“The world does really hunger for community and that is something that Benedictine spirituality has to offer. It is what Benedict did that was different. He created communities of people, brought people together to live this life in common.” Watch more of our interview with Sister Anne Wambach, prioress of the Mount St. Benedict monastery, about the Benedictine way of life.
Author Archives: Fred Yi
Book Excerpt: Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home and a Living Faith
Read an excerpt from R&E correspondent Judy Valente’s new book, Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home and a Living Faith (Sorin Books, Ave Maria Press, 2013), and revisit her 2009 story on the Benedictine sisters at Mount St. Scholastica and her 2013 profile of Sister Joan Chittister:
The Work of God
by Judith Valente
A peculiar calm accompanies the hours just before dawn. It is a wordless quiet known to the cop returning home from a midnight shift, the schoolboy delivering morning papers, the short-order cook opening up for breakfast. And monastic men and women at prayer.
At the monastery, Morning Praise begins at 6:30 just as light cracks open on the horizon, making early risers of even habitual night owls like myself. From the guesthouse where I am staying, I set out for the chapel. Stars light my way—the baton of Orion’s Belt, the distant flare of Sirius. Morning Praise. More often than not, my days begin with angst, not praise—fear that I won’t finish the work that awaits me or that I won’t do it well enough. Smoke billows from the nearby stacks of the Midwest Grain Products plant, a giant still in the middle of Atchison, cooking up the base contents of whiskey. The roasting grain fills the air with a pleasant aroma, like baking bread.
At this time of morning, the chapel’s Atchison blue windows form dark outlines. The sisters file in one by one. The younger ones sprint; the older ones lean on walkers or canes. They take their places in stalls facing one another. It is nearly impossible not to make eye contact with others in the community. At home, I have the luxury of avoiding people I find difficult. I simply freeze them out. But here, you daily face the people you live with. I imagine how hard it would be to sit across from someone with whom I’ve argued or just can’t stand.
A candle is lit. A bell chimes. Benedictine bells, Joan Chittister writes, “call the attention of the world to the fragility of the axis on which it turns…Listen, The Rule of St. Benedict says. Listen, the bell says. Listen, monastic spirituality says.” The bells ask us to listen even when we’d prefer not to.
The sisters rise and bow to one another. It is a gesture that runs so counter to our American culture, where the handshake or the hug signals instant parity. By contrast, the monastic bow says “I humble myself before you.” How different that person across the aisle looks to me when I raise my head again, having acknowledged their presence, their worth, and my own limitedness. The sisters run a thumb across their lips, make the Sign of the Cross, and sing “Lord, open my lips and I shall proclaim your praise. I think of the day ahead. Can I make my actions a form of praise and not a cause for fear? Can I somehow make of this day one extended prayer?”
…
We will gather again three more times for prayer: at midday; at 5:30 for Evening Praise; and at twilight for Compline, the final prayers of the day. We will sing by candlelight the words that Simeon uttered when he realized he had finally seen the Savior: Nunc dimittis, servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace.”Now Lord, let your servant go in peace, according to your promise.” The prayer permits me to put aside any misgivings I have about the day just past and any anxiety about the day to come. I am relieved of my duties; it is time to rest. Silence fills the monastery. Then we begin anew at dawn.
India’s Jains
Many young Jains are finding that living in the modern world requires more flexibility than the anti-materialistic rules of their religion allow. “My grandparents said they don’t eat food at night. But going out with friends, having a social circle and having to maintain those social circles, we can’t be as strict as our grandparents,” says twenty-year-old Geetika Jain.
March on Washington 50th Anniversary, Moral Mondays
As the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington approaches, we visit black and white pastors in Sanford, Florida working together to promote racial reconciliation in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death, and we talk to faith leaders in North Carolina who are countering conservative new state laws with protests and arrests known as Moral Mondays.
March on Washington 50th Anniversary
Recent events such as the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent trial of George Zimmerman have highlighted racial divides that still exist in the U.S. 50 years after the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In the wake of the shooting, local black and white pastors in Sanford, Florida are taking a hard look at what more they can do to promote dialogue, understanding, and racial reconciliation.
Vincent Harding Extended Interview
“We need to remember that the anniversary of the March on Washington is not the anniversary of a speech, but the anniversary of a very important point in history to expand democracy, to deepen democracy, and to make democracy more faithful to its own sayings.” Watch more of our interview with Vincent Harding, historian, social activist, and emeritus professor of religion who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr.
Moral Mondays
Religious leaders in North Carolina are being arrested in growing numbers to protest new laws they say adversely affect the poor, the aging, and children. “There is great biblical precedent for people being arrested,” says Rev. Richard Edens. “It’s a great heritage to be a part of.”
Buddhist-Muslim Tensions in Burma
During the past year in Burma, also known as Myanmar, Buddhist mobs have raged against the country’s Muslim minority, encouraged by the incendiary rhetoric of a radical Theravada Buddhist monk named Wirathu. He leads a nationalist movement called 969 and has called on Buddhists to shun people of other faiths. In July a bomb exploded near where he was speaking, viewed by some as a possible assassination attempt, and this month hundreds of monks demonstrated against both the bombing and the rising international criticism of Wirathu. R&E summer interns Mark Meyers, a senior at Liberty University, and Jordan Bowen, a junior at the University of Missouri, interviewed George Washington University religious studies and international affairs professor Eyal Aviv about Wirathu, Buddhist extremism, and prospects for interfaith understanding. Interview by Jordan Bowen. Edited by Mark Meyers and Fred Yi.
Bride Trafficking in India, buildOn Movement, Buddhist Teachings on Aging
Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from India on the problem of bride trafficking; Bob Faw talks with student volunteers and the founder of buildOn, a movement inspired by the social justice demands of his Catholic faith; and we talk with Buddhist teacher and author Lewis Richmond about aging as a spiritual practice.
Bride Trafficking in India
In a country where the expectation to marry is high, is a shortage of females fueling the trafficking of young women to fill the need for brides?
