, the glorious experience of walking across the bridge and viewing from its height the river and landscape which we love.
We pray that the Walkway Over the Hudson Board of Directors and the friends of the Walkway will be rewarded, that continuing efforts to improve and promote the Walkway will be blessed, and that all who visit it will be called to greater reverence for the natural beauty and resources entrusted to our care. We hope that the ’Walkway experience’ will an inspire even greater service and dedication to land and natural resources preservation.

How to Get There:

Higland Side

From west, north, south - New York State Thruway to Exit 18 New Paltz. Make right at Rt. 299 east. At end left onto Rt. 9W south. Left onto Haviland Avenue inHighland. Proceed to entrance on left.

Poughkeesie Side

From east - Rt. 44-55 into Poughkeepsie to Parker Avenue (MetroNorth Railroad Station).

From north and south - use Rt. 9

Procession of the Fall Season

One Picture at a Time

Perhaps this is the time of the year when I most appreciate our location in the Hudson River Valley. When I was a kid I did not believe the teachers in my elementary school who spoke of leaves turning red and gold in this season of the year. I never saw a red or gold leaf in Brooklyn! A perk of my religious vocation has been to live it out in this place, to view daily the procession of nature's annual round in this blessed territory. I will be posting new photos of the same view from a monastery window in the masthead of this blog every few days. I hope you will enjoy this representation of the movement of God's creating hand over the land and waters. By the way, the bit of blue seen top left in the masthead photograph is the mighty Hudson River. Gradually more and more of it will be revealed. 

Honoring the Mighty Hudson

Celebrating the

Quadricentennial

of the Discovery

of the

Hudson River

1609-2009

These days there are big doings up and down the beautiful Hudson River. Every town is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Henry Hudson and his shipmates on the Half Moon to the mouth of the river bearing his name. Memories of my elementary school days in New York City and fourth grade study of local history merge with the stories of Henry Hudson sailing into the now famous harbor formed by the estuary of the tidal river. In turn his story melded into that of New Amsterdam and peg-legged Peter Stuyvesant. That early settlement was preceded by knots of fur traders way up river eager for beaver pelts which seemed to endlessly flow from the forests and streams of the indigenous people.

The banners shown here are one contribution to the festivities contributed by artists of the Kingston area, including my son, Matthew Pleva. His work is the black and white effort at the top. My contribution was to sew the canvas banners using our factory grade sewing machines.

Other artists include:

Jane Bloodgood-Abrams
Hendrik Dijk
Dennis Connors
Robert Sweeney
Cynthia Winiker
Lynn Woods
Steve Ladin
Erik Richards
Cristina Brusca
Susan Ross
Iya Battle

The banners were photographed at their first exhibition in the atrium of the Holiday Inn in uptown Kingston. After an appearance at the Senate House Museum for the Discovery Dinner on June 13th the plan is to apply a weatherproof coating so they can be hung on lamp posts on lower Broadway, in the Rondout section of Kingston which borders on Rondout Creek an inlet of the Hudson River.

The Big Freeze

This the view from my bedroom window looking northwest across the Hudson River. Yes, what you see beyond the tree tops is the river, frozen solid. These days, a Coast Guard vessel ploughs through the ice to keep the shipping channel open. Yes, again! The shipping channel is used by tankers hauling oil to depots in Albany. The Hudson River, celebrating the 400th anniversary of its discovery by Henry Hudson in 1609 is navigable well beyond Albany, the state capital (150 miles north of New York City). It is a tidal river, an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, so we have high tide and low tide and the water contains salt up to Poughkeepsie, just south of us. When the ice thaws in the spring I will be able to tell just by looking at the way the ice is moving whether the tide is coming in or going out.

Needless to say, the frozen river is both beautiful and treacherous. Ice was harvested from this river well into the 20th century. Ice, stored in huge barn like wooden buildings at river's side, was shipped throughout the year to New York city hotels and businesses via the river, super highway of its time. My Dad tells of Sunday afternoon rides aboard the Hudson River Line's huge passenger vessels during the 1930s.

Our monastery was built in 2001. Its large picture windows afford breath-taking views of the river and countryside. When we cannot stand the cold outdoors we can still commune with God in the wonder of all creation, a mystery of life and love.

The path down to the river's edge, an easy walk one way and not so easy on the way back up, has not been ploughed so getting there is out of the question for me. But when things begin to thaw (a welcome prospect since yesterday's 6am temperature was minus 3 degrees) and the sun is doing its bright early springtime thing, it is worth the walk to see the ice fighting its way down the river, bumping and crunching as example of the force of nature.

Stay warm and cozy.