About

monastery ceiling

Martha’s House is a monastic community whose home is completely online. It is the realization of a belief that the monastic practices of the desert mothers and fathers can be integrated into a modern life. The flexibility required represents not a dilution of the monastic tradition, but rather the birth of a new type of vocation for those who, like Martha of Bethany (Luke 10:38-42), are called to care for the practical needs and realities of our world and also to follow our teacher Jesus.

38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (NRSV)

While this passage is often used to praise Mary and those like her who are called to sit at the feet of Jesus, our community recognizes Martha, a follower of Jesus who also attended to the practical and even mundane work at hand. We acknowledge v. 42, where Mary is said to have chosen the better, and look forward to a lifetime of interpreting this passage while remembering that someone has to cook the dinner.

Our community is Benedictish. We acknowledge the Benedictine tradition that has gone before us, and we emulate it in spirit. At Martha’s House we hold up the Rule of St. Benedict and, looking through it at the world in which we live, ask the question, “What would Benedict possibly have envisioned today?”

The founders of Martha’s House are Mark Gladman and Cate Florenz, who met by the grace of God and the miracle of the internet and wondered if grace and technology could similarly connect and spiritually feed a community of people called to monasticism in the modern world. This project takes up Mark’s Modern Monk Project, under which he has been practicing monastic disciplines in his daily life for more than ten years. Catherine, newer to these practices, brings her energy and questioning spirit into the mix.

We hope you’ll join us as we conduct this neo-monastic experiment.

What now?