New Skete Monasteries News

By Sister Cecelia and Brother Christopher On November 29 th two of the nuns and three of the monks traveled to Boston to be present at Boston College for our friend and Companion Teva Regule’s doctoral defense. Her dissertation, Identity, Formation, Transformation: The Liturgical Movement of the 20 th Century and the Liturgical Reform Efforts of New Skete Monastery , was the culmination of several years of research, study, and writing that included a number of extended visits at New Skete to interview monastics and to clarify the many aspects of our liturgical practice.  When she first proposed the idea to us, we were both humbled and surprised: “ Really? You’d like to do your dissertation on us? ” but as the scope of her work grew we ourselves came to appreciate in a new way the cumulative efforts that have spanned the fifty-plus-year history of our community. We felt it was important to be present at this occasion as a sign of our support and appreciation of her hard w...

By Brother Luke             Faith is not about assurances. It’s about moving into the unknown without the anchor of a desired predetermined outcome. The outcome is what it is supposed to be, not necessarily what I hope it will be. For cooks, and I am not one, following a recipe is supposed to lead to a known outcome: the dish you intend. Entering into monastic life is about entering into a life of faith in a unique and intensive way. When a person embarks on this journey, the initial stages of the journey include accompaniment by a professed member of the community. This is called mentoring. It usually continues right up to the time of profession, which could be 3 to 4 years after one begins the candidacy. In our community someone entering this formation process could spend up to one year as a candidate. At the end of that period a decision is made as to whether or not the individual and the community think the candidate shou...

by a friend of the monastery What do a 9½-week-old German Shepherd puppy, a confessional, scripture passages, Mother Teresa, and Cardinal John Henry Newman have in common? It was Saturday afternoon and I was in the confessional because of the puppy.  She had turned our lives upside down in the short 10 days we’d had her.  My husband and I had traveled to upstate New York and back by car in just 5 days to pick her up—a trip of over 3,000 miles—spending each night in a different hotel.  Although the puppy’s acquisition was a very conscious and much anticipated one, the drone of the drive, the sleepless nights, and working with her during her waking hours to housebreak her and to capture trainable moments were taking their toll on me. I played out the Martha and Mary story, heaping unspoken blame on my husband for what I perceived was not enough help. I was harboring unkind thoughts, the stress of keeping my angry thoughts to myself had me on the verge of a volc...

by Brother Luke             My two pups, Fintas and Iris, are heading towards their 5th month. It has been quite a ride. They are cute. They are lively. They are underfoot. They are all puppy! Kahn, now nine and a half years old, will play with them outside, but he wants nothing to do with them in my room! Although he is a bit more patient now that they are growing up, he lets them know the limits. The fact that Fintas is his son has no bearing on how they interact.             The two pups are three weeks apart in age, born June 7th and 29th, Fintas being the elder of the two, but they play as equals. Fintas outweighs Iris, but she is not intimidated by him at all. They are both cautious around Kahn in my room, but they constantly test the limits. Iris might go up to Kahn and begin to paw at his paws, wagging her tail all the time. She inches closer and begins to l...

by Brother Peter She came from the motherland, Germany, and what a fine specimen she was. Tollie, a purebred German Shepherd, was purchased from a reputable kennel by the Monks of New Skete to become one of our widely known, well-bred German Shepherds. Upon Tollie’s arrival, I was asked to be her handler. Fortunately, although I had been diagnosed with an allergy to dogs when I was 10 years old, years of allergy shots enabled me to work with dogs by the time I reached the age of 25. Tollie had already received obedience training in Germany, and she understood her commands only in the German language.  I had studied German in high school, so I quickly took to administering her commands, such as bleib /stay, com /come, and absleggen /by my side.  What a delightfully gregarious dog Tollie was. Whenever she saw people, her tail would go a-wagging! She became a great greeter at the monastery’s front door. She was so obedient; she would promptly lie down when I gave that ...

by Ida Williams, Director of Marketing and Communications This weekend I was volunteering at an event, and in one of those “down time” conversations with another volunteer, the topic naturally turned to our jobs. People are often fascinated by my job: working for a monastery, those mysterious people on the mountain. During this conversation, it became very apparent that the other person had a preconceived notion of monks, nuns, and monasteries. To put it bluntly, the person said that monks and nuns are hermits and do not live in the real world. FAR FROM IT! What an opportunity for me to share and educate someone about the monastery. New Skete is a place to hide? Are you kidding me?  There is more contact with the “public” or “outside world” than in many vocations. The monastery hires staff. This means that the monks and nuns, in work situations, have co-workers. Bakery staff members work with the nuns. Laypeople work in the dog training and breeding kenne...

by Brother Luke A big thank you to all who responded last month with names beginning with F for my new puppy. I must admit that I was leaning towards Fritz, which several people mentioned. But in the end, I decided to name this boy Fintas. I picked the name for its sound, not for its meaning. In Arabic, it means water tank. If he ends up being a big boy, then maybe tank will fit. Of course, you can find meanings for Fintas beyond size, as one friend commented: “Fintas!  It's an honorable name—after all, water tanks are sturdy, reliable, and often life giving! I look forward to getting to know him, and Mishka's little female.  Every new dog is a new adventure.”  So, it’s Fintas. Finty or Finn for short. I often call my dogs by a variety of names, which is probably contrary to proper protocol. Even so, it’s how it works out for me. So, Shems is often Shemsi and Kahn is Kahn-man or Kahn-ster. Sometimes it’s just Mister Kahn. Well, you get the idea.  ...

By Brother Stavros Tragically, there are many crisis zones simmering or flaring around the globe. Ukraine at the moment is simmering: a young country, as nation-states go, with many centuries of border shifts and what we now term occupation. It has a proud history uncomfortably shared with Russia. Both nations emerged from 12th and 13th century Rus’ as a fusion of South Slavic and North Viking tribes. Kiev (Kyiv) is its capital on the banks of the Dnieper River. The penetration of Christianity was a momentous pivot in European history. Kievan Rus’ quickly became a commonwealth of culture and commerce as well as a citadel of education and monastic spirituality. Western Europe, by comparison, was just emerging from the Dark Ages. Some weeks ago at Pentecost this bruised nation mourned the passing of the “spiritual father of today’s Ukraine.” We ourselves remember him. His Beatitude (also known as Cardinal Husar) was born in Lviv. It is important to remember him in ...

By Brother Luke Jaci’s latest litter of 7 puppies was born overnight on June 7-8. This time the process started in the kennel, not in my room. That at least saved me some extra clean-up work. The first puppy was born just before midnight, and almost like clockwork they came out at 1-hour intervals. Only puppy number 6 was a little problematic. The sac was broken, and I saw the tail coming out, but before I could get hold of the puppy it went back up into the track. So, I decided to give Jaci a small dose of Oxytocin. It was at a time when that posed no danger to her or the pup. It worked, and the puppy came out alive. Number 7 followed 30 minutes later. Jaci is a Mom on the move. If you have seen any of my videos of her playing, she is always the first of my dogs to retrieve the chuckit ball, and she can outrun all the other dogs. That characteristic doesn’t go away in the whelping pen. She often moves the whelping pool away from the wall so she can circulate around the outsid...

By Ida Williams, Director of Marketing and Communications How do you make new friends in just three days?  1. Use the enticement of dogs. 2. Engage with the mystique of the Monks of New Skete.  3. Indulge with monastic hospitality. That is what happened this past weekend at New Skete’s The Art of Living with Your Dog Seminar.   Twenty-eight guests, dubbed the Storm Troopers, * left on Sunday afternoon sharing hugs, email addresses, and a few tears.  (Oh, wait.  The tears were mine.) The first thing we all had in common is dogs.  The guests love dogs, the brothers love dogs, the staff and volunteers love dogs.  What were we talking about?  Oh, yeah, DOGS.  Photos of dogs were shown on smartphones, and dog stories were shared.   There were dogs in the classroom, dogs being trained in the room next to the classroom, dogs lying next to our feet while we ate lunch under cover of a tent, and eight puppies in ...