New Skete Monasteries News

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 ...

A homily by Brother Marc Isaiah 2:1-5; Acts 1:1-12; Luke 24:36-53 When I try to feel what the followers of Jesus must have felt at the death of Jesus, I am thrown back onto my old memories of dispiriting situations. When my mother’s father was living with us after my grandmother died in December 1950, he never spoke to us about his service as a soldier fighting with the Austro-Hungarian armies. Now he was particularly isolated with those experiences, living in the United States, no longer in his own home, with his wife gone, away from buddies who spoke the same language and could understand how it was fighting in North Africa. He spent a lot of time sitting outdoors gazing over the large meadows and broad horizons where we lived. Of course we tried to understand and were sympathetic; we were especially intrigued to learn of the bullet wound in his shoulder, physical proof he had really been there. He let me have his only souvenir from World War I: his old enamel-coated water...

 Brother Stavros John Benson and Jeanette Warner first came to New Skete from reading In the Spirit of Happiness in 2000.  After their first visit with the Companions at Emmaus House, they started going to St. Nicholas Parish (OCA) soon afterward, where they were pleased to learn of Fr. George Gray's connection with New Skete. Fr. George was ordained in our Transfiguration church here at New Skete some thirty years ago. He came to know the monastery through his wife, Daria, whose school chum was a daughter of one of New Skete’s earliest families. John and Jeanette were core members of the New Skete Synaxis at St. Nicholas. They considered becoming Companions in residence at New Skete, and although moving from the Pacific Northwest did not prove realistic, they did make frequent visits and became especially close to Sr. Melanie and Br. Stephen, the last resident members of Emmaus House. John had a professional landscape business in Portland and helped Sr. Melan...

 Ida Williams, Director of Marketing and Communication On Tuesday mornings I meet with the brothers who run the training program for our weekly dog training meeting.  At these meetings, we review the week’s schedule: dogs being dropped off, picked up, any calls to be made.  The brothers review applications, answer questions from training clients, and direct me on any correspondences that need to go out. Dog training meetings are held after Matins.  Brother Christopher typically grabs a quick breakfast of toast with almond butter, and Brother Thomas has a cup of coffee.  Bora (Brother Thomas’s dog) joins us.  Brother Christopher sits on my right at the head of the table, and Brother Thomas across from me.  The meetings are so familiar that if the brothers switched chairs, I would feel that I must have shown up to the wrong meeting.  Each meeting starts with a prayer. “…let us be mindful of your presence... Amen.” I am going to make a ...

 by Brother Christopher             Cancer is a word that immediately scares us. While all of us understand intellectually that many people have to deal with various types of cancer and their treatment, few of us sit around thinking of the time when our number will be called. Instead, we go on with our lives, try our best to live as healthfully as possible, and don’t stress over whatever frightening possibilities may occur down the road. Some may deem this a subtle form of denial, but it is how most of us cope with life while still being able to celebrate the joyful, beautiful, and humorous moments of each day. And it is entirely understandable.             However, all of this changes when the “C” word is spoken to us personally, in the form of a diagnosis perhaps, or the news of a close friend or family member having to suddenly face such an illness. Cancer is ...