Since guaranteeing cold transportation is a challenge, the purchased snowmen are shipped in liquid form by mail in plastic bags similar to goldfish bags.

Even if you don't speak French, you can enjoy this tongue-in-cheek video, especially the last part. The nuns are clearly having fun! No translation is needed for the smiles on their faces.

The Cistercian nuns of Boulaur Abbey moved to Our Lady of the Snows in 2022. The abbey is in the heart of the Archdiocese of Cévennes, a region in the Languedoc-Roussillon in France. The region is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The monastery houses the relics of St. Charles de Foucauld, who stayed there twice. In fact, he entered the consecrated life, received his monastic training, and celebrated his first mass there.

The 450 hectares of land are now occupied by eight sisters aged 31 to 73. Read more

The poplar extends long, thin fingers. The oak stretches out sturdy wood, and the apple tree has knotty extensions of itself.

It's as though the tree begets its own shape again and again as it grows.

Do you think this could be a parable for our dear old Mother Church?

Are we formed in her image?

And did this image grow from the tree that held Christ Jesus??

I look at a crucifix and see the sacred beginning growing from pain and bare wood.

But Winter can also offer us other parables if we take them into prayer.

In John 15, Jesus calls himself the True Vine, while we are the branches.

I like to reflect on this.

Do we see ourselves as branches of the true vine?

If so, how is the true vine shaping us?

This is a powerful parable.

I go back to Matthew 23, where it is said:

"Jesus spoke all things in parables, and without a parable was not anything he said."

The statement is made twice, first as a positive, then as a double negative making a positive.

It is a structure used to deliver something that is very important.

The writer was saying, "Take notice of these words!"

In the Gospels. I find only two examples of this form of writing.

It's at the beginning of John where it is said of Jesus: "Through Him, all things were made, and without Him was not anything that was made."

The other, in Matthew, stresses the importance of Jesus' parables.

This brings me back to Winter, to bare trees, bare vineyards and Jesus saying, "I am the True Vine, and you are the branches."

In winter conditions, how do I, as a branch, reflect the quality of the vine?

Do I know myself as a branch that is an extension of the vine? Or do I imagine I am a growth separate from it?

If pruning comes and I am cut back, do I resent it? Or do I see it as an opportunity for greater growth?

These are hard questions, and they usually come when we are having a spiritual Winter.

But if we look around at God's creation, we see another parable, and we know the truth that Jesus knew.

Winter is not the season of dormancy and death.

It is preparation for the season of greatest growth.

In the gift of Faith, crucifixion belongs to resurrection, just as Winter is the prelude to Spring.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator. Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.