Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Northwest Catholic reconnected with some of the people whose stories have resonated with readers over the years.
In 2015, Northwest Catholic readers were greeted with one of our more memorable covers — a nun milking a cow. Inside that July/August issue, readers met the Benedictine nuns of Our Lady of the Rock Monastery.
We told the story of these semi-cloistered women living, working and praying on 300 acres on remote Shaw Island in northwestern Washington (“Ora et labora: On Shaw Island, Benedictine nuns share lives of work, prayer and hospitality”).
By raising cows and sheep for milk, meat, cheese and fibers, maintaining lush fruit and vegetable gardens and growing herbs for homemade mustards, oils and vinegars, teas and spice blends, they were mostly self-sufficient, selling their wares to care for themselves and their property.
Eight years later, the sisters continue living out their Benedictine spirituality of “Ora et labora” (pray and work) and hospitality, but a few things have changed. Mother Therese Critchley, who founded Our Lady of the Rock in 1977, retired as prioress in 2020, and Mother Noella Marcellino succeeded her. Mother Noella, who came to the monastery in 2018, has a Ph.D. in microbiology, teaches Gregorian chant and manages the websites for Our Lady of the Rock and the nuns’ home community, the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut.
The Shaw Island community’s seven “mothers,” as they are called, include a new postulant, Mary White, who joined in June 2023. As for their farming ventures, “we closed our dairy in the midst of COVID and most probably will not continue it,” said Mother Hildegard, the monastery’s guest mistress who celebrated her golden jubilee on July 11, the feast of St. Benedict.
However, the monastery remains mostly self-sufficient.
“We still have sheep,” Mother Hildegard said, but they no longer breed them. “We still raise pigs and chickens and have Highland cattle. A local farmer puts her milking sheep on our pastures, and we get some of the lambs for meat,” she said.
Another change has made a big difference, Mother Hildegard said. Friends of the monastery donated 12 large metal raised beds for the gardens, which means the mothers don’t have to wait “for the land to dry out till the end of May” before planting, she explained. In early June, she reported that the beds were “already planted and thriving.”
The Shaw Island nuns continue to sell their mustards, vinegars, herbs, fleeces and yarns at the monastery and the Shaw General Store. They also welcome visitors for retreats and to spend time working and praying with them.
Learn more about Our Lady of the Rock at olrmonastery.org or read Mother Hildegard’s blog, islandlife-inamonastery.blogspot.com
Read more Northwest Catholic 10th anniversary content. To read the complete August/September 2023 issue, click here.