Photo: Prioress General Sister Dawn Annette Mills, OSB (front row, fourth from left) joined 75 other Benedictine religious leaders for a conference that focused on the virtue and practice of hope. (Photo courtesy of www.osb.org.)
Sister Dawn Annette Mills, OSB, prioress general of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpeptual Adoration, joined other religious leaders for the quadrennial meeting of Benedictine abbots and prioresses in February at Saint Bernard Abbey in Cullman, Alabama.
More than 75 monastic superiors, representing more than 2,700 Benedictine men and women in the Americas, attended the meeting. The Benedictine prioresses stayed with the Sisters at Sacred Heart Monastery, also in Cullman, and the Benedictine abbots stayed at the Saint Bernard Abbey Retreat House.
The keynote speakers included Abbot Primate Gregory Polan, OSB (Sant’Anselmo, Rome, Italy) and Sister Susan Hutchens, OSB (Rock Island, Illinois). The topic of their presentations focused on the virtue and practice of hope, titled, “As We Wait in Joyful Hope.”
On Saturday evening, the visiting abbots and prioresses joined the monks of Saint Bernard Abbey for Vespers and a festive supper. On Sunday evening, the abbots and prioresses joined the Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery for Vespers and a celebratory meal.
In addition, the superiors received reports on the Alliance for International Monasticism (AIM), American Benedictine Review, (ABR), Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum (CIB), the International Commission on Benedictine Education (ICBE) and Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (DIMMID), as well as the biennial Benedictine Development Forum and the annual Monastic Worship Forum. |
