Seasons in My Garden

Meditations from a Hermitage

by Sr. Elizabeth Wagner

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Pub Date Mar 25 2016 | Archive Date May 10 2016

Ave Maria Press

Description

In Seasons in My Garden, award-winning writer Sr. Elizabeth Wagner reveals how tending to a garden in her Maine hermitage brought her to a deeper understanding of what it means to have faith, love others, and hope in the mercy of God. Her keen eye for the most intricate details of nature will help you find a path that brings you closer to God as well.

Sr. Wagner believed God was calling her into deeper contemplation, so she built a hermitage in the Maine wilderness in order to ponder nature and become closer to God.

Seasons in My Garden is a thought-provoking series of meditations, written as Sr. Wagner watched her own monastic garden progress through the seasons. Her reflections invite you to look over her shoulder as she tends to her beautiful garden and meditates on the mysteries of God’s creation and how it corresponds with her own life.

In this captivating book, you will relate to Sr. Wagner as she struggles with feelings of a cold heart—just as her garden lay frozen under a foot of snow—and realizing that God was working to renew her spirit. As sudden storms threatened to destroy her hard work, Sr. Wagner will help you understand that careful preparation of the soul will help you resist the temptation to resent others.

Seasons in My Garden intricately weaves insights from Sr. Wagner’s own growth through the seasons with spiritual guidance and an understanding that patient tending to your soul will help you grow into a beautiful garden that God can use to reflect his glory.

Features & Benefits

Sr. Elizabeth Wagner’s work has appeared in a variety of periodicals, includingCatholic Digest, Capital Weekly, and Willow Review, where she won the prize for nonfiction in 2011.

Spiritual meditation through creation is a long-standing contemplative tradition in the Western Church represented by writers such as Thomas Merton and St. Augustine.

A Note From the Publisher

Sr. Elizabeth Wagner lives a contemplative life of prayer and solitude at Transfiguration Hermitage, a semi-eremitical community she founded that follows the Rule of St. Benedict. Sr. Wagner is a hermit, writer, spiritual director and retreat leader. She also serves as formation director, gardener, and groundskeeper of the hermitage.

Raised on a farm in Connecticut, Sr. Wagner graduated with a degree in humanities from Shimer College in Illinois. She was attending Andover Newton Theological School when she found her Catholic faith and her love of contemplative prayer. She then entered a Carmelite monastery, but left in search of more solitude. Sr. Wagner also served as adjunct professor of Christian spirituality at Bangor Theological Seminary.

She regularly writes for the quarterly newsletter of the Hermitage and has written book reviews and essays for a number of religious and literary publications. Sr. Wagner was awarded Willow Review’s 2011 award for nonfiction. She is a member of the American Benedictine Academy, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

She lives in Windsor, Maine.

Sr. Elizabeth Wagner lives a contemplative life of prayer and solitude at Transfiguration Hermitage, a semi-eremitical community she founded that follows the Rule of St. Benedict. Sr. Wagner is a...

Advance Praise

“Walking with Elizabeth Wagner through Seasons in My Garden is to understand what it means to live a contemplative life. Eliciting wisdom from her encounters with Maine’s red apples, peach trees, English Roses, and even intractable Japanese beetles, she meditates on nature with the same mindfulness that she uses to consider scripture. In doing so, she provides us with mini-retreats for the soul in each beautifully written chapter.”
Judith Valente
Author of Atchinson Blue

“Seasons in My Garden celebrates the earthy heart of Benedectine wisdom in this lovely collection of meditations on gardening, spirituality, and the seasons of the year.”
Carl McColman
Author of Befriending Silence

"In her lovely book, Sr. Elizabeth Wagner weaves liturgy, prayer, gardening, and praise into a beautiful lectio divina of nature. Her writing leads us into a deeper contemplation of the Creator and his creation."

Margaret Rose Realy
Author of A Catholic Gardener’s Spiritual Almanac

“In this insightful and engaging book, Sr. Wagner invites us into a spiritual life where one touches God and the true self among bare trees, blooming roses, and a listening heart. Wagner tends her garden and plants seeds in the soil of our souls. A delightful book, filled with wisdom!”
Colette Lafia
Author of Seeking Surrender

Available Editions

EDITION	Other Format
ISBN	9781594716348
PRICE	$16.95 (USD)

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Featured Reviews

Sian (Elizabeth) W, Reviewer

Seasons In My Garden:
Meditations from a Hermit By Sister Elizabeth Wagner Ave Maria Press, March 2016

Elizabeth felt called to monasticism even before she was sure she believed in God; once she knew she believed, she tried out her vocation with the Carmelites before eventually settling in a semi-eremitical community in Maine which follows the Rule of St Benedict.

These are her meditations, starting with the bitter chill of Winter, the joys of Christmas, snippets from the Breviary and the hazards of living in an area with so many trees along the roads mingling seamlessly with descriptions of decorating the tiny Chapel and making fruit cakes. Each chapter can be read as a stand -alone meditation or you can simply follow her thoughts and descriptions of her life sequentially as presented; I tried both methods and thoroughly enjoyed both!

Sr Elizabeth is a keen observer both of the human condition and the religious life; the glories of God's creation which she sees all around her - especially in her beloved garden where she delights in growing herbs - are vividly described. This is a deep, deep, book which bears careful reading, yet it is so joyously, beautifully written that it simply captivates and entrances the reader, feeding mind and soul alike with challenges, beauty and faith.
A Must-Read!

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lisa b, Reviewer

Just lovely!

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Janka H, Educator

This one is a deep, honest and reflective collections of meditations of Catholic religious sister living in the hermitage. Sr. Wagner here holds very little of doors closed as she invites you into the depth of her thoughts and emotions. She is unconventionally honest and a very deep thinker. The sea of her thoughts is very deep - and you can learn a lot here (at least I a coming from the pages of this book enriched by the wisdom and by the frankness of the authoress).
But also - the deep sea brings some heaviness and natural pressure - and as sister can go very deep, some of her thoughts are a bit heavy on philosophy and some sadness (I think of a melancholical nature here). Sometimes I would wish for a lighter hand and for more joy and hope.
Yet sister comes in front of her reader as she is, bringing a gift of herself, and this is a precious thing.
So thank you, Sr. Wagner, for the gift of your wisdom, shared humanity and for the gift of your honesty.