Our annual summer silent retreat is underway, and we are going to share it with you.

You can make this retreat at home, if you wish, by reading each reflection and taking time to reflect, journal, sit in silence or walk quietly through a beautiful place.

By Sister Stefanie MacDonald, OSB

Our annual silent retreat is underway. Father Joel Rippinger (Marmion Abbey), our retreat director, is focusing on Benedictine monastic life.

He began with Chapter 72 of the Holy Rule:

“This zeal, therefore, the sisters should practice
with the most fervent love.
Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10);
most patiently endure one another’s infirmities,
whether of body or of character;
vie in paying obedience one to another —
no one following what she considers useful for herself,
but rather what benefits another;
tender the charity of sisterhood chastely;
fear God in love;
love their Abbess with a sincere and humble charity;
prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!”

Community helps us to move from what we want to do to what we want to be.

Our Lord sought us and called us. Learning to live in God as community is our hardest work. It requires trust built through relationships.

Through relationships, we build stability. We learn to accept who we are: where we succeed and fail. We learn how to live deeply in God.

It is messy … but that’s what community is all about.