Beauty during Lent 

Lynne Smith, OSBBenedictine Reflections 3 Comments

The monastery’s theme for 2022 is beauty. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamozov: “The world will be saved by beauty.” The first image that came to me as I pondered this was that of Vedran Smajlovic playing Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor in the bombed streets of Sarajevo in 1992. He played each day for 22 days to mark the death of the 22 people killed standing in line for bread during the siege of the city. Hear the story from BBC news.    Beauty can keep the human heart and spirit alive in the midst of suffering. The PBS …

St Cloud Symphony Orchestra

Can beauty save the world?

Holy Wisdom MonasteryLetters home, Living in Community 5 Comments

Music filled the darkened performance hall. An attentive hush fell over the audience as the lush strains of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor drew us together in wonder, a fellowship of listeners. For a few brief and precious moments, all of these strangers in a room made up one marvelous whole, separate but together, rooted in place yet soaring at the same time. It was Saturday night, and Sister Tammy Shoemaker from Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, MN and I were treating ourselves to an evening out with the St Cloud Symphony Orchestra. As we took …