Our lady of the Redwood vocationnal video

[NadaTeTurbe]

The forest is amazing. I wish I could live in something so magnificent ! 
Also, you can hear a french sister with an amazing french accent :D 

[Nunsuch]

Thank you for posting this!  Beautiful.

if anyone is interested in another glimpse of this community, there is a great chapter about it in Patricia Hampl's "Virgin Time." And that, by the way, is an amazing book of wisdom and spiritual discovery, gorgeously written.... 

[Swami Mommy]

Living embraced by the beauty of nature holds great appeal to my sense of interconnectedness and to my sense of wonder and appreciation for God's natural cathedrals.  My only concern about this video and the monastery itself is that the group in residence seems to be comprised of late middle-aged women, and if I was in my mid -twenties and discerning, I think I would be drawn to a more youthful cohort group who is experiencing the same life passage issues that I was.  That's why if I was still young,  I would be more likely to select a larger house of about seventy women, representing all life stages.  For the age I am right now, this place looks lovely and I would fit right in!

[Egeria]

I've heard very good things about this monastery. They went through a difficult time after their foundation, but in recent years the persistence of some seems to have born fruit and they have had quite a bit of new growth.

[vee]

@NadaTeTurbe

speaking of Sisters with French accents reminded me of this video.  Ok they are French Canadian but it may give you fond memories of your trip  

[SNJM]

Thank you for posting this. Are all Cistercian "Superiors" called Abbess?  I get so confused when I hear Trappists and Cistercians talk about themselves...both refer to themselves as Cistercians, I believe. Do the O.Cist nuns have a Prioress or an Abbess? If anybody knows the answer to this, I would be grateful. I'm trying to keep a list for my clients & the "Blue Book" I use doesn't have any information & from the websites, very little!!!!

i thought this video was very well done. I have two more questions - do the nuns live in small hermitages or are those for guests? I couldn't tell. And finally, I think this is the first time (I believe) I have heard an authority figure refer to the community as "My community." Usually, it is "we" or "Our community." Did anyone else notice this? Again, I found it a beautiful video so I'm not trying to start a debate (I know this board could say a lot about the habits & I applaud your restraint!) but as a SD, I'm interested in how that (if anyone noticed it) made any of you feel. I'm just wondering! So many questions, I know!!!

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Rose

[Egeria]

Thank you for posting this. Are all Cistercian "Superiors" called Abbess?  I get so confused when I hear Trappists and Cistercians talk about themselves...both refer to themselves as Cistercians, I believe. Do the O.Cist nuns have a Prioress or an Abbess? If anybody knows the answer to this, I would be grateful. I'm trying to keep a list for my clients & the "Blue Book" I use doesn't have any information & from the websites, very little!!!!

i thought this video was very well done. I have two more questions - do the nuns live in small hermitages or are those for guests? I couldn't tell. And finally, I think this is the first time (I believe) I have heard an authority figure refer to the community as "My community." Usually, it is "we" or "Our community." Did anyone else notice this? Again, I found it a beautiful video so I'm not trying to start a debate (I know this board could say a lot about the habits & I applaud your restraint!) but as a SD, I'm interested in how that (if anyone noticed it) made any of you feel. I'm just wondering! So many questions, I know!!!

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Rose

Rose, the short answer is that superiors of abbeys are abbesses and superiors of priories are prioresses (although, just to complicate it, in an abbey the assistant superior is also called the prioress). Usually when houses are founded they are first foundations and then they become priories (initially still dependent on the founding house and then independent) and then eventually abbeys. Most Cistercian (at least OCSO, I'm not so sure about O.Cist) houses become abbeys, even if they are not very big. I think that may vary more with Benedictines (I've known houses that have been priories for a long time), but I'm not really sure. 

I've heard monastics (both superiors and non-superiors) refer to "my community" before, and find it very beautiful, although in some contexts I suppose it could be unhealthy. But it may be that it's more common among monastic communities than non-monastic ones. In a monastic context, authority is more personal than in non-monastic ones. Historically, abbesses were elected for life (they still are in Orthodoxy) and their relationship to their community was akin to that of a bishop to his diocese (hence the insignia of ring, staff, pectoral cross, etc) and had a nuptial element.

I'm certainly not going to get involved in debates about habits, but I would point out that in the western monastic tradition it is the cowl that is really the monastic garment and symbol of consecration, and that is given at solemn profession. And the Redwoods sisters certainly where cowls.

 

 

[NadaTeTurbe]

@NadaTeTurbe

speaking of Sisters with French accents reminded me of this video.  Ok they are French Canadian but it may give you fond memories of your trip  

aaaaw thank you ! You can't imagine how much I miss the québécois and their accent ! 

[beatitude]

Living embraced by the beauty of nature holds great appeal to my sense of interconnectedness and to my sense of wonder and appreciation for God's natural cathedrals.  My only concern about this video and the monastery itself is that the group in residence seems to be comprised of late middle-aged women, and if I was in my mid -twenties and discerning, I think I would be drawn to a more youthful cohort group who is experiencing the same life passage issues that I was.  That's why if I was still young,  I would be more likely to select a larger house of about seventy women, representing all life stages.  For the age I am right now, this place looks lovely and I would fit right in!

One of my best friends when I was a teenager was an 80-year-old woman. I was very close to her. I don't think that you need to be with your peers to benefit from other people's company, or for them to understand you.

I remember speaking to an elderly Carmelite nun who said that she had often heard young discerners being advised to go to monasteries with young novices even if their first inclination was to another place, and she had rarely if ever seen this working out. She reminded me that you go to a monastery for God, not for others, and that what you think you need as an 'outsider' to religious life may not be what you find you need when you're actually there. The community I am going to visit later in the month is not one I would ever have imagined myself with and I have no idea of the age range of the sisters, but there is a pull to at least visit them that I can't ignore. While pragmatism has its place, it wasn't pragmatism that got St Peter walking on water, so sometimes it is necessary to take that step of faith if you feel drawn to do it. And to look at things more pragmatically, how would a community ever gain younger members if one younger person did not join first?

[Antigonos]

Hey, beatitude, just noticed you are now a Mediator of Meh!  Congrats!

Hey, beatitude, just noticed you are now a Mediator of Meh!  Congrats!

Hey, beatitude, just noticed you are now a Mediator of Meh!  Congrats!

Hey, beatitude, just noticed you are now a Mediator of Meh!  Congrats!

Have no idea why that went through twice.  We never got to have that coffee --when you are back in my neck of the woods, get in touch!

Hey, beatitude, just noticed you are now a Mediator of Meh!  Congrats!

Hey, beatitude, just noticed you are now a Mediator of Meh!  Congrats!

Have no idea why that went through twice.  We never got to have that coffee --when you are back in my neck of the woods, get in touch!

[SNJM]

Beatitude...GREAT post!!!!

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

Living embraced by the beauty of nature holds great appeal to my sense of interconnectedness and to my sense of wonder and appreciation for God's natural cathedrals.  My only concern about this video and the monastery itself is that the group in residence seems to be comprised of late middle-aged women, and if I was in my mid -twenties and discerning, I think I would be drawn to a more youthful cohort group who is experiencing the same life passage issues that I was.  That's why if I was still young,  I would be more likely to select a larger house of about seventy women, representing all life stages.  For the age I am right now, this place looks lovely and I would fit right in!

One of my best friends when I was a teenager was an 80-year-old woman. I was very close to her. I don't think that you need to be with your peers to benefit from other people's company, or for them to understand you.

I remember speaking to an elderly Carmelite nun who said that she had often heard young discerners being advised to go to monasteries with young novices even if their first inclination was to another place, and she had rarely if ever seen this working out. She reminded me that you go to a monastery for God, not for others, and that what you think you need as an 'outsider' to religious life may not be what you find you need when you're actually there. The community I am going to visit later in the month is not one I would ever have imagined myself with and I have no idea of the age range of the sisters, but there is a pull to at least visit them that I can't ignore. While pragmatism has its place, it wasn't pragmatism that got St Peter walking on water, so sometimes it is necessary to take that step of faith if you feel drawn to do it. And to look at things more pragmatically, how would a community ever gain younger members if one younger person did not join first?

These two comments made me think of a vocation video from the Summit Dominicans (sorry, I can't remember which one, it wasn't recent) where Sister Maria Teresa said something along the lines that it was nice to have other younger women in the Novitiate because they could understand about things like cell phones, ipods, etc. Sister Maria Teresa didn't say "necessary" and I think (but I am not positive) that she was talking about postulants/novices who entered after her, so it didn't feel to me as if Sister Maria Teresa made her decision to join the Summit Dominicans based on whether there were other young women there.

I related to Swami Mommy's post. I'm in a position right now where I have very few face-to-face (as opposed to Internet) human contacts, and I'm really feeling the lack of people around me with shared life experiences. Actually, I have felt this on and off every since I moved to the Midwest many years ago. I hadn't realized that my childhood in a suburb of San Francisco and then as an undergraduate at Berkeley was so unique. After all, at that time it was all I knew except for what I read in books. But, when I moved to the Midwest, I discovered that even my age peers had had VERY different experiences growing up, right down to the food they ate.

This video about the Sisters of our Lady of the Redwoods made me very homesick. I LOVE redwood trees, and of course, we don't have them in the Midwest. I think that I would feel very "at home" in the Community's physical setting. (Not so much spiritually, though. I'm not a Cistercian, although I respect the lifestyle of the Sisters very much.) If I could snuggle into a small hermit cottage on the Sister's grounds, and perhaps have an Anglo-Catholic parish nearby to worship, I think I could be quite happy. Not much makes me happy nowadays, so to even have this thought was quite unusual. The "lost Coast" of California (that is, the California coast north of San Francisco up to the Oregon border) is a very unique (and beautiful) place.

In response to Beatitude, I don't think it is necessary to be of the same age to be close friends with a person. But, there is something special about someone who has shared at least some of your life experiences. I had an African roommate for a couple of terms in grad school, and her tribe put a special emphasis on "age mates." I think there is some real wisdom in that. Not a necessity, but since I don't have it, I am coming to appreciate that friends who are "age mates" are a special gift.