Food for the Soul

Now that I have settled back into life at the monastery, I am reminded almost daily how wonderfully blessed we are to be living where we do, close to wide open spaces.  After spending several months in Chicago which was a beautiful city in many ways, and being close to Lake Michigan which was an added bonus, these days I relish being able to step outside anytime I want to go for a walk or just to the next building, aware of the beauty all around us whether it be the trees, the gardens, the fields or the quiet of an early evening. My heart can’t help being filled with gratitude at such times. I am fully aware that most people do not live in close proximity to large open spaces or to a lake or river as we do. In one way or the other each of us, depending on our circumstances, seeks to find ways to feed our soul.  For us Sisters whether living in St. Joseph, MN or being at one of our two lake cabins, as four of us are this week, we find ways to be still and silent steping away for a time from the jabbering crowds and the constant motion of our lives.  For example, as I am writing this I am sitting facing the lake on a porch with screen windows on three sides and listening to a pair of loons calling to each other on the lake, very close to our dock. The lake is calm after a very windy day yesterday, and being early in the week there is not the usual loud rumbling of motor boats assaulting our ears. There is the merest of fluttering in the trees and in an hour or so the sun will turn the corner of the house and will be facing us promising a beautiful sunset.

An important piece during vacation that renews me body and soul are these quiet hours with congenial companions, along with extended time for meals, most often on the screened-in porch.  May each of you experience something similar for the renewal of your spirit during these summer months.

WOW! ... As Prayer

S. Julianne (l) and S. Tamra on July 11

Gratefulness is the Heart of Prayer, as Brother David Steindl-Rast’s book title proclaims. We, here at Saint Benedict’s Monastery, having been praying heart-prayers for about ten days now.  It started with July 4^th when we acknowledged gratefulness for our country’s freedoms, the solidarity we feel with the citizens of all nations striving for basic human freedoms and the immense gratitude we extend to every woman and man throughout the world who offers/vows their lives to protect and promote these treasured freedoms.

July 7^th : two women, Angela McCormick and Nina Lasceski, chose to enter an intense year of discernment as Benedictine novices.   This novitiate time of inner honesty is not always an easy path.  The truths of Who this compassionate God is, who they are, and how this specific monastic community with all its wonderful humanness can accompany them on the road to freely manifesting their empowering gifts, is an awesome mystery.  The over 1000 monastic women buried in our local monastic cemetery are part of the throngs of women who add their prayer-connection to both of them as they travel this discernment path.

July 11^th : one woman, S. Julianne Gilbert, sang out her perpetual monastic promises with the ancient words, “Receive me, O God, as you have promised and I shall live….” in tones that resounded with gratefulness.  And at Evening Prayer, Novice Tamra Thomas became Sister Tamra as she signed her three year promise to continue her monastic formation.  As the clapping community gathered around her she could not resist clapping her own hands and allowing herself to do a spontaneous mini “dance for joy”.

July 14th : culminated our ten days of celebratory vowed gratitude when sisters Ardella Kvamme, Ephrem Hollermann, Pauline Fernandes, Rosa Li and Susan Rudolf savored their 50 years of monastic life in royal Golden Jubilee splendor.  Our chapel dome rose a bit as instrumental music and song billowed upward.

If another pronunciation of “Vow” is “Wow” (if spoken with a German twist), we have been “Wowing” for ten days straight.  If “wowing” is another name for GRATITUDE, we have been in the heart of prayer for a delightful ten days.

Golden jubilarians (l to r): Sisters Ephrem Hollermann, Susan Rudolf, Pauline Fernandes, Rosa Li and Ardella Kvamme

Mary Rachel Kuebelbeck, OSB

All It Takes Is a Sunny Day

All it takes is a sunny day, a chair facing north east, trees reaching into a blue sky, a few ants or daddy-longlegs and a soft breeze to  move the shadows upon the ground!  That’s all it takes for me to feel at HOME . . . on earth, within myself, and with God (at least for the time being!).

 I was recently given an entire day of such grace!  I pondered a lot about HOME and at-home-ness, about

strangers and estrangement, community and loneliness, children being warmly loved or those left out

in the cold.  As human beings, it seems we have a common DNA, a fierce longing for HOME.  Many are

blessed with that gift all their lives; others do not enjoy equal fare. One can see the longing in their

eyes, witness it in their actions or hear it in their words. We long for HOME  . . among our siblings, in

school, at work, in community and surely in the Church.  “Catholics expect to find it in their parishes,

with a  pastor who provides a rich diet of spiritual food and who meets people where they are (S.

 Katarina Schuth, OSF, in an address recently given at the 15^th annual Philip J. Murnion Lecture in N.Y.  See: The Visitor, June 21, p. 16)).”

Robert Frost’s poem, “The Death of a Hired Man,” likewise addresses the theme of HOME and reminds

me of how differently we  define at-home-ness.  You may remember Silas. Warren and Mary have hired

Silas, year after year, at haying time because he had a gift.  It seems  his one accomplishment was that

he could bundle every forkful of hay, tag and number it for future reference so that he could find and

easily dislodge it in the unloading.  “Silas does that well.  He takes it out in bunches like birds’ nests. 

You never see him standing on the hay he’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.”  Yet, Silas is a

wanderer, a  loner; he is gifted but is also irresponsible: he leaves just when Warren needs him most,

only to return later expecting to be hired for a few more coins with which he can buy “a bit of tobacco

so he won’t have to beg and be beholden.”

It’s haying time again on Mary and Warren’s farm.  Of course, Silas is back!  But this time, Mary scarcely

 recognizes him.  Age and brokenness tell her that his return is not to “ditch the meadow or clear the

upper pasture” as he had so often promised. . . but  he had returned HOME to die. Warren, however,

isn’t so sure; he has had his fill of the Silas routine.  “Home?” he mocks.  And Mary: “Yes, what else but

home?  It all depends on what you mean by home. . .”  Angrily, Warren defines it in one way: “Home is

 the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”  He is countered by Mary’s  “I

should have called it something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”

You know the story line. Silas,  the stranger, except at haying time and when in need, did, indeed, come

home to die.  Regardless of Warren’s and Mary’s differing perspectives—both of which have validity,

Silas had been inextricably DRAWN to the place that HE considered HOME. Warren found him on the

 bed. Silas didn’t care about differing perspectives; he went where his heart and soul drew him.  So,

too, do we, when we go HOME.

Renée Domeier, OSB

Freedom

My blog is a bit late this week, which means it's Fourth of July as I'm writing it. That makes me think. And it makes me grateful. I'm so grateful to experience living in freedom and all the things that go with that. It is a gift to be able to hold and express opinions without fear of being tortured or imprisoned. It is a gift to know that I can live in harmony alongside others who maybe don't think quite the same way that I do because, beyond our differences, is a commitment to the right of everyone to have freedom of speech.

I'm conscious, though, that rights come with duties. I'm conscious, too, that I have a duty to support those who don't live in the same freedom that I enjoy. I maybe can't change the world, but I can try to play some part. So, today, I'm thanking God for my freedom and praying for all those people throughout the world who live under oppression, and for all those who strive to promote justice and peace.

Karen Rose, OSB

PS The monastery  blog next week will be published on Weds.

The Holy Land

 THE HOLY LAND

May 19 - June 1, 2013

Of the 255 pictures I took on my recent Holy Land retreat which concluded my year at the Institute of Religious Formation in Chicago, this might not seem to be the most meaningful one.  After all, it appears to be only a rock! However its significance is monumental. The location is the Taghba on the shore of the Lake of Galilee. According to tradition this is the rock from which Jesus called out to the disciples who had been fishing all night, thereby revealing himself to them after his resurrection.  It is also recognized as the location where Jesus and his disciples had breakfast that morning and where Jesus asked Peter three times after breakfast,"Simon, . . . , do you love me?". (See John 21)

We began our two-week trip to Israel in Galilee and our visit to the Taghba was on the first day.  The trip ended with three days in Jerusalem.  We were most fortunate that our hotel in Jerusalem was in the old city so we walked everywhere. Since my return people have asked me various questions, such as "What was your favorite site?", "How secure did you feel?", "Did you visit Nazareth?", etc.  Today someone asked me, "What was the most significant event of the trip?" It is a difficult question to answer because several events were significant for different reasons.  As time goes by and I continue to reflect on the trip I have to say that being in Jerusalem was very important to me for many reasons but here is one:  early one morning we got on our bus and drove to the Mount of Olives, to the very top.  From there we could look over to Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley. As the morning wore on we walked down, first to where Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and then to Gethsemane.  I now have a sense of the distances that Jesus walked, especially from the Upper Room and the Last Supper to his crucifixion on Good Friday. Sister Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ, our tour guide, was right when she told us that we would never listen to scripture in the same way again.  I now conclude with another picture; this one is taken at the church at Gethsemane and one of my classmates is praying at the rock which tradition tells us is the rock that Jesus prayed at during his night of agony in the garden.

In Defense of Tuesdays

Today is Tuesday.  You know Tuesday has no distinction as far as I can see.  It’s quite bland.  I mean Monday starts the work week, Wednesday is the mid-week marker. Thursday is on the lip of Friday, the vigil of the weekend.  Saturday and Sunday are “breathing days” holding potential for relaxation, sacred celebration or flamboyant fun.  But Tuesday, Tuesday hardly counts at all.  It just hangs there like a placeholder. 

I’ve decided that’s not all bad.  As bland as Tuesday appears, it may actually hold a secret. Having survived the avalanche of Monday, Tuesday actually provides a presence, a counterpoint, a grounding in reality, a recommitment to the ordinary without all the drama. 

So today join me me in being a Tuesday, just holding space and swelling with gratitude for the opportunity to be grounded in the present, committed to the ordinary. The ordinary poises us on the edge of a wonderfully nondescript landscape, where minuscule "wows" are able to punctuate our present with beauty, delight, goodness and pregnant silence. I think Tuesday is the "womb day" of the week. What a life-giving gift!  

Mary Rachel Kuebelbeck, OSB

Benedictine Women's Service Corps Update

Ashley Blaine

At the end of May, our BWSC volunteer, Ashley Blaine, returned to Saint Benedict’s Monastery from St. Gertrude’s Monastery in Ridgely, Maryland, where she had been serving from August 29, 2012,  until May 24, 2013.  The weekend from May 24 until May 29 provided Ashley with re-entry time and space before returning to her family and her future. 

On Sunday, May 26, Ashley showed pictures, told stories, and basically summarized her experience at St. Gertrude’s, to a group of approximately 50 Sisters at Saint Benedict’s Monastery.  The Sisters had a chance to ask her questions after she had talked about the ministries and community she served in Maryland.  At the end of her presentation, she shared a “Thank you” video that the Ridgely Sisters sent along with her to us at Saint.Benedict’s.

Ashley gave a similar presentation to the Sisters at Saint Scholastica Convent in St. Cloud.  The Sisters there were eager to hear Ashley’s adventures and experiences because many of them had been to Ridgely at one time or another. Ashley worked at the Benedictine School, sponsored by St. Gertrude’s.  This school is a residential facility for approximately 90 students who have multiple disabilities.  Another ministry is St. Martin’s House where young mothers with small children reside until they attain education and skills that they will use for taking care of themselves and their children.  Lastly, the Ridgely Sisters run “The Barn” which is a large food pantry and source of small household items for those who need them.  This outreach ministry serves the people in one of poorest counties in Maryland, Caroline County.

As Ashley Blaine adjusts to no longer volunteering, Christina Desert, graduate from the College of Saint Benedict in May, 2013, is looking forward to her year of BWSC service.  She will be arriving at Saint Benedict’s Monastery on August 15 for a 2-week orientation period prior to going to Bristow, Virginia, where she will live with Benedictine sisters and serve in their adult literacy program, known as "The Beacon", as well as other community sponsored outreach programs.

Christina Desert

BWSC is looking forward to another quality year with our newest volunteer.  Christina is originally from Haiti, and now resides in Idaho with her family.

Mary Jane Berger, OSB