Communio Calling
Communio Calling
Towards Jubilee
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In 2029, the international Benedictine world celebrates a Jubilee of Benedictine Life — 1500 years since St Benedict founded his monastery at Montecassino in 529 AD. The spiritual preparation for the jubilee begins this year, following the stages of St Benedict's life.
In 2026, the theme "Awaken in Norcia" invites us to begin the celebration with joy and thanksgiving.
In this episode, host Gabrielle Sinclair is joined in conversation with Sr Kym Harris osb, Benedictine Sister and writer, living at the Benedictine Monastery of the Transfiguration in Tanby, Queensland.
As the Australian Benedictine Union's nominated promoter for the jubilee, she shares her hopes for the journey and the importance of our Australian communities coming together as we look towards the future of Benedictine life.
Welcome to Good Samaritan Education's podcast, Communio Calling. My name's Gabrielle Sinclair, and I'll be your host. Today's conversation is the beginning of a four-year journey towards the Benedictine Jubilee of 2029. Our guest today is the Australian Benedictine Union's nominated promoter for the Jubilee, Kim Harris. Kim Harris is a Benedictine sister who grew up in Sydney. She joined the Benedictines in 1975. She went on to study theology in Melbourne with a lifelong fascination of the history of women in monastic life. Since 2002, she's lived in the Benedictine Monastery of the Transfiguration in Tanby, near Yapoon in Central Australia. She's the author of Prayers You Can and for over 10 years has been writing Casting the Net, a weekly reflection for school newsletters, both through the Catholic Education Office of Rockhampton. So let me introduce you if you're not already acquainted with Kim Harris as we talk through all things Jubilee. Kim, it is lovely to have you here in our wonderful community of Caminio Calling. And I'm pleased to be here. Well, we always love telling stories, and that's how we usually start because we're very much grounded in story and honouring the fabric of our connection and who we are, our incarnational reality and the expression of our diversity. So story is a great place to start. So I wonder if you wouldn't mind sharing us a bit about your own story, the influences and family growing up, and perhaps where you first encountered Benedictine life and you know the journey from there.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, I am a Sydney girl, and as somebody said once, once you're a Sydney person, you're always a Sydney person. Doesn't matter where you live. But I honestly can say I couldn't live back in Sydney now. I grew up in a large Catholic family. I was born in 1955, so you've got the idea pre-Vatican II church, moving into Vatican II. I can vaguely remember the Latin, but English has been my language within the church. I grew up in a large family and both my parents were small business people. And when I was four, my mother started a nursing home, an aged care facility. That doesn't sound like a small business. Oh, it grew. When she first started, she started with a very small one of 15 beds, and then she moved into another one. Then when I was about eight or nine, the relative of the Benedictine nuns at Pennant Hills, who had no extended family here in Australia, needed to go into care. And it turns out the woman did not want to go into a nursing home run by nuns. She had her own little history. So the nuns at Pennant Hills went through the telephone book and were going down the names and they came across Cabrini. And they thought, well, that must be Catholic in some way. So that's how I first encountered them, that they didn't go out, you know, they were in closed order, but they did go out for this woman. They would come in to visit her at the nursing home. And that's when I got to know the community.
SPEAKER_02And for our listeners, the community at Pennant Hills, most people would know them now as the Jamboreo nuns. So they at that time were at Pennant Hills.
SPEAKER_01Yes. That's right. So one of the things that happened when I was growing up is sometimes Mum would have people in the nursing home who were going to death but were not at peace with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01She would ring up the nuns and ask them to pray. And invariably the people would come to some sort of peaceful resolution before they died. And that had a great impact on me. When I was about eight or nine, I actually said I was going to become a Benedictine. And, you know, the pious things that often Catholic girls said. And I kept it up for a few years. And I used to write to the nuns and I told them that and went on. And then when I was about 13 or 14, that all fell away. Then after school, I went to university and studied aquaculture. And I might start by saying I was literally carried into school, kicking and screaming at the age of five. And my attitude to school did not change in the next 13 years. I loathed school, but I loved university. It was like the sunrise in the sky.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's different ways of learning. People just fit in in different ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Exactly. But I did not have deep peace of heart. I had something niggling me at the bottom. And somehow or other, God sort of pushed me hard and said, basically go and try the Benedictines or join the Benedictines. Well, I couldn't have been more surprised, and nobody else could have been. So at the end of second year, I deferred for the next year. I had every intention of staying six months in the monastery and then I would leave. I did not go and do an aspiracy. I did not know what I was letting myself in for. When I did, it was, to say it mildly, a profound shock. I came from a very wild family, and this was polar opposite. I found it difficult for many years, but I had peace of heart. And that's the only reason why I didn't leave. So that stuck me there. And it took a number of years to come to the realization that this life is actually the best one for me. It's got this good mixture of prayer, of solitude, of being with other people. There's scope to do intellectual work, which I enjoy. There's scope to do artistic work. So it had all of these mixtures. So I found the life for me to be very holistic. I am a high introvert. So the amount of time by myself, the choir, suits me down to the T. So that's how I ended up in the monastery and how I stayed. Now I was at Pennant Hills for about eight years, and our community helped with a group of religious women in Melbourne. And I went down to Melbourne and was in a much smaller community. I honestly, when I joined Pennant Hills, I expected to stay in that monastery for the rest of my life, living the same type of life. Well, God's had other ideas. So I went to Melbourne and it was a much smaller community. And I say I think I grew up there in the smaller community.
SPEAKER_02How many were in the community at Pennant Hills when you joined?
SPEAKER_01When I joined, there were 42. Yeah, right. Wow. So down in Melbourne, we were smaller, we ended up with just being two. And then since then, I've actually moved up when the community in Queensland had a bit of illness and shaky and came up here. And again, I'm just in a community of two. But one of the nuns that I live with up here said, even though the external of the life has changed, she said, and I say, we joined for a life of prayer, and that's what we've got. So that's my part of my personal journey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you. Now going back to your wild family, it's always lovely to hear where do you fit into your family? Where do you rank in the in the number? I'm the second eldest and the eldest girl. Aha, wonderful. Yeah. It's always lovely to hear how position sometimes really it's a factor in how you navigate life, I think.
SPEAKER_01It absolutely is. My mother had a lot of illness on and off when we were growing up. And my father was a mushroom farmer and he was an excellent father. You know, like I have friends say, Oh, I never saw dad do anything around the house. And I'm thinking, what was wrong with them? Because my father did. But my father worked very hard and he expected a meal on the table when he got home. So I learned to cook very early and I learned to be quite capable. So if I have a fault in that area, I've got to learn to not step in and say, Yes, I'll do it. I've got to step back and say, leave it for somebody else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think elder children in families probably all have that aspect of them. They're just ready to fix what needs fixing and do what needs doing. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your journey. And it's lovely to hear how story paves the way and our own stories give us the platform for whatever comes next. Let's talk Jubilee.
SPEAKER_00I notice you've got the question here is how did I get this role? To use the saying, I didn't move fast enough.
SPEAKER_01You didn't step back fast enough. Exactly. I was over at the Benedictine Union meeting in Unausea and Sister Catherine, you know, the leader of the Good Sam's was there. And the issue of the Jubilee came up and they said, Well, we need a promoter. Well, I'm living up in central Queensland, happily out of the loop. Lovely fulfilling life here. Thank you very much. And Catherine said, I think, Kim, would you like to do it? And I remember sitting there thinking, I have no reason to give to not do it. Other than it would be that I didn't want to have to do the work. And I didn't have a clue what it would entail. Well, and I guess that's still evolving, really, isn't it? Look, it's wonderful how it is evolving. So it was one of these things. I said yes, I came home, I had a lot on my plate, so I let it sit in the background. So one of the things I found in my life is that God will often show me the direction in something very small. It'll be like sitting there and thinking, it's okay. And then it opens up. But I don't jump in, I sit back and I wait till it bubbles along and bubbles along and bubbles. And I keep having phone calls from Jules saying, How are things going? And going, hi, how are things going?
unknownHi.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's tell our audience a bit of background. So the Jubilee will be in 2029. And it's a jubilee for the Benedictine world. We're marking the year 529. Benedict founding the Abbey at Monte Cassino, where tradition says he completed the writing of his rule. So in 2029, with a theme of places of hope since 529, we will celebrate 1,500 years of Benedictine life. And you've been given this role to help promote it in Australia.
SPEAKER_01We revere St. Benedict and his teaching, and rightly so. But what we have actually had is 1,500 years of communities in very different situations, wildly different situations, having this faithfulness to the rule of St. Benedict. And that's what I feel that this Jubilee is not so much a celebration of Benedict as a celebration of the faithfulness of the communities. So if you look at something like Australia, which we wouldn't think, oh well, we're at the other end of the world, you know, we wouldn't have a lot going on here. We have the Good Samaritan sisters with their active lifestyle. We have the Cistercian monks, the Benedictine monks in two different places, the nuns of Jambaroo, the Sisters in Tyburn, and even a very small Anglican community, even smaller than ours. So even in this country, we have diverse lifestyles, but when we come together, we know we have the same heart. I see this period of time as one of yes, we're looking at how St. Benedict lived, but we're also looking at how our communities live. And under those themes that they have there, we can actually look at what is happening in our own communities, that faithfulness over the years, faithfulness over 1500 years, and faithfulness for whatever years our own communities have been going.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It's a really a celebration of Benedictine life in all its forms. And I think, you know, sometimes when people look up Benedictine life, they kind of see this very particular model, but not understand the difference and the scope and places that have had Benedictine life and the rule this having this flexible nature that it can be lived out in so many different ways and in so many different places across the world.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. In this parish here, they opened up a new Catholic primary school. For the name, the bishop left it to the parish to decide. And the parishioners wanted to call it St. Benedict's because they were so impressed with the way the nuns had lived. Well, the woman who was becoming APRE, when she first heard that, rolled her eyes and thought, oh my God, another school named after a dead Catholic male saint. But she took it on, and they have actually shaped a whole philosophy of how their school operates. She has this program of the gifts and St. Benedict, which they do every year. It's sort of part of their RE, but it is soaked right down into the way the children live. So they don't have school rules, they have the gifts of St. Benedict. And if someone isn't doing what they should do, kids will say to another, oh, that's not living community. That's not living peace. So this rule has actually translated into being a fundamental spirituality of a primary school up in central Queensland. I'm sure Benedict never expected that.
SPEAKER_02No, I don't think Benedict would expect it half the conversations that go on based around the seed that he planted many, many years ago now. So the invitation of this, do you believe, really, is then to continue these conversations to share and to find out all of the different ways that it is flourishing across the world and celebrate. And I think it's an opportunity to reconnect as well.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And the different communities around Australia are starting now to think, okay, well, how can we do this? So over in Eunocia, they have a very gifted musician there, and she's got a wonderful, ambitious musical program over the theme. She's even planned it out through the four years building up to that. Jambaru Abbey has picked up the ball and they're going to have their Advent retreat day under the theme of Awaken, and they're doing candles for that. I'm sure you have got some programs started for the school programs. So gradually people are sort of looking at it and thinking, oh yeah, we can do this. They can build it into the life of their community as it is.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think that's the call. So the official journey towards Jubilee was launched on the anniversary of Benedict's death in March earlier in the year, then mapped out the themes across four years, starting with this year in preparation for the Jubilee, in that sequence of themes that follows the life of Benedict as well. So this year being awaken and focusing on the birth story, I guess, and Norture being the theme. I know one of the ideas of the whole journey towards Jubilee is not necessarily creating new things, but how to embed the themes in the things that we're already doing. How do we connect with those themes and journey together, but not necessarily having to do a lot of extra work, as it were, but just embedding them into the things that are already happening?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Awaken to what we're already doing.
SPEAKER_02Indeed. So this theme, awaken, with Nortia as the birthplace of Benedict and Scholastica is the focus. What comes to you when you think about this theme? How are the communities starting to awaken to this journey?
SPEAKER_01It's funny you say that because I have been to Nortia. It's a wonderful place. If I said to people, are you going to Italy? There's two places I would say to them to go to, to go to Orvieto and to go to Nortia. And the principal from St. Benedict's here went to Norcha and she was just blown away. It is amazing. When I go to a place, one of the things I like to do is to get up very early in the morning and wander around the city to see how a place wakes up. Well, when I was at Norcher, I did that. I took a number of photos of the sunrise coming over the mountains. And I've actually had that as my screen photo for probably the last eight or nine months. And I'm looking at it and thinking, that's what this is about. Have you been to Norcia? I have. I in fact was there earlier this year. Yeah, it's a wonderful place. The last fully walled city in Italy, and it's at the bottom of a valley. Even though it's got the hills rising around it, there's a certain flatness about it. And I won't say calm because it experiences earthquakes.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Well, that is where Benedict grew up. What I found particularly moving is actually about three or four kilometers out of town. Next to the cemetery is this falling down church. Out the back in the sacristy area, Sister Aquinata Brockman, who's a brilliant scholar in St. Benedict, pointed to some bricks that were there and said, They're 5th, 6th century. This is in the tradition, the house where St. Scholastica started. Now, at that time, there weren't big women's monasteries or groups of women. Women started basically house communities. So my theory, and a few other people have it, is that she was the first one to take up this monastic life. She lived out of town, close enough for any needs to be supplied, but separate from the rest of the community. Her life planted a seed in Benedict. He must at times have been wondered, what is my sister up to? So I like to think that partially her life started the awakening for him.
SPEAKER_02My understanding of that site is that it was originally like the family summer house that, yes, as you say, that Scholastica kind of withdrew to at some point, and we don't know any detail, but certainly tradition says that that's where she stayed.
SPEAKER_01And that is not an uncommon thing. You have that with the sister of St. Basil, Macrina. They just take up residence in part of the family estate.
SPEAKER_02Well, I highly recommend reading Carmel Hose's book on Scholastica to investigate that further because it very much has that McCreena is very much at the background of her story in the research that Carmel has done to flesh out what might have been her journey towards when she ends up at Monte Casino as well. And the influence of Benedict.
SPEAKER_01So at the moment, I think Benedict and Cyn Australia are starting to awaken to actually what could this Jubilee bring us? I can hear little different things coming up, like the school at St. Benedict's is deciding to take on those themes for their Gifts of St. Benedict's program in term two next year. You've got New Norsea doing what they're doing, Jambaroo doing what they're doing. I'll be interested to see what you actually do with your network of people. So that's where we're started at the moment.
SPEAKER_02I mean, this conversation is kind of, I guess, the start of what we're doing. And I'm hoping that over these four themes, at the very least, we'll explore one theme a year on Communio Calling during our podcast and see where it takes us. One of the things is really awareness raising at the moment to start that to awaken to you know the potential and to start the conversation to be part of this global conversation. The family is already there and we're just starting up a different conversation, a way to reconnect and refocus what people are doing in their individual places. Yes. Now, you've already started having conversations with different communities. How would people become more aware of? How do they join the conversation?
SPEAKER_01What I'm hoping to do at the moment is to write an article for the good oil on the Jubilee and where we hope to be going with it over the next few years. And at the end of that, I will be asking anyone who's interested in finding out what's going to keep on going over the years. And I hope to write a newsletter and send it, email it out. I'm going to invite people to send me their email so they could go on the list. I'm looking at something that might go out once a month or every two months, and that will inform them. This event is on. This is coming up. So, for example, and I don't know if they still do it, but they were doing it every year. Is New Norcia used to have a pilgrimage, the Salvado pilgrimage, where it went from Perth and they walked out to New Norcia. Now, one of the themes that's very strong in the Jubilee is the theme of pilgrimage, and they're recommending to people that they do pilgrimages to the monasteries. They even have a pilgrimage book that you can get, and the monasteries are all up there. Now, in Europe, the notion of pilgrimage is very strong, and people are used to doing it, and there is a culture that supports it.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01New Norcia have had that pilgrimage going for years. So what I would hope to do in the newsletter is to inform people this is when the pilgrimage is on and this is what you need to do to enroll for it. I'm hoping other communities amongst us might take up some sort of pilgrimage experience.
SPEAKER_02Internally, we have our own Sydney pilgrimage, which we're just about to rebrand next year, recalling it Courageous Beginnings, which traces the beginnings of the sisters story in here in Sydney. And it's our hope to create more of those in Brisbane and in Melbourne over time. So this might be the energy really that can bring through. But I mean, maybe at different times there'll be some of the monasteries in Australia that will at least host an open day so that people can pilgrimage to it or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Another idea to add to the list.
SPEAKER_02Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, the other thing I found when I was looking up the pilgrimage is that I actually saw that there's a Camino San Benedetto, a Camino for St. Benedict in Italy. Now I know of Camino in Spain is very busy. Last thing I read said, you know, the Koreans and the Chinese have now taken up going in groups of 40. And it's becoming a bit of a nightmare with the number of people. And I thought the Camino St. Benedetto looks very attractive to me. And I would actually hope that somehow or other an Australian group could go and do it. Oh well, we can plant the seed and let's see what happens. See what happens, but to see what would be going on in Rome for either for oblake groups or other things under the Jubilee and have that come as the culmination.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So I know that in Rome at San Anselmo, they are planning particular events for different groups. One that I'm focused on for our community is that they will be having a youth congress in 2029 so that they'll hold it outside of Rome itself in a large location that can hopefully cater for over 200 young people and make a pilgrimage in one of those days to Monte Casino. So I know those plans are in place. I know there's different things for different parts of the Benedictine community that are being looked at, but that's the one I have more information on at this stage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's sort of like one of the hopes that I've got there. The other thing that I didn't know about, but somebody told me recently it's a Jubilee. Of polling next year. The person who did this is actually that there's a group of historians in the Sydney area wanting to do a book in honor of Paulding for that particular jubilee. That would be an interesting theme to run. The spirituality of polling, what did he give to our Benedictine communities? Because the community at Champeroo they were originally brought to Australia by Paulding.
SPEAKER_02Well, the whole Australian church is really founded on Benedictine values. The first two archbishops were Benedicted, and there was lots of them there for a period of time. They were the cradle that began Catholic life in Australia.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And so it would be an opportunity at some stage to perhaps look back and say, okay, this is the beginning of where our Benedictine community began in Australia. We've got to look at what it did for the wider church, but particularly what were the gifts that were given to the Good Samaritans, what were the gifts that were given to Jambaroo? And that's sort of part of that listening to our past. And then perhaps in that thing, reflecting on how we've integrated it now in the present.
SPEAKER_02Yes, as we say, listening. So next year the theme will be listen and focusing in terms of the life of Benedict while he's in Rome. So that whole, you know, listening to what's being asked of Benedict. And then the following year in 2028 will be grow. And the focus then in terms of the story of Benedict is Subiaco. So what's the growth living in community and the school of the Lord's service? So all of these kind of things are bubbling away. Then the final one is flourishing at Monte Cassino, is the theme where we'll center the celebration and we'll hear about stories as they come together as places of hope for over 1500 years.
SPEAKER_01I particularly like the way that they've done this build-up over Benedict's life. Their first year honors that childhood background, having that father who was the municipal leader, so somebody who kept order in the town. Then his experience of going to Rome, which was not positive, it was very negative. When you go to Rome, you can actually go to the place where he boarded, you know, and they say, well, this is his cell. If you look at it, it's tiny, it's cramped. And, you know, he did not like the noise, he did not like the city, he did not like the appalling behavior of his fellow students. And then, as what youth does, they react and go to the opposite extreme. And so then you have this thing of going to Subiyako, and it's as you would have known, there is something about sitting in the cave where Benedict lived. I have met diverse people who've been to that cave, and you really can still have the experience of what it was like when Benedict was there. Even though there's two monasteries and a town, where he was is still got that wildness. But I've met a number of people who've been there and they thought the same thing. I thought, what was he thinking?
SPEAKER_02Our students finishing school about 16, 17 years ago. He was that age when he was making this massive decision to leave everything behind and you know, completely different direction to his family.
SPEAKER_01The interesting thing is like he goes up and he is this hermit, and he's obviously an extreme hermit at the end of his life when he's writing the rule. He's not encouraging people to become hermits. He's saying, Oh no, hermits not something ambiguous at the beginning of your life. That's something that you do when you're wise. To me, he had that time in his life, but he also looked back on it and said, nah, that's not the way I would recommend it to other people. Yeah. In other words, he learnt from what he did. And then when God sent the other people along, he accepted them. He was ready to embrace what God actually wanted for him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think that time away that we all need at different times in our lives to process what is actually God calling to me. And God called him in the form of different people saying, actually, we'd like you to come into community. And that happens in our lives as well.
SPEAKER_01And then when you actually get to Monte Casino, Monte Casino, it's a very high hill. The monastery's at the top of the hill, and then there's these plains all around it, and the main road from Rome down to the south goes alongside it, and you think he's in touch with society, but he's also to the side of it. So he's got that balance there where he's ready, he and his monks to offer their stuff to society, but at the same time, they've got their own distance, they've got their own quiet and their own peace. I'm really pleased with the way they've actually planned these years, following through the life of Benedict himself, because you can see there wasn't one thing that happened in his life. There are a lot of different things. Just as the same it is for us.
SPEAKER_02Of course. It's wonderful that it gives us opportunity to reflect on the different phases of our lives too. Sometimes we need the cave. Yes. Sometimes we need to be on top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01And sometimes we're in the rough and tumble of the city, and the people around us are not very nice. Even those situations can guide our heart. The situations that least seem like they will be of use to us in life can actually help us find direction.
SPEAKER_02And we might not know it for some time afterwards that that's what was happening within us and around us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I have the number of nieces and nephews. They're trying to work out what they want to do with their life. And I seldom to start by working out what you don't want to do. So they'll be there and they'll say, I don't know what to do. And I say, Well, do you want to become a doctor? No. Well, okay, we can cross that one off the list. Do you want to work with people? Oh, maybe. So this is what Benedict went up to Rome and thought, no, I don't want this. Not for him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not for me. Yeah. And I guess that's what often vocational advice is, is give it a try. You'll know whether it's yes or no. Unless you try, you won't know too.
SPEAKER_01Years ago, before I actually joined the monastery, I went to see an elderly priest who was a family friend for a long time. And when I said him I was going to be going to join the Benedictins, I thought he'd get all excited, etc. And he didn't. He was quite prosaic. He said, That's nice, lovey. But promise me one thing. If you are unhappy, have the courage to get out. I've seen too many women make a misery of their life because they lack the courage. And you know, no matter what's happened in my life, and there's been good and there's been bad and there's been negative or whatever. The thing I keep coming back to is to say, Am I happy? And I've had to say, okay, this is it. I am happy. So I stay with what the situation is. I have been happy in the life. And I think that is actually a very good idea on which people to discern. Are we happy? God's not wanting us to be unhappy. Yes, there will be suffering. Yes, there will be difficulties. Yes, there will be challenges, but there's this peaceful happiness that needs to be at the base there. And maybe sometimes it only comes from knowing, look, I'm in the right time and the right place. And this might be a very difficult situation, but I will find my peace and happiness in knowing that I am meant to be here. That to me is a thing on discernment. It's not how much money am I going to make, how much fun is it going to be, but will it make me happy?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's almost that question that we need to ask ourselves often is how is my heart doing? How are we resting in whatever we are? Like, is it a place of agitation? Is it a place of peace? Or is it a place that needs to be something else? And that courage to answer what the heart's calling on you to do. Not an easy thing. It definitely takes courage. Yes, it's very much courage. We have had a rambling but wonderful conversation all over the place. Well, I knew it would ramble. I knew it would. I think it's a great start for the conversation for other people to take up the conversation now about the Jubilee in their own places. So we've made a start for them and they can now start discerning about what it looks like for them in their places and how do they connect. So the other way they can connect to the international journey is through the website jubilee.osb.org. So they can sign up for newsletters and resources that can come from the generalit. We'll have the more local version of it too. So stay tuned. Well, it has been delightful talking to you, Kim. Thank you so much for sharing this journey and holding it all together for us, being the connection point for us out here in Australia. Thanks a lot. So as you can hear, we are at the beginning of a journey full of many possibilities. This year, as we awaken to those possibilities, it's a delight to think about our own origin stories, not just that of Benedict and Scholastica in Norcha, but our own first encounters with Benedictan life and spirituality. Norcha is such a special place. This year our Benedictine pilgrimage returned there to visit the rebuilt church over the birthplace of Benedict and Scholastica. All of our pilgrims will recall that special time we spent in the crypt among the original ruins of the home. So as you continue through your day, I invite you to awaken to the call to this journey of Jubilee to celebrate all of the gifts of Benedictine life. So today and always, may the table of hospitality be wide that we may continue to go and do likewise.
