Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Holy Wisdom Monastery”
The memorial service for Dick Wagner will be held at Holy Wisdom Monastery on Saturday, April 30, 2022, at 3:00 pm. Visitation begins at 2:00 pm. The service will be livestreamed on Holy Wisdom’s YouTube and Facebook accounts and at the livestream link below. Read more about Dick Wagner Click here for the livestream at 3:00 pm, Sat., Apr. 30 Click here for the memorial service bulletin
Dear Volunteers of Holy Wisdom Monastery, Words cannot express the value that volunteers have at Holy Wisdom Monastery. Over many years, you have supported this small community of sisters in their mission, and helped guide the monastery toward bringing Benedictine spirituality to the greater community. However you serve the monastery – on the prairie, in the kitchen, at Sunday Assembly, on a committee, as a spiritual guide, at the front desk or elsewhere – know that you are always welcomed and needed here. As coworkers, we look to you for the wisdom, energy and talents that you bring to Holy …
By Pam Shellberg The biblical story familiarly known as Paul’s Damascus Road experience (Acts 9) is really less a story of his “conversion” than it is a brilliant portrayal of an archetype of a rite of passage or an initiation. As such, it has become, for me, a really meaningful meditation, both on the season of Lent and the resurrection promise of Easter. Paul’s story begins, as initiations do, with separation. A faithful and zealous Jew, Paul was absolutely certain that Jesus of Nazareth could not possibly have been God’s messiah to Israel. Paul’s persecutions of Jesus-followers bear witness to …
By David McKee opening the Opus Dei in this bardo intimate as ever was Five days alone in the hermitage—no phone, no internet, no reading, no writing, no music—only the Liturgy of the Hours, many hours of wordless prayer, walking, eating, sleeping and silence—suspending all the usual outer distractions of daily life in order to face all the inner ones—all the things that drop a veil between myself and God—all the false selves for which I have so many names, and the desire to let go of all those names and disappear into the true self that is hidden in …
By Roberta Felker, Sunday Assembly, Board of Directors In 1373, reputedly around Good Friday, an Englishwoman lay stricken by what appeared to be a fatal illness, possibly related to the Black Death that had recently returned to Norwich. As it was, she did not die. Her birth name is unknown, but the name she assumed is familiar to us: Julian of Norwich, one of the greatest of the English mystics. In her fevered haze, Julian experienced the first of a series of visions that she recorded in a book entitled, Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love[1]. The Eighth Revelation is the heart of …
The monastery’s theme for 2022 is beauty. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamozov: “The world will be saved by beauty.” The first image that came to me as I pondered this was that of Vedran Smajlovic playing Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor in the bombed streets of Sarajevo in 1992. He played each day for 22 days to mark the death of the 22 people killed standing in line for bread during the siege of the city. Hear the story from BBC news. Beauty can keep the human heart and spirit alive in the midst of suffering. The PBS …
By Leora Weitzman Putting a pebble in your shoe can still be found under Ten Simple Penance Ideas for Lent at CatholicLiving.net. By now, most pebbles have probably gone metaphorical. Still, what if your shoes are already too full of metaphorical pebbles to add any more? Maybe some pebbles already in our shoes can become our offerings. In my case, pebbles of anxiety and sadness about current events are becoming a focus to sit with more consciously in prayer—which means fasting from at least some efforts to numb those feelings. And as for almsgiving… Do you interact regularly with someone …
“The life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent.” So begins Benedict’s brief chapter on the observation of Lent. We should always be preparing for the appearance of the risen Christ. We should always be seeking to rid ourselves of bad habits, practicing self-denial, realizing our faults and living each moment in gratitude for God’s abundant love that pours down on us just as we are. Since few, however, have the strength for this, we urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this …
Taizé prayer is meditative common prayer. Gathered together, the community sings uncomplicated repetitive songs, uncluttered by too many words allowing the mystery of the Holy Presence to become tangible through the beauty of simplicity. All are welcome to attend in person in the assembly room, or virtually with the link below. Click here to join us virtually.
Submitted by Sally Bowers and Julie Melton, Friends of Wisdom Prairie In this installment of reSTORYation, we invite you to consider the doctrine that allowed newcomers to this continent to forcibly remove the indigenous people that were already here. We learn the troubling stories of how doctrines and laws dehumanized indigenous peoples through the removal of their mind, body and spirit. We begin reSTORYation with conciliation. Conciliation occurs with truth telling. Conciliation without truth is like trying to bring health without comprehensive diagnosis. A lament emerges from the confrontational nature of truth and the honest response to the truth.1 The …
