August 26- September 1, 2018
 
"To quicken a festival in the innermost heart"
 
These words come from Roger Schütz, popularly known as Brother Roger, the Swiss monastic who in 1940 founded the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France, and served as its first prior until his death in 2005. 
 
Brother Stuart, of Mucknell Abbey, an Anglican Benedictine monastery in Worcestershire, will lead the 2018 Canterbury pilgrimage, structuring a series of meditations and discussions around Brother Roger's intuition of a new beginning. Brother Roger envisioned  "a springtime for the church,  a Church devoid of means of power, ready to share with all; a place of visible communion for all humanity."
 
Of course, if it is to be a true springtime, it can only come after a winter, which entails a stripping away to what is essential.
 
Brother Stuart's sessions exploring this vision and its meaning for each of us will fit within the rhythms of Canterbury Cathedral, a universal place of pilgrimage. Participants will live the daily cycle of prayer at the cathedral, from Matins to Evensong, while honoring the Benedictine framework by including times each day for manual work, study, silence and community.
 
A Benedictine Experience is neither a silent retreat, nor a seminar, though it contains elements of both. It is a time to step back, but also a time to step into an ancient rhythm, living within a framework that has for 1500 years fostered balance and sanity in times of turmoil.
 
Mucknell Abbey is made up of professed monks and nuns, novices, and 'alongsiders', who live with the community, perhaps to explore a possible monastic vocation or simply to experience the monastic life for a time.  
A large part of the ethos of the community is ecological sustainability.
More information and registration.

Holy Cross Monastery
West Park, NY
March 13 - 16, 2018

The Rule of St. Benedict has, for more than 1400 years, guided communities and their leaders in how to seek and serve God, to be formed and transformed in the image of God as they live their daily lives in community. Today there is growing interest in applying this framework in a variety of work settings. We will consider how Benedictine virtues such as listening, humility, balance, and the dignity of work can enable us to live in community and to lead in community. In an era that seems to value self-promotion and the carefully crafted online profile, we will explore how true self- knowledge can inform healthy leadership and a community life that supports growth for all its members.

The Benedictine Experience offers the opportunity to live the rhythm of Benedictine life and experience its distinctive balance of time spent in prayer, study, work, rest, and community. We will pray alongside the monks for the full round of the daily offices and be in silence for most of our time. Daily conferences led by Holy Cross brothers will focus on how the cycle of monastic offices as outlined by St. Benedict help us to “hallow time.” 

Each day we will also spend time engaged in practical or manual work and in private study or reflection. After Compline each evening, we will enter the Great Silence until after breakfast the next morning. This time spent fully living into the monastic rhythm of life will, we hope, inculcate Benedictine values of listening, humility, silence, and hospitality, and help us to find a way to reorder our everyday lives. More information and registration.