Judith Valente's Blog: Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter - Posts Tagged "catholic"

When I was a young reporter in the Chicago bureau of The Wall Street Journal and new to the city, I sometimes found myself home alone on a Saturday night without plans or a date. To cheer myself up, I’d play CDs of my favorite Broadway musicals and sing along with every song. God knows what my neighbors thought.

I remembered those days reading a passage today from a wonderful new book, In Praise of the Useless Life: a Monks Memoir, by my friend and sometimes co-author, Brother Paul Quenon of the Abbey of Gethsemani. Brother Paul is a trim, fit septuagenarian who hikes four miles a day, amuses himself by jumping on top of hay bales, and used to climb the abbey’s 50-foot high water tower until the abbot fenced it off.

To what does Brother Paul attributes his physical stamina? To singing. The monks stand to sing Psalms seven times a day during community prayer. He writes, “To breathe often and deeply, to resonate subtly with sound, vibrates all the fibers ... It raises the heartbeat and boosts the metabolism and soothes the whole system. I generally leave choir feeling energized and refreshed.”

Feeling tired, sad, maybe even a little ‘useless?’ Like Brother Paul, why not try singing.

In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir

Silence is a fast disappearing commodity in our world. If it were traded on a stock exchange, its share price might land somewhere between that of Apple and Bitcoin.

Silence forces us to be alone with our true self and with the one whom the poet Edward Hirsch calls, “the Great Alone,” the God who speaks with no known voice, but as Elijah found, whose voice is heard in the silence.

A few years ago, a young man named Greg Hindy decided to walk from New Hampshire to California – in silence. If he needed to communicate, he would write what he wanted to say in a pocket-sized notepad. His story was chronicled in a powerful documentary called In Pursuit of Silence by filmmakers Patrick Shen and Cassidy Hall, whom I met this past July on a visit to the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Hindy writes, “To gain perspective on your life, you have to step back, and then step back again.” A Zen teacher points out in the film that from the millions of years humans lived close to nature, we still retain the capacity to “feel silence in the body.” And as a U.S. park ranger says, “If we lose our capacity for deep listening, we lose an essential piece of who we are.”

To be sure, there are times when silence is not the appropriate response. There are times for speaking up and speaking out. It remains a great stain of sin that the Catholic hierarchy kept silent for so long about the abuse of children and teens by its priests (as we have seen this week in the report on several Pennslyvania dioceses). We sin when we do not condemn the demonizing by our fellow countrymen of an entire immigrant group, or of people who follow a particular religion. Sometimes it’s not so much my sins of commission I worry about, but my sins of omission, not being there for others when they need me, not speaking out enough when evil needs to stop.

I like to think of silence as orienting us toward right action. It is the pause between thought and action, the element that gives greater gravitas and meaning to the words we do speak. In silence, we rediscover our inner world. We encounter a truth heard only in the heart. Once there, we open a space where God can discover us.

This week, how can we practice greater esteem for silence? After silent contemplation, what do we feel called to speak up about?

Excitable, anxious, extreme, obstinate, jealous or overly-suspicious he or she must not be. Such a [leader] is never at rest.

That advice might sound as though it’s ripped from this week’s headlines. It actually come from an unlikely source: The Rule of St. Benedict, written 16 centuries ago for people living within monasteries. The enduring wisdom of these words resounded loudly for me this week as I watched with millions of Americans the wrenching spectacle of the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearing.

Re-reading the chapters of The Rule that deal with qualities of a leader, I was struck again not only by the forward-thinking of Benedict of Nursia, but how critical his message is for our time. Benedict advocates a profile in courageous leadership that seems to all but have disappeared from the U.S. political landscape.

“Only in this are we distinguished,” he writes, “if we are found better than others in good works and humility.” Good works and humility. Hardly the measurements in vogue these days. Hardly the qualities on display this past week in our national leaders.

Howard Schultz, the entrepreneur largely responsible for Starbucks’ distinctive allure, often speaks of “leading from the heart.” Schultz vision is echoed in The Rule. Back in the sixth century, Benedict applied an alternative name to the person entrusted with a leadership role: that of servant.

In a Benedictine world view, true leaders don’t place their personal interests above all else. Winning isn’t everything. Working for the good of all is. The best leaders, Benedict says, are teachers, not dictators. To those of whom much is given, much is expected. Perhaps the most revolutionary of all Benedict’s ideas is the model he asks leaders to imitate: that of Christ.
Speaking of the monastic context, he says, “The prioress or abbot must always remember what she or he is . . . aware that more will be expected of one to whom more has been entrusted ... Anyone who receives the name of prioress or abbot is to lead...by living example.”

Benedict also reminds us that leaders mustn’t become so obsessed with results or coming out on top that they neglect the well-being of those around them. Whether one’s arena is politics, business, academia, the not-for-profit sector, or a monastery, a leader’s foremost concern is people. Or, as Benedict puts it so beautifully, the care of souls. “Above all, they must not show too great concern for the fleeting and temporal things of this world, neglecting or treating lightly the welfare of those entrusted to them,” he writes. “Rather they should keep in mind that they have undertaken the care of souls for whom they must give account.”

The best leaders I’ve worked with in my journalism career were those who cared as much about my personal development as my professional output. They were the editors and news directors who understood that people aren’t interchangeable parts. They gave me assignments that engaged the best of my talent.

Far ahead of his time, St. Benedict recognized that human beings are complex creatures who don’t all respond to the same prompts. Good leaders, he says, “will accommodate and adapt themselves to each one’s character and intelligence.”

The most effective ones “must know what a difficult and demanding burden they have undertaken: directing souls and serving a variety of temperaments, coaxing, reproving and encouraging them as appropriate." Above all, he emphasizes kindness, noting “A kind word is better than the best gift.”

Perhaps the Benedictine Rule should be required reading for every member of Congress, the judiciary and executive branch. Perhaps then kindness will replace anger in our public discourse. Consensus will overtake conflict. Service will outweigh self-aggrandizement. Dignity and decorum will define our democracy. Is that too much to ask?

I think I just discovered the most peaceful place in America. It is a monastery tucked within the rolling hills of northwest Missouri. Here, the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration make their home. The only sound in the open field where the monastery stands is the whir of wind through trees, and an occasional thrum of a cricket. Stepping inside the monastery offers a profound encounter with silence. The sign, in colored glass, that greets visitors says, “Peace.”

I stopped in Clyde, Missouri, en route to guiding a retreat at Conception Abbey, a men’s Benedictine monastery just down the road. The visit couldn’t have come at a better time. Throughout the six-hour drive from my home in Illinois to Missouri, I listened to NPR on the car radio, feeling increasing despair. A “mystery” neurological disease has been attacking children. It was revealed that Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s fingers had been chopped off during the torture he endured before his death. How better to prevent a journalist from writing negative stories?

Then there was the caravan of families with children fleeing the violence in central America marching toward our southern border to seek asylum, along with the U.S. President’s threats amid cheering crowds to call out the Army to stop them.
(All of this talk about protecting the sovereignty of the U.S. is interesting since we snatched the state of Texas from Mexico and showed no respect for Indian tribal boundaries in our country’s early drive westward. But hey, that’s history, this is now).

I prayed at noon with the sisters in their magnificent chapel filled with ornate wooden prayer stalls, vibrant mosaics and life-size statues. (If this were Europe, busloads of tourists would be arriving daily to see the admire the beautiful architecture and art work in this chapel, as well as the Basilica at Conception Abbey down the road). The sisters support themselves by making communion hosts (including a gluten-free host they patented), as well as handmade soaps, balms and lotions, and a variety of artifacts. But make no mistake: prayer is their main work.

Sitting beside the sisters, listening to them sing the words of the Psalms at Mid-day Prayer, I recalled something the spiritual writer Thomas Merton wrote in his journal after his first visit to the Abbey of Gethsemani, “Now I know what has been holding the world together and keeping it from cracking into pieces. It is the prayers of this monastery and others.”

My friend Brother Paul Quenon of Gethsemani Abbey recently published a memoir of his 60-plus years in monastic life. Its subtitle is, “In Praise of the Useless Life.” It’s easy to dismiss monastic life as a hopeless throwback to the past. And yes, by the world’s standards dedicating one’s life to prayer can seem like a useless, even lazy endeavor compared to building bridges, developing a new treatment for cancer, educating the young, or piloting a rocket to the moon.

I applaud the sisters at Clyde and other monastics for their chosen work: sending prayer into the cosmos for our increasingly fragmented world. In previous times, the connotation of being a sister of “perpetual adoration” meant someone from the monastery was present at all hours of the day to pray before the Blessed Sacrament – the Eucharist -- which Catholics believe represents the presence of Christ. I was impressed by something Sister Dawn Annette Mills, the general prioress of the Clyde monastery, said about how the sisters now interpret “perpetual adoration.”

It is not just a 24-hour prayer program, she said, but a way of life. “Each sister is called to be a perpetual adorer … to recognize Christ present in every moment of every day, in each encounter and experience. In that awareness, every moment becomes an experience of adoring perpetually the Christ that is before us.”

I left the sisters in Clyde with renewed hope. Hope that good is at work even in these stressful times. Can each of us this week become “a perpetual adorer,” recognizing Christ in every moment, encounter and experience?

I recently attended a retreat where my fellow presenters included astronauts who have flown on the Space Shuttle and spent time on the International Space Station. If you ever need reinforcement for belief in a higher power, just listen to the observations of those who have voyaged in outer space. They describe a universe that is far vaster and more intricate than we can imagine. As one astronaut put it, our generation knows more about the inner workings of the cosmos than any previous one, yet we still understand only a thimbleful of its complexity.

This is not to say all who venture to these far reaches become instant evangelists. They do, however, share a common awe for the beauty and intricacy of the universe. Scott Kelly, one of the astronauts I met, has spent more time on the International Space Station than any other human. Kelly was raised Catholic, but jettisoned formal religion as a teenager in favor of an open-minded agnosticism. He writes in his memoir Endurance: A Year In Space, A Lifetime of Discovery:
"I am a scientific minded person, curious to understand everything I can about the universe. We know there are trillions of stars, more than the grains of sand on planet Earth. Those stars make up less than 5 percent of the matter in the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy. The universe is so complex. Is it all an accident? I don’t know."
Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

Many scientists seem more comfortable with the existence of mystery than so many of us who call ourselves people of faith. We crave certainty. We seek doctrine and rules. We want a God who conforms to our andromorphic needs. Of course Jesus was a light-skinned male (though he probably looked more like a present-day Syrian refugee). Of course, Mary had blonde hair and blue eyes. And God is a senior citizen with a snow-colored beard.

Could we not think of God as pure mystery, as absolute love, as inviolate light, as the deepest, truest point of being within our own soul and still follow the teachings of Jesus?

Listening to these astronauts forced me to reexamine the current political discourse about “protecting” the U.S. border. When astronauts gaze upon Earth from deep space, they see one mass. A single planet. A fragile bead suspended in infinite blackness.

Borders are artificial human constructs. What we now consider our inviolate U.S. borders once belonged to other people: to Mexicans, to the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and yes, our Native Americans. About this history we seem to have collective amnesia.

Thomas Merton so accurately noted that the root of war is always fear. Today’s debate over building a concrete border wall or steel barrier – take your pick -- is drenched in fear. There is fear of strangers, fear that what is ours will be taken. Exaggerations, stigmas and outright falsehoods supply oxygen to these fears.

In the gospels, Jesus’ followers ask him what they must to do “bear good fruit,” to enter the Kingdom of God, and attain eternal life. Each time his answer is remarkably similar. “Go and sell your house and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven,” he tells one rather disappointed follower in Matthew’s gospel. To a lawyer in Luke, he says imitate the Samaritan who stopped to help wounded foreigner whom others passed by.

He puts it perhaps most succinctly in Matthew’s gospel: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in… I was sick and you looked after me.”

It seems to me that people of faith are called to tear down walls, not build more of them.

Just ask astronauts how many walls they see in space.

On a recent Sunday, each of the parishioners at the church where I attended Mass received a copy of a book called “101 Inspirational Stories of the Priesthood.” The pastor said he wanted parishioners to experience some “good news” about the Catholic Church. This gesture came as U.S. bishops were making a retreat in Chicago at the direction of Pope Francis, ostensibly to reflect on their role in the clergy abuse crisis.

The pastor apparently thought this book so important he had copies handed out —not at the end of Mass — but as people returned to their pews after receiving the Eucharist at communion, the most sacred part of the Mass.

Let me say loud and clear that not 101 stories or 1,001 stories of priests behaving as they are supposed to will heal the pain and disappointment felt by people in the pews. I write this as someone who considers my faith a great gift. I owe my education largely to the Catholic Church. I have been a daily Mass-goer for years. And I’ve been a Benedictine Oblate, a lay associate of a monastery, since 2013.

What parishioners need to hear from the pulpit is true repentance. We need evidence that this time Catholic leaders are serious about becoming more transparent and giving lay people a greater role in church affairs. What we need is nothing short of a Reformation.

Everything should be on the table. Priestly celibacy. Women in the diaconate. Women in the priesthood. Greater lay input into how pastors and bishops are chosen. Greater lay oversight of church finances. One reason the sex abuse cover-up went on for as long as it did is because bishops had virtually unquestioned control over church funds. They had the ability to extract hushed-up settlements with families.

It is often noted that churches aren’t democracies. True. But neither should they be absolute monarchies or dictatorships. We need to carefully read Scripture. What kind of church did Christ actually establish? Yes, he designated Peter to shepherd his early disciples. He didn’t prescribe a male priesthood in perpetuity. He certainly didn’t dictate that priests must never marry, or that bishops should have absolute control over what takes place in their diocese.

A parishioner donated $4,000 to purchase copies of the “101 Inspirational Stories” book. That person no doubt had good intentions. Still, I can’t help but think that $4,000 could have purchased 200 meals for hungry people. It could have paid the legal fees for an undocumented immigrant trying to gain asylum in the U.S. It could have helped pay someone’s medical bills. It would cover several months’ rent for some struggling family. It would even cover the cost of a used car for someone who has none.

So why do I remain a Catholic? Occasionally, I get so disheartened I begin attending services at churches in other denominations. Then I find I miss the celebration of the Eucharist. It is still an awesome thing for me to receive Christ into my own body when I take communion. One thing I think the Catholic Church gets right is the issue of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The writer Flannery O’Connor was asked once about this. I love her response. “If it’s not the real presence,” she said, “then the hell with it.”

Why else stay? Let me introduce you to a man called Neal. I met Neal at daily Mass. He is the first person to go up to someone who is new at Mass. When the service is over, you can see Neal walking over to people he knows, offering a kind word, asking about their health or their families. As a kind of ministry, Neal carries a stack of pink cards with him that say “I Said A Prayer for You Today.” The prayer cards have a little poem printed on them. The first time I met Neal, he gave me a card for myself and one, he said, to take home to my husband.

So, many times I arrive at morning Mass preoccupied by work I have to do that day. Then I encounter Neal, telling me how happy he is to see me. reminding me he’s praying for me, as though he were a beam of light aimed straight at my soul.

I keep Neal’s prayer card in my purse and pull it out when I need a pick-me-up. Neal understands that church is community. It needs to be people who care about each other — as individuals. It’s not about preserving an institution.

All of us who continue to practice the Catholic faith need to play a role if the church is to heal and regain credibility. If we don’t demand change, we are complicit in the sins of those who have brought disgrace. It is simply not possible remain tone deaf to the pain that is driving so many good people from the faith.

“The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,” the poet John Milton wrote of the church of the 17th century. The same can be said today. How can each of us help bring about change? How can we be more like my friend Neal?
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
The Poetical Works Of John Milton

(Today is the Feast of St. Scholastica, patroness of many Benedictine monasteries throughout the world. This reflection is adapted from an article I wrote for the magazine Spirit & Life).

Several years ago when I visited Norcia, Italy, the birthplace of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, it was disheartening to see how the monastery where St. Scholastica had lived and prayed had devolved into ruins.

I’ve often thought it would be a worthy project for Benedictine women to raise funds to renovate Scholastica’s crumbling monastery. Perhaps the building could become a center of refuge and empowerment for women, or a safe haven for refugee families. Scholastica would approve.
Fortunately, here in the U.S., we have many beautiful structures commemorating the legacy of this fascinating saint, believed to be Benedict’s sister, and possibly his twin. One is my beloved Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas, the monastery where I am a Benedictine lay associate.

On her Feast Day, I find myself thinking more deeply about this woman whose only recorded words amount to two sentences. The Dialogues of St. Gregory relate the story of Benedict’s final visit to his sister’s monastery. Scholastica wanted him to remain the night so they could continue discussing “spiritual matters.” He refused, saying it would violate his monastery’ rules. Scholastica then prayed to delay his departure. When a fierce storm arose, she reportedly told her brother, “I asked you and you would not listen, so I asked my God and he did listen.” Then, with a bit of whimsical one-upwomanship, she adds, “So now go off if you can, leave me, and return to your monastery.” You can almost picture the satisfied smile on her face.

That last part, of course, isn’t found in St. Gregory’s pious retelling of the story. Still, you’ve got to give credit to this essentially cloistered woman for showing such resolve. Her grit lives on in the Benedictine sisters who have been pioneers throughout history and remain to this day unafraid to shake up the status quo.

Scholastica died not long after that visit. Perhaps she had a premonition of her own impending death.
At Conception Abbey in northwest Missouri, there is a mural in the abbey’s basilica depicting Scholastica’s death. I’ve spent a long time contemplating that mural. A group of monks carry Scholastica on a bier into Benedict’s monastery. Especially moving is the depiction of Benedict at the door, receiving the lifeless body of his sister with the tender gesture of outstretched arms. It is as if he is welcoming her home. He had her buried in the plot reserved for his own body.

Benedict’s welcoming gesture reminded me of one of the first visits I ever made to a Benedictine monastery. I went with my husband to Mother of God Monastery in South Dakota to give a presentation on “Touching the Sacred Through Poetry.” We ttraveled through the night from Illinois to get there, and were relieved to see the well-lit monastery rise up in the distance of that dark plain.
Sister Emily Meisel, who had invited us, emerged from the monastery with arms extended toward us. She quickly took our arms into hers. It was the first time we had met. The encounter took place more than a decade ago, but I have never forgotten Sister Emily’s warm expression of hospitality. I often try to greet guests coming into my own home with the same gesture.

I like to think it was Scholastica who taught her brother the value of flexibility. She saw the wisdom of occasionally bending the rules for a greater good. She just might be the reason there is room for adaptation and modification built into The Rule of St. Benedict. At some point, Benedict stopped seeing people as interchangeable parts. He said give to each according to his or her need. A person overwhelmed by an assigned task could ask to be relieved of it.

He said receive all guests “as Christ, who said I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Welcoming guests was no small matter in Benedict’s and Scholastica’s time. The stranger at the monastery door could well be a marauder. Still, Benedict insisted visitors be welcomed with all courtesy of love. That perspective carries over into the tradition of hospitality at monasteries to this day.

An interesting exercise for this Feast of St. Scholastica might be to re-read The Rule of St. Benedict for signs of her influence from what little we know of her. Though her words have largely been lost to history, her courage, determination and spirit of hospitality remains, and continues to inspire all of us who seek to live Benedictine values day by day.

The Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great

I participated in a very interesting video conference call this week. It was a conversation organized by a group called “Nuns and Nones.” The monthly calls bring together Catholic sisters from religious orders across the country with young people in their twenties and thirties, many of whom have no particular religious affiliation, the so-called “nones.”

Nuns and “nones” might seem like unlikely partners. Some of the young people on the call might more accurately describe themselves as spiritual seekers. What draws the two groups together is a mutual hunger for social justice, a strong desire for community, and the growing belief that there is much about society – and institutional religion in particular— that needs to change.

The Pew Research Center identifies those who are religiously unaffiliated as among the fastest growing segments on America’s religious landscape. About a third of all Millennials identify as nones, or not affiliated. These same polls also show that Millennials, while eschewing much of the male patriarchy of institutional religion, remain drawn to the gospel values of mercy, justice, and peace.
Enter U.S. Catholic sisters – the women we so often find on the front lines of ministering to the families on the border and in detention centers, the inmates in our prisons, the hungry in our soup kitchens, the sick and infirm in our hospitals and nursing homes, the children growing up amid violence in too many inner city neighborhoods.

The conversation I participated in centered on how to engage with others who might have a different perspective. One young woman wanted to know how to work with people whose views on homosexuality differed from her own sense of justice and equality. These young men and women also wanted to know what contemplative practices the sisters find helpful in negotiating conflicting points of view.

It was a stunning example of cross-generational dialogue. Many of the Catholic sisters involved are three times older than the young nones and seekers. What struck me was how honest the sisters allow themselves to be. They related their own struggles in trying to respond compassionately to people with whom they don’t agree. One told of an encounter with a person who argued that families arrested at the border are only getting what they deserve. Another told of a confronting her own father about his views on women and minorities. They told of struggling to keep in check their own biases and judgments.

Not surprisingly, the sisters stressed the importance of respectful listening. As one sister described it, “Listening for the places where there might be an opening” for discovering common ground.

Among some of the practices they suggested: in a group where there is bound to be conflict, begin by observing 10 minutes of silence. Be intentional about having a cup of coffee with those whom you know think and feel differently than you do. Be curious about what informs another person’s point of view. Most of all, make building relationship – and not winning or convincing – the priority.

Catholic sisters in the U.S. proved themselves models of this in how they responded several years ago to two investigations by the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVII. They didn’t react with anger or vitriol, but by seeking collegiality with their accusers. They showed their faithfulness by discussing their beliefs and their ministries respectfully and with dignity. In doing so, they taught us all how to respond to injustice.

Several of the young people on the Nuns and Nones conference call referred to how the sisters had handled this difficult time. I came away from the conversation with hope for our future as a nation. In a sad, chaotic, and too often unkind period in our history, these young people are choosing community over conflict, consensus over competition, listening over talking, and dialogue over division.

You might not find the Nones in the Sunday pews. But clearly their hearts yearn to make a difference. Their hearts yearn for something larger than themselves. They, in their way, are seeking God. In that sense, they have a great deal in common with the Catholic sisters. They have turned to these wise women for help in sorting through their questions. And who better than these true practitioners of the gospel to companion these young women and men on the journey?

For more information on Nuns and Nones, go to the group’s website (www.nunsandnones.org) and read about them in the Global Sisters Report: www.globalsistersreport.org/news/tren...

At a parish event I attended recently, a mother and father told the story of their son who had been sexually assaulted by his superior when he was a seminary student. Their son could not be there to speak for himself. He had shot himself in a hotel room after struggling for years with severe depression resulting from the abuse. He was 25.

This heart-breaking presentation was part of what the parish has billed as an effort toward “Purification and Renewal” in the Catholic Church. The parents’ talk was scheduled the same night as the Academy Awards, which likely cut down on the potential audience. Only about 30 parishioners came, nearly all of them women. None of the parish priests attended. Neither did any of the (all-male) deacons.

We owe more to those who have been sexually assaulted – and to their families. The parents described their son as a vibrant, creative young man who went off to an Orthodox Church seminary full of energy and high ideals. He returned to them withdrawn and depleted. He blamed himself, not the pressure placed on him by his seminary superior, for what had happened. It took courage for him to report his supervisor to church authorities. To its credit, the Orthodox Church swiftly removed the abuser from ministry.

The young man’s parents are now members of the Catholic Church. It took them 10 years — and the most recent revelations about the widespread cover up of abuse in the Catholic Church — to be able to speak publicly about their son. His was a life aborted by the church. The lives of so many who suffered this kind of abuse have been aborted in the same way.
I once interviewed a woman for a TV report who had been sexually abused on the day of her First Communion. Her abuser: the priest who gave her communion that morning. The woman, who was well into her forties when we met, still had her frilly white communion dress. She’d kept it all those years protected under a plastic cover. She told me that as an adult she could not bring herself to ever again go to communion. Hers was a spiritual life aborted.

In this season of Lent, we owe our prayers to victims like this young man, the woman I interviewed, and their families. Lent is not only a time for greater prayer, it is also a period of fasting, and for engaging in additional acts of charity. Perhaps we can offer up our Lenten practices this year in particular for those who have been abused and their families. But we need to do more.

As members of the church, we need to demand concrete reforms to the structures and practices that led to the clergy abuse scandal. We need to seek lay oversight of church finances. We need greater lay input into how bishops are chosen to oversee our dioceses. We need to advocate in our state legislatures for an end to the statue of limitations for prosecuting sexual abusers. Fortunately, the state of Illinois, where I live, has one of the most progressive statute of limitations laws regarding sexual abuse, but that is not the case in all states or countries.

A professional woman I spoke with recently, who has her own story of sexual assault, reminded me that those who experience this kind of violation never forget either the place or the face of the abuser. Their lives are never the same.

If our churches are to have a consistent ethic of life, we need to insist on changing a system that has for too long protected predators. To do less is to be complicit in the acts that led to the death of a promising 25-year-old seminarian and the countless others who committed suicide or were permanently scarred from what they suffered.

The best sermons aren’t spoken ones, but those we witness through the example of a person’s life. I experienced one of those living homilies when I spent four days recently with the Benedictine sisters at St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Whenever I’m tempted to walk away from the Catholic Church, frustrated with its hypocrisy and faults, I need to think of these monastic sisters and the others like them.

The history of the St. Scholastica sisters represents a continuous response to various calls of need. Their example reminds me of Aristotle’s famous prescription for living a fulfilled life: “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.”

One of the things I admire most about this monastery is that it accepted women who had physical challenges at a time when many religious orders rejected candidates with medical difficulties. To this day, those sisters continue to offer significant contributions, some by serving in leadership roles.

The truly elderly sisters are a model for us all. Sister Marcella, the oldest member of the community, is 98 and still helps in the dining room. At age 96, Sister Pierre oversees the gardens and the grounds. Not a flower buds or a tree root spreads without Sister Pierre knowing about it.

Arkansas had been a state only 43 years when the Benedictines arrived in 1878. Their mission was to teach the children of mainly German and Irish immigrants who farmed the land and worked on the railroads along the Arkansas River. The oldest of the first four founding sisters was just 34. The other three were in their early twenties and hadn’t even made their final vows yet in religious life.

The sisters eventually established a boarding school for girls as well as an orphanage. One woman I met in Fort Smith, who volunteers at the monastery, told me her father had been raised in that orphanage. “My father used to say if it wasn’t for the sisters, he’d either be pumping gas or in prison,” she said. Instead, he raised a family and had a successful career. He never forgot his debt to the St. Scholastica sisters.

The sisters are a vivid example of why Benedictine spirituality has endured for more than 1,500 years– by adapting always to the necessities of the times. As needs changed and both the boarding school and orphanage closed, the sisters kept moving forward. They turned the school into a community center. When they no longer had enough sisters to staff the community center, they arranged for a local co-educational junior high school to use that space.
And still the sisters keep adapting. Last year, in one of the toughest decisions they’ve had to face, they moved out of the six-story gothic style monastery that had been their home for 94 or their 140-year history in Arkansas. They now reside in an attractive new single-story building across from the old monastery that is easier for the elderly sisters to navigate.

They keep on going. The sisters oversee a robust training program for spiritual directors and also offer spiritual direction and counseling on an individual basis. Their Hesychia House of Prayer in New Blaine, Arkansas, set in the shadow of the Ozark Mountains, allows those seeking an immersion experience of the contemplative life the chance to spend time in one of four hermitages the sisters own there.

Their ministry now extends beyond Arkansas. With other Catholic partners, the sisters sponsor a scholarship program for Colegio San Benito, which educates high school age girls in Guatemala. The ministry recently expanded to include scholarships for Colegio graduates who want to go on to university studies.

The Fort Smith community is also the home of one of my favorite spirituality writers, Sister Macrina Wiederkehr, whom I call a modern-day mystic. If you admire the writing of Thomas Merton, you will also love Sister Macrina’s books including: "Seven Sacred Pauses;" "Song of the Seed"; and "Abide." Her most recent book, "The Flowing Grace of Now", will be out later this year.Macrina Wiederkehr

The Arkansas sisters could use our help now to help pay down the debt on their new monastery. If we are looking for somewhere to place our Lenten alms, may I suggest helping these Benedictine women who have given so much. You can contribute via PayPal on the monastery’s website here: stscho.org

Thanks to Sister Hilary Decker, Oblate Director at Fort Smith, for inviting me to give two talks to the lay associates of the monastery based on my book "How To Live: What The Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community," How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us about Happiness, Meaning, and Community and to Sister Madeline Bariola, my fellow Italian, with whom I laughed until I cried).