New Skete Monasteries News

By Sister Rebecca This coming Sunday, Matthew’s Gospel focuses on Jesus’ origins—his genealogy. It manifests a struggle within Matthew’s diaspora community in Syria some 10 years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 CE. That community was a minority Jewish Christian community, which took Jesus as its leader and strove to establish a way of life rooted in obedience and love as Jesus lived and taught. But it was surrounded by some Jewish communities whose people did not accept Jesus as Messiah. There was a dire need for Matthew’s community to show Jesus’ person, not only as legitimately humanly rooted in Judaism but also as the Messiah long foretold by the Prophets inspired by the Spirit of God. Matthew begins his Gospel with a list of names from Jesus’ ancestry. Many of the names are not only obscure to us but hardly pronounceable! For people living in medieval times, Jesus’ family tree—an abbreviated illustration of his lineage, called the Tree of Jesse—w...

 By Ida Williams, with Sister Cecelia In the past, I have written about the flurry of activity in preparation of Christmas at the monastery. This year I thought I would step out of my comfort zone and write about a personal experience. I am moved by music. Especially contemporary Christian music. Last Sunday, at my church, we had a special guest sing an anthem for us. Sariah, a music teacher at Fort Ann school, has sung for us many times over the years, and this Sunday she did not disappoint. Her classically trained voice was accompanied by acoustic guitar as she sang “Mary Did You Know.” By the end of the song, I had tears on my checks. I am always impressed by those who can sing with such a depth of emotion and not break down. The song goes through several verses, asking Mary if she knows the miracles that her child will perform. The final line is “T hat sleeping child you’re holding is the great I Am .” By this point I am completely involved in the song. And then a ...

  By Brother Gregory   Many people have driven up New Skete Lane over the years without giving much attention to the history of this road. Our focus is mostly on where the road leads us and on the memories that we hold from visiting New Skete. I once came across a picture of the original New Skete Lane coming up the property and seeing it wind to the left just below the original first building built by the monks. Brother Stavros said recently that the monks focused early on the need to change the road, widening it and making it direct as it came up around the mountain. These changes were done early on, and New Skete Lane now is how most of us remember it. For fifty-plus years, New Skete Lane has served us well, but with extensive use by trucks and numerous cars, and hard winter seasons, this road has needed extensive repairs. The monks and nuns have many memories and stories of cars and some trucks driving off the road because of ice and mud on the road. I once had to ta...

  By Sister Cecelia The projected death toll at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted me to read some books about death: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis and The Liturgy of Death by Father Alexander Schmemann. When someone we love and live closely with passes on, there will always be a time of grieving. It might even take a while before we can take in the loss, but the sadness will come. It is frequently hard to imagine that we won’t always feel this way. If our loved one has been suffering a lot, it is good that the suffering is over and the loved one has reached the unending happiness of being with God.  It helps us on one level to believe in the life of happiness promised us with our infinitely good God, but it is still very painful for us who remain in this life to carry on. And it takes time. That is what I gleaned from Lewis’s book.           Father Schmemann’s expressed hope was that we could understand how our a...

By Sister Cecelia  As I was finishing an Aran wool sweater vest, I wondered: Of the many different ways folks have found to cope with staying home, how many have taken up knitting? I know that some people knit fancy-looking masks (even though knitted masks are not recommended by public health experts because they are so porous, unless there are several layers). It would be interesting to find out what other projects people have come up with.  After the vest, I successfully finished a pair of mittens for myself before the cold weather was upon us. I have Raynaud’s syndrome, which causes the outer extremities to shut down blood flow at the first sign of cold, so mittens are more helpful than gloves. The spiral design was a challenge, as the directions called for 4 double-pointed needles, and I decided to use a circular needle instead. I finally figured how to get the spirals after having to pull out several rows too many times. See how good they look! Sister Rebecca does a lot ...

  By Ida Williams  Shortly after my first year of employment, I was tasked with handling dog training client communications and scheduling.   I have to admit that it is one of my favorite aspects of my job.   I feel that I am instrumental in making a difference in the lives of dogs and their owners, not to the extent the brothers and the trainers do, but I like to think that I play a small role in helping save dogs from being surrendered to shelters.           Over the years, hundreds of dogs have been enrolled in the monastery’s training program: Dachshunds to Great Danes. Seven months old to seven years old.   Goofy to scary.   Each dog is loved immeasurably by the owners.   The owners’ goals are always the same: to include the dog more fully in their lives.                After a dog graduates from the program and the owner continues to ...

    It’s no secret that the expression "global warming" today elicits visceral reactions, both positive or negative, depending on how one believes. It doesn’t matter which side of the issue one falls on, believers or deniers, the topic has become so intensely politicized that constructive dialogue has become exceedingly difficult. For those who deny that the earth is headed on a perilous ecological course, global warming is code for an unproven political agenda fomented by the left which, if embraced, will have dire economic consequences. In contrast, those who believe in the reality of global warming and humanity’s role in deepening it warn that unless we change course in a radical way, the very survival of the earth could be at stake for succeeding generations. They cite the fact that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is human-caused as evidence of the urgency. And so culturally, it feels as if we’re at odds with each other, with Republicans and Democrats having v...

By Brother Marc               After a day of shopping early last May I returned to the monastery feeling more than the usual muscle aches. I had spent a hectic day searching for items currently unavailable or hard to find because of the pandemic. Then unpacking and sanitizing a week’s supply of groceries and bulk necessities demanded a lot of additional work. I recall another time I felt unusually tired. Nadya Goldsmith, a member of our Chapel Community, had asked whether we might plant some white lilacs and spirea at the monks’ monastery. We both thought these are attractive and uplifting in springtime, although plain but inoffensive the rest of the year. They are like the old-fashioned yellow forsythia bushes that used to flank the entrance to our smaller chapel and the lavender lilacs we have. It was around the year 2005. Nadya, an expert gardener, brought a dozen saplings she had harvested from around her home in Ca...

Trails               We have added a new hiking trail in the northeast section of our property. We have never had a formal trail in this area before. What it means for hikers is that now it is possible to make a complete circuit around the monastery starting and ending at the same point whether that starting point is the kennel areas or our Guest House [Emmaus House].           As many of you know, the earliest trails were to the south of the monastery buildings. There is one large circuit that is identified as the red trail. That trail is bisected on a north-south line by a yellow trail. The yellow trail also divides in the middle into a high trail and low trail. The low trail connects eastward via two short orange trails to the east wing of the original red trail. Within the last decade we added a blue trail that goes down to our stream which runs down in a valley on the east si...