This article first appeared in The Capital Times

TOWN OF WESTPORT —Nearly 50 years ago, Sister Joanne Kollasch stood on a hillside north of Madison, looked over Lake Mendota and knew she was home.

At the time, in the mid-1950s, Kollasch described the site of the future Saint Benedict Center as “pasture land with no development.” County M was a gravel road.

Today, the highway has been paved and development is all around, but the hillside view remains and the daily routine of the five remaining sisters is fundamentally unchanged — a mix of individual and communal prayer, teaching, operational and business matters and maintenance of the stunningly picturesque 130-acre grounds.

But some aspects of their existence here have been altered dramatically in recent decades. The combination of old and new is defining the center in a new century.

Above all, this is no longer a place geared just toward Catholics.

It’s been more than 30 years since the center closed its Catholic girls preparatory school.

In a sweeping move toward ecumenism, the sisters now lend their teaching skills to adult visitors of all faiths, who generally come here for a week or a weekend.

Kollasch said “visitors come here who want to learn how to integrate the many facets of their lives.”

“They are looking for a way to balance all the demands that shape who they are. They want to learn how to be more healthy in their relationships, and they are looking to follow a spiritual path,” she said. Life here is guided by the Rule of Benedict, written by the sixth century Italian monk. It emphasizes simple living, respect for nature and open hospitality.

Kollasch said individual guests and groups are offered a mix of leisure time, prayer and faith-based classes.

Such retreats “are something we did in the beginning, but they were focused primarily on Catholics,” Kollasch said. “Our outreach is now much broader than that.”

The sisters have also opened the doors of their own home to women of other faiths who want to learn about the Benedictine tradition.

Since 1994, 35 sisters from a host of different faith and ethnic backgrounds have come to live here for periods of time. Currently, a Korean sister is residing on the grounds.

An ordained Presbyterian minister and a Mennonite woman have also joined the community in recent years.

Kollasch said the exposure to people of other faiths and backgrounds has been “exciting, challenging and a gift to us.”

“We are more open to other cultures,” Kollasch said. “We are much more aware of and comfortable with Asians, Africans and Spanish-speaking people because we have invited sisters from these countries and cultures to live with us.”

Interested women may explore entry into this monastic life by participating in a three-day retreat, “Invitation to Community.”

These retreats include overnight accommodations and meals at no cost, with donations accepted. The next retreat is scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 19-21.

A free informational video, “Making The Journey: Benedictine Women of Madison,” is also available.

Qualifications and application information for entry into the community are listed on Saint Benedict’s Web page: www.sbcenter.org or can be obtained by calling 836-1631, ext. 158.

Reflecting the broad-based ecumenical spirit are the organizations using Benedict House.

On the secular end, the Dane County Sheriff’s Office has been using Benedict House for a variety of conferences and other meeting uses. Several times a year, the Sheriff’s Office conducts oral exam boards here for deputy sheriff candidates.

The United Methodist Church’s annual conference for Wisconsin-based ministers is also held at Benedict House. And a number of other Protestant and orthodox Christian groups regularly hold meetings here.

Kollasch said in the beginning the sisters didn’t see themselves taking as large of an ecumenical role as they have. Rather, “We gradually saw ourselves as a place where ecumenism can go on,” she said.

“The hospitality, the openness to receive people, a willingness to be a gathering place and a place that respects people, is what has led to the ecumenism of this place.”

Kollasch acknowledged that, like many similar religious communities, the sisters were a larger group in the 1960s. That hasn’t deterred her, however, because women today have more opportunities to take active roles in the church without joining an order, she said.

There seems to be a wave of women doing other kinds of things,” she said.

Kollasch also acknowledged that some in the Catholic church “feel less of a call to work in the area of ecumenism.”

Neither does that deter the sisters here, because their work has been backed by the Vatican and “our community feels called to continue this place of gathering where people are welcome.”

Besides the ecumenical direction Saint Benedict Center has taken, it is also vigorously pursuing the restoration/conservation of its grounds. Kollasch credits the spark behind the effort to the thwarted attempt by PDQ convenience store magnate Sam Jacobsen to buy a key piece of the center’s land in the early 1990s.

Jacobsen wanted the land known as ‘Holy Hill” for the 18th hole of his new Bishop’s Bay golf course.

Kathi Koegle, Saint Benedict’s community relations director, explained: “When the decision was made not to sell the land, that was when a real discernment process began about what was going to be our future…and the long-range environmental planning was launched.”

The plan was completed in 1995 and the first action was the conversion of 50 acres of farmland to native prairie.

In an article by Koegle in the August/September 2001 edition of Madison’s Northside News, she wrote that between 12 and 20 acres of prairie have been restored annually since 1996.

The majority of seeds have been hand-collected by hundreds of volunteers of all ages,” she wrote. “Nearly 60 different native flowers and grasses are seeded annually.”

The Saint Benedict property also contains a 10,000-year-old 9-acre glacial lake called Lost Lake.

Over the years the lake had been filled in by runoff silt. Dredging has removed 85,000 cubic yards of silt and the water depth has gone from 2 feet to 15 feet at its deepest point. A detention basin also was installed that largely eliminates siltation and further controls chemical runoff into Lake Mendota.

Volunteers are welcome to help with the prairie restoration effort. For more information call 836-1631, ext. 100.

Those who aren’t seeking a retreat or volunteer work are also welcome to simply visit the grounds.

Self-guided tours are allowed; guests should come to the receptionist station on the ground floor of Benedict House on any weekday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekend tours are also available by calling 836-1631, ext 0.