All families with children are invited to Family Gathering on Saturday, April 18, 3:00-6:00 pm.

Join us for a Family Gathering to experience the joy of anticipation in community. At this event, school-age children will gather to learn and play together, and childcare for the littlest ones is provided. Parents and caregivers will have some free-choice time to enjoy all the Monastery has to offer. The gathering will conclude with a shared meal.

Children ages 6-9 are invited to join Sarah Wilkin Gibart for prayer and creative work time.

Parents, this is an opportunity to enjoy the monastery and catch a breath in this busy season! You may choose to join in the children’s program, or take in the art exhibit, relax in the library, bring a project of your own, or simply have time for coffee and conversation.

Registration cost includes a simple entree prepared by the culinary team using fresh, seasonal offerings (families may also wish to bring a side dish or dessert to share).

Schedule

3:00 pm – Gather
~3:30-5:15 pm – Programming/free time
5:15 pm – Dinner
6:00 pm – Adjourn

Leader

Sarah Wilkin Gibart is a teacher of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd who leads regular Children’s Prayer during Sunday Assembly worship. Nichole Rasmus (formerly Nichole Fromm), our Childcare and Support Specialist, will provide childcare for the younger children.

Cost

$25/family

Questions

Please contact Sarah: sjwilkin09@gmail.com or Nichole: nrasmus@holywisdommonastery.org with any questions.

Registration

Please register by April 8, 2026.

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All families with children are invited to a special Lenten Family Gathering, Saturday, March 7, 3:00-6:00 pm.

Join us for a Family Gathering to experience the joy of anticipation in community. At this event, school-age children will gather to learn and play together, and childcare for the littlest ones is provided. Parents and caregivers will have some free-choice time to enjoy all the Monastery has to offer. The gathering will conclude with a shared meal.

Children ages 6-9 are invited to join Sarah Wilkin Gibart for prayer and creative work time. We will explore the rich theme of Lent.

Parents, this is an opportunity to enjoy the monastery and catch a breath in this busy season! You may choose to join in the children’s program, or take in the art exhibit, relax in the library, bring a project of your own, or simply have time for coffee and conversation.

Registration cost includes a simple entree prepared by the culinary team using fresh, seasonal offerings (families may also wish to bring a side dish or dessert to share).

Schedule

3:00 pm – Gather
~3:30-5:15 pm – Programming/free time
5:15 pm – Dinner
6:00 pm – Adjourn

Leader

Sarah Wilkin Gibart is a teacher of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd who leads regular Children’s Prayer during Sunday Assembly worship. Nichole Rasmus (formerly Nichole Fromm), our Childcare and Support Specialist, will provide childcare for the younger children.

Cost

$25/family

Questions

Please contact Sarah: sjwilkin09@gmail.com or Nichole: nrasmus@holywisdommonastery.org with any questions.

The post Family Gathering appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Event Schedule

Session 1, Feb. 5: Philosophy behind the 9 Phases plus learn and practice Phases 1-5
Session 2, Feb. 12: Review Phases 1-5 and learn Phases 6-9
Session 3, Feb. 19: Integrate the 9 Phases of Qi Cultivation with intention and affirmations

Consider extending your experience by staying longer and attending optional prayer and/or lunch at the monastery. There is a fee for lunch if you decide to stay.

• 11:45 am – Midday Prayer: All are welcome to join the sisters’ community and guests for communal prayer in the Oratory (lower level of the monastery building). Click to learn more about prayer at Holy Wisdom Monastery.
• 12:00 pm – Lunch ($19): Enjoy a delicious meal prepared fresh by our chefs. Email retreats@holywisdommonastery.org to reserve your meal 48 hours in advance. Please specify which date/dates you wish to stay for lunch.

Instructor – Sandy Salvo

Sandy Salvo is a Senior Faculty and Teacher-Trainer for the Institute of Integral Qigong and Tai Chi, a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher and founder of Centered-Connections.com. She enjoys sharing her love of Qigong and the mind-body-spirit benefits it can offer all who seek them.

Cost

$40/person

Register

Register by Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, with the button below. The registration fee is non-refundable.

The post Nine Phases of Qi Cultivation: A Progressive Qigong Series for Home Use appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

All families with children are invited to a special Advent Family Gathering, Saturday, December 20, 3:00-6:00 pm.

Join us for a Family Gathering to experience the joy of anticipation in community. At this event, school-age children will gather to learn and play together, and childcare for the littlest ones is provided. Parents and caregivers will have some free-choice time to enjoy all the Monastery has to offer. The gathering will conclude with a shared meal.

Children ages 6-9 are invited to join Sarah Wilkin Gibart for prayer and creative work time. We will explore the rich theme of Advent in the spirit of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

Parents, this is an opportunity to enjoy the monastery and catch a breath in this busy season! You may choose to join in the children’s program, or take in the art exhibit, relax in the library, bring a project of your own, or simply have time for coffee and conversation.

Registration cost includes a simple entree prepared by the culinary team using fresh, seasonal offerings (families may also wish to bring a side dish or dessert to share).

Schedule

3:00 pm – Gather
~3:30-5:15 pm – Programming/free time
5:15 pm – Dinner
6:00 pm – Adjourn

Leader

Sarah Wilkin Gibart is a teacher of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd who leads regular Children’s Prayer during Sunday Assembly worship. Nichole Rasmus (formerly Nichole Fromm), our Childcare and Support Specialist, will provide childcare for the younger children.

Cost

$25/family

Questions

Please contact Sarah: sjwilkin09@gmail.com or Nichole: nrasmus@holywisdommonastery.org with any questions.

The post Family Gathering appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Kate Stel (second from right) came to Holy Wisdom Monastery for a 9 week internship this summer as part of her Master of Divinity program at the University of Chicago Divinity School. During her time at the monastery she worked in the prairies and gardens and lived with the Benedictine sisters, (left to right) Mary David Walgenbach, Joanne Kollasch, Lynne Smith, Denise West, Paz Vital.

Last week, Sister Mary David Walgenbach asked me some simple questions at lunch: “Why did you want to come here? Why did you choose us?” I was stunned by this very straightforward question. In the moment I put together an answer but admitted I wasn’t exactly sure. (Good thing she didn’t ask me this question when I visited in the spring for an interview!)

Over the last week or so, as I get closer to the end of my time working at the Monastery, I’ve been pondering my answer.

I chose to pursue my internship here at Holy Wisdom because I saw a place for myself here. True, this summer’s work counts towards my Master’s degree at the University of Chicago Divinity School, but my internship was never only about work or requirements. From my first forays into the website to my visit here in the spring and throughout the summer, Holy Wisdom has never asked me to sacrifice any part of myself, any commitment or ideal. I have been able to practice my call to environmental ministry and work towards holistic personal professional development here in a way I didn’t know would be possible before I came.

At Holy Wisdom Monastery I have experienced a community like no other: courageous women leading the charge (and change) towards faithful environmental healing in the Church, intentional space for women’s spiritual growth, care and attention for the marginalized and oppressed, and the embrace of connection rather than division. Rather than define yourself over and against what the Monastery is not, the communities here constantly work to build and grow into what they are and hope to become.

As a young woman floating at the fringes of Catholicism, unanchored yet still bobbing around somewhere within the vast ocean of the Church, my prayer and work at the Monastery has reoriented me on my personal spiritual path and the direction of my ministry alike. For this, I can only say thank you. Thank you to each person, guest, volunteer, and the many plants and animals I have encountered this summer. At the time I’m writing this, tomorrow is my very last day. I’ve sincerely enjoyed my time working with the sisters community, gardening, meeting volunteers and oblates, and my opportunities to write things for the wide online community of Holy Wisdom Monastery. You have revived my spirit, renewed my body and mind, and touched my heart.

So, Sister Mary David, I chose Holy Wisdom because I sensed from afar what I now know to be true. Holy Wisdom Monastery is a place where I and many others have found their spiritual home.

“And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,
and people were taught what pleases you,
and were saved by wisdom.” (Wisdom 9:18)

The post Pathways to wisdom appeared first on Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Lynne Smith, Paz Vital, Denise West and Rosy Kandathil celebrating Rosy’s 40th birthday with deep-dish pizza in Chicago

I was turning 40. There was no avoiding it, but for the weeks leading up to my birthday I tried not to indulge a creeping sense of dread. Although I could laugh over the prospect of having to check the “40 and over” survey box, I also felt anxious about crossing a threshold into middle age.

There is something about milestones that force reflection, self-assessment, and in my case—mild depression. What had I accomplished with my life? I would be turning 40 at a monastery, with nothing to my name. All the accomplishments of a legal career built during my 20s and 30s, seemingly abandoned. No property, no husband and children, no bank account to claim. Everything I owned had been dutifully (and symbolically) signed away on the altar at my first monastic profession. Saint Benedict even required a recognition from every prospective monk that, from the moment of profession on, their very body was no longer only their own to command but belonged to the community (Rule of Benedict 58)!

After another round of final exams at Saint John’s University and an enervating election season, I was depleted, eager to come home to my community, return to our prayers and recharge. I did not want to think about the future. I knew that I needed an Advent in my life—in more ways than one. Thankfully, the liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas, the beginning of a New Year, and the experience of returning once more to the rituals of celebration in this community of faith, have helped to restore my sense of balance, hope and gratitude.

It is easy for me to feel overwhelmed, but one of the many benefits of living at a monastery is that I am surrounded by others who have successfully made the transition into what Richard Rohr (in Falling Upward) has called “the second half” of their life. Whether they are retreatants, Oblates, Sunday Assembly members or the community of sisters that I live and pray with every day, they model an integrated spirituality that serves to revive my own imagination about the gifts of aging well. I need this kind of renewal, because so often I find myself taken in by the cult of youthfulness and a paralyzing nostalgia for the past. Although, on a basic level, I know that self-worth cannot be founded on the illusory ground of any career, wealth, property or particular relationship, it’s easy for me to forget.

Christmas dinner selfie: Rosy Kandathil, Camille West, Paz vital, Joanne Kollasch, Denise West, Lynne Smith, Mary David Walgenbach

The seasons of Advent and Christmas speak honestly of a profound and mysterious darkness surrounding the dawning of God among us. I don’t always recognize Christ in the immediate circumstances of my life. But this year, I found myself looking around me at the community of wise and graceful people that make their spiritual home at Holy Wisdom Monastery. Instead of running away from the task of aging well, I decided to mine the riches of my environment by seeking guidance on how to approach my forties with wisdom, grace, and a sense of adventure. Here’s just a sampling of answers to the question I started asking of folks around here: what advice would you give someone approaching their forties? 

• Develop a good relationship with your body. Take good care of it, invest in its care. Go to the doctor. Your body will thank you for it in the years to come.
• Appreciate your skin!
• Celebrate being healthy and all the things your body can do now. Don’t waste time thinking about getting old.
• Your forties are about integration. After having accomplished those outward things in your 20s and 30s, your 40s are an invitation to go inward and deepen, if you allow it.
• Your forties are about self-acceptance. You aren’t as concerned about what people think.
• Enjoy it all: my forties were my best years!

And one woman simply offered me this quote by e.e. cummings:

“It takes courage to grow up and to be who you really are.”

Is there anything else you would add to this list? Please share your wisdom as a comment to this blog post.

________________________

Read other blog posts from Sister Rosy in her series, Letters home.

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1. There is such a thing as an Advent calendar, which counts down the days until Christmas.
2. During Advent, Christians look forward to the birth of Jesus.

Until recently, this was pretty much the sum total of my understanding of Advent. Observing the season is not part of my tradition–growing up, I didn’t even go to church for Christmas or Easter. If Advent was observed at my current home church, I must not have been tuning in.

This year signs of Advent are unmistakable. Paz and I helped create the Advent wreath for Sunday Assembly, we set out the Advent prayer books with different antiphons and hymns for the season and we put out Advent candles in the oratory. These physical changes signaled for me a different way of being for this month and I was curious what the changes signified.

I noticed that in the days leading up to Advent we had several readings from the Books of Daniel and Revelation. Then, on November 29, the first day of Advent, we heard from Luke:

Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among the nations…Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  (Luke 21:25-36)

Why were we hearing so much about the end times all of a sudden? I wondered how it related to Advent. What, I wondered, does this have to do with the birth of Jesus, which we are supposed to be looking forward to?

About the time that I should have been starting on my blog for this month, I decided it could wait, that I didn’t really need to get an early start. I didn’t really want to get involved in writing something personal. I procrastinated. I dreaded. And I didn’t know why.

Finally, close to the last minute before my deadline, I opened one of the books on Advent that I borrowed from Lynn Lemberger, director of worship and music here at the monastery.  There were many writings from a variety of perspectives. This bit particularly resonated with me:

Advent is the time for rousing. We are shaken to the very depths, so that we may wake up to the truth of ourselves. The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation, surrender. We must let go of all our mistaken dreams, our conceited poses and arrogant gestures, all the pretenses with which we hope to deceive ourselves and others. If we fail to do this, stark reality may take hold of us and rouse us forcibly in a way that will entail both anxiety and suffering. —Alfred Delp*

It dawned on me what was at the heart of my procrastination. All of this unknowing around Advent had tapped into a fear that periodically rears its head in my faith journey. I worry that I don’t believe the things that Christians are supposed to believe, and that at some point I’m going to cross a line where I’ll no longer be able to call myself a Christian. I thought I had put that particular anxiety to rest, but here it was again.  I didn’t want to take too close a look at what Advent meant out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to connect with it in an authentic way. I realized, finally, that Advent had tapped into a deep part of me that asks, “Do I belong?” I began to see that at times I try to deceive myself and pretend to believe what I think I’m supposed to believe so that I feel I deserve to belong to the Christian community.

Rather than moving into the unknown, finding out what this month before Christmas is all about, I was trying to avoid the whole thing, pretend that some of the scripture verses weren’t challenging. This pretense, based in fear, had led me to a place of exile. I felt outside the boundary of God’s love. The message or purpose of Advent for me was becoming clearer. Watch!  Be alert to the ways that you deceive yourself, instead of putting your trust in God.

When darkness induces modesty, humility, faith and trust, it leads to a communion with God as God really is; it frees us from the self-deception of worshiping gods of our own making.  Only the real God saves; not the illusion.  The true Israelite is the wise person who makes a home “in the shadow of the Shaddai.” (Psalm 91:1) —John Navone*

I’m sure this won’t be the last time I lead myself down a darkened path. When that time comes, I hope to remember the wisdom of this season.

*Writings come from: An Advent Sourcebook, edited by Thomas J. O’Gorman.

_______________________

Read other posts from Denise in her series, Far from home.

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Texts: Sirach 51:12-20
Acts 4: 32-37
Mark 9:30-37

Stories can move people to live differently. Stories do this because our own experiences easily resonate with them. Our reflections on Scripture stories are an investment of time and energy in coming to know who we are, where we are going and who we are going with. This is part of the discovery process that Thomas Merton speaks of: finding yourself within God’s conception of yourself.

Rosy chose today’s readings as an expression of her coming to know God in an intimate and compelling way. My reflections on these readings are interspersed with Rosy’s reflections about her year as a Sojourner. They were written as sojourner blogs for Benedictine Bridge.

The first reading from Sirach describes the author’s search for and discovery of wisdom and his effort at living by wisdom. I quote, “When I was young and innocent, I sought Wisdom. Outside the sanctuary I would pray for her and to the last I will continue to seek her. From her blossoming to the ripening of her grape, my heart has taken its delight in her.”

From Rosy’s blog, September, 2013:

“When I packed up my things and left my cherished work as pastor of contemplative arts at New Life Fellowship Church in New York City, I did not know what God was calling me toward. I only knew that I heard the Voice of my Beloved clearly, and that I wanted to follow–even if it meant going out into the unknown prairies of Wisconsin, living closely in a community of women that I did not yet know, doing work that I could not fully fathom, while praying and singing words I only dimly grasp.”

In our second reading St. Luke holds before us the value of community. Luke describes the believers as of one mind and one heart. Perseverance in the spiritual life is sustained by a community of common faith—with one heart and one mind. This sharing involves not only the universal Church but also a more localized communion, our parish, congregation or assembly.

For St. Benedict too, community becomes the very language and texture of growth into Christ, as the call to monastic life is tested and refocused in the myriad interactions, formal and informal, that create monastic community. He says in Chapter 72 of the Rule of Benedict, “This, then, is the good zeal which members must foster with fervent love: They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, (Rom. 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another.”

Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot of Cluny, in his reflection on Eccl 4:10, says, “Community corrects individual defects; what one lacks another supplies, what one breaks another repairs, when we fall there is someone to lift us up.”

From Rosy’s blog, May, 2014

“As I reflect on the end of my Sojourner year and all I’ve experienced, it is hard to say what has impacted me most. What could have prepared me for this year of living in community with women I did not know, of praying the Liturgy of the Hours, of eating regularly with strangers and finding camaraderie and common ground at the table, of learning to pay attention to the gifts in the present moment, of kindling a recognition of God in everything and everyone? It has been a year of changes and interior surprises, but simultaneously, perhaps paradoxically, of deep stability and predictability.”

Today’s gospel finds the disciples arguing who was the greatest among them. They were unable to hear Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death. Instead they were entertaining moments of glory and status in their political tradition of a victorious warrior who would defeat the Romans and re-establish the glorious Davidic kingdom. Jesus realizes how far the disciples still are from understanding his upcoming passion, death and resurrection. His response reverses all socially acceptable thinking about greatness. To emphasize his point he picks up a child and tells them that the least or most insignificant persons in society are the greatest. In the society and culture of Jesus’s time, the child had no standing or status. For Jesus, the child was a model of radical humility.

Humility is a matter of truth, of recognizing the truth about oneself, of growing in awareness of one’s true self where God has already planted in our souls all the direction we need to find our vocation in life.
Let us hear again the words from Sirach, “My soul has struggled to become one with her, I have been scrupulous in keeping the law; I have stretched out my hands to heaven and bewailed my ignorance of her; I have directed my soul toward her, and in purity found her; having my heart fixed on her from the outset, I will never be deserted; my very core having yearned to discover her, I now have a love fulfilled.”

We all rejoice with Rosy, her parents, Mary and Matthew, her brother, Mathew and his wife Amy Jo and their son Sam, friends; Angel, Helen, Christine and Patrick, and our community of communities: Oblates, Sunday Assembly, coworkers and of course the sisters. It takes a village to raise a vocation to monastic life at Holy Wisdom. We are grateful, Rosy, for your open and loving heart, and the sisters promise our love and support in return.

September 20, 2015
Mary David Walgenbach, OSB

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