Prayer, Silence & Solitude

The vocation to be a nun is first and foremost a vocation to prayer - and it is a vocation to pray for others - not merely selfishly. It is in fact a sacrifice of prayer, and the chief means of this sacrifice are silence and solitude.

There is a simple test of this vocation. If you cannot spend a day in silence - holding your conversation with God, and offering yourself as a channel for his grace to flow out to others, then you do not have the charism to be a nun. That is not to say it is easy - there are days it is a struggle for even the most seasoned nun to even want to hold herself in God’s presence and think thoughts of charity, but she works at it till she can. It is our job, our work - the world cannot change till someone, somewhere holds it in the presence of God. It requires perseverance to become a channel of the Holy Spirit, and it does not happen in a day. It is a work of grace - a charism for the conversion of the world - and your own gradual conversion is part of this.

First days at the Skete

On your first visit you will not be taught anything. You will simply be given the timetable and told when to show up for offices and meals. It is a good idea to bring some handwork and reading to tide you over while you are settling in. This solitude is the real test of vocation - can you be comfortable in a place where the first person to turn to is God? Can you in fact listen for the presence of God and gradually add the rest in? Benedict starts his rule by saying ‘Obsculta, o filio...et inclina aurem cordis tui’ - listen...and attend with the ear of your heart.

In this tradition, there is not a large distinction between a hermit living in a detached hermitage and two or three sharing the common life in a monastic house. A nun may find herself, as Sister Petra Clare has, living alone because a companion is unable to continue the life. Through this, she became de facto a hermit, and the skete a hermitage, without any deliberate decision on her part. She has permission to guide others in this tradition and take aspirants. There are at present no other nuns in the skete, so you are joining a hermit in the way the earliest monks and nuns started.

God invites you, in your first visit to the skete to put aside any agenda you have for your personal development and let Him take the initiative.

Daily Monastic Life

There is no very detailed timetable in a skete hermitage - simply a few fixed points when members come together - Matins, Lauds, Vespers, and the main meal. On ordinary days there is an hour for personal prayer at 4.30 am followed by Matins. The three offices together are chanted, largely in Latin Gregorian. The little hours are said privately in your cell or place of work. About five hours a day, Monday to Friday, needs to be spent by members on a home-based job to cover your share of the common income.

Chores and cooking are means of serving each other and are done on a rota - except washing up after the main meal, which everyone present shares! As you settle into the rhythm of the monastic day, you will develop a personal timetable of prayer, study and work, under Sister Petra Clare’s guidance.

Once a week there is a complete desert day (usually Friday) when Greater Silence is kept all day and all offices are said in private. On feasts and some other days more is shared - a ‘talking recreation’ with Compline in the evening and, once a month, a day off is taken for the traditional long walk (spatiamentum).

Earning Our Daily Bread: Work as Prayer

There is no sharp definition between work and prayer. Work is seen as part of the human vocation of redemption: the Bible promises us not only an immortal body but a new heaven and a new earth. As we have to prepare ourselves for this transformation through prayer and purification, so we have a responsibility, to transform the world. Adam’s original job was caring for material creation and the recreation of the world demands we do the same.

The work you do in a skete can carry on the profession you have followed in the world, if this can be done in the silence and solitude of the cell or in the garden. If it cannot, you may need to think about re-training or bringing a former hobby up to a more professional standard before entering.There is scope to develop a full ecclesiastical arts studio and desktop publishing, expanding from the icons, which are the main income at present. Some studies can be shared in CDs or distance learning courses. Secretarial and computer based skills are always useful, and a gardener to grow vegetables would be great help!

Divine Office, Mass & Eucharistic Devotions

Chanting the office is a means of developing contemplative prayer: it is done as well as possible, but the hermit’s office is a religious discipline not a concert solo! Gregorian chant is an important heritage of the Church and incorporates a wealth of meditatio on Scripture, which is of immense value for the solitary life. The offices are in Latin/English ( Matins - when one is sleepy - has most English!). The modes of the chant and Latin are learnt gradually over several years.

Don’t expect daily Mass - unless a priest seeking solitary life or on a sabbatical offers his services to the parish and skete! Priests are few and far between in the Highlands and we are lucky if we get two Masses a week. Sister Petra Clare has permission to distribute communion from the reserve sacrament, which she normally does on feast days, with Exposition as appropriate.

However this charism is to prayer in the desert and its ideal of faith is the hermit who said “If you knew what you were truly receiving, you would only need to receive the sacrament once in a lifetime to be made perfect.” Our role models are the desert monks who walked miles to Sunday Mass and spent the rest of the week becoming themselves the tabernacle where God dwells.

Serving the local Parish & wider community

The skete is attached (literally- it is an old presbytery!) to the local parish church, and you will meet the parishioners on Sunday and occasionally in the week. Sister Petra Clare is sacristan for the church and also works with the Strathglass Heritage Group, especially on the religious history of the area. Occasionally she offers study courses (usually home based) such as the Icon Summer School. This kind of work is a sharing of the contemplative life with others.

The Monastic house & grounds

The main part of the house and the garden is kept as enclosure, although the refectory is left accessible to visitors so that it can double as an occasional parlour. The parish church gallery acts as a ‘nuns tribune’ in which to sing office in summer and to hear Mass. You need to be healthy enough to negotiate a spiral staircase! The intention is to convert the upstairs rooms into ‘double cells,’ to give three sisters a workroom and sleeping cell, and build two free standing hermitages on the adjoining parish land as the ‘first stage’ of the skete - of course, this will have to be done step by step, according to vocations and funds. If the skete develops well, a site up the glen will be sought for more remote hermitages.

Joining the Skete

A new venture. The Skete is under Diocesan jurisdiction ( canon 605 - the Bishop’s responsibility for new ventures). In practise the Bishop delegates oversight to a monastic adviser. The guidelines are similar to those of the Camaldoli hermitages. As there is as yet no Camaldoli monastery in Scotland and as it is an ideal place for one it is hoped that formal association can be explored at an appropriate stage

Postulancy and Noviciate. Sister Petra Clare, as an experienced hermit nun, is authorised by the Bishop to direct novices for the monastic life at the skete. He has directed that any lay person wishing to join the skete must serve a years postulancy before clothing in the habit. The reason for this is both to ensure that someone initially inspired by the life has the commitment to see it through, and so that the newcomer can experience the extreme variation of summer and winter in the Highlands -in the far North, they are different worlds! During postulancy the emphasis is on aptitude for the life. Noviciate studies will be arranged after clothing according to local resources and canon law.

Seeking ‘solitude in community’. Professed nuns, hermits or virgins wishing to be incorporated into the skete may come for an extended period of discernment, according to the juridical norms.

And before you come. It would be good to hear from anyone who would like a pre-postulancy period of discernment as a ‘donate,’ undertaking a simple religious practise at home supplemented by extended stays at the skete, This suggestion has emerged from the need to ‘bridge the gap’ for aspirants who have to defer entry on account of student loans or similar liabilities.