New Skete Monasteries News

Reflections by Brother Luke             Celebrating Christmas in America is so familiar to all of us that we can easily be swept up by all the fanfare. With Christmas carols on the radio and TV specials filled with warm and romantic images of holiday cheer, we are hard-wired to respond to all these influences without even thinking about it. Even in church, that 19th-century British creation of “Lessons and Carols” has become a standard for Christmas liturgy in many churches and a staple of radio broadcasting. When I first came to New Skete in 1995, Brother James used to joke with newcomers that our celebration of Christmas would not have any of the familiar carols, so, “Get ready, you won’t recognize anything!”  For me that wasn’t totally true, since I had been going to the Orthodox Church for my entire adult life, and I was familiar with many of the traditional Christmas hymns used in the Orthodox Church. But for some, ...

  By Brother Christopher “Always be joyful, pray always, give thanks to God for all things...” 1 Thessalonians 5:17             Thanksgiving is a national holiday, one we collectively celebrate to give thanks for all of God’s blessings. But in thinking about the deeper significance of what we celebrate, I wonder if we often don’t keep the holiday on a superficial level: God gives us good things—blessings—and these are the things that we are grateful for. From a Christian perspective, however, the meaning of thanksgiving goes so much deeper, and it carries with it a profound challenge: we are to give thanks to God for all things. All things. How do we do that precisely? honestly? In a like manner, when Jesus tells us in the Gospel “do not worry,” how do we do that? Is it really possible? At face value, it can sound simplistic, pie-in-sky, naive. We know that we live in a dangerous world. All we have to do is think of ...

“For I know that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”           Whenever someone we love dies, especially a parent, all sorts of images and memories flood into one’s consciousness: for me at least, happy memories of past Christmases, shared vacations, various family celebrations, and the graced moments of support, encouragement, and love. Then there are the sad memories, of the various arguments and misunderstandings, the inevitable trials of family life, the examples of human weakness. At a time such as this, there is the temptation is to get stuck in the swirl and turbulence of memory and all the while miss the forest through the trees, to not see the overriding reality that was present in the loved one’s life.      ...

By Brother Gregory Ombra was beginning to get really big, and time was getting very close to birthing her puppies. This would be Ombra’s second litter. She was bred to Kahn, and the two were a good match; Ombra took a liking to Kahn, and they got ties during the breeding. Her x-ray showed a possible seven puppies, but we were not quite sure about that seventh puppy. Going to bed that Saturday, I knew this was probably going to be a sleepless night, but off the lights went in my cell with Ombra and Lena, my other dog. Sure enough, Ombra would go in and out of her crate during the night, periodically scratching the crate, doing her nesting. Auntie Lena, as I called her, would come over to my bed to let me know what was going on, looking with her wet nose for my face or a foot or hand sticking out from the blankets. OK, Lena, I got the message! On the bedroom light would go, then off again, and this went on for most of the night. But at 2:30 Sunday morning I’d had enough. I got dres...

Reflections by Brother Luke When I entered the Monks of New Skete back in 1995, all the monastery cooking was done by monks. Even the abbot pitched in from time to time, since he also loved food and loved to cook. After all, the monastery table was a central part of our life and the core of the tradition of monastic community and hospitality, so it was unthinkable that someone other than monks would prepare the food. After we turned the corner into the new century, monks were still the cooks. Brothers Elias, John, James, and Peter took turns at the stove. And the Italian roots of Father Laurence and Brother Elias were still very much in evidence on our monastic table.  However, as we moved further into the 21st century and witnessed the change in our house demographics, we realized that we were going to have to make some changes in the way we managed our community meals. With our abbot retired and Brother James moving on to become a parish priest in Georgia, we were down ...

By Brother David Silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation.   (Rumi) We recently (October 17, 2015) had an excellent retreat about silence.  We talked a lot about silence.  A lot.  Then we heard a piano concert with Mr. Haskell Small, who performed his piece A Journey in Silence: Reflections on the Book of Hours as well as Bach’s B minor Partita, with an encore of “For Aline” by Arvo Pärt.  (Terrific concert!)  So we said a lot about silence—in PowerPoint and Symphony (for the Mac users) no less!  And heard music about silence.  So, where was the silence in all this talk and presentations and concertizing? At this point I had considered presenting you, dear reader, with two and a half pages of single-spaced blank with a final statement: “There! There’s silence!”  I decided against that for three reasons: 1: It wouldn’t be silence; it would be only blank space. 2: It would be intellectually lazy. 3: Anna...

by Steven A. Fisdel Book Review by Sister Cecelia I took this book, published in 1998, to my room at least five years ago, but this August I was determined to read it. I was very interested in what the scrolls contained, and this book looked like one that would explain what had been translated by the experts. For several reasons I found it interesting in the extreme. The author, a rabbi, used the first few chapters to put the writings into the context of the theological views of the Hebrews at the time the scrolls came into being. Because Jesus came into a people with these religious views, many of his sayings in our scriptures are a reflection of these same views. He also contradicted some other views and tried to point out a better way of understanding what God the Father and Creator was pleased with. The leaders of the people were generally appalled, as what he said went against their understanding of what the Torah indicated was the will of God. Their texts also containe...

By Brother Stavros Few on our technologically linked planet are unaware of the plight of the masses of refugees from Africa and Asia, but most poignantly from the Middle East. And very few people I know were not appalled by the treatment these refugees received at the Hungarian border.  The German and Austrian reaction was perhaps softened by visions from World War II of stuffed cattle cars and endless miles of refugees. Even Serbia, also mindful of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, expressed dismay at the Hungarian impasse. I found it a sad and disturbing irony that the political rationale expressed by the Budapest government cited their fear of diluting their Christian identity. What kind of identity ignores one of the most vivid teachings of Christ, portrayed in Matthew’s account of the Last Judgement? (Matthew 25:31-46) Hungarian Ministers of State as well as ordinary Christian folk must hear this question regularly from every pulpit: “Uram, mikor láttuk, hogy éheztél,...

Reflections by Brother Luke             Our sisters, the Nuns of New Skete, have a long tradition of working on picture puzzles during their recreation time. The most recent one was 5,000 pieces, and it was so large they had to find creative ways to expand their table to accommodate the puzzle as they put it together. They thought they could finish it in a month or so. Surprise! It took almost 6 months. As it turned out, a few of the brothers helped out at the end of the process and put in some of the last pieces. It was a spectacular painting of a museum scene of paintings. The box didn’t reveal the artist or identify the scene (this was a used puzzle, after all), but we guessed it might have been the Louvre or the Vatican.             Back in the early 2000s, one of the tasks I inherited was to do the shopping for the monks’ monastery. It was a large task, and right f...

By Brother David I’m weird.  I get told that by people I know. It used to bother me. I used to think, “How can I unweird myself?”  I like science fiction. I also like horror stories and films—the bloodier the better. The “Hell Raiser” series is awesome. I cry at chick flicks and tear up at some commercials. There is no such thing as “reality TV” (and that includes the news).  Serial killers fascinate me. I have a collection of stuffed animals and toys.  I rescue slugs and worms from the middle of our road. I believe that Sun Moon Star, by Kurt Vonnegut and Ivan Chermayeff, is one of the best Christmas books ever written. I love “Paradise Lost” and have read it—voluntarily—several times. Goodnight Moon is brilliant. I love history (13th century and earlier) and intensely dislike historical fiction. Pride and Prejudice is a terrific novel; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is even more terrificker. I love studying grammar and syntax and am ...

        Brother Stavros celebrated fifty years in monastic life, Holy Wisdom Church.          The summer after graduation from high school in 1961, Harry Winner (the future Br. Stavros) and one of his best friends, Tim Nau, traveled to the upper reaches of the Saint Lawrence River to Quebec City to attend a special immersion course in French for foreigners at Laval University. The walled and fortified city, the oldest on the continent north of Mexico, and the university, the oldest after Harvard, earned a place in his heart and imagination. This summer, he met up with his friend at his home in Toronto, and they took the train up to Québec to revisit their old haunts. The city has not lost its European flavor; in fact, they observed that it is even more beautiful. Back then as students they ate on the cheap. This visit provided an opportunity to appreciate the superb cuisine of the region. A particular joy, Br. Stavros recalle...

By Brother Luke      In today’s marketplace, one of the most ubiquitous signs is the one that says: NO SMOKING. What a dramatic change from 50 years ago, when smoking was chic and basically part of the landscape of society. Here at New Skete, no smoking applies, too, except for one building where smoking is definitely OK. That building is our new smoke house, where we continue to smoke cheese for several clients.      Our new Dog Training facility has replaced the oldest building in our monastic complex, a building that served as home for a variety of activities over the years. Originally it was a barn for our farm animals and workshops for our liturgical arts and crafts; then dog training, our guest house, and gift shop plus our New Skete Farms, which included processing our various food products and running our mail order business. Now the monks’ gift shop has been relocated to our residence, the guesthouse is down in Emmaus House, and dog training, of co...