2023 Winter Solstice Sunrise Celebration at Mount St. John, Dayton.

Bro. Dennis Bautista, SM, Community and Novice Director of the Marianist Novitiate at Mount St. John, Dayton, OH, shares this post on the Marianist Encounters website.

Brothers of the Novitiate Community were among the 70 Marianist religious, lay, friends, and volunteers of the Marianist Environmental Education Center who gathered at dawn at Mount S John for the 2023 Winter Solstice Sunrise Celebration on Thursday, Dec. 21.

Now in its 30th year, this annual event commemorates the longest night of the year by offering prayers for world peace with a reflective candlelight procession through the Mount St. John Nature Preserve, culminating with a bonfire in the prairie at sunrise.

Second Year Novices Joseph Choi and Chicago Schuller helped with its preparation by placing several luminaries throughout the property to mark the direction where the procession took place.