‘The goal is love’: Behind the scenes of the LA Archdiocese’s new podcast

Angelus ^ | July 12, 2021 | Ann Rodgers

[Marchmain]

On the way home from his psychiatric practice, Dr. John Masko used to stop at St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts, to buy chocolates that the nuns made — and sometimes to attend Mass. On those visits to the Trappistine monastery in the 1990s, he discovered something that changed his understanding of living the faith: a gift he is sharing through the new podcast series, “The Beauty Within.”

Glimpses of the sisters at work and prayer led him to reconsider his assumptions about cloistered nuns, those who live a life of prayer inside their monastery and don’t do ministry in the outside world. He had viewed them as sad escapees from a loveless life. Yet the women he met seemed radiant.

One day around 1996, he overheard a nun laughing with such pure joy that he resolved to investigate the disconnect between his perceptions and their experience. He eventually talked their superior into allowing him to record and publish interviews with the sisters.

He learned that their lives are designed to draw them deeper into love with God, love for the world, and for everyone they encounter. They can’t hide because they are vowed to live together.

“One of them says it’s a school of love. And so, you’re confronting yourself, you’re confronting others. You can’t escape, and the goal is love,” Masko said.

Excerpts from the interviews are the core of “The Beauty Within,” with seven episodes to be released Tuesdays through July 13.

Trappistines are the women’s counterpart to Trappists — formally the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance — contemplatives made famous by the spiritual writer Thomas Merton. Their life is spent within the monastery walls, in a rhythm of prayer and work, with a special commitment to silence.

[Marchmain]

photo of chapel

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