New Skete Monasteries News

By Brother Stavros Over a decade ago I spent several days in Rome. I did not come to like the city, but one quirky experience remains vivid in my memory. I wanted to visit the Ethiopian College, the only one established within the Vatican walls. To attempt this required that I approach a Swiss Guard and ask if it were possible, a rather formidable hurdle. They are big guys with a wicked weapon in hand, and the Michelangelo uniform commands respect and wonder. I was told to approach within a yard from his boots and state my business. Then he instructed me what gate to enter to reach the bureau where my request would be considered. It was a different experience from just being in a crowd in the basilica or on the piazza. This brought me within the walls of this micro city-state, a hundred square acres and fewer than a thousand inhabitants. A HBO miniseries, The Young Pope , and a novel, The Fifth Gospel, both depend on the intrigue, history, hopes, and machinations ...

By Brother Stavros My brother used to kid me: “Why would a monk cooped up in a monastery all year want to go to an even more remote place for ‘retreat?’” “I don’t know—you’d just have to live here,” I would answer. Truth is, in the heart of every monk or nun lives some fascination for the wilds. I’ve indulged this attraction, usually including water, at places like a small island in Lake George, a big island in Narragansett Bay, and Cape Lookout in Oregon. Most of the time my trip has been supported by benefactor friends, and the time is determined by our two yearly breaks. This February I reached the apex of remoteness: Cape Flattery and the Makah Indian Reservation at the northwestern-most tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. You can go no farther west on this continent without going to Alaska. My northern odyssey was based at a monkish 1950’s motel cabin in Port Angeles with a view of the Olympic Mountains to the south and the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north.  My ...

  By Brother Christopher “Father, may they be one, just as you are in me and I am in you...”       John 17:21             During the week of the Octave of Christian Unity (January 18-25), Brother Stavros and I had the opportunity to visit two Roman Catholic monastic communities in Quebec, Canada: the Jerusalem Community of Montreal, and Val Notre-Dame, a Cistercian (Trappist) monastery in St-Jean-de-Matta, about an hour northwest of Montreal. How the trip transpired goes back to a brief encounter I had with Dom Andre Barbeau, the Abbot of Val Notre-Dame, over a year ago. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that his community had long wished to make a connection with an Orthodox monastery, so he asked if some sort of visit might be possible during the celebration of the following year’s Octave? I replied that since we’re a small community, it would all depend on scheduling, but that in pr...

By Brother Thomas Throughout my childhood, in the back of my parents’ cedar-lined closet and resting on the floor, was a shoebox. Inside were photos that, for a variety of reasons, had yet to make it into the sleeves of an album and to be labeled accordingly. And among this loose stack of images was a single Polaroid of a dark-haired man standing among a small crowd, all in their mid-twenties. It is from this man that I was given my name at birth, and we have only a single photo of him; there aren’t more because soon after this gathering, he was struck by a car while driving home from a parish event. I didn’t find this photo, or become aware of it, until late in my childhood. Until then, I would often wonder how my name, John Wesley, came about. Walking past our town’s Methodist church each Sunday, I often fantasized that perhaps I carried the namesake of that Anglican cleric and Reformer. Or maybe, having a father who taught English Literature and being a product of the Gothic South, ...

by Brother Luke Recently my iPod seemed to die, and I thought, Oh no, I (well, actually Ida) won’t be able to put my dog videos and photos on Facebook anymore!  But it turned out that the iPod battery was dead and it was possible to revive it. So, we were back in business. And it was a very busy time when the iPod went down. Bora had a litter of seven puppies, and then my Jaci was due to have a litter, which came one week later. I always try to capture with the iPod some of the scenes from the whelping. The primary reason for that is to keep our vet and breeding staff abreast of what is going on in case an emergency arises. But it also opens to our friends a little window into the wonder of the moment of birth for the new puppies and for me! Still, a lot goes on that is not captured by the photos. So, this is a little journey into the day, or rather the night, my Jaci gave birth to her puppies. It was Tuesday, December 13, 2016. We usually have the expectant mother x-ray...

by Brother Gregory In the monastic tradition, hospitality is a very important part of a community’s practice. At New Skete, our Rule addresses this: “Monastic tradition has always emphasized the importance of welcoming others as Christ. In a world rife with religious division and misunderstanding, we endeavor to foster unity and understanding within the Body of Christ, and without discrimination, tolerance and respect towards all.”  We do all we can to welcome others into our community as if we were welcoming Christ himself. With a nonjudgmental attitude, an open ear, and a welcoming heart, guests have often said that they feel welcomed. This time away from their daily routines helps them refresh and renew their souls and connect once again with Jesus and the Church in their lives.   Often when guests depart, they comment to us that they have received so much and that they felt blessed in our home. New relationships develop or are renewed, quiet and prayerful space ...

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 ...