In 2022 the Sisters of St. Paul’s Monastery and Teri Rose, MS, LN, OblSB developed a new approach to preventative healthcare backed by the 1500-year-old Benedictine tradition. This program is called Benedictine CARE. CARE stands for Community, Awareness of God, Respect for persons, and Ecumenical. This is a health-education program designed around Benedictine monastic values of Stability, Stewardship, and Community. Where participants join a monthly group to learn a new integration of lifestyle as medicine, contemplative practice, and the Benedictine Monastic Heritage. What experience does Teri Rose bring to this program? Let us help you get to know her.
St. Paul’s Monastery newsletter first introduced Teri Rose in 2022 with the following:
“…Benedictine Oblate, Teri Rose is a licensed nutritionist specializing in weight management and lifestyle modification (how we make different choices around food, activity, and stress management). In addition to her graduate work and research, she participates in professional continuing education for how to use food and lifestyle as medicine (how consistent choices can prevent chronic lifestyle diseases like Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke, and certain cancers).
But Ms. Rose’s deeper vocation is in exploring the elusive question of how does an individual make and then sustain these lifestyle changes. Health requires making choices, many choices every day, for the rest of our lives. Knowing what to do to be healthy isn’t our biggest struggle. It’s doing what we know to do.”
Teri Rose’s own website, www.benedictinewellness.com, gives a timeline of her personal experiences with nutrition and her path of training. In just 6 years from her enrollment in graduate school, she created an award-winning nutrition program. She was awarded Best Nutritionist in the Twin Cities by the Minnesota Monthly Magazine. She was also featured nationally on NBC nightly news with Lester Holt in 2015 on the struggle of cutting the sugar out of our diets.
In 2021, she participated in final formation and became an official Oblate of St. Paul’s Monastery. Not long after, she formulated the Benedictine CARE Wellness Program which integrates the Benedictine values of Stability, Stewardship, and Community, into her existing CARE Weight Loss and Lifestyle clinical program. On the Benedictine CARE section of her website she writes, “You don’t have to ‘fix yourself, by yourself’”.
From her bio she helps us understand her motivations for this program,
“my clients quickly introduced me to the more important considerations of health. The reality that most individuals, even with the expert list in hand of what to do and why, continue to struggle in that sacred sliver of space right before a choice. Through their stories, I began to see my own. I was just as uncomfortable in that sacred space as they were. Life was never going to feel right, comfortable, or nurturing when in that space you feel disconnected, alone, and unvaluable. So, I took a deep breath and just tried standing in that space. Benedictine CARE is a result of this ongoing experience of standing in that sacred space.”
Suffice to say the participants of this program are in very good hands. Not only does Ms. Rose have the intellectual training but she also has the personal experience with the struggles of diet and nutrition that give depth to her guidance.