Monastic Immersion Experience 2017-2018

Upcoming Monastic Immersion
Experiences:

  Thanksgiving Weekend
November 24-26, 2017

New Year

December 30– January 1, 2018

Holy Week and Triduum

March 25-31, 2018

Corpus Christi

June   1-3, 2018

Additionally, women are
welcome to come at other times as their schedules permit

Blessed feast of St. Walburga

 

          St. Walburga was a Benedictine Nun born in England in 710, who worked with her uncle, St. Boniface, in Christianizing Germany.  Walburga was born in Dorset, England, in a noble Anglo-Saxon family.  Walburga's mother is known as Wuna and tradition has also called her "Blessed Wuna" though there is no canonical evidence to support this.  But Richard, her father, Willibald and Wunibald (her two brothers) and Walburga have all received full recognition as Saints by the Church.

               Walburga was brought up from her earliest years by the nuns of Winborne.  Winborne was a double monastery (a form of monasticism widespread at the time); the nuns being entirely separate from the monks and usually governed by an Abbess.

                St. Boniface and St. Lioba, relatives of Walburga, entered religious life at an early age.  In 740, St. Boniface appealed for a group of Anglo-Saxon women to help on the mission in Germany.  St. Lioba, a cousin of Boniface, appears to have been in the first group.  Walburga was to follow her.

                The remains of St. Walburga were solemnly brought to Eichstaett (between 870 and 879) where they were placed facing the choir, beneath the little Holy Cross Church over which the present Church of St. Walburga stands today.  During the translation of her relics, St. Walburga's bones were beaded over by a liquid.  This flow of oil appears yearly between the 12th of October (the feast of her translation) until her anniversary of her death, February 25.   

                The Church and Crypt of St. Walburga are part of our motherhouse in Eichstaett, Germany not far from Munich.  The "oil" is a clear liquid resembling water in appearance.  As the Walburga oil only flows for a short time each year, the nuns at Abtei St. Walburg have mixed the oil with holy water as a means of making it available to as many individuals as possible.

St. Walburga Feast Day

St Walburga
Pray for your daughters

O Virgin, full of grace,
wrothy of love, rich in mercy,
worthy of praise, pure of heart,
and innocent of mind,
you are beloved and exalted by God.

Dear Saint Walburga,
helper of all,
intercede for us and for those
who are suffering
so that God may grant us healing,
consolation and peace.
Amen

What the Benedictine Nuns are thankful for...

 

Our Monastic life, this is the profession candle of one of our founding sisters,  
Sr. Gaudentia, and her wreath they are both given to the sister at Solemn Vows.

This represents the ministry of hospitality that we offer to all who come.



 The Liturgy of the Hours that we pray in common six time a day. We offer up the official prayer of the Church. This is the center of our life.

The Eucharist, what else could we be most thankful for.... The Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour

 

The Holy Gospel, the words of God spoken to us for us to center our life on God.

St. Benedict, who we follow in his footsteps that he laid down for us in his Holy Rule.

The Cross, what we must pickup and follow Christ who laid down his life for us on.

 

 

This display is on the steps in front of the Tabernacle. These are the building blocks that we Benedictine Nuns use to strengthen our relationship and union with God.

Humility of Character - Part II

Because humility avoids comparison, envy is a sure sign of its absence.  Humility can rejoice in the gifts of all, because it recognizes the fundamental oneness of all people in their humanity and in Christ.  Envy thinks of gifts as private property...

When a person has walked consciously in the presence of God and with God's help discovered how merciful God has been to him even in his sin, that person loves God more and more until this love casts out fear.  For Benedict, love overcame and cast out fear not because he came to believe there was no hell, but because he discovered how good God had been to him and he had no reason to think God would ever act differently toward him.  Fear helps keep us on the straight and narrow during the early and laborious days of our seeking to become what God will for us.  As we acquire virtue, we come more and more to do the good spontaneously out of good habit, delight in virtue, and love of Christ.

Humility is the truth about ourselves, the whole truth -- about our weaknesses, our failure, our history, our virtues, our gifts.  Once  we are truthful about ourselves before God and others, we can deal gently with others who are afraid to face the truth about themselves or who fancy themselves our competitors.  Christ humbled himself out of compassion; out of humility grows our compassion for one another.

~ Rev. Hugh Feiss, OSB

in Essential Monastic Wisdom

Humility of Character, Part I

...For Christ, humbling himself was a way to share the lives of his human brothers and sisters.  For us, humility is an acknowledgment that we share the weaknesses and sins of our human brothers and sisters.  Humility is also the recognition that we form one living system with the plants and animals, for all physical things, living and dead, arise ultimately from the humus, the moist ground of virgin earth.  Try as we me to forget it, we will always need to share water and air and sunlight with the plants and the animals.

Humility is an essential part of listening.  Only someone who believes he has something to learn is an attentive listener... 

Humility is not about comparisons with other people, but if we are inclined to make too much of our virtues or achievements, we should remind ourselves of how many people have been able to exceed any accomplishment of ours.  The more we know ourselves, the more we discover we are lower than our image of ourselves.  In knowing ourselves and avoiding making comparisons between ourselves and those we know less well, we should be ready to do them any service or accept any assignment.  Christ did the same.

~ Rev. Hugh Feiss, OSB

in Essential Monastic Wisdom

The Beginning of Christian Monasticism, Part III

The common life lived within the enclosure of the monastery speaks eloquently of the idea of stability of place.  However, if one looks at it as "to stand firm" the meaning is very different.  Buildings, interior decoration, colors all can be changed.  The people with whom we live are not so easily changed and the face of the community changes with each person who enters.  Who should do the changing and whose ideal should they change to meet?  Mine or God's?  With stability comes flexibility and compromise and the need to learn how to communicate with each other so that charity is preserved. 

Common prayer in some way, shape or form was an essential element in most expressions of monasticism.  Communal prayer is further enhanced by times of personal prayer and lectio divina.  The early ascetics and monastics keenly knew the need to spend time with the Word of God.  This need was intensified in meaning when one began to understand how precious a copy of one of the books of the bible was in the days before the printing press and copiers.  There were not vast libraries to explore for a particular translation of the bible, nor was there a plethora of books on the spiritual life.

Silence, too, held a place of high esteem in early monastic communities.  Silence is something that today we learn to cultivate a desire for, especially when one considers the multitude of ways that sound is part of our everyday environment.  In entering into the silence, it allows me the space in which to make myself wholly available to my Divine Spouse -- to praise and petition and most importantly to listen to His word spoken in the deeps of my heart.

What conclusion can be drawn from these musings?  Perhaps that monasticism has been and always will be a unique part of religious culture.  Within the Benedictine Rule alone we can see a rule that was written for a particular group of men living the common life that has endured and been adapted to times and places for over 1500 years.  St. Benedict drew on the wisdom of those who went before him and distilled their ideas into a Gospel-centered way of seeking God -- exactly what the first monks in the desert did.

The Beginning of Christian Monasticism, Part II

What is it that makes Western monasticism different from Eastern monasticism?  Even though both have men/women living the common life, one of the great threads is only mentioned by Cassian:  obedience.  Where would the common life, the place of the superior, and the daily honorarium (just to name  a few of the important aspects of monastic life) be without the necessary and central place of obedience?  Monastic tradition extols the renunciation of one's own will as a fundamental ascetical practice based on the example of Christ himself (RB 1980).  We are given the ultimate example by the very Son of God in the Garden of Gethsemane the eve before His death.

Monasticism started as a way of living the Gospel life more fully.  The Rule of St. Benedict is very Christocentric, Christ-centered; to seek Christ in the superior, in the sick, in the guest, in the poor is not always easy.  The situation may not be pleasant and/or I may not desire at time to seek Christ in the other.  Yet, it is in those times that Christ is most likely calling me to go deeper, to surrender my will to His will, that is, to say with Him in the garden, "Thy will, not my will, be done."  This is the very reason why the first ascetics went out into the dessert -- to renounce self and follow the will of God more definitively.  It is also the very essence of a monastic vocation:  to seek God, not self.

How is this lived out?  It is lived out through the practice of the vow of obedience.  The vow made at monastic profession did not say that I will discern with the superior for what is best for me; the vow made was obedience.  It does not mean that we necessarily agree with everything the superior thinks best.  It also does not mean that I am not called upon to make decisions.  It means that I believe in faith that the superior hold the place of Christ and as such I hear His voice through my superior. 

The Beginning of Christian Monasticism, Part I

I recently came across a paper I wrote some years back when I was in formation myself on the beginnings of Christian Monasticism.  Over the next few days I would like to share some of those thoughts with you...

Probably the single most important thread in the tapestry of both Eastern and Western monasticism is the idea of the common life, of living together in community.  Within every inspiration, of course, the common life had its own meaning.  For some, it may be a grouping of anchorites (hermits) who came together for liturgy, special feasts or conferences; for others, it was the common life:  coming together for prayer, liturgy, meals, reading and work.

In Western monasticism, the common life was found in looking to Martin of Tours, Honoratus, Cassian and Augustine.  While Martin and Honoratus' communities lived in a kind of "laura" or loosely know group of semi-anchorites, Cassian and Augustine's communities lived more or less in a cenobitic setting.

Although the common life is the single most important thread, there are others that help to enhance and add detail to the monastic life.  The desire to have a superior, someone who interprets the Gospel precepts, sets monastics apart.  To punctuate the day with special times for common prayer and other times for private prayer further define the monastery as the house of God.

Lectio divina is a furtherance of prayer.  As one passes through the various stages of reading the Word of God, meditating on the meaning of God's word, living the meaning and meeting God in prayer (from Sacred Reading, The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina by Michael Casey), one truly has put God at the center of one's being.  The silence that envelops the community further enhances this encounter with the Divine.

Charity for one's brothers/sisters is another needed and necessary element of monastic life.  The great commandment of love is built upon this foundation.  Work, too, has a very central place in monastic life.  St. Paul wrote of the need to work -- the need to contribute to the common good of the community.  Common ownership and a life of simplicity flow from the desire to strip oneself of possessions so as to be more fully open to the Divine.