Catholic Nuns: Our Future Role
For the first time in the history of humanity we have been given a comprehensive vision of a
13.7 billion- year -old unfolding universe that reveals the Divine. This has given us an expanded sense of the Sacred.
We recognize the universe and the planet in particular, as the immediate place in which the Divine is revealed to us. We also understand that as we lose or diminish manifestations of the outer world (species, animals, water, forests…) , we also lose manifestations of the Divine. 
This diminishment leads to a profound experience of soul loss because the natural world, in all its radiant qualities, fulfills the needs of our inner world and is the source of our deepest inspiration.
In past centuries, the role of women religious was to work principally with the human community. Today, we understand that there is no human community in any way separate from the larger community of life that supports us and of which we are a part.
Our Symbol
Our symbol is a multi-layered image.
The Trio of Fish laid in a triangular shape is an ancient Christian representation of the Trinity; a mutually indwelling community in which all members give themselves to one another as gift.
This Trio of Fish is embraced by The circle, symbolic of the unfolding Universe and the Evolution of Consciousness.
The patterns of the Trinity are woven into the very structure of the Universe through the fundamental principles of Differentiation, Interiority and Communion.
These principles reveal the Universe as a multiplicity of different beings interpenetrating with one another in a bonded unity. In this dance, both unity and difference are held together pointing to the non-dual nature of reality.
The Cross reveals the Christ Dimension of love and self gift at the heart of the Universe. Its inner dynamism is expressed as a flow of continual outpouring from all beings without becoming diminished.
The Blue Stone in the center represents Earth our home.
A Binding Back to Origin
Re-Ligare/religion from the Latin meaning to Bind Back.
As Sisters of Green Mountain Monastery we ‘bind ourselves back to origin’ in two ways:
-First, we commit to the mystical path of our Christian tradition by, "drawing our True
Selves up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, by the steady work of descent." 1
We commit ourselves wholeheartedly to our own inner liberation so that we can become living
vehicles of Divine Presence on the planet.
-Secondly, by learning the story of the Universe as it is being revealed to us by science
we situate ourselves in a vast unfolding cosmos and understand ourselves as part of a Single Sacred
Community of Life.
1- New Seeds of Contemplation- Thomas Merton New York: New Dimensions. 1962.
Ever Ancient-Ever New
We are a new monastic community in the Catholic tradition, whose founding inspiration gathers its momentum from the prophetic message and guidance of our mentor, Fr Thomas Berry, c.p. , writer, scholar and cultural historian.
In bringing this monastery forward we are allured by those ancient monastic values of prayer, community, simplicity, hospitality, stability, silence , scholarship, sustainable farming, manual labor and the cultivation of the arts.
Through our prayer and reflection on the story of the Universe as sacred manifestation of the Divine, we have been opened to an expanded sense of the Sacred. The merging of the story of the universe with our deep Christic roots † shapes our monastic expression and gives us a new sense of responsibility for the future unfolding of the planet as a single sacred community of life.
Thomas Berry
Fr. Thomas Berry is a Passionist priest, leading cultural historian, social
critic and environmental thinker. For more than 40 years Fr. Berry has
been developing a comprehensive vision of a viable future for the Earth
community.
From his academic beginning as a cultural historian, he has evolved to
become a historian of the earth. He sees himself not as a theologian but as a
geologian.
Fr. Berry was president of the American Teilhard Association for ten years
in the 1970’s and is indebted to the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
for helping shape his own understanding of the universe story.
Thomas Berry’s books include:
The Dream of the Earth, The Great Work: Our Way into The Future, The Universe Story co-authored with mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme and his latest volume entitled, Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006 edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker.
Thomas Berry has been and continues to be instrumental in guiding and co-founding Green Mountain Monastery.
Sr. Gail Worcelo
a Passionist nun of St. Gabriel’s Monastery for 25 years was given permission by her community in 1999 to begin a new monastery community with guidance from her mentor, Passionist priest Fr Thomas Berry.
Sr. Gail began her study with Thomas Berry in the areas of cosmology and the history of religious life during her novitiate in 1984. Her particular focus has been the refounding of religious life in light of new understandings of the universe story. Through the founding of Green Mountain Monastery she hopes to contribute to bringing the Catholic religious tradition into its cosmological phase. 
Sr. Gail has been giving lectures and retreats on this theme for the past 15 years and continues to share her insights with groups throughout the United States and around the world. She has been a workshop presenter and speaker at gatherings such as the national assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) , Congregational Chapters of Men and Women, Sisters of Earth, Spiritual Directors International, Catholic Theological Union, the International European Passionists Gathering and the Network of Religious Congregations in Melbourne, Australia.
Sr Gail is a Liturgical Dancer and choreographer with degrees in clinical psychology and spirituality.
Sr. Bernadette Bostwick
is co-foundress of Green Mountain Monastery. Sr Bernadette brings to the founding a wide array of experience and skills. She is the mother of four children and discerned her call to the monastic life ten years ago after living as a Passionist Lay Associate for several years at St. Gabriel’s Monastery. 
Sr. Bernadette is a vegetarian chef and provides wholesome and creative meals for the monastery and guests.
Sr. Bernadette is also an artist and envisions Green Mountain Monastery as a place where art for social and planetary change can emerge and be supported.
Her Icon entitled: Mary of the Cosmos was chosen by the Sisters of St. Joseph of LaGrange for their 2005 calendar and 2004 Christmas card. The Icon was also featured as one of several images of Mary in the book by Charlene Spretnak entitled, Missing Mary and also appears in the book by Sarah Taylor-
Green Sisters: a Spiritual Ecology of North American Environmental Nuns published by Harvard Press.
Rooted in a Dynamic Monastic Tradition (Mon*as*tic from the root Monos meaning alone…..
A single hearted search for God.)
People often say to us, “I thought only monks live in monasteries?” Since the 6th century monasteries have been places of prayer and a way of life in community for both women/nuns and men/monks. Think about Hildegarde of Bingen, St. Scholastica, Teresa of Avila, Clare of Assisi....all women monastics.
Our monastic roots as Sisters of the Green Mountain Monastery are in the dynamic tradition of Benedictine Monasticism .
This age old tradition, originating in the monastic reform of St Benedict in the 6th century, has offered a balanced spiritual framework in which to organize life for the past 1500 years.
The organizing elements of this ancient tradition have withstood the test of time and are what we as Sisters of Green Mountain Monastery embrace and carry into the future with a new cosmological consciousness.
These elements include:
- recognizing Christ as Teacher and Master of Wisdom still resonant today
- the depth and richness of stability and commitment to place
- a life lived in common
- obedience to the collective wisdom of the whole
- balance
- sacred activism
- scholarship
- cultivation of the arts and beauty
- hospitality
- manual labor, sustainable farming, care of animals on the land
- a heritage of sacred reading (Lectio Divina), prayer and ritual
- the role of the prioress as spiritual teacher and guide
While our roots extend deep into both the Benedictine and Passionist Traditions, we realize that ours is a call to carry the elements of these traditions forward in a new expression. We are aware that no one charism in the Church can exhaust the Mystery of the Divine. Whenever and wherever monasticism has arisen over the ages, it has always been in response to the call of the Spirit. To this end diverse expressions of monasticism continue to arise. Green Mountain Monastery is one such diverse expression.
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