New Skete Monasteries News

Despite the sooty name, Black Mountain, the climb to its top was anything but, it being swathed in orange and yellow and several shades of red. It looms above the central stretch of Lake George, imperiously lodged on the eastern shore, the backbone dividing Saint-Sacrament from Lake Champlain. The former flows into the latter and thence to the St. Lawrence and out to sea. From the more populous western shore it may seem a raven-hued silhouette before the sun clears its peak. In the latter half of the 1800s this “Queen of Lakes” was all the rage, the steep forests that gird the waters we plundered, giving up their hardwoods for the charcoal forges to springboard America’s industrial age One Cyrus Butler bought the steamboat Minne Ha Ha and erected the Ur-Adirondack Lodge, at Black Mountain point, a choice destination. With ready money from his iron works just miles north at Ticonderoga, where the two lakes copulate, he cowed the mighty ...

By Brother John      First , I wi ll s l ow l y and painfully l earn how to pray, but it won't come overnight— maybe not until I am almost dead! I must stop worrying that I cannot s ustain prayer for any l ength of time. I must do my be s t , or am I more interested in pleasing my s elf rather than God? The God of prayer is f a r more important the prayer of God , ju s t a s he is far more interested in me who prays than in the prayers I recite. I must be patient— Rome wa s n't built in a day . My bu sines s i s to manifest my good will by being ready for prayer, somewhat like   a dog who is content to s it at the master's feet. I f the master decides to pl ay with him , attend to him , fine. I f he doesn't , the pup remains in that place. If God i s go in g to h elp me, he must be free to do a s he sees fit , not as I see f it. I will try to pra y, but if I can do no more, then I s i t there and s impl y attend to God as well I can at tha t time of da y or...

by Brother Luke Shems For those of you who check out the New Skete Facebook page, you will see from time to time videos of my dogs playing, as well as our newly born puppies entering their new world during their first eight weeks of life. After the first eight weeks they migrate outside the reach of our video radar! We bid them farewell as they head off with their new families to grow up and bond with them. Sometimes, however, we have the opportunity to cast that video radar on a puppy that is being raised here. Right now that is what is happening. A puppy has joined me and my other canine charges. And this little bundle of joy is named Shems, the Arabic word for sun. Maybe I should say this little burst of sunshine! My boy Kahn is her grandfather, so I have an extra emotional tug invested in this little pup. When this process begins, namely, raising a puppy which we hope will make it into our breeding program, we have no guarantees of the outcome. At one year of age she will ...