Five values of Benedictine spirituality

Friday, Apr. 17, 2015

OGDEN — Prayer, a strong community life and an awareness of God lead to a better world, Benedictine Sister Stephanie Mongeon said during her April 12 presentation at Saint Joseph Elementary School.

Sr. Stephanie, who now lives at the Sisters of Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minn., returned to Utah for a week as a guest of Catholic Community Services, which asked her to participate in its Dream Builder’s Breakfast on April 15. While here, she agreed to give a talk to the public on Benedictine spirituality.

Before the Benedictine monastery in Ogden closed in 2013 and the sisters moved back to Minnesota, Sr. Stephanie spent 48 years in Utah; on April 18 she will celebrate her 60th anniversary as a vowed religious. 

“If you know Sr. Stephanie, then you’re very lucky,” said Yvonne Coiner while introducing the sister for the talk; Coiner had been executive director of the sisters’ non-profit St. Benedict’s Foundation. “If this is the first time that you get to meet her and be in her presence, then I think your life will change a little bit for the good.”

Using the Rule of Benedict, a guide written in the sixth century by Saint Benedict of Nursia for those in his community, Sr. Stephanie structured her talk around five practices that result in “a spirituality charged with living the ordinary life in an extraordinary way,” she said. “Christ calls the ordinary to help them become extraordinary. It’s that wonderful power that’s in our midst; we just have to be aware of it.”

The Rule of Benedict was written by a layperson for laypeople, she said. “There is nothing exclusive in this approach to spirituality; it speaks to and embraces everybody, irrespective of any religious affiliation and belief.” 

The five practices (the Benedictines call them “values”) that Sr. Stephanie spoke of were awareness of God, listening with the ear of heart, prayer, work in moderation, and community and hospitality.

Those who follow the rule “increase that sense of being a significant part of making our world a better place by who we are, by how we love ourselves,” Sr. Stephanie said.

Benedictines “believe that the Divine Presence is everywhere,” she said, and “an awareness of God is important to the sense of who we are.”

Taking time during the day to be aware of his presence is important, because it is during those times “we are able to listen with the ear of the heart,” she said. “Today, living in our technological world, the practice of attentive listening for God’s voice can seem impossible, but with God it is possible. … Real listening is a spiritual wisdom that knows that God is uniquely present in you.”

When a person recognizes that God is in his or her life, then they are drawn to frequent prayer, which St. Benedict prescribed “as a singularly effective means for developing a listening heart,” Sr. Stephanie said.

Prayer is valuable and should never be underestimated, she said. “Lives will be saved, minds will be changed and yes, good will come” through prayer, she said.

Work in moderation is vital to human life; it develops the gifts given to each person, she said, but added that she is convinced “that God never created us to be workaholics,” she said. 

People who gather regularly in a community that offers loving support live longer, she said. 

When she worked in the hospital, she “used to tell nurses that they are more important than penicillin, but only if they establish a relationship of mutual respect and know the giftedness of each person,” she said. “Our world needs vital communities. There are so many people who want to belong.”

About 150 people attended the presentation, many of whom have known Sr. Stephanie for years. Among them was Jeremy Stokes, who met her at Ogden Regional Hospital when he was admitted for a gunshot wound to the chest, he said.

“She was my saving angel. She would come and see me every single day, and every chance I get to see her or talk to her, I take” because joy and energy overwhelms him as soon as he sees her, he said. 

Sr. Stephanie has a positive attitude and is centered in God, said Donna Petersen, who conducted perinatal home visits for several years through a grant from the St. Benedict’s Foundation. 

“She loves us all; she carries God’s love like Christ,” Petersen said, adding that she particularly appreciated Sr. Stephanie’s message that “God loves us and holds us.”

For Lois Green, whose father worked with Sr. Stephanie at St. Benedict Hospital, a telling part of the sister’s talk was “the idea of the silence and the chance to just focus on God and get away from all the rush and hurry of life.”