How to Join Our Community

"Let us then at last arise, since the Scripture arouses us saying: 'It is now time for us to rise from sleep.' And let us open our eyes to the deifying light; let us attune our ears to what the divine voice admonishes us, daily crying out, 'Today, if you hear God's voice, harden not your hearts.'"
Holy Rule of St. Benedict

How To Join Our Community

Welcome to this special section of our website which we hope provides answers to some of the questions you may have about how to become a Benedictine Sister at St. Scholastica Monastery.

We are a monastic Community of Benedictine women whose lives are centered around the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. Through prayer and though our ministries we are committed to helping create a more just and compassionate world.

We live a contemplative/active life, grounded in liturgical and personal prayer, in lectio divina (sacred reading), with time for silence and solitude. We strive for a balanced life of prayer, work, study, and leisure. Through our shared life in Community we encourage each other to develop our individual talents, and we rejoice in the sharing of these gifts through our variety of ministries.

We live in Duluth, a port city (population 87,000) in the Arrowhead Region of Northeastern Minnesota. Our Monastery is located on a wooded hill overlooking Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world. We share our beautiful 186-acre campus with The College of St. Scholastica, the Benedictine Health Center, and Westwood (senior and assisted living).

Could this be the place and the life to which God is calling you?

In this "Join Us" section we'll include "in brief" information that may be found more fully developed elsewhere on our web site, such as "Ministries" and "the Rule of St. Benedict." We hope you'll visit those sections to learn more about Benedictine life at St. Scholastica Monastery.

We hope you find your way to our Monastery, if this is God's will for you.

If you still have questions, feel free to contact us--via email, snail mail, telephone, or by visiting us here in Duluth.

Let us know if you'd like a copy of our film "Sing a New Song" (DVD or VHS).

We will hold you in prayer as you discern
God's will for you.

Where Should You Begin? The Discernment Process

We all began our journey to St. Scholastica Monastery in somewhat the same way as you, seeking information that would help us discern what God wished for our lives.

Like you, we responded to a call from God, one heard in different ways, at different times. We were all different ages; we came from different places. Some of us knew when we were quite young that we wanted to be a Sister, a "nun." Others of us heard the first whisper of that call while in college or beginning a career. Still others of us were older and knew something was missing in our otherwise successful lives.

Our discernment led us to the monastic life, led us to St. Scholastica Monastery to follow the Gospel and the ideals set down in the Rule of St. Benedict. Our discernment led us to this Monastery to live in this Community under the guidance of a Prioress.

How have you heard the call from God?

And what are you going to do about it?

The Inquiry Stage - How Do You Know What God Wishes for You?

The Inquiry stage is the first step in the discernment process, a time for you to gather information about the monastic life in general and St. Scholastica Monastery in particular if you are interested in becoming a Duluth Benedictine.

During this time of initial discernment we encourage single Catholic women to get in touch with us, to visit us, to talk with us about our lives as Benedictines. We expect that you would be at least 21 years old, without dependents.

And if you aren't yet 21, we certainly hope you will begin the discernment process by getting in touch with us, by staying in touch with us, by letting us help you in whatever way we can as you discern where God is leading you.

During this inquiry stage you would continue to ask the guidance of the Holy Spirit as you read articles and books to deepen your knowledge about Benedictine life and Benedictine values. Perhaps you could make a retreat at our Monastery or visit at a time best for you.

And if what you learn speaks to your heart, if what you hear is an echo of God's call, if in discernment with the Vocation Director you believe you should take the next step, we would invite you to request affiliation with our Benedictine Community.

The Affiliate Stage - Taking the First Step

The Affiliate stage is a pre-formation period designed to help you discern your suitability for religious life and, in particular, your vocation to Benedictine monastic life.

During this second stage of discernment you would visit us in Duluth to experience the monastic rhythm of our life. How often you visit and how long you stay will depend in part on where you live. If you are a distance from the Monastery, travel assistance may be possible.

During this Affiliate stage, you would maintain your own living arrangements and job/school, whatever it is you are doing, but you would be encouraged to be in close contact with the Sisters you would get to know. You would have our encouragement and prayerful support as you listen to God's voice speaking to you.

You would pray with us, share meals with us, get to know us, and we would be blessed in getting to know you.

You would continue to read articles and books about Benedictine life and spirituality and talk with us about what you've learned, to ask us questions, to share your insights with us, and allow us to share ours with you.

Because you are unique, your call to religious life is also unique, as is your process of discernment. Thus the Affiliate Stage would last no less than six months or more than two years as you and the Affiliate Director prayerfully assess your potential to live the monastic life.

And when you and the Affiliate Director discern that you are ready for the next step, you would ask to become a Postulant.

Here we should also say that if you and other Sisters who have walked the discernment journey with you decide God has other plans for you, our prayers would follow you and include the wish that you remain in touch with us even though you would not become a vowed member of our Community.

It is important that you remember that the Inquiry and Affiliate stages of the discernment process should be filled with joy, not fear or concern, because nothing is asked of you except that you listen to God's voice and follow where this leads you. The only commitment you would make during this time is to yourself, a commitment to remain open to the working of the Spirit within you.

The Postulancy - Entering St. Scholastica Monastery

The word "postulant" may be new to you as it was for most of us before we came to the Monastery. From the Latin postulare, meaning "to ask," a postulant was originally one who made a request, hence, a candidate. Today the word "postulant" refers primarily to a person asking for admission into a monastery, and "postulancy" refers to the period of time preceding her admission into the Novitiate.

Sisters praying together in the Chapel

St. Benedict says that the first thing necessary for anyone wishing to enter a monastic community is that she truly seeks God.

Our Benedictine Community would receive and welcome you during a simple Rite of Entry in Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel before Evening Prayer.

You would be given the Liturgy of the Hours prayer books, a medal of St. Benedict, and an apron, all of which symbolize commitment to the Benedictine life of prayer, community, and work.

The Postulancy is a time for you to transition into the life of Benedictine monastic women. You would live at the Monastery, although you retain your personal money and possessions. You would participate in the prayer life of our Community, work at assigned tasks, and enjoy leisure time with us. Part of your time would be spent in classes pertaining to Benedictine monastic life. The Postulant Director would be your spiritual guide and mentor during this time.

All of us were once postulants, and we remember being caught up in the beauty of the Liturgy of the Hours (the Divine Office), the official prayer of the Church, when we joined the Community for Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, and Evening Prayer, as well as for the celebration of the Eucharist at noon. We are still caught up in that beauty of liturgy, and we know you would be, too.

 

You would be a postulant for not less than six months or more than two years. The length of time would depend on your discernment and that of the Postulant Director as to your readiness for entrance into the novitiate. During your time as a postulant you would take classes in Scripture, Benedictine spirituality, and the history of monasticism.

Great East Window — Chapel / Library Complex

You could spend time in the Eucharistic Chapel doing your lectio divina (sacred reading) as you grow in your personal relationship with God. You might want to join a small group of Sisters to pray the rosary; you might want to make the Stations of the Cross in Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel.

You might want to walk the Stations of the Cross along the road to Gethsemane, the Monastery cemetery on our back campus, alone or with some of us.

You would enjoy the times and places of silence throughout the day when God can speak to your heart. And you would look forward, as we do, to our days of prayer and reflection, usually the last Sunday of the month, when there is such silence, such stillness in the Monastery that time and place become more sacred with the presence of God.

And when you and your Director discern that you are ready to take the next step, you would begin the application process to enter the Monastery Novitiate.

Each step of the discernment process should draw you more deeply into our monastic Community; each step should challenge you to a deeper relationship with God. And each step is made only when you are ready to do so.

The Novitiate - Your Life as a Novice

If you request and are then invited by the Community to enter the Novitiate, a date is set for the Rite of Entry. You would participate in a retreat prior to your entrance into the Novitiate, a quiet time of freeing yourself from all worldly concerns, of opening yourself fully to the loving God who has called you forth.

When you are received into the Novitiate, you would be given the title "Sister" and either keep your own baptismal name or choose the name of one of your special saints.

The length of the Novitiate is twelve consecutive months as prescribed by Canon Law. It is a sacred time of deeper immersion into the monastic Community, a sacred blending of prayer, reflection, solitude, leisure, and work, a time to study the Rule of St. Benedict and monastic profession. The Novice Director is your guide during this Novitiate year as together you continue the discernment process.

You remain at the Monastery during your Novitiate year, developing a deeper relationship with God, getting to know your Sisters in Community, learning the monastic rhythm of our Benedictine life.

You'll hear the great bell ring in the Chapel bell tower, calling you to prayer, listen to the singing of the Community during the Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist. And in small wonder-filled ways, you'll listen to the quiet voice of God speaking to your heart.

There will be difficult days, as there are in any life, times of struggle we all have experienced. But we know God is with us, that our Sisters hold us in prayer, and that makes all the difference.

We tell you this because we know this, because we have made this journey of discernment ourselves.

We know you'll watch the early morning sun rise splendid over Lake Superior, and with us you'll marvel how each rising is different from the last. We know your day will be full to overflowing, brimming with prayer and work and maybe even time for a long walk along the Monastery roads or perhaps along the paths that meander through the woods.

We know you'll watch the sun set over the back campus, see the trees that edge the hillside darken with the coming of night. Perhaps you'll play cards with some of your Sisters, or Scrabble, or table tennis. Perhaps you'll read the newspaper or visit with your Sister friends. Perhaps you'll make one more visit to Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel before it is time for sleep.

With us you'll mark the liturgical seasons as we move through the colors and music and readings of the Church year. Together we'll mark the beautiful cycle of the seasons as golden summer gives way to fiery autumn, to white of winter, to spring of new green.

We know you'll watch the coming of each season with new eyes, experience this sacred time with a new heart, for it is God Who calls you, draws you, holds you.

Throughout this time of Novitiate you will know the loving support of all of us, your Benedictine Sisters in Community. We will pray with you and for you, we will mark the seasons of God's time with you as you and your Novice Director discern your readiness to enter into deeper commitment through First Monastic Profession.

First Monastic Profession

Your next response to God's call is formally initiated through the ceremony of First Monastic Profession when you promise stability, fidelity to the monastic way of life, and obedience, a commitment in which you intensify your baptismal commitment and enter into a covenant with our Benedictine Community.

The duration of First Monastic Profession—a three to six-year period—is a time of fuller immersion in the Benedictine way of life, a time for you to deepen your spirituality, a time to study the Rule of St. Benedict and Monastic Profession, a time when you become more fully integrated into our Community here at St. Scholastica Monastery.

Your work in Community—your ministry—will be determined by you and the Prioress, based on your education, your experience, your talents, and the needs of the Community. We are college professors and catechists, health care administrators and writers, spiritual directors and photographers, secretaries and students, painters and potters, hospital chaplains and grade school teachers.

We visit the homebound, serve meals to those in need, we direct retreats and work in daycare, are consultants in chapel design and liturgy. We sponsor a college and a health care system. We plant beans and potatoes, pull rhubarb for pies.

We are whatever God calls us to be; we respond with open hearts and willing hands to whatever God sets before us.

Click on Photo for Video Segment

Sister Teri Spinler
"Prayer, work, and leisure - I have to say to have that balance has been a struggle all my life..."

During this grace-filled time you will continue the process of growth and formation in the monastic way of life. During this time you will strive to live a balanced life of prayer, work, and leisure, a challenge each of us faces throughout our lives.

You will continue to discern God's will for you for at least three years, and when you and the Formation Director decide it is time, you will take the final step and request to make your Perpetual Monastic Profession.

 

Perpetual Monastic Profession

Should God call you to Perpetual Monastic Profession, you would promise what we have promised—

Stability - a promise of fidelity to the monastic way of life in this Benedictine Community, at this Monastery, to be deeply rooted in this Community, this place, for the rest of your life -

Fidelity to the Monastic Way of Life - a promise to the daily seeking of God, a commitment to the continuing process of growth and formation in the monastic way of life as determined by the Rule of St. Benedict, the norms of the Federation of St. Benedict, and the living tradition of this Community -

Obedience - a promise to listen to the voice of the Spirit in Scripture, in the Rule of St. Benedict, in the Prioress of the Community, in one another, in the Spirit within yourself, in events in human history -

Poverty and celibate chastity in the Benedictine tradition are included in the cenobitic monastic way of life.

This is the threefold promise you will make at your Perpetual Monastic Profession, and we are the women with whom you will live out that commitment.

We are Benedictine monastic women of great faith, women of quiet courage and gentle strength who have stepped into the 1500-year continuum of the Benedictine tradition with great respect for the past, reverence for the present, and eagerness to respond to the future.

We are women who strive daily to live the Gospel values and who cherish our Benedictine charisms of community, stewardship, and hospitality.

We are the women who would pray with you, work with you, be silent before God with you. We are the women who will be your Sisters, your friends, your companions on the journey.

And with your Perpetual Monastic Profession, you will rejoice that this commitment is for life, that this is where you belong, that this is the place God has fashioned for you.

And when you walk the back campus in a field of daisies in the summer or watch the snow fall gently in the Garden Court

 

--when you see the faces of your Sisters in the chapel or the dining room

--when you feel the gentle breeze through the window during your time of quiet solitude

--when you ride your bike or walk the shoreline of Lake Superior

--when you respond to the challenge of your ministry

--when you hear the bell calling you to prayer

--when you chant the "Benedictus" at Morning Prayer, the Magnificat" at night

--when you laugh with your Sisters and weep when they die

       

You will know that you have become part of our history, that you belong in our present, that you will be our future.

Click on Photo for Video Segment

Sister Joan Marie Stelman
“When I think about my life now and how it’s changed since before I entered, I realize that I’m happier now than I ever have been in my life.”

 

In this you may hear the echo of St. Paul's words to the Corinthians, "For all things are yours, whether it be . . . the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

 

 

For information about becoming a member
of our monastic Community, to arrange a
visit (travel scholarships are available), or
for a copy of our film "Sing a New Song,"
contact:

Sister Mary Catherine Shambour, OSB
St. Scholatica Monastery
1001 Kenwood Avenue, Duluth, MN   55811
mcshambour@duluthosb.org
(218) 723-6646

  
   —Sister Mary Catherine
   Director of Vocation Ministry

"Sing a new song unto the Lord,
let your song be sung
from mountains high -
Sing a new song unto the Lord,
singing 'alleluia'!"