Benedictine communities of women in North America began adopting a discernment method for the election of a prioress in the last quarter of the twentieth century. A seminal article by Sister Augusta Raabe on Discernment of Spirits in the Prologue to the Rule of Benedict(1) was instrumental in bringing the concept of discernment into American Benedictine awareness. Decision-making methods, which incorporated a variety of discernment processes, began to be used by many communities, especially for election processes.
The CONFERENCE CALL, January 1987, reported that a survey had been sent to the 52 members of the Conference of Prioresses. Of these, 39 indicated the use of some kind of discernment process in community elections and a need for more understanding and training in that area.
Benedictine sisters who had developed expertise in the leading of discernment processes were then asked to design a workshop to train discernment facilitators. In 1988 the Conference commissioned these experienced sisters to write a booklet on discernment which communities could study in preparation for communal discernment, especially for the election of a prioress. The resulting document, Discerning Community Leadership: The Benedictine Tradition, was published and later revised for a second edition in 1993.
Prioresses noted the benefits of this process for their communities, and they began asking how discernment could become an ongoing process supporting daily life in the monastery. The Conference decided to hold a second workshop on discernment for their annual meeting in Winnipeg in1995. This would be the preparation for the formulation of a new document on discernment. Sister Mary Forman, one of the speakers at this workshop and an eventual writer of the document, noted:
Benedictine communities in North America had several years' experience with using discernment for the process for election of prioress, but prioresses were concerned that discernment needed to be a way of life. There needed to be something for community members to begin to explore the foundations for discernment as a way of life, something to fill the gap between election and daily life.(2)
Following the workshop, a writing committee was appointed to bring a draft to the next meeting of the Conference. At that meeting the prioresses and committee entered into extensive dialogue and discernment to produce the following document, which they recognized as truly inspired by the Holy Spirit.
NOTES
(1) American Benedictine Review 23 (Dec.1972): 397-423.
(2) Mary Forman, OSB (Monastery of Saint Gertrude, Cottonwood, Idaho), response to questionnaire of editor, June 10, 2000.
©Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses, 2001-2002