Monasteries of the Heart

Forming a Monastic Heart: eCourses and eRetreats

How do you form a monastic heart? Regular prayer, honest self-reflection in lectio, good work, and faithful sharing of our lived experience in community—essential elements of the monastic way of life—are presented on this Monasteries of the Heart website. Instruction on the Benedictine way of life, or the passing down of the monastic charism from those who have chosen this lifestyle, is also imperative.

The following eCourses present a monastic spirituality for contemporary seekers like yourself who wish to embrace the tradition. The offerings are part of an ongoing Monastic Curriculum that can help you form a monastic heart, a heart afire with the unbounded love of God.

The foundational text for Monasteries of the Heart is Joan Chittister's book, The Monastery of the Heart: An Invitation to a Meaningful Life, a road map based on the Rule of Benedict, a practical model upon which to build a satisfying life, despite the seemingly limitless and, at times, meaningless supply of options in the modern world. All new members are encouraged to use the study guide to deepen their understanding of this invitation. Order the book here. Access the Study Guide here.

New eCourses

Monasticism is for Everyone: The History and Promise of Tradition

Monasticism is for Everyone

Do you consider yourself a monk? If so, where do you fit in the monastic tradition? How would you articulate your life as a monk? If you are looking for answers to those questions, this eCourse is for you. Ecourse runs May 1 - May 31, 2023 and includes Zoom sessions.

READ MORE>>>

$30.00

One price for one-year access to these select courses

• Creating a Monastery of the Heart with Joan Chittister
• Praying the Psalms with Joan Chittister
• All You Holy Women with Edwina Gateley
• Heart of the Rule with Joan Chittister
• Empower Yourself, Empower Others with Joan Chittister
• Nonviolence and the Rule of Benedict with Anne McCarthy
• Monastic Wisdom for the Workplace with Judith Valente
• Love, Forgiveness and Reconciliation with Joan Chittister
• Lectio Divina: Finding Your Sacred Center
• Thomas Merton and Peacemaking

One price for one-year access to these select courses

• Lectio Divina A Summer Experience
• Sacred Moments Lectio with Ordinary Time
• Respond with Nonviolence
• Friendship of Women
• Give Me a Word
• Monastery Scribes
• How Shall We Live
• Great Monastic Women
• Beatitudes of Peace with John Dear
• Gift of Years

Study and reflect on your time at your pace. With this one-time enrollment fee you will have access to these ten eCourses for a full year. The content varies by course and includes text, video and audio. Each course is also available separately. Scroll down for individual descriptions and selections.

Comments are not open on these courses.

Get ONE YEAR access.

$75.00


Study and reflect on your time at your pace. With this one-time enrollment fee you will have access to these ten eCourses for a full year. The content varies by course and includes text, video and audio. Each course is also available separately. Scroll down for individual descriptions and selections.

Comments are not open on these courses.

Get ONE YEAR access.

$75.00

Get access to previously offered courses for six months

Gift of Years

Gift of Years with Joan Chittister

How do you view the aging process? Is it tinged with anxiety and regret? Or do you see it as an adventure, a time to find meaning, and a ripening? Or, is it a little of both?

Gift of Years, an eCourse based on Joan Chittister’s best-selling book by the same name, offers you the chance to look at this time of maturation with fresh eyes, with joy for what has been and optimism for what is to come. >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Beatitudes of Peace with John Dear

Beatitudes with John Dear

In “The Beatitudes of Peace,” a new four-week Monasteries of the Heart eCourse, author and peace activist John Dear will offer fresh insights into the Beatitudes, including a new rendering of the Beatitudes based on an Aramaic translation. “Jesus was inviting us to ‘Arise! Get up, get moving and walk forth! you poor, you poor in spirit …Arise! Get up, get moving and walk forth, you who mourn….,’” Dear says.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Great Monastic Women

Great Monastic Women at Monasteries of the Heart

How much time do you devote to your inner life?

The truth is that enriching your inner life can change your outlook on just about everything. And, fortunately, there are many spiritual giants whose own journeys to wholeness can guide you as you search for fullness and meaning. Where did figures like Dorothy Day or Saints Hildegard of Bingen, Gertrude or Scholastica, for example, find the inspiration for their lives and work? How did they connect with the divine? What difference can their witness make in your life?  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

How Shall We Live

How Shall We Live: The Six Pillars of Monastic Life

“How shall I live?” Isn’t that the question each of us presses to our heart as we move through our days? It’s the same question that Benedict of Nursia addressed 1,500 years ago. Sister Joan Chittister has selected six pillars that she believes are integral to Saint Benedict’s Rule and essential to meeting the challenges of our times. They are: work, holy leisure, stewardship, community, humility and peace. This eCourse will present you with insights on integrating these values more deeply in your life.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Monastery Scribes

Monastery Scribes

Is keeping a spiritual journal—a kind of heart-to-heart conversation with other seekers, poets, mystics, and saints—a practice you’d like to explore? If so, then consider becoming a Monastery Scribe.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Give Me a Word

Give Me a Word

In the early centuries, seekers desiring a deeper spiritual life went and sought direction from seasoned monks saying, “Amma (mother) or Abba (father), give me a word." The same word might be offered over and over, year after year, until finally its meaning revealed itself to the seeker. This Lent, go into the "desert spaces" of your own life with Give Me A Word, drawing on Sister Joan Chittister’s 2015 book In God’s Holy Light.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

SIX MONTH ACCESS
 

$15.00

Friendship of Women

Friendship of Women

The best defense against the rampant sexism in our culture is the support, friendship, and sisterhood that women can offer each other. “Friendship is the sacrament of possibility,” writes Joan Chittister. What might become possible for this world—sickened for generations by violence and cruelty toward women— if we develop true, holy friendships? >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES ICONS
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Respond with Nonviolence

Respond with Nonviolence: a Benedictine Approach to the World

Overwhelmed by the magnitude of threats to peace in our world today?
Tempted to curl up in a ball and hide until it’s all straightened out?
Find yourself spewing indiscriminate anger instead of using focused anger at injustice?
Or wondering if a refresher course in nonviolence would be helpful right about now?
>>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES AUDIO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Sacred Moments Lectio with Ordinary Time

Sacred Moments: Lectio on Ordinary Time

Is it difficult for you to feel peace or wonder in the midst of your daily life? Is it hard to find beauty and meaning when the dishes are piled in the sink, or when your neighbors can be heard through the walls? We often think of the sacred as something far-off and mystical, to be found in a cathedral or on a mountaintop, rather than something that even mundane moments may be infused with. Yet Joan Chittister writes that, "Benedictine spirituality...is a life of concentration on life's ordinary dimensions, an attempt to do ordinary things extraordinarily well. >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Thomas Merton and Peacemaking

Thomas Merton and Peacemaking with John Dear

Is the vocation of peacemaker reserved for a chosen few or is it your call too? The late Trappist monk Thomas Merton believed peacemaking and nonviolence were Gospel imperatives. In this four-week eCourse, best-selling author and peace activist John Dear explores how the writings and mentoring of Merton profoundly influenced the peace landscape of the institutional church and continues to shape it still. More importantly it forces all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus to grapple with the demanding invitation of the Sermon on the Mount.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Lectio Divina A Summer Experience

Lectio Divina A Summer Experience

Lectio Divina, reflective sacred reading, has deep roots in Benedictine spirituality. Traditionally, the scriptures were the only text for lectio, but in this course you are invited to use other of God’s texts—nature, photography, and the daily news—as ways to engage in a lifelong conversation with God.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES SOME VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Lectio Divina: Finding Your Sacred Center

Lectio Divina—finding your Sacred Center

Lectio Divina, reflective sacred reading, has deep roots in Benedictine spirituality. Traditionally, the scriptures were the only text for lectio, but in this course you are invited to use other of God’s texts—nature, photography, and the daily news—as ways to engage in a lifelong conversation with God.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Love, Forgiveness and Reconciliation with Joan Chittister

Love, Forgiveness and Reconciliation with Joan Chittister

The themes of forgiveness and reconciliation are central to all religions. But how do you integrate these ideals into your personal life? How do you forgive a person who betrayed you? What if you can’t get over the hurt and just move on…even if everyone around you is telling you to do so?  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Monastic Wisdom for the Workplace with Judith Valente

Monastic Wisdom in the Workplace with Judith Valente

The workplace is where many of us spend the bulk of our waking hours. How can we apply Benedictine values and practices to the competitive, often cut-throat marketplace? Judith Valente, a correspondent for PBS-TV and radio, former Wall Street Journal reporter, poet and Oblate, will reflect on how The Rule of St. Benedict offers timeless wisdom for working people.
>>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES AUDIO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Nonviolence and the Rule of Benedict with Anne McCarthy

Nonviolence and the Rule of Benedict with Anne McCarthy

The essential challenge of both the gospel of Jesus and monasticism is to move from fear and violence to freedom and love. How do we structure our lives and our communities to reflect nonviolent love? This course explore answers to those questions.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Empower Yourself, Empower Others with Joan Chittister

Empower Yourself, Empower Others with Joan Chittister

If an organization lasts 1,500 years, as Benedictine monasticism has, you must surmise that the founder knew something about leadership. In this course, Empower Yourself; Empower Others: Six stories of Benedict to unleash the leader in you, Joan Chittister outlines the basic principles of leadership, and, using stories from the life of Benedict, explores if or how he applied these principles and how you can do the same. >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Heart of the Rule with Joan Chittister

Heart of the Rule with Joan Chittister

Does the 1500-year-old Rule of Benedict of Nursia have anything to say to the modern world? You bet it does. In this course, Joan Chittister offers 37 brief videos on aspects of monastic spirituality that can guide you into a new way of seeing and living. >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

All You Holy Women with Edwina Gateley

All You Holy Women with Edwina Gateley

In this eCourse, best-selling author and poet Edwina Gateley will introduce you to five great women from the monastic tradition: Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Brigid of Kildare and Pema Chödrön. >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES VIDEO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Praying the Psalms with Joan Chittister

Praying the Psalms with Joan Chittister

The 150 songs of praise in the Book of Psalms are a sweeping overview of the spiritual life and the universal story of the soul’s pilgrimage through life. In monastic communities, the psalms are the basic prayer of the day. In this course, “Praying the Psalms,” Joan Chittister uses the prayers that formed her monastic spirituality to show you how to pray them in reflective, life-altering way. >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES AUDIO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Creating a Monastery of the Heart with Joan Chittister

Creating a Monastery of the Heart with Joan Chittister

This eCourse is your opportunity to join Joan Chittister in creating a Monastery of the Heart—wherever you are—as she explores the key elements to the life: prayer, work, silence, community, good zeal, humility….  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES AUDIO
SIX MONTH ACCESS

$15.00

Get access for one year to these eRetreats

God Speaks in Many Tongues: A Personal Retreat

God Speaks in Many Tongues: A Personal Retreat

God Speaks in Many Tongues: A Personal Retreat, is designed to be used on a schedule that works for you. It can be done over one day, over several days, or over a week. We give you all the pieces; you make it work for you.  >>>FULL DESCRIPTION

INCLUDES AUDIO AND VIDEO
ONE YEAR ACCESS

$25.00