Holy Ground

Most of us are familiar with the Gospel Favorite, "This is Holy Ground....we're standing on holy ground..."  We usually associate "holy ground" with a Church, or room where a prayer meeting is being held.  For American Marists, it does not stretch the imagination too much to apply this phrase to our Marist Center in Esopus, NY, where since the mid-forties, we have occupied this once grand and spacious tract of land.  Hundreds of vocations to the brotherhood were nurtured there when it was our "Juniorate" (Marist Preparatory) and later, our novitiate (which still exists on that hallowed ground).  Hundreds of Marist Brothers are buried there in our cemetery, and hundredes of kids and adults benefit from the summer camps which run from June through August.  It has been the location of the Marist Youth Encounter Christ retreat since 1968 and countless school and class retreats as well.  The prayers offered there, the grace that changes hearts, cannot be measured but give this place a special aura which to some is tangible and even magnetic. We speak about the "Esopus Bug"...once you "get it" you keep coming back for more. 
A new recent addition has already begun to add to the addiction.  (More tomorrow).
Bro. Rene