Sister Mary Agnes is the current Director of Development and former prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison Kansas. As a Benedictine nun for the past 51 years, you will not only hear her story but also the story of Mount St. Scholastica. So many of these  nuns (now about 110 in number), have been at the Mount for 40, 50 or more years and still “shine like the sun.”  Hope you enjoy!

Fr. Farnan, ordained in 1987, is pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish. After graduating from Rockhurst College, he received a Master of Divinity from University of St. Mary of the Lake, Chicago, and a Master in Christian Spirituality from Creighton University. He has served as pastor of several parishes, most recently St. Thomas More. Diocesan positions in which he served are Director of Vocations, Director of Priest Personnel, and  the College of Consultors. He established the Upper Room, an inner city literacy program for youth and their families. He is author of: Crossroads of Hope:A Priest’s Inner (City) Journey; This Bold Prayer: A Collection of Spiritual Essays, and A Parish for all Seasons: A Year in the Life of Saint Thomas More School.   

Read more about Fr Ron Rolheiser here: https://ronrolheiser.com/about-ron/

Fr William Meninger is an American Trappist monk who is a spiritual teacher and a principal developer of Centering Prayer, a method of contemplative prayer. 

After studying at St. John's Seminary in Boston, Meninger was ordained a priest in 1958 for the Diocese of Yakima in the State of Washington, where he worked on an Indian reservation and with Mexican migrant workers for six years. In 1963 he entered the Trappists at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, where he served in the guesthouse for 15 years, as well as teaching scripture, liturgy and patristics to the younger member of the abbey. He served as subprior, prior and dean of the junior professed monks, not yet in final vows.

Meninger came across a work by an English hermit of the 14th century, called the Cloud of Unknowing. It was written to help people living regular lives in the world develop and deepen their prayer lives. Meninger found that it taught contemplative prayer in a simple way available to anyone. He began to teach this method to the younger monks of the abbey and to the retreatants who had come to it for a period of spiritual reflection.

In 1974 Meninger developed the workshop on Contemplative Meditation (later known as Centering Prayer) which he now teaches worldwide along with workshops on forgiveness, the Enneagram of Personality, sacred scriptures, and prayer. His method was further developed and promoted by two other monks of his abbey, Thomas Keating (his abbot at the time) and Basil Pennington.

John Dear is an internationally known voice for peace and nonviolence. A peacemaker, organizer, lecturer, and retreat leader, he is the author/editor of 35 books, including his autobiography, “A Persistent Peace”. In 2008, John was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. John has been arrested over seventy-five times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience for peace, and has organized hundreds of demonstrations against war and nuclear weapons at military bases across the country, as well as worked with Mother Teresa and others to stop the death penalty. A former Jesuit, John is a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Monterey, California, and on the staff of Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service and Campaign Nonviolence and is also part of the Vatican Nonviolence Initiative. See www.johndear.org

“Our task, in these dark times, is simple: to speak the truth, resist war and injustice, practice nonviolence, walk with the poor, love everyone, say our prayers, and uphold the vision of a new world without war, poverty or nuclear weapons. We are called to follow the nonviolent Jesus on the road to peace. If we can be faithful to the God of peace and the Way of nonviolence, we will be greatly blessed.” – John Dear