Come as you are. No experience needed — just a willingness to pause, listen, and write. You’ll leave with new words, insights, and connections.

Dates/Times – Sundays from 10:15 am-12:15 pm

• Jan. 25
• Mar. 1
• Jun. 7
• Nov. 1

Schedule

• 10:15 am – Welcome, housekeeping, and settling in
• 10:30 am – Guided meditation
• 10:45 am – Writing session #1 with optional small-group sharing
• 11:00 am – Contemplative walking and writing session #2
• 11:30 am – Writing session #3
• 11:45 am – Sharing in big group (optional)
• 12:15 pm – Close

Leader – Rebecca Jamieson

Rebecca Jamieson is the author of The Body of All Things (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a 2025 Wisconsin Writers Award, the 2024 Tupelo Press Prose Prize, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Rattle, The Offing, Mid-American Review, and Entropy, and she’s currently at work on a collection of personal essays. Rebecca lives on Ho-Chunk land in Madison, Wisconsin. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking, baking, or cuddling her two cats.

Cost

$50/person

Registration

Limited to 25 people. Please register by June 4, 2026.

The post Ink & Insight Mindful Writing Circle appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Each renewal weekend will include creating a quiet, focused, and enlivened space — a Circle of Trust® — where personal, inner wisdom can be heard. There will be a mix of time spent in large group, small group, and individual reflection along with poetry, teaching stories, wisdom traditions, nature, and activities for exploration. We will use these experiences and other rich metaphors to symbolize and discover and explore life questions. Together, we will experience creating spaces in our lives to tend and nurture our desire to live fully with courage and resilience.

• Revitalize your commitment to the values that give meaning to your life.
• Increase your ability to listen openly and be present.
• Learn reflective practices to become more intentional.
• Explore questions to build and sustain community.
• Expand trustworthy and authentic relationships.

The Circle of Trust® approach is based on the work of Dr. Parker J. Palmer, Founder and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal, who is a world-renowned writer, speaker and activist. Explore the principles, practices and resources from the Center for Courage & Renewal: https://couragerenewal.org/courage-renewal-approach/

This program is being independently organized and led by a Courage & Renewal Facilitator(s) prepared by the Center for Courage & Renewal.

Schedule

Friday, February 20

3:00 pm – Check-in for Retreatants Staying in RGH
6:30 pm – Registration
7:00-9:00 pm – Session One

Saturday, February 21
9:00-10:15 am – Session Two
10:15-10:30 am – Break
10:30 am-12:00 pm – Session Three
12:00-1:30 pm – Lunch and Free Time
1:30-3:00 pm – Session Four
3:00-3:15 pm – Break
3:30-5:00 pm – Session Five
5:15 pm – Dinner

Sunday, February 22
10:00 am-12:00 pm – Session Six

Leaders – Mary Louise Peters, MSE & Amy Christianson, EdD

Mary Louise Peters is a Courage & Renewal® Facilitator, providing retreats and renewal experiences since 2010. She has worked as an educator and consultant at local, state and national levels to improve early childhood and special education for children and families, teaching practices and conditions for staff, and state educational systems.

Amy Christianson recently completed the Courage & Renewal® Practicum Program. Amy has been a participant in a number of seasonal and Circle of Trust retreats. She has a long professional career in education within early childhood, K-12 and higher education settings. Amy’s background includes educational leadership, organizational change and working with diverse populations.

Cost

$250 commuter; $435 residential

Register

Please register by February 13, 2026. The maximum number of participants is 18 and registration will close when full.

Cancellation policy – if you register but must cancel your registration, you can receive a 75% refund up until February 13, 2026. After that, a 50% refund is available until the retreat starts.

Upcoming Courage & Renewal Weekend

Save the dates for the next Courage & Renewal Weekend, May 29-31, “Wonder and Hope”  

The post Grace & Reflection: A Courage & Renewal® Weekend appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Come as you are. No experience needed — just a willingness to pause, listen, and write. You’ll leave with new words, insights, and connections.

Dates/Times – Sundays from 10:15 am-12:15 pm

• Jan. 25
• Mar. 1
• Jun. 7
• Nov. 1

Schedule

• 10:15 am – Welcome, housekeeping, and settling in
• 10:30 am – Guided meditation
• 10:45 am – Writing session #1 with optional small-group sharing
• 11:00 am – Contemplative walking and writing session #2
• 11:30 am – Writing session #3
• 11:45 am – Sharing in big group (optional)
• 12:15 pm – Close

Leader – Rebecca Jamieson

Rebecca Jamieson is the author of The Body of All Things (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a 2025 Wisconsin Writers Award, the 2024 Tupelo Press Prose Prize, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Rattle, The Offing, Mid-American Review, and Entropy, and she’s currently at work on a collection of personal essays. Rebecca lives on Ho-Chunk land in Madison, Wisconsin. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking, baking, or cuddling her two cats.

Cost

$50/person

Registration

Limited to 25 people.

The post Ink and Insight Mindful Writing Circle appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Come as you are. No experience needed — just a willingness to pause, listen and write. You’ll leave with new words, insights, and connections.

Dates/Times – Sundays from 10:15 am-12:00 pm

• Jan. 25
• Mar. 1
• Jun. 7
• Nov. 1

Schedule

• 10:15 am – Welcome, housekeeping and settling in
• 10:30 am – Guided meditation
• 10:45 am – Writing session #1
• 11:00 am – Contemplative walking/break
• 11:15 am – Writing session #2
• 11:30 am – Sharing
• 12:00 pm – Close

Leader – Rebecca Jamieson

Rebecca Jamieson is the author of The Body of All Things (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a 2025 Wisconsin Writers Award, the 2024 Tupelo Press Prose Prize, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Rattle, The Offing, Mid-American Review, and Entropy, and she’s currently at work on a collection of personal essays. Rebecca lives on Ho-Chunk land in Madison, Wisconsin. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking, baking, or cuddling her two cats.

Cost

$50/person

Registration

Limited to 30 people.

The post Ink and Insight Mindful Writing Circle appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

As we choose spiritual practices for Lent, we might consider the practice of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture. (See part 1) This slow reflective reading may be done alone or within a group.

The method of lectio divina is often referred to as fourfold: lectio (reading the text), meditatio (reflecting and meditating on the text), oratio (praying from the text) and contemplatio (deep contemplation of the text).

“Reading as it were, puts food whole into the mouth, meditation chews it and breaks it up, prayer extracts its flavor, contemplation is the sweetness itself which gladdens and refreshes.” (Guigo II, Twelfth century monk)

Lectio—Reading

This kind of reading is slow and reflective, focused on absorbing the word itself in a reflective manner. St. Ambrose writes that calm, slow reading enkindles the ardor of prayer.

When doing lectio with a group, it is good to read through a short passage slowly several times, then allow time for silence. Then people in the group say one word or one phrase that struck them. An atmosphere of quiet, calm and peace is important.

Meditatio—Meditation, Reflection

The purpose of meditation is to assimilate the word of God, to allow it to become more and more a part of our hearts. The Jewish theologian and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “To meditate is to know how to stand still and to dwell upon a word!” In reading the word of God there can be one word or phrase that moves our heart. At the visit of the shepherds at Bethlehem, “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)

Whatever speaks to the heart moves us to wonder, think and pray.

Oratio—Prayer

“Prayer is best understood as a dialogue or conversation between God and a person. The ancient practice of lectio takes for granted that we begin by first listening to God speak to us, then after we hear God speak, we respond; sometimes with a word of thanking and blessing God for divine goodness to us…other times with an acknowledgement of our weakness.” (Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB)

Abbot Gregory continues: “What has the sacred word said to me about growing deeper into the life of Christ? What has it said about a more authentic love of my neighbor? Of what has it accused me and called me to personal conversion?”

God’s word begins to call forth from us a reply.

Contemplatio—Contemplation

“Be still before the Lord and wait in patience.” (Psalm 37:7) Reflection on God’s word will lead us to a posture of peace before God. “Contemplation is a movement from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from doubt to belief, from uncertainty to hope.” (Abbot Gregory)

Reading a passage from Scripture in a slow reflective manner can be a practice for encountering the mystery of God in the Scriptures.

I close with a favorite prayer, Psalm 23; perhaps you would like to use it for lectio.

The Lord is my shepherd;
There is nothing I shall want.
Fresh and green are the pastures
Where he gives me repose.
Near restful waters he leads me,
To revive my drooping spirit.

He guides me along the right path;
He is true to his name.
If I should walk in the valley of darkness
No evil would I fear.
You are there with your crook and your staff;
With these you give me comfort.

You have prepared a banquet for me
In the sight of my foes.
My head you have anointed with oil,
My cup is overflowing.
Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me
all the days of my life.
In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell
For ever and ever.

Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB is a retired abbot of New Subiaco Abbey, Subiaco, AR

Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB is Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Order and resides in Rome

We hope you enjoyed this Benedictine Reflection. Learn more about the sisters’ mission and the Year of Beauty by clicking the button below.

The post Lectio Divina: Prayerful Reading of Scripture Part Two appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Lent is around the corner but I’m of a mind to look back on the wintry beginning of Advent. The gift – and torment – of the season of Advent is the quiet stillness that beckons us to turn inward, to perceive the darkness residing within. By December every year I’m aware of some niggling bit of unpleasantness that separates me from God, and I know that ‘now is the time’ to reckon with it. I always look forward to the peace and space, the early sunsets that make it easier to use the evening time for reading and reflection. There is less busyness all around and the invitation to stillness is appealing. But I’ve never experienced as much agony during Advent as I did this past year. When Christmas arrived and the readings and songs proclaimed that Christ has come, I was still feeling my way in the dark cave, not having untangled the knot of dissatisfaction.

Two readings touched me during the season. The first one guided my internal meanderings, a dim light that I recognized as a way out of my conundrum. It hung on the refrigerator in our kitchen during the month of December. “Once we admit who we are, fearlessness takes over,” a quote from Joan Chittister. That’s it, I realized. I truly, truly don’t want to admit who I am. There are some aspects of my personality that are so disappointing to me. I don’t want to be a person whose ego revels in attention and flattery or who withdraws from others when I’m feeling lonely. It’s so….unBenedictine. I’m finding that the longer I’ve been here at the monastery, the harder it’s become to admit my faults. It feels like I have more to lose. I want to be a certain person, a good monastic, and in my mind that means shedding certain traits. When I see so clearly that I have not in fact shed these unpleasant characteristics, it feels like failure and it wounds the (false) self-image I persist in holding onto.

The thing is, the desires are not the problem. As in politics, the problem is not the thing itself, but the cover-up.

Which brings me to the second reading, from my book of daily prayer. I will quote it at length.

“Jesus chooses to reveal himself in poverty, but it can be exquisitely difficult for us to show him ours. We are easily bothered by the marks of our humanity, especially those things we loathe about ourselves. Like Adam – who hid from God when he realized he was naked – we try to hide parts of our personality….We want to approach God with our clothes neatly ironed, hair nicely combed, teeth brushed, and shoes shined. But is that what God wants?

On the contrary, God persists in loving what we loathe. Because, if we ask for and are given the grace, the things we hate can be transformed into stones that, each by each, create a royal road that leads to honest self-knowledge and a hard-won humility. This is the only sure way to enter a life with God….Without humility we can only wander in a wilderness of pride and self-satisfaction.”

Rachelle Linner – “The Fastest Way to God’s Heart” in Give Us This Day January 2022

I’m quite familiar with that wilderness, so let me pray for the humility to admit who I am: a flawed person who would sometimes rather pretend to be perfect than have the humility to ask for the grace to be loved as I am.

The post An Overdue Reflection on Advent appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.