Bringing the Gospel to Life the
Return to Nazareth prayer garden
Have you ever been lost? Really lost. Fear, anxiety, panic – they set in and it can be difficult to regain control. The feeling for a parent losing a child must be at least ten-fold – compounding that same fear with an ominous dread of what might happen. Even when that child is the Son of God, those feelings would be inevitable – you can feel the tension as Mary and Joseph frantically search and search for Jesus. But with their reunion comes great joy and understanding – it is this joy of discovering Christ and the Holy Family that the Easterday Family and the monks hope to share in the Return to Nazareth Garden. “For decades my wife, Mary Alice, had wanted to construct a roadside chapel, somewhere that people could stop along their way and spend time with God,” Mike Easterday said. “During a retreat I took a walk around the Abbey grounds; as I passed by the overlook on the East Lawn I thought, ‘this would be a great 24
Kansas Monks
place for something!’ The Gospel account of Mary and Joseph finding Jesus in the Temple struck me, and I had an image in my mind of the Holy Family walking along the path.” In November of 2017 Mike took this vision Mike & Mary Alice Easterday to Abbot James Albers who, along with the monastic community, immediately embraced the project. “Abbot James brought in architecture students from Benedictine College and they transformed my vision into something beyond my imagination, – it was
