New Skete Monasteries News

  By Ida Williams   Have you ever been called to do something that is out of your comfort zone?   Something that you think about over and over again, wondering if you made the right decision?   This happened to me recently, and I am very happy that because of my faith, and a shining example from Sister Cecelia and Kenneth, I stepped out of my boat of fear. Last fall I received an email from Sister Cecelia letting me know that I was going to receive a letter from a young man named Kenneth: a person with justice system involvement, who is currently incarcerated.   She went on to tell me it was up to me if I decided to correspond with this young man. The letter arrived, and it was well written, many pages long, and contained questions about my job.   He had read my article “ The Faces of Dog Training at New Skete. ”   He also included information about himself, never speaking of the crime he was incarcerated for, but giving a glimpse into his life...

  By Kenneth, guest writer Hi. My name is Kenneth.   I truly appreciate the loving and caring people at the New Skete Monastery.             I am incarcerated in Columbia Correctional Institution and have been since I was 18 years old.   I was wrongfully convicted of an armed robbery in 2015 for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   In this incident no one was hurt, and I had nothing to do with this [crime], but being from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and not being able to pay a lawyer’s fees to adequately defend myself, I lost my freedom to the prison system.   I was and still am distraught after this incident. This is my first adult case in my life!   I was so depressed and grief-stricken, to the point where I did not want to live any more, at all.   I tried suicide three times.   I thought it was the end for me...until one day while in segregation, where I was separated from everyone...

Science and the Christian Faith: A Guide for the Perplexed by Christopher C. Knight, PhD (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2021, 232 pages) The subtitle, “A Guide for the Perplexed,” piqued my interest in the ad one morning a few months ago. The author is an Orthodox priest who started out as an astrophysicist. He is a Senior Research Associate of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England. The book is part of the Foundations Series put out by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. While I don’t see myself as perplexed, I do have a lot of questions in view of the world-wide scientific knowledge concerning creation that exists today. What light, if any, could Christopher C. Knight shine on how to understand our views of God’s immanence in our world today? A large thrust of the book is the attempt to understand some of the controversy over miracles. Do they happen now, and did they ever happen? Would science be able to explain them?       ...

By Brother Christopher Given that March 11th has recently passed—the “anniversary” of Covid-19 being called a pandemic—perhaps it is not surprising that my thoughts would be turned toward the topic of death; 530,000 victims over the past year in this country alone will do that. Add to this the arrival of Great Lent, however, and I believe there is much to reflect on about ultimate issues and how we might use the experience of this past year constructively. Might this be an opportunity for growth instead of despair and cynicism, of staying in touch with reality instead of wallowing in distraction? While it is understandable that people instinctively try to change the subject whenever having to face the reality of death, this past year it has been unavoidable: its reality has literally been shoved in our faces every day on TV and in the news. Most of us know people who have died because of Covid, some of us may have even had it, and all of us have had to live with the disruption it has c...

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...