My dear family,
I am writing with some very good news to share - next month I will be tonsured to the little schema. The abbess and the elders have decided it is the time for me to take my vows and become a full nun. This is very exciting for me, as it is something I have long hoped for. It is in truth a wedding, and as with any wedding, it is both the culmination of years spent in developing a relationship as well as the beginning of a new life.
It was 1964. I was a sixteen-year-old city girl growing up in Detroit, Michigan. Life before me seemed full of endless possibilities. My high school was hosting the yearly career day and the choices were vast and exciting. I could be whatever I chose.
Reality reaches into mystery
tugging on an apron's string
Knotted round about your fleshy waist.
We are bound but boundless.
Come along.
The first seven nuns who eventually formed our community of Nuns of New Skete were originally Roman Catholic contemplatives of the Poor Clare Monastery in Evansville, Indiana. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1964) monastic women and men all over the world were encouraged to study the origins of their foundations, to examine the animating vision of their communities in the light of monastic principles and practices, and to reflect on the demands of life today. Such a call was long overdue.
Dear Editors:
Thank you for your letter and the issue and articles of the St. Nina Quarterly. I enjoyed reading them all.
Please subscribe me to the journal.
I was raised Greek Orthodox
Teva: First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time for this interview and sharing your thoughts with the readers of The St. Nina Quarterly. You are originally from Kansas and came to Boston to pursue graduate studies in education at Harvard University. While in Boston, you were received into the Orthodox Church. Would you tell us about your journey to the Church, what attracted you to Orthodoxy.
Teva: First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time for this interview and sharing your thoughts with the readers of the St. Nina Quarterly. You grew up in the Church and for a time worked as a social worker prior to entering the monastery. How did you choose the monastic life?
If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me (Matt. 19:21).
According to his Life, when St. Antony (d. 356) heard these words from the Gospel, he sold what he owned and left for the desert to devote his entire life to Christ. Throughout the history of the Church countless men and women, like St. Antony, have felt called to a life totally devoted to God, renouncing the desire for worldly possessions and embracing a life of celibacy, prayer, and ascetic struggle.
In her book, Come, Follow Me, Mother Cassiana, now abbess of the Holy Protection Monastery in Lake George, Colorado, tells of her own spiritual journey that led her to Romania in 1984. Mother Cassiana spent a year living at Varatec women's monastery at a time when the country was still under communist rule and atheism was the only legal belief system. Varatec monastery, home to over 350 nuns of all ages, is nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, only a few miles away from Agapia monastery, where another 350 or so nuns live, work, and pray.
In the time of the ancient Church fathers, people asked many theological questions. One of them was, "Since God did not want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, why did he plant it in the middle of Paradise in the first place?" It could seem as if God was setting a trap for the first human beings, something that would trip them up to make them get in trouble so they could be punished. Sometimes people make rules that work like this, but God never acts this way. His purposes are always good, never deceptive or malicious.
It is early on a Wednesday morning. A mother wakes her children for school. A young man takes leave of his family for his entrance into the armed forces. A grandfather of seven kisses his wife as he is wheeled into the operating room. A businessman and father embarks on his daily commute in rush hour traffic. His young wife awaits results of a biopsy. The priest in the monastery church lifts the gold chalice and paten saying, "Your own of Your own we offer to You, on behalf of all and for all." Twelve nuns prostrate on the floor. Their pleated
