New Skete Monasteries News

By Brother Luke Every morning at Matins, the opening psalmody is followed by a reading and then a brief meditation time. Usually something in the readings will strike a chord in me and stay with me for the rest of the day. Sometimes it comes back to mind during my meditation time later in the day. A recent meditation reading about the gift of fortitude from a collection of readings by Thomas Keating hit home that day.  When Fr Thomas listed the various ways fortitude can make a difference, the reference to frustration stuck in my mind. As I pondered the connection between fortitude and frustration, another image came to mind: the Pauline description of love always being patient. In today’s world, it is not hard to feel frustration over much that we see in the news. Violence and hostility, fueled by fear, anger, and exasperation over many inequities and injustices, abound. As we notice ourselves getting pulled into that vortex, fortitude and patience may be the antidote. Ho...

By Ida Williams, Director of Marketing and Communications Inviting people into the home of your employer can be daunting, to say the least, but the eighth New Skete dog owner/trainer seminar ended this past Sunday, and with a sigh of relief I can say it went as well as the first one held in 2013. My background is in hospitality marketing and management. Coordinating events is in my skill set, but never did I imagine that I would be running events in the home of the Monks of New Skete. Years of management in hotels and resorts, a western-themed amusement park with a banquet facility, and participating in the promotion and planning of our county fair may have provided the base for event coordination, but New Skete dog seminars have been a new encounter that I thoroughly relish. Event planners know that defining your goals and objectives prior to planning the particulars of the event is key. Once the goals have been established, the rest falls in place. The objectives of hosti...

By Brother Luke After several decades, we have recreated a hiking trail up to the top of Two Top Mountain, where New Skete is located. In fact, we now have two trails on Two Top. The red trail runs from the Emmaus House driveway half way up the northeast face of the mountain on the recently created logging road and then descends to the back of the monks’ monastery next to our new smoke house.  The second trail, marked with yellow arrows, begins behind the monks’ monastery, goes up the east side of the mountain, and connects to a 20-year-old logging road up to the top of the mountain.  The descent then heads back down the west side of the mountain and turns south. It connects to the red trail, so a hiker at that point can decide to continue on down to the guest house (Emmaus House) or head up the red trail and come back to the starting point behind the monks’ monastery. Mike Bodnar, a forest ranger and friend of the monastery who will be leading the hike at our upcoming Pilg...