Benedictine Women Research Articles

Like A Mustard Seed: A History of the First Benedictine Women’s Monastery in North America 1852–2014 by Ephrem Hollermann (review)

Like A Mustard Seed: A History of the First Benedictine Women’s Monastery in North America 1852–2014 by Ephrem Hollermann (review)

Like a Mustard Seed: A History of the First Benedictine Women’s Monastery in North America: St. Joseph Monastery, St. Marys, Pennsylvania 1852–2014 by Ephrem (Rita) Hollerman, OSB (review)

Like a Mustard Seed: A History of the First Benedictine Women’s Monastery in North America: St. Joseph Monastery, St. Marys, Pennsylvania 1852–2014 by Ephrem (Rita) Hollerman, OSB (review)

The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages. By Katie Ann-Marie BugyisActs of Care: Recovering Women in Late Medieval Health. By Sara Ritchey

The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages. By Katie Ann-Marie BugyisActs of Care: Recovering Women in Late Medieval Health. By Sara Ritchey

The care of nuns. The ministries of Benedictine women in England during the central Middle Ages. By Katie Anne-Marie Bugyis. Pp. xxii + 366 incl. 18 figs, 10 tables and 2 maps. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. £64. 978 0 19 085128 6

The care of nuns. The ministries of Benedictine women in England during the central Middle Ages. By Katie Anne-Marie Bugyis. Pp. xxii + 366 incl. 18 figs, 10 tables and 2 maps. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. £64. 978 0 19 085128 6 - Volume 72 Issue 3

The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages. Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis.

<i>The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages</i>. Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis.

The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages by Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis

The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages by Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis

Missionary women and work: Benedictine women at New Norcia claiming a religious vocation

The community of Catholic women from Spain and South America who worked with Aboriginal children in the Benedictine mission town of New Norcia in Western Australia offers a case study of tensions within the definition of a missionary vocation. This article looks especially at the place of work within the broader monastic tradition and assumptions about the work of women in a mission context. Taking the Benedictine Missionary Oblate Sisters as a case study, this article explores the tensions within the definition of a missionary vocation. It looks especially at the place of work within the broader monastic tradition and negotiations about the role of women as authentic missionaries. Drawing on Foucault's concept of physical discipline as a “technology of the self”, especially as it has been refracted for religious life by Pierre Hadot, this article tests Foucault's theory against the experience of the Benedictine missionary women of New Norcia, using letters from the 1930s as well as oral evidence from contemporary members. I argue that the Rule of Benedict upheld the status of manual work, and so supported the women's claims for the full religious status of their missionary vocation.

From total institution to extitution? Discussions on the future of monastic life in the Benedictine women's monasteries of Catalonia (Spain)

On the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Federation of Benedictine Women’s Monasteries of Catalonia (Spain), the five monasteries represented are discussing the following question: what will monastic life be like in the future? This question is added to the debate about “new forms of monasticism”, “urban monastic life” and, in a more general sense, to the modernisations and “the opening up” of the precepts and practices of monastic life at this time. Faced with the ambitious monastic questioning, the author “responds” with five deliberately provocative debates developed out of a consideration of various chapters of the Rule of St. Benedict that raise profound questions when it comes to responding to the question presented here. Having described these five debates, by way of a summary, the article presents three ideal types of monastery in relation to the current processes of deinstitutionalisation that represent, in an overall way, three provisional responses and serve as a focus for the question discussed here.

Substitute or subordinate? The role of a male procurator at a Benedictine women's monastery

This paper examines an attempt to introduce a male administrator at a Benedictine women's monastery in Catalonia in the fourteenth century. It argues that records from the monastic and episcopal archives indicate the existence of a complex and dynamic interplay between the nuns and their abbess and the bishop. Due to this complicated process of negotiation, the bishop did not succeed in imposing a new male authority figure over the traditional leadership of the community. Over the next fifty years, the abbesses reasserted themselves and redefined the procurator's role as one subordinate to themselves. The episode illustrates that nuns could employ varied tactics to resist attempts to change their traditional administrative structure.

“Our creator who art in heaven:” Paradox, ritual, and cultural transformation

Contemporary organizations are typically marked by conflicting interests and contradictory demands on individuals. It is important to understand how these tensions are managed in everyday ways. Ritual, and the adaptation of official ritual is one way in which individuals may negotiate the paradoxes of their culture and accomplish cultural transformation. Analysis of qualitative data from three communities of Benedictine women reveals that by adapting ritual members resist church‐imposed identities of women as rightly excluded, subordinate, and disempowered. By resisting these identities, sisters reinforce the transformation of their own culture; and by doing so in the presence of outsiders, they make an argument for the transformation of the larger culture of the church.

“Do all things with counsel”1: Benedictine women and organizational democracy

The purpose of this essay is to set forth a model for organizfltional democracy especially suited to feminist and other non‐traditional, non‐hierarchical organizations and to illustrate that model by way of a case study of two communities of Benedictine nuns. The elements of the model are: shared fundamental values, structures designed to encourage true participation, and the provision of resources members need to participate effectively. The decision‐making practices of Benedictine sisters are a suitable case study, because Benedictine communities are feminist in nature, have relatively flat organizational structures, and have been using democratic practices for a longer period of time than have most contemporary organizations.

The Reshaping of a Tradition: American Benedictine Women, 1852-1881 by Ephrem (Rita) Hollermann, O.S.B.

300 BOOK REVIEWS The Reshaping ofa Tradition:American Benedictine Women, 1852-1881. By Ephrem (Rita) Hollermann, O.S.B. (Winona, Minnesota: St. Mary's Press. 1994. Pp. xxxvii, 399- $24.95 paperback.) The exhortation ofVatican Council II's Decree on the Religious life to return to the charism of the founder has been at the forefront of much of the historical writing on religious communities in recent years. For Benedictine Sisters in the United States, the challenge to the historian is particularly daunting. The baggage carried by Benedictine women who came to the United States in the nineteenth century included a sixth-century Rule, a tradition of enclosed community life that was transposed into apostolic ministry, a confused canonical status, and an ongoing conflict over the jurisdiction of bishops and their own superiors. Sister Ephrem Hollermann states correctly in her introduction to this work "that study of the nineteenth-century founding inspiration of Benedictine women in North America, and its revivified approach to Benedictine life, has been virtually bypassed" (p. xxi). This book is an important corrective to that omission and in the process provides the reader with a far fuller understanding of the rich charism of American Benedictine women. Using the model of recovery of religious life of Raymond Fitz and Lawrence Cada as the framework for her work, Hollermann concentrates on the foundation and expansion periods of Benedictine life in America (1852-1881). The results ofher study ofthis period constitute an appropriate tool for analysis ofthe stabilization, breakdown, and transition periods that followed in the last century. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of the author is the manner in which she mines the primary sources of the period. Correspondence, personal data files, memoirs, chapter minutes, and community chronicles are all marshaled to provide a more developed understanding of the personalities and events of the period. Two historical works in the last decade, Incarnata Girgen's Behind the Beginnings (1981) and Judith Sutera's True Daughters (1987), were groundbreaking studies that investigated the relationship between the first Benedictine sisters from Eichstätt, Germany, and Boniface Wimmer, and the protracted struggle of the American Benedictine sisters to assert their monastic identity and establish their own Benedictine congregations. Hollermann's study advances the scope and detail of these two works considerably. By turns, she is able to give descriptive portraits of the individual women founders (e.g., Benedicta Riepp, Willibalda Scherbauer, Evangelista Kremmeter, Nepomucene Ludwig ), underline the principal flash points of controversy, and provide both a chronology and interpretive commentary on the major events of the early history of the sisters. In reading through the graphic accounts of spiritual struggle and material survival, one dismisses all notions that American Benedictine women led a monochrome or one-dimensional life. Originally written as a doctoral dissertation at Marquette University, this work has a relevance and readability that make it user-friendly for those in formation programs, without detracting from its high level of historical research. Of particular commendation are the extensive appendices. One can only hope that BOOK REVIEWS 301 this work will be a stimulus for other historians ofreligious life as they continue in their efforts to retrieve the charism and community inspiration of their past. Joel Rippinger, O.S.B. MarmionAbbey Aurora, Illinois Bishop East ofthe Rockies: The Life and Letters ofJohn Baptist Miege, SJ. By Herman J. Müller, SJ. (Chicago: Loyola University Press. 1994. Pp. xvii, 198. $1395 paperback.) John Baptist Miege, SJ. (1815-1884), was a Savoyard priest who became one of the pioneer bishops ofthe American West. Leaving Europe in 1848 during an era of anticlericalism and revolution, Miege dedicated himself to missionary work on the Great Plains, soon being appointedVicarApostolic ofall Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains—from the Canadian border on the north to Texas on the south. There he ministered to scattered Indian tribes, and, as white civilization entered the area, witnessed "Bleeding Kansas," the Colorado Gold Rush, and the Civil War. His varied career included attendance at the First Vatican Council, a fund-raising tour of South America (needed to pay offthe debt incurred in the construction of his resplendent Leavenworth cathedral), and service as the first rector-president of Detroit College...

Clare of Assisi by Marco Bartoli, and: The First Franciscan Woman: Clare of Assisi and Her Form of Life by Margaret Carney, O.S.F., and: Clare of Assisi: A Biographical Study by Ingrid J. Peterson, O.S.F.

Clare of Assisi By Marco Bartoli. Translated by Sister Frances Teresa, O.S.C. (Quincy, Illinois: Franciscan Press. 1993. Pp. xii, 244. $21.95 paperback) The First Franciscan Woman: Clare of Assisi and Her Form of Life. By Margaret Carney, O.S.F. (Quincy, Illinois: Franciscan Press. 1993. Pp. 261. $12.95 paperback.) Clare of Assisi: A Biographical Study. By Ingrid J. Peterson, O.S.F. (Quincy, Illinois: Franciscan Press. 1993. Pp. xxviii, 436. $20.95 paperback.) Over the past two decades, the English-speaking world has witnessed a veritable explosion of interest -- both scholarly and popular -- in medieval religious women. But until recently, there has been a notable gap in this Literature. Especially when one compares the number of studies on Benedictine women and Beguines, there was a real dearth of research into their impressive Franciscan counterparts. This was due partially to a lack of readily available sources, remedied only in 1989 with the appearance of Regis Armstrong's Clare of Assisi: Early Documents. But a deeper reason was the inherited tendency of Franciscan scholars to view Clare as simply a passive disciple of the almost mythic figure of her fellow Assisian. Her life was viewed as just a chapter in the story of Francis. Thus one of the most important fruits of the eighth centenary observance of Clare's birth (1993/94) was the decision of the Franciscan Press of Quincy University to publish these three important studies. Each of them has its unique strengths; together they go a long way toward remedying this lacuna in medieval scholarship, at last providing a rich introduction to this important thirteenth-century woman. Marco Bartoli's biography appeared in Italian in 1989, and quickly has become the standard work on Clare in that dominant language of Franciscan research. Bartoli is a disciple of the late great medievalist Raoul Manselli, and his approach shares his master's strengths: a thorough immersion in the primary texts and a rich background in medieval Italian social history. He has produced a portrait of Clare that is well documented, clearly written, and rendered here in an excellent English translation. Its merits are clear, but it also has several defects. The first is rather technical, but it is surprising that in his otherwise fine introduction to the sources on Clare, Bartoli should accept so uncritically the traditional attribution of her Legend to Thomas of Celano (p. 4), even though he is later forced to admit that the author of that work does not appear to appreciate certain key elements of Clare's spirituality (pp. 48, 64, 124 Do not these discrepancies support a different hypothesis: that the Legend's author was not Thomas, and in fact may not have been a Franciscan at all? Two other omissions are more serious. Bartoli presents only a very cursory treatment of Clare's composition of a distinctive form of life for herself and her sisters (pp. 177-180), a fact which severely limits his analysis of that critical document. Finally, the author evinces virtually no awareness of the recent research on the religious experience of medieval women, especially that emanating from the English-speaking world. These two latter defects are remedied respectively by the contributions of Carney and Peterson. Carney's study, originally presented as a doctoral dissertation at the Institute of Franciscan Spirituality in Rome in 1989, is an in-depth exposition of Clare's Rule. Beginning with an excellent critical discussion of the relationship of Francis and Clare in the sources, Carney goes on to describe the historical development of her Rule, emphasizing her active responsibility for framing a distinctive form of life for herself and her sisters. …

True Daughters: Monastic Identity and American Benedictine Women's History. By Judith Sutera, O.S.B. Atchison, Kansas: Mount St. Scholastica, 1987. ii + 165 pp. $6.96.

True Daughters: Monastic Identity and American Benedictine Women's History. By Judith Sutera, O.S.B. Atchison, Kansas: Mount St. Scholastica, 1987. ii + 165 pp. $6.96.