Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home, and a Living Faith, by Judith Valente. Ave Maria Press, 2013.

Valente went to the Mount in Atchison to give a teaching on poetry; she soon learned that she was the student needing to be taught.

The author  describes the way she came to this title "Atchison Blue". In 1947 a German-born glassmaker named Emil Frei went to Atchison, Kansas, in response to a commission to create a new set of stained glass windows for the main chapel in Mount St. Scholastica Monastery.  The color he chose was a merging of various shades of blue.  A secondary alchemy would over time change the color. Harsh winds and  fierce sunshine bleached the glass into a new color, one that reflects a blend of sun, sky, sea, and stone. It is a new color called grey-blue and appears to be found nowhere else. It was named Atchison blue.

Being a busy professional, Valente went to lead a retreat for busy seekers of quiet, a slower tempo, and balance to be able to accept the sacred.  Almost immediately, Valente knew she was the one most in need of those blessings.  She began following the daily schedule which began early in the morning with praying the psalms of the Office.

She asked herself, "How could I nourish the retreatants with solid spiritual food for the soul, when I noted that I hadn't fed my soul with a decent meal for weeks?" This examen put her into a contemplative mood as she continued to bask in the sunlight coming through the stained glass called "Atchison Blue". For weeks she had been talking and talking and talking and talking, and soon recognized that her soul thirsted for some silence.

Valente became acquainted with several of the Benedictine Sisters, learned more about their way of life, and wondered if she could ever acquire the quiet of soul they showed. She had come as teacher; she learned to be learner. Inner quiet and peace soon began to settle in her soul. In this book she describes her varied experiences in the Monastery and tells her readers why she continues to make frequent trips from her home in the big city to the beloved Atchison  where she learned to "settle" her soul, in the quiet of the chapel with Atchison blue windows.

(Thanks to Sr. Irene Hartman OP for this review.)



St. Hilarion (291-371) October 23

Despite his best efforts to live in prayer and solitude, today's saint found it difficult to achieve his deepest desire. People were naturally drawn to Hilarion as a source of spiritual wisdom and peace. He had reached such fame by the time of his death that his body had to be secretly removed so that a shrine would not be built in his honor. Instead, he was buried in his home village.

St. Hilarion the Great, as he is sometimes called, was born in Palestine. After his conversion to Christianity he spent some time with St. Anthony of Egypt, another holy man drawn to solitude. Hilarion lived a life of hardship and simplicity in the desert, where he also experienced spiritual dryness that included temptations to despair. At the same time, miracles were attributed to him.

As his fame grew, a small group of disciples wanted to follow Hilarion. He began a series of journeys to find a place where he could live away from the world. He finally settled on Cyprus, where he died in 371 at about age 80.

Hilarion is celebrated as the founder of monasticism in Palestine. Much of his fame flows from the biography of him written by St. Jerome.