Saint Scholastica Monastery
A Community of Benedictine Sisters in Fort Smith, Arkansas

Abide - Keeping Vigil with the Word of God

In the Gospel of John Jesus directs us, “Abide in me, as I abide in you.” This book is an invitation to make the Word of God your home through the practice of lectio divina. Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB, encourages you to turn the words of Scripture over in your heart as a plough turns over the soil to welcome the seed. In these scriptural meditations, the piercing reflective questions and personal prayers lead the reader into a deeper relationship with the Divine. Aware that drawing near the Word of God requires a special kind of presence, the author invites you to breathe in the Word, wait before the Word, walk through the pages of Scripture as a pilgrim, and, finally, abide in an intimate and transforming communion with God. The format of the book lends itself not only to daily personal prayer and reflection, but to group faith sharing as well.

Seven Sacred Pauses - Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day

This beautifully reflective book draws you into the practice of contemplative listening. In the heart of your busy work day, you are reminded to pause and breathe in the spirit of each hour. Macrina encourages her readers to use the traditional seven sacred pauses of monastic life to assist them in keeping vigil with their own lives.

And the Companion CD, Seven Sacred Pauses: Singing Mindfully - Dawn to Dark by Velma Frye

One of the delightful features of the Seven Sacred Pauses book is that Macrina has teamed up with another artist, Velma Frye. The result of this collaboration is a companion CD of songs of exquisite beauty. In creating the songs, Velma has used Macrina’s poetry and prose for lyrics.

The Circle of Life by Macrina Wiederkehr and Joyce Rupp

From time immemorial the four seasons have been subject matter for artists, poets and writers. The Circle of Life is a poetic reflection on the kinship of the seasons of the earth and the seasons of our lives. The four seasons are depicted as metaphors for the human journey.

The spirituality of the seasons is presented here by means of essays, stories, poetry, prayers and rituals.

Imagine having a book on your shelf that you can turn to at any season of the year. No matter what internal or external season you are experiencing, you are invited to open this book and find an inspiring message for your life's journey. The Circle of Life is such a book.

Behold Your Life: A Pilgrimage Through Your Memories

Sometimes on life's long road it is helpful to pause and reflect on the journey we are making. Behold Your Life is such an invitation. Macrina Wiederkehr encourages us to reflect on our memories, both joyous and painful, so that we can move into the future with new wisdom and strength.

In this forty day pilgrimage, Wiederkehr guides us to let go of bitterness and blame and to prayerfully, simply behold our lives. On each day of this retreat she helps us to open the door of memory and journey again with Jesus down our life's path. From the moment of our conception, through the joys and pains of childhood and adolescence, and on to the quest for love and the fullness of life in adulthood, she leads us to recognize the ever present, loving touch of God. Each day begins with a scriptural reference and a suggestion for exploring our memories. Finally, she provides an original prayer to gather together together the fragments we have recovered.

Behold Your Life is a wonderful resource for a healing retreat during Lent or whenever the Spirit of God urges us to embrace our memories and discover the goodness hidden in our wounds.

Gold in Your Memories: Sacred Moments, Glimpses of God

Deep in our memories lie golden moments of true joy. Instances of self-discovery, unique experiences of true intimacy, glimpses of God...all lie sleeping in our memories waiting to be awakened and appreciated anew.

Wiederkehr shares a wealth of effective ways to awaken the memories within. Her use of creative rituals, personal symbols, and pilgrimages to hallowed places invites us to make similar journeys to our past. She offers a mosaic of her own memories and reflections on books whose characters and authors bring her back to key moments in her life. Her warm and engaging style is complemented by her stirring poetry and evocative prayers.

Wiederkehr deftly puts us in touch with the spiritual energy that resides within each of us and empowers us to make new memories every day that we live.

"This superb book is filled with exquisite description and tender stories. You will not have to search far to find many spiritual treasures within it. I am grateful to Macrina Wiederkehr for her creative invitation to help me find the jewels in my memories through inner exploration" Joyce Rupp, author of THE CUP OF OUR LIFE

The Song of the Seed - A Monastic Way of Tending the Soul

Drawing from the deep resources of Benedictine spirituality, popular teacher Macrina Wiederkehr, author of A TREE FULL OF ANGELS and SEASONS OF YOUR HEART, offers a sublime antidote to the "hurry sickness" of our age-a way to see all that is familiar with renewed vision, as if for the very first time. Teaching us how to nurture our perception of the sacred kernel at the heart of everyday life, Wiederkehr guides readers through three phases of spiritual reflection: bending "to the dance of wholehearted surrender " recognizing that God is present in all of life; mending, healing from our woundedness; and tending, fully expressing the gifts and talents with which we are endowed. Also included are thirty in-depth spiritual studies for personal reflection and change, each accompanied by a meditation and journal entry by Wiederkehr.

"THE SONG OF THE SEED is an At-Home Retreat " writes Wiederkehr. "The seed is the Word of God and the song is your daily life centered around this word." "Few New testament images are as potent or as mysteriously stirring as that of the Word as Seed." Drawing upon her own 'deep country' background, her years of experience as a spiritual counselor, and the words of writers as diverse as Rumi, Willa Cather, and Marge Piercy, Wiederkehr has opened out the full implications of the teaching without dispelling its power or its mystery in the slightest." Carol Lee Flinders, author of Enduring Grace.

"THE SONG OF THE SEED is addressed to all pilgrims who are serious about a life of prayer for the journey. It deserves a wide audience." Brother Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O., general editor of The Journals of Thomas Merton.

"THE SONG OF THE SEED has the power to revive a deep yearning for God in our soul. This wonderful resource will sing within us long after we have used it for our moments of prayer. " Joyce Rupp, author of Praying Our Goodbyes

A Tree Full of Angels - Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary

This is written by Benedictine Sister Macrina Wiederkehr who lives at the Monastery of St. Scholastica in Fort Smith, Arkansas. As she writes: "I am aware of the many ways the Church has failed me, and I have failed her. Yet, in the midst of these mutual failures, I claim this church as mine. She is my church, my home, my mother. I will not run away from her, for I have seen through the cracks of her frailty her tremendous splendor, her littleness and her greatness, her poverty and her wealth. I feel more fed than failed. The Church is us."

We recommend this beautifully simple and honest book. Sister Macrina, a monastic writes about the ongoing process of conversion, noting that we are given opportunity upon opportunity to accept the free gift of salvation. Nor can this "Word of God" be chained. It will get through, she writes because: "God has such a yearning for our holiness to be rescued from the lies of this world that nothing will remain an obstacle forever unless we cling to it with such a tenacious grasp that we utterly refuse the divine embrace."

Accompanied by a new introduction, this beautiful new edition of a spiritual classic is an invitation to draw nearer to God in the midst of daily life. "One of the most energizing and workable guides you have yet to read." -Catholic Digest

Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers and Reflections

In this masterpiece of simplicity, Macrina Wiederkehr offers a series of meditations to bring us closer to a "God for all seasons," revised and expanded into this new edition.

Designed for daily use as well as for retreats, Seasons of Your Heart is an eloquent and lyrical invitation to journey through the spiritual seasons of wonder, hope, love, mystery, and faith.

Macrina Weiderkehr shares her "seasonal struggle with God" and encourages us to reconize those same peaks and valleys in our own spiritual life. Using biblical passages, poetry, and excerpts from her journal, Wiederkehr provides meditative ideas and prayers as "postures" for realizing and approaching the holy in our daily lives.

These reflections and prayers, then, have grown out of a daily listening to God in the changing seasons of my spiritual life, "writes the author. "These reflections have grown out of my conviction that our God is not some Almighty Being beyond us, but a Mystery within."