"When you gonna learn you can’t do this alone?"

By Martha Ligas

Note: If you are a woman in your 20s or early 30s and would like to immerse yourself in the Erie Benedictine life and community described below for a year year, check out the Benedictine Peacemakers Monastic Immersion - priority deadline has passed, though we will accept applicants through April 30.

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Sanctuary (noun): A Place of Refuge or Safety.

I traveled to the Mount St. Benedictine Monastery for the first time in 2019. My friend Marie, fifty years my senior, couldn’t stop raving about the way the Spirit danced Her way from the Chapel through the halls to the dining hall and beyond. Visiting a monastery was not a new adventure for me—during my gap year between undergrad and graduate school I spent a year serving in a lay volunteer program of the Franciscan Sisters in Pittsburgh, and we would often visit the monastery for lunch, ice cream, and visits with our prayer sisters. But never had I spent any time with Benedictine Sisters. So I hopped in Marie’s car and we traveled 100 miles across the coast (….the Lake Erie coast, that is) from Cleveland to Erie.

Six years and one pandemic later, I’ve traveled back to fill my cup with the sweet, sweet Benedictine charism many times. I’ve retreated in a hermitage, spent almost a full day in the motherhouse library, met two of my (s)heroes (Joan Chittister and Edwina Gately), wrote odes to Mary Oliver in the Space to Create Writing Studio, and have shared dreams over red wine on the third floor of Pax Priory. Every time I drive those 100 miles east, I’m better for it. I leave Erie County with an insight, a revelation, or a new friend. I have a community there now. Because there’s just something about that place, those sisters, their extended community. It’s an intentionality. A peace. A certain kindness. It has become my sanctuary. And I know I’m not the only one who has found refugee in its glow.

My most recent trip to Erie was just one week ago. A friend who I had made along the way—over dinner at the Monastery, maybe, dreaming about how to bring monasticism to millennials? Over drinks at Pax Priory, perhaps, brainstorming ways to be church outside the walls of church? It’s hard to say, the Mount is funny that way. But no matter: this Benedictine friend invited me to town for a concert, and I rarely say no to a trip to Erie anymore. Who could say no to mingling with the Spirit? And, once again, She did not disappoint. As I sat listened to folk cellist

Ben Sollee

, I was struck in particular by the following lyric:

“You’re lean and strong with your blue ribbons on
Tryin’ to carry the weight of the world
Such a heavy load
Singing your song loud and proud
But you don’t believe the words right now
You’re just hummin’ along—

When you gonna learn you can’t do this alone?”

--lyrics from “When You Gonna Learn” by Ben Sollee

To hear those words—in Erie—with women I’ve met through the Mount St. Benedict Monastery and its ripples—was a balm in these troubled times. It was a reminder for me of just how important it is that I keep the drive from Cleveland to Erie programmed into my GPS. Because there’s a lot of work to do. And when we find the people and the places that give us sanctuary in the chaos—they’re worth the drive.

“Blessed are they who leave a trail of light for others to walk on".”

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Martha Ligas (she/her) lives in Cleveland, OH with her partner and their pets, but sneaks away to Erie whenever possible. When she isn’t daydreaming about a more inclusive church, she’s either in a bookstore or hard at work being an Auntie. Professionally, Martha spends her time reimagining what it means to create faith communities of belonging: 1/2 time as Pastoral Minister at the Community of St. Peter and 1/2 time as Program Associate at FutureChurch. And for the other 1/2 time she is a Doctor of Ministry student at Fordham University. She doesn't study math.