We are all novices on a spiritual journey.
Every step in this journey is no more or less important than any other.
 
       Centering prayer is a form of meditation in which the mind and the heart open to the wisdom and grace of God. There are many instances in the mystical tradition where an experience of communion with God is described. In 1974, Father William Menninger, a Trappist monk, discovered a little book in the Abbey library, The Cloud of Unknowing. This book from the fourteenth century was written in Middle English, not Latin, which meant that it was intended primarily for lay persons rather than clergy. The book presented contemplative meditation as a teachable spiritual process enabling the ordinary person to enter and receive a direct experience of union with God. more

"I am grateful for a summer that has opened me up emotionally, worked me hard physically, and helped me to grow spiritually. I think I will always be able to look back on the summer of 2009 as an important turning point in my life."
- 2009 Volunteer in Community
 
"Learning how to tend the prairie or to garden or to landscape while learning so much about myself and developing my spirituality... all in a gorgeous setting with an incredible community -  what a unique and privileged education this has been!"
- 2009 Volunteer in Community


 
       Fifteen Volunteers in Community lived, prayed, worked and shared meals with sisters, co-workers and retreatants at the monastery this summer. Many of the women attended centering prayer and the Liturgy of the Hours. During their work time, they weeded the garden and brought in produce, split and stacked fire wood, pruned apple and pear trees, laid down straw matting for erosion control around the new monastery building, helped prepare meals, cleared invasive species from the prairie and pruned bushes. In total, the women contributed 1,223 volunteer hours of work throughout their time with us. more

Watch a video about the Volunteer in Community program created by participant Jenn Lindsay:
Part One
Part Two


Photos by Jenn Lindsay. Top: Elizabeth Marsh (left) and Jessie Gutgsell water plants in the garden. Bottom: Sister Lynne Smith, OSB (left) prays with volunteers, Debbie Oaks, Carolyn Hames and Bethany Johnson before eating a meal together.

      A quick check of the card catalog in the monastery library produced eleven entries under "silence" and "solitude." That makes sense. It is a monastic library. I, like many others, assumed that silence and solitude is something monks, sisters, and hermits experience and cherish, but I realized after reading these books that silence is for everyone. 
       Those eleven entries span over fifty years of "silence." From Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1958) to Peter-Damian Belisle's The Language of Silence (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003). All these books stress silence not as a way to escape life and its problems, but of confronting those problems and renewing oneself. And the decade they were published makes little difference beyond a few dated terms. The meaning remains the same.
       Ambrose G. Wathen's Silence: the Meaning of Silence in the Rule of St. Benedict (Washington, D.C.: Cistercian Publications, 1973) talks about silence as a method of communication, as prayer, as a form of self-discipline, and as part of daily life. Nicolas Caballero's Silence and the Liberation of Consciousness (Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications, 1985) and Anselm Grun's The Challenge of Silence (Schuyler, Neb.: BMH Publications, 1993) are how-to-do books on silence, with chapters devoted to using silence as a way of letting go and opening up. And Peter-Damian Belisle's book, while providing a historical background for silence, also discusses contemporary "hermits" and the place of solitude within today's family structure.
      Visit our library or purchase these books through Good Shop, Choose Benedictine Women of Madison, then Amazon or Barnes and Noble and a donation will go to the monastery just for using Good Shop. print article

 
Recycle and Re-use are synonyms, right? Wrong! They do not mean the same thing in the world of green buildings, sustainable design and LEED certification. Recycling involves processing used materials into new products to prevent the waste of potentially useful materials thereby reducing the consumption of fresh raw materials and energy. Re-use means using an item again for the same function, thus saving time, money, energy and resources. more