Monastery Of St. Gertrude's Podcast

Sister Jeanette passed away unexpectedly on June 6th. She was 72 years old, and had been a Benedictine sister for more than half of her life. I feel very fortunate to have sat down with her not long ago for a long interview, and this episode is that interview in its entirety. We met in one of the suites in the Inn on site at the Monastery, at the kitchen table. Sr Jeanette is an animated speaker, occasionally even pounding the table for emphasis which you’ll hear in the recording.I hope you’ll enjoy this lingering view of Sister Jeanette’s world, and this long-form interview.

Last episode wrapped up our 4-part episode exploring some of the ways that some Sisters came to be at the Monastery (and I encourage you to go back and listen to those if you haven’t already). Today’s episode starts out with a similar story from Sister Carol Ann, about how she came to be at St. Gertrude’s and what her life was like before that. But from there we take a detour into some deep insights into the value and meaning of prayer, from the recited but heartfelt prayers of her parents, to the 2000 year history of Benedictine community prayer. Her explanation helped me to understand much more deeply what prayer means to this community, and I hope it brings you insight as well.

This is the 4th episode in our 4-part series exploring some of the ins-and-outs of how a few different people came to be at the monastery. In this episode, we’ll hear from Sister Jeanette who has a completely different story of how she came to be a part of the Monastery of St Gertrude than any of the previous 3 stories. While recording these 4 episodes, I learned that there are probably as many different ways to be a part of this community as there are people in the community!

This is the third episode in our 4-part series exploring some of the ins-and-outs of how a few different people came to be at the monastery. In this episode, we’ll hear from Sister Chanelle. You heard her sing some songs from her chaplaincy in an earlier episode. Today, she’s going to tell you a little about how she came to be connected to the community here at St. Gertrude’s as a teen, and how she came to have her current name.

This is the second episode in our 4-part series exploring some of the ins-and-outs of how a few different people came to be at the monastery. In this episode, we’ll hear from Sister Teresa. Other people in the community have used the word “visionary” when they describe Sister Teresa’s role in the community, although I’m sure she would object to the term. She’s also probably the sister most likely to send you a meme in an email. You’ll definitely be hearing more from Sister Teresa in future episodes, because whether or not she would want to be called a visionary, she definitely is working toward some grand visions for the future of the Monastery and we’ll want to share those with you in the future. But for right now, she’s going to share a little about how she came to find herself in a monastic community is the tiny rural town of Cottonwood Idaho.

In the next 4 episodes, I wanted to share with you some bits of conversations that I had with Sisters that cover some of the very basic questions I had when I first connected with the Monastery. I was not at all familiar with how monastic communities work in general, or with the specifics of St. Gertrude’s. I was very curious about what kind of person decides to join a Monastery and what life is like for people after they join. If you’ve ever wondered about any of these things, the next 4 episodes are going to be really useful for you. You’ll hear from 4 different Sisters who have 4 very different stories of how they came to be a part of the Monastery of St. Gertrude and how their life paths have gone since they joined. It turns out there are a lot of different ways that people have come to be a part of this community! If you already know a lot of these things, I think you will enjoy hearing from these folks anyway, as they tell the stories of how they became a part of the Monastery and what it means to them

In this episode you’ll hear from Sister Chanelle. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to stay at the Inn at St. Gertrude’s you probably met Sr Chanelle there. She makes amazing chocolate cake for dessert for visitors! She also had a long career as a nurse and then a hospital chaplain. She and I sat down to talk in an cozy office full of couches on the second floor of the Monastery. I was a few minutes for our appointment, and when I arrived Sr Chanelle was just coming back in from the 2nd floor balcony. She explained she had stepped out to admire a particular pink rose bush that she can only see from that balcony. It’s down a set of stairs that she can’t get up and down any longer, so she satisfies herself by taking a moment to admire them from the balcony whenever she can. We settled into the couches, and you’ll occasionally hear sounds of the Monastery around us in the background, including one of the other Sisters practicing an instrument in an adjoining room. Our conversation ranged widely from her trip to

This week is our very first episode, and we’re going to start right off with a story from Sister Maria Elena. She has so many extraordinary stories that it was really hard to choose one to highlight today. She was a missionary in Colombia for many years, working with the very poorest people, helping them to connect with much needed physical resources, and also praying with them to connect them to spiritual resources. She’s still quite fluent in Spanish - in fact, if you say something she doesn’t quite hear, she’s just as likely to ask “Que?” in Spanish as to ask you to repeat yourself in English, and when she can’t think of the right word for something it’s sometimes the Spanish word that comes up first. Currently, she visits the local prison each week to conduct Bible Studies and Catholic Faith classes for the Spanish-speaking inmates there.   I sat down with her recently and asked her to tell me some stories from her time in Colombia, and ended up with 2 hours of recordings! It was really hard to choose a s