Forming a Covenant

As a novice, I have not yet taken the vows of a professed sister at Mount St. Scholastica, but I made several vows nonetheless at the Rite of Installation of Prioress on Sunday. During the rite, as part of the Covenanting of the Community with the Prioress, Sr. Esther Fangman asked the community the following questions:

• Will you strive to support me in my leadership as prioress as together we seek God in this monastic community according to the spirit of St. Benedict?

• Will you lend your strength to my weakness and support me in times of failure and discouragement?

• Will you try to uphold one another with the greatest of patience for one another’s weakness and brokenness?

• Will you strive to be zealous for God and open and generous with the demands of community?

I was moved by Sr. Esther’s humility in asking the first two questions, and the last two questions should be inscribed and placed in a Benedictine mezuzah at the entrance to each living group space, for they speak to the heart of living in community. Sr. Esther’s installation as prioress provided an opportunity to affirm our desire to live with humility, patience, zeal, and generosity—a daunting task for a novice and for jubilarians alike, but somehow it seems possible when we are all on the path together.