Your Online Monastery for Your Spiritual Practice

Join us in the beautiful city of Vienna on Pilgrimage! (limited space)

We posted new dates for our Monk in the World pilgrimage to Vienna, Austria just last week (November 10-18, 2018), but we have had such great interest there are just 3 rooms left right now! If staying in a Benedictine monastic guesthouse in the heart of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe — while Christmas markets open bringing their special magic to the air, companioned by an intimate group of pilgrims, and taking in art, architecture, music, and wonderful good — all sounds enticing, we invite you to consider joining us! Peruse the details below and email us

January 11, 2018

Monk in the World Guest Post: Mayra Hall

I’m delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mayra Hall’s reflection “Sustaining Our Traditions.” It’s been a week and a day since my granddaughter’s birth, and finally, during a grace-filled conversation, I was able to be fully connected to the emotional swell in my heart. It had been building up since the moment my daughter went into labor. My daughter started having contractions on Friday and Nova was born on Sunday, August 20, 2017. Her name was inspired by the recent Solar Eclipse. Labor was a

January 10, 2018

Coming Home to Your Body ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was 21 years old. The only other person I knew at the time with this disease was my mother and her body had been ravaged by the effects of deterioration, with multiple joint replacements and eventually use of an electric wheelchair for mobility. I first dealt with my diagnosis through denial. I had just graduated from college and travelled across the country to begin a year of volunteer work. I managed to push my way through fatigue and pain for about six years before I was forced

January 7, 2018

Give Me a Word 2018 Drawing Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2018 Give Me a Word invitation! We had almost 360 participants take the online retreat to help a word choose you. Above is a word cloud made from all the words submitted by January 5th. Please note some appear larger when they were submitted more frequently. Some are quite tiny but are there in the spaces between. We have done our random drawing and are delighted to announce the winners: One space in our upcoming New Year’s online retreat – The Wisdom of the Body Eva Micirua – Believe One space in our Lent

January 6, 2018

Feast of Epiphany – Follow the Star ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, The Feast of Epiphany is celebrated today. It is one of my favorite scripture stories as it offers us a series of powerful invitations. The last few lines of the gospel text, offer us a template for an archetypal journey, that is, one we are all invited to make. We can find ourselves in the text if we have ever longed to follow an inkling into the long night knowing there were gifts awaiting us. 1. Follow the star to where it leads The story begins with the magi calling upon the grace of night

January 6, 2018

Monk in the World Guest Post: Barb Morris

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Barb Morris’ reflection on the danger of being a Monk in the World. “DANGER.” That’s the sign that should hang at the entrance to every cloister. In big red letters. The fine print should say, “Warning: Being a Monk in the World is dangerous. Your commitments to silence and solitude, hospitality, community, kinship with creation, work, Sabbath, conversion, and creative joy are subversive and will cause conflict and strife in your everyday life. Your striving for greater

January 3, 2018

New Year Blessings + Wisdom of the Body (starts in a week!)

Dearest monks and artists, It is a quiet Christmas season for us here in Galway. After returning from a beautiful trip to Prague and Vienna for ancestral pilgrimage, John and I both promptly got the flu. I spent all of Christmas day in bed with a fever, barely able to stand up. We were planning on a quiet time anyway, but now the enforced solitude of illness is our companion. Of course it never feels good to be unwell, I am grateful that I am able to really let down and allow myself to heal during this time. I have

December 31, 2017

Christmas Blessings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

The Risk of Birth This is no time for a child to be born, With the earth betrayed by war & hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out & the sun burns late. That was no time for a child to be born, In a land in the crushing grip of Rome; Honour & truth were trampled by scorn- Yet here did the Saviour make his home. When is the time for love to be born? The inn is full on the planet earth, And by a comet the sky is torn- Yet Love

December 24, 2017

Winter Solstice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons . . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring. —Linda Leonard, The Call to Create Dearest monks and artists, This reflection is excerpted from our Sacred Seasons online retreat for the Celtic Wheel of the

December 17, 2017

Wisdom of the Body Interview
with Guest Teacher Aisling Richmond

Starting January 8, 2018 we will be offering a 10-week online retreat for women – The Wisdom of the Body: An Online Companion Retreat to the Book. This retreat is for every woman who wants to reclaim her body as sacred, heal a lifetime of thoughts and judgments, offer compassion and love to this tender vessel, and remember that the incarnation means this body is holy. With weekly live webinars (recorded if you miss them), a vibrant and lovingly facilitated forum for sharing your experiences, and weekly offerings from some wonderful guest teachers. For three weeks, Christine Valters Paintner will be hosting

December 14, 2017

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Join us in the beautiful city of Vienna on Pilgrimage! (limited space)

Monk in the World Guest Post: Mayra Hall

Coming Home to Your Body ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Give Me a Word 2018 Drawing Winners!

Feast of Epiphany – Follow the Star ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Barb Morris

New Year Blessings + Wisdom of the Body (starts in a week!)

Christmas Blessings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Winter Solstice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Wisdom of the Body Interview
with Guest Teacher Aisling Richmond

Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

Monk in the World Guest Post: Laura J. Collins

New Prayer Cycle Launch and 20th anniversary celebration! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Rochelle Rawson Naylor

Easter and the Journey to Joy! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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