Learning to hope

Lynne Smith, OSBLiving in Community Leave a Comment

In the sisters’ chapter meeting last week we began reading an article entitled “Advent Currents,” by Sr. Bede Luetkemeyer, OSB, from a 2004 issue of the magazine Spirit and Life. In the article Sr. Bede reflects on the advent themes of hope, patience and desire. In the section on hope, she quotes Lutheran theologian Jürgen Moltmann. “True hope—which means the hope that endures and sustains us—is based on God’s call and command. We are called to hope. It is a command: a command to resist death. It is a call: the call to divine life. Enduring hope is not something …

Knowing who we are journeying with

Lynne Smith, OSBLiving in Community 2 Comments

Last Friday, the Servant Leadership class from UW Extension held its monthly class at the monastery. Toby Grabs, our operations manager, gave the class a tour and introduction to the monastery. I met with them to talk about how we exercise leadership in the monastery. I lifted up three principles that have guided us and served to move us into the future: listening to others collaboration and community. Because we have always been a small community and because we value collaboration and community building, we have consulted with and involved others in our ministry and decision-making through the years. In …

Welcome and Humane Treatment of Arriving Migrants

Mary David Walgenbach, OSBJustice Leave a Comment

“As monastics, we strive to listen to the longings of the world ‘with the ear of our heart.’” Sometimes this means letting ourselves be torn open to recognize our own complicity in the pain and alienation of others because of personal choices we have made to benefit from systems of exclusion. If we let ourselves be opened, we will recognize the power we have to overcome the fear that separates us from one another. Then we can believe the vision set out by Jesus, who made room for everyone at the table.” –Wisdom From the Tradition: A Statement of North …

Stories shape us

Lynne Smith, OSBLiving in Community Leave a Comment

“It is the telling of the story of the gesture of Francis which gives the heritage the power to traverse time and to be creative. It is not constitutions, not norms that do this. A movement without a legend spends its energy in ensuring its survival.” – Francis of Assisi Today, by Christian Duquoc   The quote above was part of our reading at midday prayer on October 4, 2018 for the commemoration of Francis of Assisi. What struck me was how important story is in shaping our lives. Benedictines are great story tellers. Besides reading the Rule of Benedict, …

Restoration and hope

Lynne Smith, OSBCare for the Earth, Living in Community Leave a Comment

Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual.  –Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (p. 328)   I made a quick trip to Illinois to visit my brother and his wife and my sister and her husband last week. It was fun to see them and get caught up even if for just a few days. It rained the three days I visited my brother and his wife in Naperville, Illinois. Since we couldn’t go …

Agridulce or bittersweet

Holy Wisdom MonasteryJustice, Living in Community Leave a Comment

My experience at the Hispanic Summer Program (HSP) in Dallas was agridulce or bitter-sweet. It was dulce-sweet because I was able to be around people who look like me. My teachers and most of my fellow students looked like me and spoke Spanish like me. I was able to speak Spanish. I was able to worship in my native language. It was very natural for all of us to go back and forth speaking Spanglish. We shared common stories and experiences. The topics of our classes were all about Latin@theology and the way Latin@s express our religiosity. It was very …

Pathways to wisdom

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Living in Community, Uncategorized Leave a Comment

“Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily $1000 loan today discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding, and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care, because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets …

65th anniversary reflections

Tom Zanzig65th Anniversary, Benedictine Bridge Leave a Comment

On Palm Sunday seven years ago, my dear friend, Pamela Johnson and I walked into this sacred space for the first time, took a seat, and experienced Eucharist in a way we never had before. You might call it our “first communion” with this very special community of communities. At the end of the liturgy, Pamela spoke for both of us when, with tears welling in her eyes, she said, “So this is what the church of the future looks like. And I think I just found my spiritual home.” For me, this feels more deeply like home every time …

65 years of welcoming the stranger

Lynne Smith, OSB65th Anniversary, Benedictine Bridge Leave a Comment

Tonight we gather to celebrate 65 years of Benedictine life and ministry in the Madison area. I want to add my thanks to all of you who have come and all the volunteers and coworkers who have made this evening possible. Indeed all of you make this Benedictine life and witness possible here. Though it may appear that we are celebrating the past, I suggest that this is actually a celebration and welcoming of the future. Benedictine scripture scholar, Demetrius Dumm, OSB, now deceased, said: “In scripture, the entertaining of guests and the entertaining of strangers is the entertaining of …

In praise of celebration

Joanne Kollasch, OSB65th Anniversary, Benedictine Bridge Leave a Comment

How will we celebrate the sisters 65th anniversary in Madison? Janet in our mission advancement office was posing the question. I confess some reluctance to entertain the question, as a litany of ups and downs in this place flashed through my mind: an open pasture as the setting for our monastery—really? opening a school/closing a school in 1966 not many people were ready for an “ecumenical” retreat and conference center. Bill Wineke, religion writer for the State Journal wrote: “nuns take leap of faith into the dark”—could have written a “leap over the cliff” (Guess some folks believe we did) …