Ladyminster

04/25/2024

We are hosting a summer internship for males 18-35. Applications open Bright Tuesday. Learn more and apply at

Summer Internship at Ladyminster in the Colorado Rockies APPLICATIONS OPEN BRIGHT TUESDAY AT 9 AM EASTERNSummer of 2024: APPLICATIONS OPEN BRIGHT TUESDAY AT 9 AM EASTERNDescription: This internship takes place at the Monastery of Our Lady and St. Laurence, also known as Ladyminster. Ladyminster is a...

03/01/2021

Yesterday, Septuagesima Sunday, began the pre-lenten season in Western Orthodoxy. This pre-lenten season is ancient and is something that both Eastern and Western Orthodoxy share in common. Through it, the Church invites people to begin accustoming themselves to the coming season of special prayer, fasting, and alms-giving. These weeks provide an excellent time to review our practice of the virtues and spiritual disciplines enjoined upon us by Holy Tradition. The Epistle appointed for the day reminds us that, "...they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible" (I Cor. 9) St. Paul is reminding his Corinthian converts that they have signed-up for a race that is no less demanding than those run by worldly athletes. This race requires sacrifice, abstinence, single-minded focus, and determination. These pre-lenten weeks give us time to take stock of how we have done this up until now, and look for ways in which to improve our performance as we strive to run in "the Way of the Cross." Let us use this time wisely, so that when the Lenten Fast begins, we are ready to embrace it not only exteriorly, but interiorly as a time of "spring cleaning" for our minds, hearts, and bodies. May the Lord have mercy upon us!

01/12/2021

Abbot Theodore is leading a Lenten retreat that is open to everyone. All proceeds will be donated to the monastery.

Description: In their booklet, St.Benedict of Nursia, the Editors of St. John of Kronstadt Press wrote, in the introduction to the Rule, "It is... fitting that this Rule should be put into the hands of Orthodox readers, monastic and lay alike... for neither for St. Benedict nor for true Orthodox lif...

11/24/2020

As the collation before Compline Abbot Theodore has been reading from Orthodox Prayer Life by Matthew the Poor. A recent passage stood out as particularly relating to the Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina and our manner of reading the Psalms.

"Meditation is an old, traditional term closely linked to profound and heartfelt Bible reading. Such reading leaves an indelible impression upon one's memory, emotions, and tongue.

According to patristic tradition, meditation is the key to all graces. It makes him who practices it biblical in every thought, word, and feeling. He also becomes advanced in every gift and full of divine understanding. When he opens his mouth, the words of the Bible flow spontaneously from his lips without embellishments. Divine thoughts proceed from his mouth in amazing succession. They are like waves of light that submerge the hearer's mind in the light of divine knowledge. They stir his heart and set aflame his emotions." (Orthodox Prayer Life, by Matthew the Poor, pg 43)

11/17/2020

Today we Commemorate St Hilda of Whitby, whose life is recorded by the Venerable St Bede, who was around 6 when she reposed in the Lord.

"[In] the year of our Lord 680, the most religious handmaid of Christ, Hilda, abbess of the monastery that is called Streanaeshalch… after having done many heavenly deeds on earth, passed thence to receive the rewards of the heavenly life, on the 17th of November, at the age of sixty-six years. Her life falls into two equal parts, for the first thirty-three years of it she spent living most nobly in the secular habit; and still more nobly dedicated the remaining half to the Lord in the monastic life. For she was nobly born, being the daughter of Hereric, nephew to King Edwin, and with that king she also received the faith and mysteries of Christ, at the preaching of Paulinus, of blessed memory, the first bishop of the Northumbrians, and preserved the same undefiled till she attained to the vision of our Lord in Heaven."

Sancta Hilda, ora pro nobis!

To read the entire depiction of her life go to Book 4, chapter XXIII https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38326/38326-h/38326-h.html

Image: detail of a Cross Monument in Whitby: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Hilda_memorial_ammonites.jpg

11/11/2020

Blessed feast of St Martin!
Many know St Martin as a military saint and a bishop, however he was also one of the earliest Western monastics, founding two monasteries more than a century before St Benedict would write his rule, both of which eventually became Benedictine. One of his disciples' account of his life gives us a rare glimpse at early Western monasticism:
"Full alike of dignity and courtesy, [St Martin] kept up the position of a bishop properly, yet in such a way as not to lay aside the objects and virtues of a monk. Accordingly he made use, for some time, of the cell connected with the church; but afterwards, when he felt it impossible to tolerate the disturbance caused by the numbers of those visiting it, he established a monastery for himself about two miles outside the city. This spot was so secret and retired that he enjoyed in it the solitude of a hermit. For, on one side, it was surrounded by a precipitous rock of a lofty mountain while the river Loire had shut in the rest of the plain by a bay extending back for a little distance; and the place could be approached only by one, and that a very narrow passage. Here, then, he possessed a cell constructed of wood. Many also of the brethren had, in the same manner fashioned retreats for themselves, but most of them had formed these out of the rock, of the overhanging mountain, hollowed into caves. There were altogether eighty disciples, who were being disciplined after the example of the saintly master. No one there had anything which was called his own; all things were in common. It was not allowed either to buy or to sell anything, as is the custom among most monks. No art was practiced there except that of transcribers, and even this was assigned to the brethren of younger years, while the elders spent their time in prayer. Rarely did any one of them go beyond the cell, unless when they assembled at the place of prayer. They all took their food together, after the hour of fasting was past. No one used wine, except when illness compelled them to do so. Most of them were clothed in garments of camels' hair. Any dress approaching to softness was there deemed criminal, and this must be thought the more remarkable, because many among them were such as are deemed of noble rank. These, though far differently brought up, had force themselves down to this degree of humility and patient endurance, and we have seen numbers of these afterwards made bishops. For what city or church would there be that would not desire to have its priests from among those in the monastery of Martin?"
Sancte Martine, ora pro nobis!
To read the full life: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3501.htm
The Quotation: Translated by Alexander Roberts. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 11. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spanish_-_Altar_Frontal_with_Christ_in_Majesty_and_the_Life_of_Saint_Martin_-_Walters_371188.jpg
Image of a Spanish Altar Frontal depicting Christ in His Majesty and the Life of St Martin

11/06/2020

"Behold, I John saw another Angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four Angels, to whom it had been given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of God in their foreheads." (Rev. 7:2-3) Our Father among the Saints, the Venerable Bede, has this to say about this passage we've heard at every Vespers, Lauds, Terce, and Mass this past week.
"This is the Lord born in the flesh, who is the 'angel of great counsel,' that is the messenger of the Father's will, 'who has visited us as the dayspring from on high,' carrying the standard of the cross, by which he seals the foreheads of his own.... The great voice of the Lord is that exalted proclamation, 'Repent for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.'.... For this purpose was the rule of the nations destroyed, that the face of the saints might in freedom be marked by the sign of faith which they had resisted. For even the figure of the cross itself indicates that the kingdom of the Lord is everywhere extended, as the ancient distich shows: 'Behold, the four-squared world, in distinct parts, that you might show the sign of faith to encompass all things.' Nor in vain was the four-lettered name of the Lord written upon the forehead of the high priest, since this is the sign upon the foreheads of the faithful, about which the psalm 'for the wine-vats' sings: 'O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth,' and so on, until he says, 'that you may destroy the enemy and the defender.' (Explanation of the Apocalypse 7:2-3 as printed in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament volume XII: Revelation; edited by: Weinrich, William C.; published by InterVarsity Press)
Picture of the Doom painting in St Thomas Church, Salisbury, England; https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doom_painting_in_St_Thomas_Church_Salisbury.JPG

11/03/2020

The benefits of the feast of All Souls is three-fold. Each benefit is reflected in the three sets of readings for Matins last night.
The first set of readings, from Job, focuses on Memento Mori: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not”. This is a clear theme of the holy day: the black vestments, catafalque, and prayers for deliverance in the final day all make us call to mind our own mortality, and face the uncomfortable fact that, like those we pray for, we too are dust and to dust we will return.
This brings us to the second benefit, which is, for many the primary focus of this day, which is the commemoration of the departed. This reading, from St Augustine’s Treatise on the Care to be had for the Dead, is an interesting one. It recounts the importance of continuing prayer for the dead “let us not think that anything reaches to the dead for whom we have a care, save what by sacrifices, either of the altar or of prayers or of alms, we solemnly supplicate” but is consistently mixed with the message that it opens with “all these things, care of funeral, bestowal in sepulture, pomp of obsequies, are more for comfort of the living, than for help of the dead.” Care for the dead is important in and of itself, but ultimately the Church reminds us that this “day of the dead” is more for the living than the departed, both in its forcing us to face our own mortality, and, as St Augustine says, for the comfort of those whose loved ones have died.
This is the final benefit and reading, from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, comfort: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” This comfort extends to both of the other aspects. We are comforted in this reminder that the faithful departed died to sin and death in waters of baptism, and are receiving the comfort of the prayers of their Mother, the Church, on this feast. We are also comforted in our Memento Mori. This is not hopeless or depressive, as it appears to many, but hopeful. We too have already died to sin and death, and we too will receive the comfort of the prayers of our Mother, the Church, when we return to the dust from which we were made.
From the Gate of Hell deliver their souls, O Lord. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Pictures of the Monastery’s St Sophia Mausoleum

10/30/2020

One of the Saints the Roman Martyrology lists for today is St. Germanus bishop of Capua. Shortly after he was made a bishop Pope Hormisdas sent him and several others to Constantinople to bring an end to the Acacian Schism between the East and the West. With the help of the future Emperor St. Justinian and his uncle, the Emperor Justin, they were successful.

St Gregory recounts his death in his Second book of Dialogues, the Life of St. Benedict: "The man of God, Bennet [Benedict], being diligent in watching, rose early up before the time of matins (his monks being yet at rest) and came to the window of his chamber, where he offered up his prayers to almighty God. Standing there, all on a sudden in the dead of the night, as he looked forth, he saw a light, which banished away the darkness of the night, and glittered with such brightness, that the light which did shine in the midst of darkness was far more clear than the light of the day. Upon this sight a marvellous strange thing followed, for, as himself did afterward report, the whole world, gathered as it were together under one beam of the sun, was presented before his eyes, and whiles the venerable father stood attentively beholding the brightness of that glittering light, he saw the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, in a fiery globe to be carried up by Angels into heaven."

Both as Benedictines and Westerners in a generally Eastern Church St Germanus is a little known saint who is important for us to remember.

Sancte Germane, ora pro nobis!

Another depiction of St Benedict's vision: http://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/page/75/77282

The Source of the Quotation: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/g1-benedict1.asp

The License for this Picture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ottobeurer_Chorgest%C3%BChl_16.jpg

10/30/2020

By the mercy of God, we have three "Interns"with us at present, men who are taking some time from their normal pursuits to experience life in the monastery and seek the guidance of Our Lord for directions in their life. One of these gentlemen, a seminarian taking a "break semester" has consented to help us with a fuller schedule of posting on our page. He will be concentrating on "reflections," excerpts from the Fathers, Orthodox, or Benedictine writings.

Pray for our interns: Stefan, Thomas, & Kevin, that their time here may be beneficial to them and to us!