Category: Formation

Dr. Susan Garrett, Dean of Louisville Seminary and professor of New Testament, is at New Melleray today and tomorrow to give us four conferences titled “Keep Awake: The Trials of Jesus and their Meaning for Christian Discipleship.”

The four individual conferences are:

• Trials of faith in early Judaism and Christianity
• The temptations of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel
• The Angel of Gethsemane
• Disciples on Trial

Dr. Susan Renninger Garrett is Professor of New Testament at Louisville Seminary with a specialized interest in the Gospels and how they reflect the world view and theology of biblical authors. Early Judaism, including apocalyptic thinking, is also a particular specialty.

Dr. Garrett joined the faculty at Louisville Seminary in 1995. She says that her years at the seminary have influenced a shift to writing for the church as well as for the academy. Some of her published works include The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Fortress, 1989), The Temptations of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (Eerdmans, 1998), Making Time for God: Daily Devotions for Children and Families to Share (Baker Book House, 2002; co-authored with LPTS professor Amy Plantinga Pauw), and No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus (Yale University Press, 2008). Dr. Garrett also serves as a Bible consultant for Oxford Press.

Prof. Garrett became Dean of Louisville Seminary in June of 2012.

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

C. 58 – Continuing Formation

After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

Dr. Charles Franklin is a professor of law and public policy as the Director of the Marquette Law School Poll. He is at New Melleray today us two conferences related to opinion polling. The morning session pertains to the history and evolution of opinion polling in the United States while the evening session covers the more detailed mechanics of how opinion polling takes place today.

Dr. Franklin received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. He has been the director of the Marquette Law School Poll since its inception in 2012 and became a full-time member of the faculty in 2013. Prior to joining the Marquette faculty, Franklin was a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison beginning in 1992.

In 2005 Franklin co-founded Pollster.com, an award winning website for the analysis of polling data. The site received the Warren J. Mitofsky Innovators Award in 2006 from the American Association for Public Opinion Research, was featured in the New York Times Magazine’s Year in Ideas of 2007, was cited by data graphics author Edward Tufte for best visualization of the 2008 election and by Time magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites in 2008. In 2010 the Huffington Post acquired Pollster.

Dr. Franklin has been a member of the ABC News election night analysis team since 2002.

from Rule of St. Benedict : Chapter 3. Summoning the Brothers for Counsel

As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain what the business is; and after hearing the advice of the brothers, let him ponder it and follow what he judges the wiser course. . . . If less important business of the monastery is to be transacted, he shall take counsel with the seniors only, as it is written: Do everything with counsel and you will not be sorry afterward (Sir 32:24).

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

C. 58 – Continuing Formation

After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

Dr. David Brakke is the Joe R. Engle Chair in the History of Christianity and Professor of History at The Ohio State University. He is at New Melleray today and tomorrow to give us four conferences related to early monasticism in the Egyptian desert.

The specific topics are:

• Reading the New Testament and Transforming the Self in Evagrius
• Ethiopian Demons and Monks: Black Skin and the Self in Early Monastic Literature
• The Rediscovery of a Leading Coptic Monk: Shenoute of Atripe
• Discernment of Spirits Among Early Egyptian Monks

Dr. Brakke received the B.A. in English from the University of Virginia (1983), M.Div. from Harvard University (1986), and Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University (1992). Professor Brakke studies and teaches the history and literature of ancient Christianity from its origins through the fifth century, with special interests in asceticism, monasticism, “Gnosticism,” biblical interpretation, and Egyptian Christianity. He is currently a member of an international team of scholars that is producing the first unified critical edition and translation of the works of Shenoute of Atripe (ca.348-465), the leader of a large monastic community in Upper Egypt and the greatest native writer of Coptic.

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

C. 58 – Continuing Formation

After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

Dr. Steve Cone is an Associate Professor of Theology at Lincoln Christian University. He came to New Melleray today to give us two conferences on Bernard Lonergan. The first conference is titled “Bernard Lonergan and the Nature of Spiritual Progress” and was given to us this evening. The second conference, “Humility and the Ordo Amoris” will be presented to us tomorrow morning.

Dr. Cone received his PhD in Systematic Theology from Boston College. He earned two Masters degrees from Lincoln Christian Seminary and did his undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written three books. In the mid-1990s he participated in Youth With a Mission in Ireland and from 2004-2007 he was a missionary to the Czech Republic.

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

C. 58 – Continuing Formation

Dr. Michaela Hoenicke Moore is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Iowa. Today she gave us two conferences regarding the political and intellectual context of American popular and official conceptions of Nazi Germany. The first conference, “How Americans Understood Nazism and Why it Matters”, was a national level view of how Americans perceived and responded to the Nazi regime and the corresponding view of the German people relative to the Nazis. The second conference, “A Sense of Belonging: Citizenship and Political Commitments of Three German-American Women”, was a more personal level consideration of the morning conference through case studies of particular individuals and their decisions and activities before, during, and after World War II.

Dr. Hoenicke Moore received her PhD from the University of North Carolina in 1998. Before joining University of Iowa History department in 2008, she taught US history at the Kennedy Institute of the Free University in Berlin and York University in Toronto, as well as transatlantic history as a DAAD visiting professor at the University of North Carolina. Between 1999 and 2001 she worked as a senior fellow in US Foreign Policy at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of US foreign policy, transnational history, international relations and history and theory.

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance
C. 58 – Continuing Formation
After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

Dr. Marsha Dutton, Executive Editor of Cistercian Publications, is visiting New Melleray this week. This evening Dr. Dutton agreed to give us a conference on St. Aelred titled “God’s Enduring Loving-Kindness in ‘A Certain Wonderful Miracle.’” “A Certain Wonderful Miracle” is a story by St. Aelred more commonly known as “The Nun of Watton.” Dr. Dutton shared new insights and understandings from St. Aelred’s story and demonstrated her ability to unite lectio divina and scholarship to glean deep insights from the writing of this beloved Cistercian father.

Dr. Dutton is a faculty member in the English Department at Ohio University and a longtime student of the works of Aelred of Rievaulx and of other twelfth-century Cistercian writers. In addition to her many articles on Cistercian thought, Dr. Dutton has written the introduction to Vita Aelredi (CF 57) and edited Aelred’s The Historical Works and Lives of the Northern Saints (CF 56, 71) as well as preparing a critical edition of Aelred’s Pastoral Prayer (CF 73). She was one of the editors of Truth as Gift: Studies in Cistercian History Honoring John R. Sommerfeldt (CS 204). While visiting New Melleray this week she agreed to give us a conference this evening on St. Aelred of Rievaulx.

Since 1968 Cistercian Publications has been publishing books in monastic history and spirituality, reaching backward into the Desert Fathers and forward into the experiences of twentieth- and twenty-first century laypeople, monks and nuns, and priests. Our initial goal was to provide English translations of treatises and sermons by early Cistercian writers and other Fathers and Mothers of the church, to benefit those who cannot easily read these work in the original languages. Over the years we have expanded into contemporary scholarly and spiritual writing.

Cistercian Publications works appear in three series: Cistercian Fathers (translations of works by Cistercian authors, both men and women), Cistercian Studies (scholarly works and translations of non-Cistercian authors such as the Venerable Bede, Æthelwold, and Gregory), and Monastic Wisdom (works encouraging spiritual exploration and growth).

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance
C. 58 – Continuing Formation
After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

Dr. Brian Donovan teaches US History and Disability Studies at Kirkwood Community College, Coe College, and the University of Iowa. Today and tomorrow he will be giving us two lectures on “The Mis-Measure of Man: The History of Disability from the Middle Ages to the Present.” The first conference is “Like Clockwork: From Medieval to Early Modern Ideas About the Body (1100-1700).” The second conference is “Shell Shock: The Limits of the Mechanical Body (1800-Present).” The conferences will cover the historical evolution of our understanding of the body from physical, philosophical, spiritual, and communal perspectives.

Dr. Donovan earned a Master’s Degree in History from Yale University and a PhD in History from the University of Iowa. He is currently revising his dissertation, The Harder Heroism of the Hospital: Union Army Veterans and the Creation of Disability, 1862-1910, for publication. His most recent publication is “Like Monkeys at the Zoo: Politics and the Performance of Disability at the Iowa Soldiers’ Home, 1887-1910”, which received an honorable mention for the Mildred Throne/Charles Aldrich Award for “the most significant article on Iowa history in a professional history journal in the previous calendar year,” presented by Governor Terry Branstad in 2013.

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

C. 58 – Continuing Formation
After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

Our Junior Master attended the 2016 Monastic Institute at St. John’s in Collegeville, MN. The program opened on July 3rd and concluded on July 7th. Sessions included: “Where We Have Been – Where We Are Going: Today’s Context for Monastic Profession”, “Monastic Profession: A Call to Conversatio in the Rule of Benedict”, and “Monastic Profession as a Way to Fullness in Christ”.

from Ratio Institutionis 5 – Monasticate

38. It is the task of the director of juniors to accompany those in his or her care as they pass from the relatively segregated regimen of the novitiate to their own distinctive mode of sharing in the life of the community. The director reviews with them their experience of monastic living in the community, prayer, vocation, the vows, study, work and the acceptance of responsibilities. Because the monasticate is such a critical time of growth, it is important that the juniors receive understanding, acceptance and encouragement from the director, as well as being challenged by him.

Dr. Todd Green, Associate Professor of Religion at Luther College in Decorah, IA, delivered two lectures to us on the topic of “Islamaphobia”. The first conference was titled “Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Islamaphobia” and the second was titled “Why We Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism.”

from Constitutions and Statutes: of the Monks and Nuns of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance
C. 58 – Continuing Formation
After solemn profession and throughout their lives, the brothers continue to learn “the philosophy of Christ”. Continuing formation is to be made available to the whole community … based on the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian patrimony and is to draw from the riches of biblical, patristic, liturgical, theological and spiritual sciences.

The Spring Semester of the academic year is over but studies continue at New Melleray.  

Today the “Junior Studies” program got underway with Br. Charles’ first Christology class given by Fr. Ephrem.

Fr. Mark will be giving a Scripture class to Br. Charles and Sr. Mary Therese of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey as well.

Another brother has begun an online Church History course.  A third brother will be spending a month at Creighton this summer for the third and final installment of a three-year program in spiritual direction.

Organ, guitar, and singing lessons also continue for several brothers.

from Ratio Institutionis

41- Communities are to be generous in providing time to juniors for classes and personal studies. 

42 – The core courses of the monastic curriculum are: Sacred Scripture, Cistercian Patrimony, Philosophy, Systematic Theology, Moral Theology, Patrology, and Liturgy. … Other courses in some of the following subjects may also be offered: Methodology, Church History, Theology of Monastic Life, Spirituality, History of Religions, Canon Law, and the various human sciences. 

51- After solemn profession, monks and nuns are to be encouraged to engage in the personal study of a particular interest, or to engage in some technical specialization in the area of manual work or in some form of artistic creation.