All are welcome!

Reading scripture together is a touchstone for our worship. Hearing the stories of people encountering God through the ages guides and inspires our lives together. Our scripture selections follow the Revised Common Lectionary, used by Christian churches throughout the world and including readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalms, Epistles and Gospels. A time of silent reflection follows each reading to allow space for the words to seep into our imagination. Afterwards, the homilist preaches, engaging listeners in an exploration of scripture and its application to our personal lives and our world.

We celebrate communion every Sunday around an open table. Everyone is invited and welcome to receive the bread and wine. You will be offered a piece of bread from a bowl which is passed among the assembly. While holding your bread, take the bowl and offer a piece to your neighbor while saying “the bread of life” (or something similar). We then wait until everyone has received before we pray and eat the bread together. Similarly, everyone is welcome to receive from the cup, distributed at stations throughout the sanctuary and shared from one person to the next with the words, “the cup of life” (or something similar). With parental guidance, children are welcome to participate as well. (Gluten-free and dairy-free bread, as well as grape juice, are available as alternatives.)

The service ends at approximately 10:00 am with a closing song, a blessing, and an invitation to conversation over coffee, tea or hot cocoa in the guest dining room. We are honored and strengthened by the presence of visitors, and hope that you will join us this Sunday!

Children are welcomed and valued members of our community. Sunday Assembly strives to provide a family and child-friendly culture where people of all ages are welcome to join in worship. We are also pleased to offer childcare, Children’s Prayer, and regular family events in order to meet the unique needs of children. It is our hope that by doing so, Children’s Ministry also provides parents and caregivers the opportunity to relax and participate in the contemplative aspects of worship and community.

Childcare is available every week. Two caretakers provide care for infants and children  in the Hospitality Room (in the hallway near the restrooms). When you drop your child off, please sign in and take a moment to help your child(ren) settle in and meet the caretakers. You are welcome to leave comfort items and any supplies you think caretakers may need as they attend to your child. The Gathering Area is also available for your family’s use during worship. Both the Gathering Area and the Hospitality Room have access to the sound system and toys available for your children. If you have any questions, please contact Bill Frederick at 608-836-1631, x138 or bfrederick@holywisdommonastery.org.

Children’s Prayer is offered during worship, usually on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. Children ages 6-9 are invited for some learning and prayer time during the Liturgy of the Word, and rejoin the congregation to receive Communion.

Family Gatherings are regularly scheduled gatherings, usually on Saturday afternoons/evenings, where families, teachers, and caregivers share a meal and small-group prayer. Childcare and special children’s prayer time are held separately from the adult gathering, in order for everyone to have an opportunity to participate with their peers. For more information about Children’s Prayer and Family Gatherings, please contact Sarah Wilkin Gibart, sjwilkin09@gmail.com.

Membership is established through regular worship with Sunday Assembly and through becoming known and getting to know the community. Persons are encouraged to register as members of the Sunday Assembly, and forms are provided. The contributions of all create and sustain the community of Sunday Assembly through prayers, presence, gifts and service.

Sunday Assembly Council reaffirmed 3-18-2018

Sunday Assembly Community Life

1. The community life of the Sunday Assembly includes worship together, fellowship after Sunday worship, occasional meals and socials, assemblies and retreats, and mutual attentiveness to events in our lives- for our members of all ages, individuals, couples and families
2. The monastic women of Holy Wisdom Monastery maintain a Monastic Ritual Team, which establishes all policies in matters of prayer and worship including presiders and homilists, sacramental celebrations, special blessings and observances.
3. The worship of the Sunday Assembly provides for various liturgical ministries, as an opportunity for Sunday Assembly members- adults, youth and children, to share their gifts and talents for the benefit of the entire worshipping community. Training and formation is provided.
4. The Sunday Assembly Council serves as a resource and advisor to the prioress and oversees the ministries, committees and activities of Sunday Assembly for the nurturance and sustaining of the community within the framework of Benedictine spirituality.
5. The monastery also provides for a director of worship and music to coordinate the preparation and celebration of liturgy.

Sunday Assembly Council reaffirmed 9-23-2018

Sunday Assembly Presiders/Homilists

Sally Bowers

Sally is an ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church since 1986. She worked on the Southside of Chicago with Shalom Ministries & Urban Life Center addressing poverty and educating young adults through justice experiential learning. She served for 20 years in both rural pastoral ministries and director of a faith-based poverty center in Northwest IL.  She began her work on prairie restoration during that time. In 2002 she moved to Madison and worked with vulnerable youth populations through Dane County Extension and then as a chaplain with UW Hospital until retirement in 2022.  She lives in Madison with her husband, Howard Fenton, with a love for prairie, hiking and birds. They have two young adult daughters.

David Couper

David grew up in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. After a tour in the Marines, he began a long, 30-year career in municipal policing and served as Madison’s chief of police for over 20 years. Shortly before his retirement, he found himself called by God into Christian ministry. He attended seminary at Nashotah House and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1995. He holds graduate degrees in deviant behavior and religious studies and served Wisconsin parishes in Portage and North Lake before becoming an oblate at Holy Wisdom in 2024. He is an author, poet and pundit who blogs and writes about matters of peacekeeping and criminal justice. He and his wife, Christine, live in the unglaciated hills west of Blue Mounds and have a large, blended family, two cats and a labradoodle.

Nancy Hutchison Enderle

Nancy has served as the Co-Director of the Ecumenical Center for Clergy Spiritual Renewal (ECCSR) at Holy Wisdom Monastery since its founding in 2019 and is currently the Director. An ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 1985, she has served congregations in rural Minnesota, suburban New York City, downtown Chicago and interim positions around Madison, WI. Her varied ministry background includes non-profit leadership in areas of social justice and LGBTQIA+ ordination inclusion within the PC (USA). In 2018, Nancy completed two-years of study with the Living School of the Center for Action and Contemplation founded and led by Richard Rohr. She lives with her husband Gordon in Middleton, WI. They have two young adult children and a precious, but needy Cock-a-poo named Maisy.

Roberta Felker

Roberta is a retired educator who served as a teacher and administrator in public and Catholic schools and universities. Her homilies draw on her family’s theology of service, an addiction to poetry, and an appreciation for the contradictions and questions in the lectionary readings. A Fulbright Scholar and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Roberta holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been a member of Sunday Assembly since 1997

Jerry Folk

Jerry is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He and his family moved to Madison in 1992 when he was called as pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church. Later, he served as Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches and after retirement taught in the Religious Studies department of Edgewood College as an adjunct faculty member. He and his wife, Kathy, are member of Holy Wisdom’s Sunday Assembly.

Max Harris

Colleen Hartung

Colleen holds a Ph.D. in Theology and Ethics from Chicago Theological Seminary.  She has served as a spiritual guide for over 15 years, is currently the chair of the 1000 Women in Religion Wikipedia Project and works with the Ministries for Families and Children team at Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Manato Jansen

Manato was ordained in the American Baptist Church in 2022 and holds an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School. Prior to moving to Madison, Manato served in ministry and chaplaincy at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Emerson College and Old Cambridge Baptist Church. Manato currently serves in campus ministry and residential life at Pres House.

Paul Knitter

Before retiring to Madison with his wife Cathy Cornell in 2013, Paul taught theology at Xavier University for 28 years and at Union Theological Seminary in New York for seven years. He was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome in 1966.

Patti LaCross

Patti was raised in the spirit of the 2^nd Vatican Council in Milwaukee. Her faith has been shaped by family life and vibrant communities including St. Benedict’s/Holy Wisdom Monastery, La Samaritaine, and her work in education and ministry on Chicago’s southside, with farmworkers in South Florida, and with immigrants/refugees and those homeless in Madison. She has a Master’s in Theological Studies from the Catholic Theological Union.

Terry Larson

Terry is a previous protestant pastor who prefers poetry, pollinator plants, preaching, progressive people, polite politicians, pithy plots, pleasing prairies, plentiful portions of produce, perky pets, peaceful prayers and……alliteration.

Paul Markquart

Paul was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1991. Paul is married to Melissa who has been an Oblate at Holy Wisdom for about 20 years.  When Paul retired, Melissa’s time as an Oblate was how they became part of the Sunday Assembly. Paul most recently served at St. John’s Lutheran in Oregon, WI.  They now live between Oregon and Stoughton on a hobby farm they have created.  Paul is a conservationist and outdoorsman.  He designed and helped build their home and has restored 15 acres of short grass prairie. In addition to habitat restoration Paul is working on restoring the once abundant wild Bobwhite quail in the area. They have three adult children and three birddogs.

David McKee

David and his wife, Alison, have been members of Sunday Assembly since 2012. He is an oblate of Holy Wisdom Monastery, as well as a member of the Midwest Soto Zen Community, affectionately known as The Stray Dog Sangha. He is the proud father of a daughter, Georgina, and a son, Christian. He is the even prouder grandfather of Zadie Rosemary McKee. David is a haiku poet and a psychotherapist in private practice in Madison.

Christine Pasinski Thomas

Christine was ordained in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) and she has been a Racine Dominican Associate for over 25 years. After completing seminary and a year Chaplaincy training (CPE) she served congregations in both Milwaukee and Chicago. These congregations had a specific ministry to the LGBTQ people at a time when few churches opened their doors to this community. Her ministry extended to working with the homeless at a southside Chicago shelter. She later worked with the frail elderly as an administrator of a nonprofit organization. Christine felt a need to be doing a more “hands on” ministry so she attended Marquette’s nursing programs and completed her studies as a Nurse Practitioner. She worked for the VA her entire nursing career serving hospice, rehab, transitional, and primary care. Christine is retired and lives with her wife Elaine in Madison Wisconsin.

Jim Penczykowski

Jim’s educational background focuses on pastoral theology.  His careers include pastoral ministry, substance abuse counseling, clinical supervision, and program and facilities management.  He takes joy from preparing homilies that proclaim “good news.”

Rex Piercy

Rex retired in 2016 after 40+ plus years of parish ministry, first in the United Methodist Church and then in the United Church of Christ in Iowa, Illinois and Hawaii. Rex and his husband Lee Johnsen moved to Madison that same year, after being married in a “pop-up wedding” during Rex’s retirement party. Rex is also an attorney and a former administrator and professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. Rex and Lee enjoy travel and spend winters in Costa Rica. They have two adult children and five grandchildren in Iowa and Minnesota.

Pam Shellberg

Pam is, happily and gratefully, the Director of Spiritual Nourishment at Holy Wisdom Monastery. She has been a public school educator, the scholar-in-residence for a non-profit religious organization in Maine, the director of lifelong learning and Christian Education at several ELCA Lutheran churches, and the assistant professor of New Testament at Bangor Theological Seminary and Andover Newtown Theological School. She completed her graduate work in Theology and Religious Studies at Marquette University, has written curriculum for Augsburg Fortress, leads retreats and is currently in a spiritual direction certification program.

Wayne Sigelko

Wayne’s experience of Christianity has largely been shaped by his participation in three communities: the Capuchin-Franciscans with whom he studied in the 1970s and early 80s, La Samaritaine ecumenical community of Madison where he and his wife and children lived in the late 80s and early 90s, and the Sunday Assembly of Holy Wisdom Monastery which has been a spiritual home for nearly 30 years. Wayne pursued graduate studies in Biblical Theology at Marquette University and holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. He teaches undergraduate mathematics at the Madison Area Technical College and has been preaching regularly for Sunday Assembly for more than 20 years.

Lynne Smith, OSB

Lynne was ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1982. She has been a Benedictine Sister of Holy Wisdom Monastery since 2000 and became Prioress in 2024.

Mary David Walgenbach, OSB

Mary David is a Benedictine Sister of Holy Wisdom Monastery who made her first profession on January 6, 1961.       

Leora Weitzman, PhD

An oblate of Holy Wisdom Monastery since 2000, Leora is also inspired by the Ignatian tradition and by wisdom from around the world. Nature, animals, and music are lifelong loves and influences. A former philosophy professor, she later practiced and taught massage and yoga and currently works as a freelance editor. She shares a desire to hear and follow the Spirit as it speaks in body, mind, and heart.

Steve Zwettler

Steve was ordained in the Catholic Church and shares 45 years of pastoral experience as a pastor, hospital chaplain, teacher, Hospice chaplain, and spiritual director– with a special affinity for ministry to the sick and dying. Steve is married to Barbara Brummer and together they enjoy reading, gardening, biking, traveling, Wisconsin Athletics, and gathering with friends and family.

Anointing of the Sick.  On particular Sundays throughout the year, we pray especially for healing. All are invited to participate in this special liturgy as we seek God’s help and pray with and for those in our community who place themselves in God’s loving care. The prayer, for those who choose to participate, is held in the oratory on the lower level of the monastery, immediately after Sunday worship, and lasts about 20 minutes.

The Social Justice Group shares information on many concerns: prison reform, immigration, health care, racism, hunger, poverty, and others.  The focus is to identify ways we can help and support others to be restored to equality and wholeness.  Meetings will be after worship on the first Sunday of the month and we welcome all who are interested to attend. 

Luke House 

For more than 30 years, The Community Meal Program has brought Dane County church groups and other faith-based communities together to help feed local people who are in need.  Faith is what motivates the volunteers who prepare and serve food, and then eat with guests who come. The Community Meal Program is an important and practical way of being church together. On the second Tuesday of each month members of Holy Wisdom Monastery participate in preparing, serving and sharing a meal at Luke House. For more information contact Mary Hoddy, 608-217-6664, mary.hoddy@wisc.edu or visit the Luke House website at www.lukehousemadison.org.

MOSES

Madison Organizing in Strength, Equality and Solidarity (MOSES) is an interfaith organization that unites congregations to build a better community. MOSES brings individuals and congregations together to take action on issues of social justice, such as prison reform in Wisconsin and other issues related to criminal justice. Sunday Assembly is a supporting member and organizes around MOSES initiatives. 

To learn more about this work, how to get involved, and/or to be added to our listserv, please go to mosesmadison.org or contact our Holy Wisdom representative Patti at lacross.patricia@gmail.com. 

Just Dane – Circles of Support

Circles of Support provides persons newly released from prison a respectful, positive and supportive environment as they adjust to the demands and challenges of everyday life back in the community. The circles meet weekly and consist of the newly released person and four to six community volunteers. Sunday Assembly members participate in these Circles, providing timely support and encouragement for people re-integrating into the Madison community.

Learn more about this practice of silent prayer with a small group. Two centering prayer groups meet on alternating Wednesdays. Both incorporate a short reading and time for silent prayer or meditation.

• 1st & 3rd Wednesdays, 7:00-8:00 pm, Retreat & Guest House Room 10 (lower level), includes a short walking meditation in between periods of seated meditation.
• 2nd & 4th Wednesdays, 2:30-3:30 pm, Monastery Building Oratory (lower level), two, 20 minute periods of seated meditation with a 5 minute break.

Kids On the Prairie

At Holy Wisdom Monastery we are blessed with acres of natural habitat, lovingly restored. The monastery grounds support a diversity of plant and animal species which give us many opportunities to learn about God’s wonderful work in Creation. The Benedictine value of care for the earth is fundamental to our existence. We want to share this value with all the communities of Holy Wisdom, including our children and youth.

To help children gain an appreciation for the natural world and a desire to care for it, we offer Kids On the Prairie (KOTP), hikes and exploration of the various eco-systems at the monastery.

KOTP usually takes place on the second Sunday of the month and begins after Sunday Assembly worship from 10:30 am-12:00 pm. Children are encouraged to explore different topics while making their own discoveries. Naturalists provide age-appropriate information and teaching based on children’s interests and seasonal happenings.

There is no fee. KOTP is designed for children and their caregivers to learn about nature and explore the monastery grounds. Bring your friends. For more information contact Julie Melton, jmelton@uwalumni.com.

See upcoming dates and topics