“What do you do in the monastery?”

Sister Lynne Smith shares in conversation over a meal with guests

When guests or retreatants eat with the sisters for the first time they often ask what our day is like. They are curious about what goes on in a monastery and who these people are who live “separate from the world” as some would say. Some people who have never been to a monastery can’t imagine any earthly use for monasteries. They think monks and nuns are wasting their lives and trying to escape from a world that is desperately in need of their help. They suspect we are just “burying our talents” so to speak.

In answer to the question about what we do all day I usually say, we pray together five times a day. We have periods of work on the morning and afternoon. We have large vegetable gardens. We do administrative work. We work with our oblate community and Sunday Assembly. I work with our Sojourners and women interested in joining the sisters’ community. We do spiritual direction and lead retreats. We do environmental work in restoring the prairie. It sounds sort of ordinary and unexciting. I’m not sure it is what people are expecting or hoping to hear.

Perhaps I answer the way I do because I want people to know that sisters are ordinary people like them. But I know that many people who come to the monastery are looking for something they can’t find in their ordinary lives. Even if it is unconscious, they expect something beyond the ordinary at a monastery.

Last Thursday, Pope Francis, addressing the International Congress of Benedictine Abbots, said that monks and nuns have ” a special responsibility: that of keeping alive the oases of the spirit.” he also noted that we are custodians of silence and that our work and prayer “renders you participants in the creative work of God.”

After reflecting on Pope Francis’s address I would answer differently the question of what we do in the monastery. I would say:

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  Sister Rosy Kandathil offers a listening ear

  We listen deeply so people can hear themselves and make sense out of their lives.

• We welcome people with care and respect, so that they can get in touch again with how beloved they really are.

• 

  A quiet setting invites reflection.

  We provide a simple and beautiful environment, so people can find nurture and hope in the struggles they face.

• We maintain an atmosphere of silence, so people can notice the holy within and around them.

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  Sisters and guests gathered in prayer in the oratory.

  We pray together with guests, so people can give voice to their joys and their struggles.

• 

  Community is experienced when oblates gather

  We foster community where people can offer their gifts and talents, so together we can participate in God’s desire to bring about a reign of peace, mercy and justice.

We do all these things because we need these same things as well. Monks and nuns are human beings who want to be listened to and welcomed. We need nurture and hope. We seek the holy within and around us. We are grateful for God’s love in our lives and we seek guidance in times of uncertainty and challenge. On our best days we find these things in our God and in the community and, out of that abundance, we share what we have found.

Sisters Joanne Kollasch, Rosy, Kandathil, Lynne Smith, Novice Paz Vital, and SIster Mary David Walgenbach (l-r) – photo by Sandy Wojtal-Weber

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Read other blog posts in Lynne’s series, Building Community.

Read other Living in Community blog posts, by various community members.