Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Events

Aqua/Hydroponics Training

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Is summer’s heat squashing your energy?

Plan ahead for our next really cool aquaponics training in the fall.

October 17 through 21, 2022

 

Here at Holy Name Monastery in Saint Leo, Florida we have been engaged in aquaponics farming since 2015.  We have cultivated a wide variety of fresh vegetables and raised thousands of tilapia using the best farming practices of aquaponics.  Plan now to experience the thrill of growing your own food and register for this life-changing course.  You will develop skills necessary for the creation of a sustainable backyard aquaponic system, a system that will contribute greatly to your family’s well-being.  Let Aquasol help you design your healthy food future.

 

TOPICS COVERED:

Classroom:  Introduction, benefits of aquaponics, types of aquaponics, home food production, commercial, social, mission aquaponics around the world, vegetable choices, biological and natural pest control, fish biology, fish nutrition, fish selection, fish food and feeding, water quality, nitrification and nutrient availability for plants, good agricultural practices and best aquaculture practices.

 

COURSE DETAILS:

Length:  5 days with optional evening seminars

Materials:  include course manual, hands-on activities

Cost:  $990 per person

Registration:  813-600-9297 or email  don@aquasol.org

Email Don Luttrell: don@aquasol.org or click on the link below for their website.

 

www.Aquasol.org

(click on the link above)

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Update from the Benedictine community in Lviv, Ukraine

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The situation with the reception of refugees remains intense. People from the eastern regions of our country continue to arrive here and seek refuge.  Most of them managed to escape the bombardments by evacuation trains or green corridors and have already witnessed the explosions.  They are often very stressed and need to be taken care of.

On the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, there are 117 people (44 of them children) in our monastery without monks and nuns (139 in total).  We were able to increase the number of beds a little and create a more comfortable stay for them.  In total, more than five hundred people during this period asked to stay overnight or stayed at the monastery for some time.  Now we have mostly families who are permanent and don’t want to go any further.  With some of the families we developed a warm and friendly relationship, they quickly became part of our family.  At the Easter Vigil there was the Baptism of our youngest resident, Nicol Scholastica, who was only two weeks old at the time of her arrival.

Thanks to your help we can take these people in and give them everything they need, and we are infinitely grateful that you are sympathetic to our suffering and that you are close to us in such a concrete way.

The Benedictine Sisters of Florida and our donors have contributed to the refugee relief.

We thank you for your loving support to the Sisters and their missions!

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National Day of Prayer

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Today is National Day of Prayer.  It is so easy to forget to pray.  Jesus knows about being human, a soul housed in a human body, a body which needs air, needs water, needs food.  But He admonishes us that we must also nourish our spiritual self not only through the sacraments, but also through private prayer.

Today we have the opportunity to join with all people of faith in prayer for ourselves, our communities, and our world.  We can go into our personal desert to pray alone as Jesus did while on earth.  But prayer is an anywhere, anytime, activity.  We can pray in the car, in the shower, while we walk, during the commercial breaks while watching television (the mute button is useful here).  Jesus is always ready to hear us.

Today, let us join all who pray.  Let us raise our souls to God, if only for moment, if only to say “Here I am.  Thank you for life.  Thank you for now”.

~by Sister Eileen Dunbar

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Earth Day

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Earth Day – April 22, 2022

Ever hear a mother ask her child, “Where on earth were you?”  This year Earth Day falls the week after the world celebrated Jesus’ conquest over death through his resurrection.  Where are we every earth day?  How have we treated our planet earth this past year?  What has changed?  So much.

Here in the monastery’s sacred environment we breathe in the fragrance of Easter lilies, freshly baked bread, and alas, we know the taste of worldly reality.  Much has intensified since last Earth Day.  Our belief in Jesus’ presence in everyday personal situations which contrasts with an awareness of world polarities on our mother earth as the amount of prayer requests on our website increases.

On the opposite side of the globe, souls scream for change as ice glaciers continue to warm and break off, as satanic evil power destroys our neighbor and land –similar to the Roman Empire era of Jesus’ day.  Caring persons work tirelessly doing good to eradicate mounting desperation, poverty, ignorance, violence, war and greed. So much reform needs to happen to save our earth.  None of us lives in isolation.  All events impact us because all are our neighbors.

If daily news overwhelms us, it’s mandatory to get back to garden therapy  to pray with and for the earth’s peoples, uproot a weed, rearrange a shelf, reseed a crop, prune a blueberry branch, harvest a squash, and bring a yield to the kitchen.  As developers invade the land causing fewer organisms to exist, our sacred monastery space becomes all the more special.  Some Sisters faithfully walk our prayer path seeking strength, relief, comfort or peace for others on their earthly journey just as Jesus breathed the same air we breathe and walked this earth.

Our souls are eager for bits of good news – a friend who will finally get her green card, a new grandpa-to-be, Easter e-cards from friends, an innocent child singing her grace before meal prayer, kind donors who faithfully support us, a pension application in process, several volunteers who help to carry the load.  The greatest Good News is proclaimed and heard each morning as we continually relive the death and resurrection of Christ and of ourselves.  May these thoughts give hope to your Earth Day.

~by Sister Miriam Cosgrove

 

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