Weissman’s thoughts made me think of the purpose of leisure and contemplation in Benedictine life. An important part of Benedictine life is slowing down to take time to notice and reflect on our lives to see how we got to where we are. Opportunities for leisure to reflect are built into our lives at the monastery. In the mornings, we take time individually to reflect on the Scripture for the day to hear God speaking to us about our lives and our world. We gather after morning prayer in our chapter meeting to share together around a reading that focuses on our Benedictine life in community. Of course, it’s still up to each of us to slow ourselves down and make good use of this time for reflection.

Our community dinners on Sunday evenings are often times when the community reflects on events of the week and our life together. At dinner last week we took time to pause and reflect on how we got where we are in terms of being an ecumenical community. We all know the facts of how we took this step, but the conversation revealed new meaning as we talked. Sisters Mary David Walgenbach and Joanne Kollasch shared about important conversations they had with liturgist, Nathan Mitchell and the listening sessions we held with members of Sunday Assembly. Barb Dannhausen, OP was our guest on Sunday. She pointed out that the process was a transformation that happened over time and was guided by the sisters’ vision. This is in contrast to change that happens suddenly and sometimes without much preparation.

Sister Joanne spoke about the ways our retired sisters living in Sioux City, IA supported the process even though they were more removed from the ecumenical experiences that Sisters Mary David and Joanne had in Madison. Sister Mary David noted that our older sisters supported this new step because she and Sister Joanne loved them. Every month for years, Sisters Mary David and Joanne traveled to Iowa to meet with them and talk about each step along the way.

My homily on February 10, on the story of Benedict and Scholastica’s last meeting lifted up the importance of bringing love to all we do. Our reflections in the evening illustrated how love has operated in our own community. Our taking time to reflect on how we got to where we are, showed me, how love has served to move our community into the future and face the challenges that that move has brought. Thomas Merton wrote that we are saved by relationships. All of this gives new meaning to Benedict when he writes: “And may God bring us all together to eternal life.” Our conversation gave me a glimpse of how that operates in our community.

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Sisters Lynne Smith, Rosy Kandathil, Joanne Kollasch and Mary David Walgenbach (l-r) enjoy lighter moments together along with the work of building community.

Many people today express a desire for community in a society where they experience so much divisiveness and isolation. Here at Holy Wisdom, we know we need each other for growth and fullness of life. Participating in the give and take of community rubs off our rough edges and calls forth talents we didn’t know we had. Building community takes time, patience, lots of listening and dialogue, the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation and not least, an openness to what the Spirit desires to do among us.

The sisters come together in community with the women who live with us as Benedictine Sojourners. Together we walk along the road of self-exploration and growth. We journey together for six months. Through our conversations in the morning around a book we read together or at the end of the day around cups of tea, we each come to a deeper understanding of who we are in God’s love.

What a joy it is to work together in the garden, kitchen or office where we can give our gifts and feel a sense of contributing to something bigger than ourselves. Woven throughout our days are the reading and listening to the scriptures in lectio divina and the Liturgy of Hours. We hear that still small voice of God whispering love and calling us to enlarge the space in us for that love to grow.

I am energized by shared insights and all the growth that happens throughout this journey. With joy I welcome you to share in our passion for building community together.

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Learn more about the sisters community:  About our community

Learn more about all the communities of Holy Wisdom: All are welcome at Holy Wisdom Monastery

Read other posts in this series:  Building community

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Benedict, whose name in Latin means “Blessed,” was born to a Christian family in the mountains to the northeast of Rome (A.D.480?). The Roman Empire was crumbling and the Goths and Vandals controlled Italy. As a youth, he was sent to Rome for schooling and there experienced a religious awakening which caused him to renounce corrupt secular society and to join a band of Christian ascetics. He later became a hermit, living in the hill region of Subiaco. His fame as a holy person grew until he was importuned to become the abbot of a group of monks, who eventually became so peeved by his reforming zeal that they attempted to poison him. Benedict left them to their evil ways and began organizing groups of his own followers into small monasteries. In about A.D. 529, he and a few disciples came to the mountain above the city of Cassino where they established the monastery now known as Montecassino. This is probably where he wrote the monastic Rule, the only document which remains to us from his hand.

Scholastica is, according to tradition, the twin sister of Benedict. She is a shadowy figure whom we know from a single charming story in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great (540-604). She led some form of consecrated life with a group of Christian women. Gregory tells us that yearly she journeyed to meet her brother at a small house midway between their residences. On one momentous occasion, as evening fell, Benedict packed up his monks to return to the monastery from which, according to his own Rule, he was not permitted to be absent overnight. Scholastica begged him to make an exception and stay over so that they could continue their holy conversation. When Benedict refused, Scholastica wept and prayed and immediately such a torrent of rain fell that no one could leave the house. As Gregory says, the woman’s prayers prevailed with God because her love was the greater.

When Scholastica died, Benedict had her body brought to Montecassino and placed in his own tomb. Scholastica’s name means “she who has leisure to devote to study.” Some skeptical historians have suggested that she is only a literary device: a personification of the Benedictine practice of reflective study. She remains very real, however, to Benedictine women, with the reality which can transcend simple historical existence, as a model of the feminine aspects of Benedictine monasticism, and an example of the power of the soul who loves God.

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