GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD

our daily bread

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIM FULLER Each day, the sisters at Santa Rita Abbey wake up early for prayer and Holy Communion. That's followed by a daily routine that includes morning work, reflection, Vespers and evening prayers. One of the sisters, Sister Victoria, was there when the cloister opened near Sonoita in 1972. Today, she's the abbey's prioress. And there's nowhere else she'd rather be.

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Sister Victoria called it a desert star flower. And maybe it was. Or maybe it was a daisy desertstar. What it was doesn't really matter. For Sister Victoria, the flower was the second sign that Santa Rita Abbey, near Sonoita, would teach her something deep and spiritual and lovely. "Our soil here is full of clay," she says. "So, after a rain, the clay mud dries into these incredible patterns - alligator skin mud. One day, I noticed that flower growing in the middle of it. The white flower was backlit by the sun, and all I could think was: Teach me. Teach me. In the midst of all that harshness, a beautiful flower emerged. It showed me that circumstances don't have to make you ugly." What, then, was the first sign?

It occurred shortly after Sister Victoria moved to the Cistercian monastic community when it opened in February 1972. She'd come from a monastery on the East Coast, having volunteered, as a novice nun, to turn her sights and service westward.

Cradled in a valley beneath its eponymous mountain range, Santa Rita Abbey is remote. It is the beneficiary of summer monsoon storms that nourish the property's gardens and surrounding grasslands. In winter, there might be snow. Always, there is solitude. Quiet. "I remember making the turn onto [State Route] 83 off of Interstate 10 that first time," Sister Victoria says. "I was so relieved." Then, she saw a landscape she'd seen before in a dream. She had even drawn the image from her mind's eye. That was that first sign. The Santa Ritas and the sky above them had found the sister before she'd ever found them.

EVER SINCE, SISTER VICTORIA now the abbey's prioress and the 10 other nuns who share a home there have been committed to a life of quiet, prayerful solitude in the wilderness. In the May 1978 issue of Arizona Highways, contributor Karen Fisher wrote: "The mystery of monastic life here at the abbey is counterbalanced by its very ordinariness. Daytime hours are divided equally among three kinds of activity study, prayer and work! Ideally all work is prayerful. Within the cloister, near-silence increases this opportunity." The same is true today. Each day, the sisters wake early for prayer and Holy Communion, followed by meetings and morning work. They make altar breads that help sustain The abbey, in the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains, has been enlarged since Arizona Highways featured it in 1978. More nuns live and work there, and there is a new sanctuary and bell tower, a large building for making altar bread, a residential wing, and a retreat house.

the community financially, as do the sculptures cre-ated by Sister Esther, who came to the abbey fromthe Philippines in 1986. There is time for individualprayer and reflection, an optional siesta, afternoonwork, Vespers, evening prayers.

Early to bed. Early to rise.

And, always, there is the wilderness that surrounds them.

As Fisher wrote in 1978: "At midmorning, looking from a hillside opposite the abbey enclosure, itseems nothing moves. The eyes are drawn horizontally across the ridge, then vertically, up the simple,almost austere tower, unmistakably French, risingfrom the basic, Spanish-influenced construction.The little valley below the ridge is a passagewayguarded by long, low hills, the very same hills thathide the road to this place from the outside world."

Although Sister Victoria no longer hikes as manymiles as she used to, she often finds herself exploring the long, low hills that surround the abbey'sproperty. There, she finds beauty in two dimensions."The physical aspect plunges you into God," shesays. "And that imparts the spiritual level. You haveto develop eyes to really see that there's so muchlife there. The animals. The insects. The birds.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

And that's in part - why the abbey's sistersconsider themselves stewards of the land. They'vebeen outspoken against development and miningprojects that might threaten the fragile landscape.They grow a garden and scare away predators thatmight snack on the boundless rabbits that populatethe grasslands. Indeed, more than once, one of thesisters has warded off a mountain lion or black bear,all the while respecting that the lions and bearshave a home in those foothills as well.

The sisters now invite members of the community to experience the prayerful wilderness, too, bybooking a stay in the abbey's retreat house. Whilethe nuns don't provide spiritual counseling duringthe retreats, they do welcome attendance at theirliturgical services.

Because, as Sister Victoria reminds us: "We don'tlive here just for ourselves. We're connected to God,so we're connected to everyone. We pray for progression in peace, goodness and care."