Saturday, 24 December

It is Christmas Eve and all is calm, all is quiet.  The builders finished yesterday and will have a deserved break.  I caught up with them at the Co-wyn Building Group's enjoyable Christmas party yesterday.

In the photo below looking up the corridor you can see a room in the foreground on the left, the common room on the left in the middle distance and two rooms on the right.

Structural steel gives an outline of the roof

The roof supporting triangles are beginning to walk up the corridor.

Looking through the courtyard to the corridor

The oratory is beginning to take shape as the walls rise.  In the background you can see the Hoop Pine we saved.  The brickies have been wonderful they way they have entered into the building process.  Alex Coutts, the architect, remarked: "It's a thinking man's job."  High praise for Terry and Paul and the brickies.  Terry laughed heartily when I retold this.  However he is obviously enjoying the job and proud of what he and his team are achieving.  He told me yesterday that he dreams about the job.  Its when he gets his best ideas!

Here below you can see the oratory, the community prayer space,  from the exterior of the building.

Hoop Pine outside the Oratory

Formwork for an arch and oratory windows.

The arch in the foreground of the photo above will be over the recess for the tabernacle.  The others are for the windows in the oratory. 

Looking out the front office window

The front windows have good views down to the dams.  It is always soothing to see water in the distance.  When the landscaping comes in then the whole view will be wonderful.

The windows of the front office with the veranda

Below is a view from our cemetery looking up the the veranda and library of the priory.

Priory looking over the cemetery

The builders are having a break over Christmas and New Year.  I will be away myself giving a retreat to the clergy in Toowoomba from January 1 to 6 and will then visit the Carmelite nuns in Ormiston and catch up with the Brisbane Secular Carmelites.  I shall be back in Varroville on 9 January.

The peace and love of Christ be yours this Christmas.  Every blessing for the New Year.