Romance at the monastery?

Monica JefcoatWeddings Leave a Comment

February is the month most associated with romance. The reasons are somewhat lost to history but may be due to celebrations for martyred Christian saints with romantic ideals or practices rooted in pagan festivals. Most likely traditions can be attributed to both resulting in our modern Valentine’s Day where expressions of adoration and token gifts are shared by those who live in North America, parts of Europe and Australia. Now, a monastery may not be the first place you think of when you think of romance, but romance lives strongly at Holy Wisdom Monastery in February and throughout the year. …

Holy Wisdom Monastery to Restore Lost Landscape

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth Leave a Comment

  This November Holy Wisdom Monastery will begin restoring 30 acres of its land to oak savanna, considered by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to be Wisconsin’s rarest plant community. Oak savanna is characterized by widely spaced oak trees (between 10-50% tree canopy) with primarily grasses covering the ground. Before European settlement it was one of the most common plant communities in Wisconsin but now only a fraction remains. “Before Europeans arrived, oak savanna was more common than forest or prairie in southern Wisconsin,” explained Holy Wisdom Monastery’s Director of Land Management and Environmental Education, Greg Armstrong. After European …

Benedictine Sisters win international Assisi Award for conservation efforts spanning more than 60 years

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Living in Community, Uncategorized 2 Comments

The Benedictine Sisters at Holy Wisdom Monastery received the inaugural Assisi Award for faith-based conservation at the 28th International Congress of Conservation Biology’s Opening Ceremony on July 23, 2017 in Cartagena, Colombia in front of nearly 1,500 attendees. The Assisi Award acknowledges organizations and individuals whose work demonstrates that faith-based conservation is contributing significantly to the common global effort of conserving life on Earth. Sisters Mary David Walgenbach and Joanne Kollasch accepted the award on behalf of their religious community located near Madison, Wisconsin. Their community is the first ecumenical Benedictine community in North America where Catholic and Protestant women …

Snowshoeing at Holy Wisdom Monastery

Toby GrabsHospitality Leave a Comment

Madison College group members enjoy the Holy Wisdom Monastery grounds by snowshoe.   Holy Wisdom Monastery is working with Redfeather Snowshoes to offer registered meeting or retreat guests at Holy Wisdom Monastery the ability to get outside and snowshoe on our 130 acres of land. This winter Holy Wisdom Monastery purchased 11 pairs of Redfeather Conquest snowshoes that will be free for meeting and retreat guests to use. Contact Amanda Conway at 608-836-1631, x100 or aconway@benedictinewomen.org if you are interested in bringing a group to Holy Wisdom Monastery this winter. Contact Monica Jefcoat at 608-836-1631, x158, or mjefcoat@benedictinewomen.org if you are interested in coming …

Sisters and guests seated around the dinner table

Being Christ to each other

Lynne Smith, OSBBuilding Community, Living in Community 6 Comments

Since Rosy’s homily on June 12, 2016, I’ve been pondering the meaning of the incarnation. The Rule of Benedict teaches us to see Christ in one another and to receive one another as Christ. It takes a lifetime to explore what it means to us that God came to us in the flesh. This past month I have had occasions to notice the significance of the incarnation in everyday life. Missionary Benedictine Sister Marie Songmun from the Daegu priory in South Korea visited us for a week in June. I feel a special kinship with her because she arrived here …

aerial view of solar panels at Holy Wisdom - photo by H & H Solar

Update on sustainable building operation at Holy Wisdom

Holy Wisdom MonasteryBenedictine Bridge, Care for the Earth, LEED Certified Building Leave a Comment

by Mark Hanson, director of sustainable services, Hoffman Planning, Design & Construction, Inc Update, February 24, 2016:  Last November, the Holy Wisdom community decided to begin a new phase of living sustainably. Specifically, we decided to begin using the monastery and retreat and guest house as a living laboratory during the winter of 2015/2016. That included adjusting some temperatures lower during the winter months in different spaces and measuring the impact on energy use and cost. We said that we would monitor the results and report the findings as the monthly bills came in. We have been monitoring the results and …

Joyce Wodka

New opportunities in Sunday Assembly

Holy Wisdom MonasteryBenedictine Bridge, Sunday Assembly Leave a Comment

by Joyce Wodka, Sunday Assembly Council chair One of the duties of the Sunday Assembly Council is to oversee and participate in the work of the committees that carry out the mission, vision and aims of Sunday Assembly.  At the winter general meeting that was open to all participants of Sunday Assembly, the Council shared information on some of the great programs that are happening at the monastery.  Through these informational meetings, the Council was not only able to present information and recruit volunteers to help in some of the new ministries, but to also brainstorm with some of the …

Sister Joanne speaking to an oblate gathering

A call to justice: Benedictine perspectives on listening, right relationships and public witness

Joanne Kollasch, OSBBenedictine Bridge, Building Community, Living in Community, Spirituality Articles Leave a Comment

The Oblate retreat, February 19-21, 2016, brought together 66 Oblates of Holy Wisdom, women and men from near and far, to learn from the sisters about the ways justice is expressed in Benedictine life through listening, right relationships and public witness. The following reflections come from a presentation given by Joanne Kollasch, OSB, on February 19, 2016 (pictured above). Today if you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart. —Prologue, Rule of Benedict There are many ways to hear God’s voice if we are silent and listening, if we are able to “welcome one another with the courtesy of love.” …

Paz and the sisters at midday prayer

Having a hard time with the psalms

Holy Wisdom MonasteryLittle notes from a prairie journey, Living in Community 9 Comments

At the monastery we pray the psalms three times a day during the Liturgy of the Hours. At morning and evening prayer, we pray two psalms each, one singing and another recited, at midday we recite a psalm. This is a total of five psalms a day, which is a lot for me. Since I can remember, back in Mexico, I used to attend mass every single Sunday and I never heard a psalm that asked God for the punishment of the wicked or to kill and banish my enemies from the earth. When I first moved to Houston and …