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December summons feelings of tradition and familiarity for many of us. In some faiths, this includes the preparation for Christmas known as Advent, and the singing of the O Antiphons.

In this episode, we have Sister Lynne Smith and Holy Wisdom Monastery’s own Director of Worship and Music, Lynn Lemberger. Join us to learn about these traditions and how we might be able to honor their meanings in our own lives.

Where to Listen?

You can listen to The Holy Wisdom Podcast at any of these online locations:

Our Blog, under the “Podcast” Category

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The post ‘Advent & The O Antiphons,’ The Holy Wisdom Podcast appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

 “In those large areas of human experience that can be described as ambiguous, the believer will assume the presence of goodness. This assumption allows the latent goodness to appear and the situation can be ‘redeemed.’” (p. 75)

So much of what we hear about in the news is ambiguous at best and just plain evil at its worst. We need places and people to remind us that there is a basic goodness to the world that resides in people’s hearts. A constant diet of what is wrong obscures the goodness from which creation and our own lives come. That is not to say that evil and injustice don’t exist. They do and we are called to address them in whatever form we see them. However, at the heart of God’s creation is a latent goodness, as Demetrius Dumm puts it. Assuming the presence of goodness creates room for that goodness to come forth.

Many of us at the monastery had the occasion recently to hear this goodness expressed. On Sunday June 30, 2019, the Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal held a reception for the 19 participants in the first immersion retreat. The sisters and about 30 volunteers who had a part in the immersion attended the reception. The volunteers had helped directors, Jerry Busse and Nancy Enderle, with the listening sessions, spiritual guidance, ambiance set up, input for the group and more. All the communities of the monastery were represented.

During the reception, the members of the immersion group each said a few words about what the retreat meant to them. They shared words such as joy, renewal, hope, home, peace. They each sought to express what the time at the monastery had meant to them. The overwhelming experience for everyone was one of gratitude for their new colleagues, for the monastery, for the prairie and natural world, for the love and grace of God that each experienced in her or his own way. They were looking forward to staying connected to each other and returning to the monastery for five days in January 2020.

It was gratifying for the sisters, the directors and volunteers to hear their heart-felt words of appreciation for the time and space to relax, for the new spiritual practices they experienced and for reflection on their ministry. For me, this is another indication why the monastery is so important in our time.

Benedictines are called to seek God in everything. Perhaps at its most basic, this means looking for the goodness in the heart of each person we meet and reflecting on each experience to find where goodness may be at work. Dumm says that gratitude helps tune our hearts to this latent goodness in the world. I experienced this as I listened to the clergy talk about their gratitude for their experience at Holy Wisdom.

The post Finding the presence of goodness appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

After lunch, I went to the garden where Sister Denise West, and later Sister Paz Vital, met me. The previous Monday, I had raked the stubble off the asparagus patch and piled it up for burning. The following Saturday, Sister Denise and I burned the pile. So now the patch was ready for a new layer of wood chips. We spent the afternoon hauling wood chips from the large piles by the lower garden. I was surprised to find that about 10 inches down the chips were still frozen solid. That’s just a reminder that spring is only beginning. In fact, as I write this, snow is predicted later in the week.

Manual labor is built into Benedictine life. I love working outside in the yard and the garden. I learned my love of outdoor work from my mother who still takes care of her yard at 88. Whenever the weather was halfway decent, she would shoo us outside to find something to do saying, “It’s too nice a day to be inside. Go outside and play.” And we did. She was the one who did most of the yard work, so when I was old enough, I would help her rake or pick up sticks or plant and weed the garden. It was my job in high school to trim the bushes that surrounded the back yard.  Only once did I cut the extension cord with the electric trimmers!

When we weren’t working or playing in the yard, I would take a book and climb the old boxelder tree near the garage, sit in its branches and read until dinner time.

Sister Meg Funk, from Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, has written: “Work is a back door to pure prayer. For a proficient practitioner who is working mindfully, there is no distinction between work and prayer.” I’m not sure if I’m a “proficient practitioner” yet, but when I work outside, I feel one with my surroundings. My mind is quiet, and I’m not thinking about other things. I’m present, attending to the warmth of the sun on my skin and sensing my muscles as I lift the bucket of woodchips to spread on the warming earth. It feels like prayer.

On Sunday at the Eucharist we sang “O Christ Surround Me” as the communion hymn. I looked around the Assembly room at the people present and knew Christ was surrounding me. As I stood in the middle of the asparagus garden and looked around, the hymn came to my mind again, and I knew Christ was surrounding me in the garden. I think Sister Meg is right; there is no distinction between work and prayer. I’m blest to be able to work in the garden and deepen my prayer.

The post Prayer and work appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

This month, instead of writing a blog, I share our conversation with you. In our conversation I shared some of the relationships with people coming to the monastery from Syria, India, and Guatemala that have touched my heart. It’s entitled, How justice can start from joy. You can listen here:

https://www.blueoceanfaith.org/media/683449-2862709-1774550/131-how-justice-can-start-from-joy

The post How justice can start from joy appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

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, we recount the stories of Benedict and of our community. These stories help us understand that the Rule is a living document that developed as wisdom distilled from real human life lived together in community.

In the sisters’ community at our chapter meeting each morning, we read about the sisters who have gone before us on the date of their death. Those who knew the sister tell a story about her so the rest of us can have a sense of who she was.

Our foundress, Gertrude McDermott, OSB befriended chief Sitting Bull when she took him in one night in a storm. She learned the Lakota language and was the first white woman to enter his camp. She went to warn him that the US Calvary were intending to attack his people. What a pioneer she was. Our community has continued to be pioneering, in becoming the first ecumenical Benedictine women’s community in the US.

At meals with guests and in classes with sojourners and novices we also tell stories about our community life and ministry in the past. The stories show the character and flavor of our community. It is one thing to state that our community had a hospital in Sioux City, Iowa before we moved to Madison, Wisconsin. It is another thing to hear about the ministry in the hospital. Working men lined up around the block at lunch time every day to receive a noon meal at the hospital. The sisters worked seven days a week in the hospital, never took any wages and were paid in chickens and eggs and other produce in the early days. No one was ever turned away because they couldn’t pay. One of the sisters took in the men who hung around lower Fourth Street where the taverns were located, gave them a room in the hospital and cared for them until they dried out. When we read the stories of our past sisters, we notice that a number died within a few years of making profession. Many of those sisters worked in the laundry which we can imagine was a risky place to work in a hospital in those days. No constitution or rules can compel us to give our lives in service. But stories can inspire us to go the extra mile to serve as our sisters did in the past.

Of course, it is the stories in the Bible that inspire Christians to serve after the example of Jesus. The practice of lectio divina, or prayerful reading of Scripture, helps us assimilate the stories for ourselves.

What stories guide your life? Stories from your family or Scripture? Stories from your own experience or from literature?

The post Stories shape us appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

The past few days, I’ve experienced a number of small acts of kindness that have reminded me of this. At a gas station, the person at the pump next to me cleaning his car windows said with a smile, “We can see again. At least for a couple of minutes.” He laughed and I laughed with him. His comment brightened my day as I cleaned off the street grim from the car windows.

In the grocery store parking lot, when I was looking for a place to put my cart away, a woman walking by said, “I’ll take that.” She took the cart into the store with her to do her shopping.

A retreatant whose shower wasn’t working met me at the end of the day with a smile instead of a complaint. The inconvenience of using a different shower that night didn’t seem to bother him.

When the sisters went out to eat to celebrate Sister Mary David Walgenbach’s anniversary of profession, the waitress noticed Sister Mary David opening her cards and asked if it was her birthday. Sister Joanne Kollasch said, “It is a celebration.” So the waitress brought Sister Mary David a free piece of pie with a candle in it to contribute to the celebration. We were all blessed by her action.

Small acts of kindness or a simple smile can mean so much. Some years ago, doing random acts of kindness was popular. It seems like a good resolution for 2018. Our world can use more kindness.

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