New Skete Monasteries News

By Sister Cecelia How amazing that our two young mothers are having their pups just barely two weeks apart! Gana is experienced at giving birth, having had two other litters. We know she has four puppies and are thinking we’ll be up all night, but lo and behold, it looks like her water broke in her bedroom at the end of one of our bedroom wings. So out Sr. Pat goes to the whelping room, which is all prepared with all the possible necessities for giving birth. Then we wait and wait and wait. At early evening on Wednesday the third, Gana’s water really breaks. There is no doubt this time. It is not until 11:30 when number one makes it out. By that time I have retired for the evening while thinking I could go check and see if any help is needed, but I fall asleep before I can act on the thought. When I arise at 6 the next morning, I read the note left by Sr. Pat next to the coffee maker: Gana has three male pups and one girl. Mom and pups are doing fine. Would I let Gana out to do her b...

  By Brother Luke               When I was first learning to drive a three-on-a-tree stick shift Rambler Rebel (not very cool), the hot rod drivers wanted a four-on-the-floor stick shift! Better for those exciting (but not wise) car races! I think my little Amira has got the same itch, with her four-on-the-floor paws! January 15th she turned 3 months, and it has been an exciting time watching her begin to grow up.             And growing she is. She is now 22 pounds. And that weight is beginning to tell on me. We have a bank of about 15 stairs in the house going up to our living quarters. When she was 2 months old I carried her up and down those stairs. Now at 3 months I carry her down, but once a day I let her go up on her own. She goes up and down other stairs, but those stairways have only 2 or 3 stairs, not 15! Whether it’s stairs or the floor or outside on t...

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 ...