Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Monk in the World Guest Post: Joanie McMahon

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Joanie McMahon’s reflection and illustrations inspired by Christine’s poem, “St.Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection.”

During my university experience, I had the opportunity to study the Irish language for two years, and I reveled in all the songs, whimsical idioms, and stories that were passed down through oral tradition. My first Irish teacher told us about St. Gobnait, the nine white deer, and her miraculous bees. I was intrigued by the mystery and symbolism surrounding St. Gobnait’s story, and when I was asked to create a series of illustrations for my studio art degree, I remembered St. Gobnait and her remarkable life. However, I am strictly an illustrator, not a writer, and I needed to find a text that told her story concisely. That’s when I found Christine Valters Paintner’s poem, “St. Gobnait and the Place of her Resurrection,” which was not only a succinct telling of St. Gobnait’s life, but also spiritually and visually compelling. Using the poem as a framework, I built nine illustrations around Christine’s words. The process of drawing these illustrations fused my love of Irish folklore, nature, and my Catholic faith, all of which was beautifully wrapped into Christine’s poem.

St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection

On the tiny limestone island
an angel buzzes to Gobnait
in a dream, disrupts her plans,
sends her in search of nine white deer.

She wanders for miles across
sea and land until at last
they appear and rather than
running toward them

she falls gently to wet ground,
sits in silence as light crawls across sky,
lets their long legs approach
and their soft, curious noses surround her.

Breathing slowly, she slides back
onto grass and clover and knows
nothing surpasses this moment,
a heaven of hooves and dew.

Is there a place for each of us,
where we no longer yearn to be elsewhere?
Where our work is to simply soften,
wait, and pay close attention?

She smiles as bees gather eagerly
around her too, wings humming softly
as they collect essence of wildflowers,
transmuting labor into gold.

~ Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones: Poems


Joanie McMahon is an artist and illustrator from Upstate New York. She earned her bachelors in studio art from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and she now serves as a domestic volunteer with Franciscan Mission Service. She believes in uplifting the beauty of the ordinary, and can often be found befriending and illustrating the squirrels that terrorize her backyard.

You might also enjoy

Imbolc and Brigid Blessing ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Imbolc and Brigid Blessing*Spirit of the rumbling ground,help us attune our ears to the renewal taking formbeneath the winter earth,snowdrops and crocusesin white and purple-petaled wonder,hedgehogs and bearsbeginning to stir from sleep.Let Brigid be our guideas we navigate the way from rest to slow emergence,support

Read More »

Mary as Mother of Mercy

I was inspired to share this reflection on Mary as Mother of Mercy by the brave words of Bishop Mariann Budde speaking truth to power: Holy Mary, mother of us all,we see a world filled with violence toward one another,we ask for mercy.We see children

Read More »

Monk in the World Guest Post: Christine Lee Smith

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Christine Lee Smith’s reflection “Contemplative Presence in Creative Practice.” One afternoon while serving as a TA in an introductory photography course during

Read More »