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This story and photo available online:

www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09025<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09025

>Sister act

PC(USA) clergywoman embraces contemplative life as a
Benedictine

>by Jerry L. Van Marter
>Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE ― When Lynne Smith was a girl growing up in El
Paso, TX, she said she wanted to be a nun.

>Only one problem: she was Presbyterian.

And so Smith followed the more conventional path ... to
ordained Presbyterian ministry and a first pastorate in
Dodge City, KS. But the yearning for a more contemplative
spiritual life was never far from her mind.

While in Dodge City, Smith went on a spiritual retreat in
1985 sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph, "and had a
deeper experience than I'd ever had before," she told the
Presbyterian News Service in a recent interview here. "It
really changed my spirituality toward the contemplative."

Smith began searching for additional outlets to satisfy her
hunger for contemplative spirituality. Her quest began at
about the time of renewed interest in the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual disciplines.

Graduate courses at the Presbyterian School of Christian
Education in Richmond, VA, and articles in HORIZONS ― the
magazine for Presbyterian Women ― and Hungry Hearts
Newsletter, a publication of the PC(USA)'s Office of
Theology, Worship and Education, nurtured her spiritual
hunger.

Her spiritual search led her to Madison, WI, in 1996, where
a small order of Benedictine sisters invited celibate women
between the ages of 25 and 50 to explore monastic living.
For two years, Smith returned repeatedly to St. Benedict
Retreat and Conference Center, traveling from Columbus
Junction, IA, where she was serving as a pastor.

Celibacy was not an obstacle. As a pastor for 16 years,
Smith had decided she could not do full-time ministry and
be married.

In 1998, with the blessing of East Iowa Presbytery, Smith
joined the monastery and in 2004 made her final profession
as a Benedictine while retaining her identity as a
Presbyterian. She is a member in good standing of John Knox
Presbytery.

Sister Lynne Smith is now one of three sisters in the
Benedictine Women of Madison, along with Sister Mary David
Walgenbach and Sister Joanne Kollasch, both Catholics. She
is the community's director of membership.

That such a step was even possible is as remarkable a story
as Smith's own spiritual pilgrimage.

The Benedictine Sisters established St. Vincent Hospital in
Sioux City, IA, in 1901. Fifty years later they moved to
Madison, where they opened a school, using the proceeds
from sale of the hospital to endow the new ministry. In the
early 1960s they began interfaith dialogues at the
monastery and in 1966 closed the school and opened the
Saint Benedict Center, which welcomed spiritually-minded
women of all denominations.

In 1992 Walgenbach and Kollasch launched a radical
visioning process that 15 years later led to the founding
of Holy Wisdom Monastery, the first ecumenical monastery in
the world. In 2006, the sisters negotiated an agreement
with the Vatican allowing the monastery to renounce its
"canonical" status in order to accept members who are not
Catholic. It was the first traditional Catholic Benedictine
monastery to make that switch.

St. Benedict founded the order in the 6th century and the
Rule of Benedict is credited with having kept civilization
alive at a time when barbarians were invading and
plundering what had been the Roman Empire. The rule
provided for communities devoted to a life of daily prayer,
work and hospitality.

"It fits me," Smith says of the Benedictine monastic life.
"The rhythm of life ― work, prayer, hospitality, leisure ―
fits with who I am as a Presbyterian," she says.

The sisters gather for communal prayers five times a day.
The rest of their time is spent offering spiritual
retreats, hosting groups at the center and restoring the
130 acres on which their monastery sits. More than 300
groups use the retreat center each year. Holy Wisdom
employs about 30 people.

"St. Benedict told his followers: 'Receive your guests as
Christ,'" Walgenbach once told the National Catholic
Reporter. "We don't ask our guests 'Are you orthodox? Or
are you bona fide?' only, 'Are you searching for God?"
Kollasch added.

"When I became a monastic, I brought with me the richness
of my Reformed tradition with its stress on Bible study,
education and ecumenism," Smith said. "Of course there are
differences between Catholics and Presbyterians, but there
are no conflicts, because they are both ways of living out
the Gospel in a Christ-centered way."

Smith's faith journey has found reinforcement in the
writings of renowned Presbyterian author Kathleen Norris,
whose encounters with Benedictines have been chronicled in
best-sellers such as Dakota: A Spiritual Biography, The
Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith.

"It's a bold experiment. I'm proud of them," Norris has
written about the Madison sisters. "Throughout their
history, Benedictine women have always been the radicals."

Smith simply considers her new life as a Benedictine sister
a natural evolution of her life as a Presbyterian minister.
"Sometimes I miss serving a church," she said, "but I've
learned that everything I did as a pastor I now do in the
monastery."

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