from What's New, OSB page
New Prioress for Queen of Angels: On 17 June 2007, the Benedictine Sisters of Queen of Angels Monastery in Mt. Angel, Oregon, installed Sister Donna Marie Chartraw OSB as Prioress. Sister Donna Marie succeeds Sister Dorothy Jean Beyer OSB who served as prioress from 1987-1995 and 1999-2007. Queen of Angels Monastery was founded from Maria-Rickenback, Switzerland, in 1882. In 2007 the monastery is celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding.
Nebraskan Elected Prioress in Tanzania: The Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastic Peraminho Priory, Tanzania, have elected Sister Rosann Ocken OSB prioress. Sister Rosann has had a long association with the priory since her maternal aunt, Sister Roselle Koch OSB, served there in the 1960s and founded the secondary school at Peramiho. Sister Rosann is a Missionary Benedictine Sister at Immaculata Monastery in Norfolk, Nebraska. She got to know the African community personally in 2003 when the community invited her to do facilitation work and community discernment for a month.
Community: The Art of Living Together: a special sesquicentennial conference sponsored by two Benedictine communities in central Minnesota. June10-13 2007, is governed by the ideal of real interaction, sustained listening, openness to everyone's ideas and experience. There will be occasions to form community as well as talk about it in the grand tradition of interchange -- monasticism is not forsaking the world, but for the sake of the world -- and it is about the future. We want to create new shared understandings of community for our tomorrows.
Widget: The Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas, have made the most popular offering on their website available as a Macintosh widget (Mac OS 10.4 or higher). The Daily Reflections are short lines, provocative of thought, written by one of the sisters based on a reading in the current day's Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass. The widget shows the reflection of the day and provides a link to the Scripture passage on which the reflection is based. Additionally, the widget serves as a search tool to look up any Scripture passage in the New American Bible. The widget is available for download at <www.mountosb.org/widget/>. A version for Microsoft Windows is in development.
St. Walburg Sisters Featured: St. Walburg Monastery, Villa Hills, Covington, Kentucky, was among several congregations of women in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati mentioned in a long article by Margaret McGurck. Although the title, " A vanishing tradition: Not enough young nuns to replace an aging population" speaks to the contemporary situation, it is comforting to learn that the "National Religion Vocation Conference reports a 19 percent upswing in the number of people entering religious communities since 2004" (The Enquirer). The vocation conference also reported a 125 percent increase in the number of contacts seeking information through its Web site. Sister Deborah Harmeling OSB spoke from a Benedictine's perspective, "Fifty years from now," she said, "religious life will be different. We won't be so much interested in institutions as we will be in seeking God. We pray four times a day. ...Benedict called it, 'The work of God.' That is the work we do, no matter how old we are."
The Monastery: The premiere of "Into the Silence," the first episode of The Monastery, scheduled for Easter Sunday, 8 April, on The Learning Channel, has been postponed. Viewers were to have followed five independent, gregarious women as they experience a severe culture shock and struggle to be part of a society where community trumps individualism, where possessions are frowned upon, and total silence is the order of the day. The Trappistines of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, Iowa, opened their doors to the five women. The photographers and crew from TLC accompanied them. In making the decision to allow filming, the Sisters discerned "the opportunity to evangelize, to spread the hope of salvation and the Good News of Christ to a world suffering often profound discouragement. We also believe that we have been blessed with a tremendously rich life, and that God was giving us a chance to share our riches with others" (website).
Benedictine Sisters to be Featured on National PBS TV Show: "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly," a national television show produced by the PBS network, will feature the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration during an episode scheduled, in some places, for Palm Sunday, 1 April 2007. The show will feature the sisters, their history of altar bread production, monastic life and celebration of the Eucharist. "We are grateful to PBS for this opportunity to share with a larger audience the story behind our discovery of the low-gluten altar breads and our long history of dedication to the Eucharist," said Sister Pat Nyquist OSB, prioress of the monastery. The low-gluten altar bread received Vatican approval to be used during Eucharistic celebrations by individuals whose diet restricts them from eating regular wheat hosts.
Kindergarten Website: The Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict (Otwock), founded 1917 in Poland, maintain six houses there as well as foundations in Brazil, Ecuador, Ukraine and the United States. The Sisters in Gdansk recently launched a colorful and lively website with a version in English that provides information about their Kindergarten located on the edge of the city for three- to six-year olds.
Blogging Sister Profiled: Sister Edith Bogue OSB frequently updates her blog, "Monastic Musings," from her monastery in Duluth, Minnesota, overlooking Lake Superior. She is featured in an Associated Press article that was published on 26 February 2007. Sister Edith "embraces blogging as a ministry. She doesn't write about Catholic dogma, and she's not trying to convert people. 'I write about (the Catholic faith) as a way of life, a way of looking at the world,' she said. 'Here's how a faithful Catholic interacts with the world.'" Recently Sister Edith brought her readers attention to a highly informative website about the Lenten Stational Churches in Rome.
Hope-filled Future for the Federation of Saint Scholastica: The sisters in the Federation of Saint Scholastica who are "Fifty-five or Younger" gathered in Atchison, Kansas, from Friday to Sunday, February16-18, 2007. "Heralding Hope," engaged over 60 sisters representing the 90 sisters in this age group from the member monasteries of the congregation. These women are the future of Benedictine life in the Federation. The assembly focused on basic Benedictine values, the challenges in monastic living today, and ways to construct a hope-filled future. The gathering provided each attendee social interaction, sharing, and input from peers as well as Federation President Esther Fangman OSB.
Coming Home: Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai will return to her old school, Mount St. Scholastica College (merged in 1971 to become Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, for a public address on Sunday, 26 January. "Even from the time she arrived in 1960 with a cardboard suitcase, the Sisters in the Order of St. Benedict recognized the young woman’s intelligence and vivacity" (Kansas City Star). Maathai has been applauded internationally for founding the Green Belt Movement. She became known as Kenya’s Green Militant for, among other things, her work to impart peace through planting trees and good land stewardship. Her work has been credited with helping to save water supplies and other natural resources. The Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica have invited Maathai's 1964 classmates for a mini class reunion while she is in Atchison.
BSPA Website Renewed: The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Missouri, announce the launch of an e-commerce Web site for its Monastery Creations Gift Shop. Free podcasts featuring recent audio recordings of the sisters’ lauds and vespers services, in addition to videos that give a glimpse into their monastic life, are also now online. For more information about Monastery Creations, please log onto <www.monasterycreations.com>. For available podcasts, please log onto <www.monasterypodcast.org>. The Sisters' popular Prayer Request has moved to a new location.
Walk in Their Shoes: A Day in the Life of the
Benedictine Nuns
www.catholicherald.com/
A story about the
Benedictine Sisters of Bristow Virginia
Riepp the Whirlwind, The Riepp Suite, a CD that tells the story of Mother Benedicta Riepp, the founder of one strand of women's Benedictine Monasticism in the United States
Copyright 2002-2007
American Benedictine Formation Conference
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updated
3 July, 2007