Abbot Primate Visits "his sisters"

Abbot Notker Wolf and me
Abbot Primate Notker Wolf defies the sterotype of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church. Although he oversees 6,800 Benedictine monks and 14,800 Benedictine women, he is unassuming, simple, and approachable. Still tired from a week-long meeting with abbots and prioresses, he graciously answered questions from reporters and TV cameramen, and visited with the sisters at Mount St. Scholastica monastery in Atchison after a Eucharist celebrating the feast of St. Scholastica on Feb. 10. The same evening he gave a lecture at Benedictine College and played the flute. He also plays the electric guitar with a Christian rock group in between traveling around the world and writing books. He has been re-elected  Abbot Primate twice and his favorite part of the job is meeting people. He speaks six languages and tries to learn to greet people in several others. He never seems to be at a loss for words and enjoys a good joke and surprise. After mentioning fresh roses as a sign of love in his homily, he was delighted when Sister Anne Shepard presented him with a yellow rose after the Mass. He believes that the Benedictine charism is to live out the gospel and to live in community. He doesn't get concerned about the small stuff.

Comments

  1. Dee14 February 2015 at 09:53

    Dear Barb, what an inspiring prelate he is. Peace, Dee

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
    “Wonderfully Made” When I took a college English course, our first assignment was to write an essay about whether we would rather lose our sight or lose our legs. It was a thought-provoking choice. If we became blind, we would miss seeing our loved ones and all the beauty of our world. If we could not walk, we would be hindered from traveling and moving around without help. I chose to keep my eyesight since I love to read and write and enjoy the variety and beauty that surrounds us.   Of course, I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice in real life, but it was a thought-provoking assignment. It made me think about how much we take our bodies for granted. I began to think about all the organs, veins, arteries, canals, nerves, and bones we have in our bodies and how they all work together to keep us alive and healthy. It is not until we lose one of them that we realize how magnificent we are, created in the “image and likeness of God.” God loves each and every one of us as if
Read more
Image
  Overcoming Discouragement Sometimes discouragement and failure take over our lives, and we cannot seem to crawl out of our hole. Even if in reality they are not a true picture, we can be blinded by the seeming darkness.  It often takes another person to uncover what is hidden from us and to see through the cloudy picture.  I am reminded of a story about Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He tells of how he felt his dream of starting a group for people with drinking problems was not going anywhere. Then unexpectedly Father Dowling, a disheveled priest, came to his door in the middle of a snowstorm. Bill’s caretaker told him that a “damn bum” was at the door. Bill was tired but agreed to see him and in doing so had his “second conversion experience.” Bil and Father Dowling talked way into the night, and Bill told of his “high hopes and plans, and spoke about his anger, despair and mounting frustrations.”  It turned out that the elderly priest had had similar feel
Read more
Image
  Shaper of our Journey While we are living our lives, we make decisions, have jobs, make friends, travel, and do all sorts of activities, and think we are directing our lives. We don’t realize how God is shaping us until we look back. “God shapes us on our journey,” Daniel Horan once said. God uses all we do to make us into the persons we are. He puts us in the family we have, with all its problems and shortcomings. Our jobs and college degrees influence our lives. All our decisions and people we have known have made us who we are. Even the mistakes and hardships are part of us and God uses all of these, shaping who we become.   While we are living day to day, we don’t think about God molding us into the unique persons we are. But when we look back, we can see how it all fits together, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs.   Sometimes we have to change our paths due to circumstances we did not anticipate. Often, we observe this in other’s lives, like Stephen Hawking who
Read more