The Monastic Ideal of Life and Death

Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat, OSB

President of AIM

Life and Death in the Rule of Saint Benedict

In the Book of Deuteronomy Moses decisively announces to the People of God the exact moment when he himself will die without seeing the Promised Land: ‘Today I am offering you life or death. Choose life, then, so that you may live’ (Deuteronomy 30.19). Monastic life takes this instruction seriously. From the beginning of his Rule St Benedict repeats the Lord’s call:

‘The Lord is searching for his workman, and that is why he appeals to the crowd and says again, “Who is eager for life and longs to see prosperous days” (Psalm 33). If you listen to this call and answer, “Here I am, Lord”, God says to you, “Do you want true life, life with God for ever? Well then, seek peace and pursue it” (Prologue 14-16).

Similarly at the end of the Prologue,

‘Thus we shall never abandon God, our Master, and every day in the monstery until death we will continue to do what he teaches us. In this way we shall participate by patience in the sufferings of Christ and in this way we may be with him in his Kingdom’ (Prologue 50).

In Chapter 4 on the instruments of good works, St Benedict returns to this influence of death and life on monastic existence: ‘To have death daily before one’s eyes’ (RB 4). There is certainly nothing morbid in this; it simply underlines that life on this earth, important as it is, remains no more than a passing moment, and to shut oneself up in it does not give us the key to existence. It is at the same time a question of the orientation of desire towards true life and an alertness to the things of every day in words and deeds.

Concretely this translates itself into an attention to a listening obedience and to the free circulation of love among us. Thus in his chapter on humility St Benedict explains, ‘The third step of humility for a monk is to obey a superior totally out of the love of God. By so doing the monk imitates Christ. Indeed the Apostle Paul says of the Lord that he wished to obey even unto death’ (RB 7). Therefore this again brings in the paschal mystery. The fourth step of humility completes the third by showing how much it requires patience and perseverance. It is a matter of holding on till the end, without letting go or turning back, right up to the end, in order to taste true life.

This is especially true within the framework of the liturgy, in which the alternation of day and night renews in our lives the paschal mystery of Christ: at sunset Vespers where Christ dies on the cross; in the darkness of night Vigils and the combat which features at the heart of the psalms; at sunrise Lauds and the dawning of the Resurrection; and right through the day-hours, following the trajectory of the sun and the Passion of the Son of Man. The same is true of behaviour towards the sick. They remind us of human fragility and the advance towards the final crossing. St Benedict says that in the sick we recognise Christ, suffering and dying, while still maintaining thereby the constant witness to the life which is in God. Similarly St Benedict exhorts attention to the young, to guests, to pilgrims, to the poor, in whom we recognise Christ helpless and confronted by the fragility of our existence.

In order to show this link to Christ in his pachal mystery the Rule prescribes the washing of feet on certain occasions, for instance at the reception of guests, but also every week when the monks undertake service in the refectory and the kitchen, even though this rite is not practised today. This dimension of service shows participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. The rite of foot-washing finds its full sense in the link to the Eucharistic meal inaugurated on the eve of his Passion.

A monk deprives himself of all personal possessions. On the day of his profession he gives away all that he owns. He even gives himself, since it is said that, ‘from this day onward he has no authority even over his own body’ (RB 53). This is also the reason why at certain times the liturgy of profession was held to symbolize the spiritual death of the candidate by prostration under a pall. Even today the newly professed remains hooded for three or eight days before emerging and appearing as a witness to the resurrection, according to the model of baptismal liturgy. Memorable is the ‘encouragement’ which Trappist monks used to give each other when they made the sign of the cross, ‘Brother, we must die’, or those monks who used to dig their own tomb daily to stress the vanity of passing life. Such customs are no longer in vogue because the turning-point of life and the resurrection has regained its proper place. But monastic life must be careful to maintain the balance between the two dimensions of the paschal mystery.

At the end of his Rule St Benedict sums up monastic life in this way, ‘They should prefer nothing to Christ, and may he lead us together to eternal life’ (RB 72). In monastic life death and life are intelligible only in the light of the paschal mystery of Christ.

Lectio divina

Humberto Rincón Fernández, OSB

Abbot of the monastery of the Epiphany,  Guatapé (Colombia)

Eucharist and Service, the ministry of welcome in our monasteries

John 13, 1-15

‘He loved us till the end’ (John 13.1)

The account of the washing of the feet contains nothing about what we normally call the ‘Eucharist’, narrated in the gestures and words of Jesus over the bread and the wine. Nevertheless, in the Fourth Gospel, the Last Supper, that is, the Eucharist, consists of the washing of the feet.

I leave to specialists the task of working out what really happened at the Supper: was it a sacramental act over the bread and the wine or a prophetic act of washing feet in the way that slaves normally did? I have read that at the beginning of the life of the Church the two actions were linked, and that little by little, for practical reasons, the action over the bread and the wine took precedence.

The first verse of John 13 is very solemn and profound:

‘Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, he loved them to the end.’

We are at the festival of the Passover, and Jesus is preparing the celebration of the Passover. He knows that the hour has come for him to pass from this world to the Father, that is, the hour of his glorification, the hour of his definitive revelation, the complete revelation of the Father, showing his glory, his being, his essence. Throughout his life Jesus has shown his love for his own, but now, at this hour, he carries his love to the extreme, he carries it to the ultimate consequence, death, even death on the cross, a death like that of a crucified slave.

‘They were at supper... and Jesus got up from the table... taking a towel he wrapped it round his waist... then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and wipe them with the towel wrapped round his waist’ (John 13.2-5).

‘He got up from the table’, that is he gave up the place which was his, the place of honour. He had already said this elsewhere in the gospel. ‘Who is the greater, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at the table? But I am among you as one who serves’ (Luke 22.27). ‘He removed his outer garment.’ St Paul in Philippians 2.6ff develops this: ‘Being in the from of God he did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, born in human likeness, and found in human shape; he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, death on a cross.’

‘He began to wash the feet of his disciples and to wipe them with the towel wrapped round his waist’. This means that he did the task reserved for slaves and servants of the house, or even for women in a patriarchal society, where men had the first place. In the logic of the hymn to the Philippians it is this humility which makes him the Lord, leads to his exaltation, to receiving the Name which is above all names, that is, to recognise that this man is Son of God, that God acts this way to men; it shows the quality of the love of God for his own.

‘Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you can have no part with me”. Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not only my feet but my hands and head as well.”’ (13.8-9).

Out of respect for the Master, or perhaps out of misplaced humility, or from a deliberate calculation (if I allow myself to be washed he will surely require that I do the same!) Peter refuses this gesture of Jesus. It makes too strong an involvement. But in the face of this threat by Jesus, saying that, without this, Peter can have no part with him, that he would lose his friendship and his relationship of Master-and-disciple, he reacts and asks to be washed all over. This loving gesture of the Lord seems to touch him profoundly.

‘When he had finished washing their feet Jesus took his outer garment, sat down again at table and said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly, for so I am. From now on if I have washed your feet, I the Lord and Master, you too must wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example: what I have done for you, you also must do”’ (13.12-14).

A remarkable detail: Jesus puts on his outer garment without taking off the towel round his waist. Even when he is sitting at table he remains the servant, a slave. The fact of being Lord and Master does not prevent him remaining the servant. Then comes the instruction which corresponds to the account of the bread and wine, ‘Do this in memory of me’. The expression applies equally to the washing of the feet and to the meal itself, the Eucharist.

‘From now on, if I have washed your feet, I the Lord and Master, you also must wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example: what I have done for you, you also must do.’

To wash one another’s feet – that is the commandment. To make ourselves slaves and servants of our neighbour is the consequence of participating in the Supper of the Lord. To give up our lives as he gave up his – even to the end. The chapter continues with the announcement of the treachery of Judas and the denial of Peter. From the very beginning the possibility of those who participate in the Supper being able to betray and deny the Master is a real danger. For the Master it does not matter what may happen: he continues to invite us to his table, his table of love and detachment, whatever the consequences may be.

I would like to come back to the other gesture, which is more familiar to us, that of the bread and wine. Jesus makes a declaration over these two elements. He identifies with them, this bread is myself, who give myself for you. I make myself bread to be broken, shared, distributed. I am life abandoned, shared. The wine of this cup is my blood which is to be poured out to celebrate a new covenant. This wine is my blood, shed to give a new life. There is the same instruction as in our Chapter 13, ‘Do this in memory of me’. The repetition of this sacramental act at every Eucharist is as forceful as that of washing the feet. To eat the body of Christ and drink his blood enjoins us also to be for the sake of others a body abandoned totally, without reserve, to be blood shed to give our life, drop by drop, for others.

These two actions of Jesus are deeply related to monastic life. Participation at the Eucharist must be translated into the concrete life of each monk and each nun in the service of washing the feet. Speaking symbolically, not only in the welcome and service of guests, which is easy enough, but in the service of everyone and especially the brother or sister with whom we share the same ideal of life.

This link between the Eucharist and life which is required of us for welcoming others must be total, beginning in our monastery, in our community. There cannot be an authentic welcome for guests without a true and authentic fraternal life within the community. Whether we like it or not, guests notice this when they visit our monasteries. Often their only contact is with the porter, the guestmaster and perhaps a spiritual companion, but they leave messages in which they express their gratitude to the monks for the witnes of their lives, their attention, their fraternal communion, and more profoundly the relationship to the Lord which they have noticed in the celebrations and various expressions of care lavished upon them. But when they witness division, spitefulness, selfishness, incoherence of life they notice that also. They do not dare to express it in writing, but they speak of it and harbour a bitter memory, and this is a counter-witness.

When we speak of the Eucharist we speak of the community. The Eucharist is celebrated by a community. A single person, even a priest, cannot celebrate the Eucharist (in fact the General Instruction of the Roman Missal [no 252] requires that there should be at least a minister to assist the priest; it is only in exceptional circumstances and justifications that the Eucharist may be celebrated without a minister or one of the faithful [no 254]). The Ite missa est is a plural imperative, indicating that the mission which follows from participation in the Eucharist is no private mission. Following on from our theme, this means that the host who represents the monastic community is no lone sniper. This implies that one who enters upon this service acts in the name of the community and not on the margin, or worse, not in opposition to the community. Consequently it implies a duty on the part of the whole community: in what way are they present to the guestmaster or guestmistress, aware of what they are doing and ready to lend a helping hand? The service of guests is a mission given by the superior of the community, and exercised in communion with the community, by keeping them in touch with what is going on.

‘All guests who present themselves should be received as Christ himself, for he himself says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”’. This is a reference to Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. This shows that for St Benedict it is not only the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ which sends us on the mission of service and welcome to the monastery, but it is also the sacrament of a brother. This theme returns several times in the Rule: the brother not merely represents Christ but is Christ coming to visit us. That is why he deserves the greatest care.

I am sure that we have all experienced this in the monastery: guests are not a disturbance, a slight nuisance which we must tolerate in our monastic life. They are real witnesses of what we are doing, sometimes distractedly or as a matter of routine. They themselves witness to the strength of their faith, to their efforts to a coherence of life, of the way they struggle in their ordinary lives to stay faithful while leading a courageous life, struggling to earn their daily bread, run their household, be responsible in their work without making all kinds of excuses.

To conclude I would like to quote St Benedict once more. In Chapter 53 he gives some indications about the choice of a guestmaster. Like everything else in the monastery, this service occurs in the fear of God, that is, in the presence of God. In faith I know that my life is continually present to God. This is not to track my movements and note my falls in order to punish me, but to love me in his sight and his merciful love. I am loved by God, and my life radiates this love in my relationship with others.

In the Church we are living through difficult times with the problem of sexual abuse of minors. I do not wish to discuss this question here, for it is not part of my purpose, but I would like to build on what the Pope has developed in several of his pronouncements: sexual abuse is preceded by an abuse of power and an abuse of conscience.

The monk and the nun represent a very special reality in the eyes of the faithful and of the people who come to our monasteries. They regard us more or less as saints. This unconsciously creates in us an idea that we are superior, above others. This is what gives us power. From there we can easily slip into abuse of power. We can make use of others, namely of guests. To compensate for our emotional deprivations and to bind up caring friendships outside the monastery, to secure indelicately economic advantages for the monastery, to get presents or respect, or – what is worse – to divert for our own advantage presents given by guests to the monastery.

In all these cases, we can, blind to the abuse of conscience, easily find justifications for our conduct. I am the guestmaster or guestmistress, I must take care of the comfort of the guests… I must not be cold or dry towards them… I am doing nothing wrong… I do desrve some sort of reward… I work hard enough!

Let us remember what I said: our service of welcome is founded on the Eucharist. We welcome and serve those who come to the monastery because we want to offer them the humble service of Christ at the Last Supper, we want to offer them our lives as he did. We receive a guest and all visitors because it is the very person of Christ who is coming to meet us. We do all this with a pure heart, without any distorted motive, since it is Christ himself, our Lord, who has given his life for us by dying and rising again.

Meditation

‘He looked upon the angels who came to him as friends’

The Death of St Antony

Saint Athanasius

According to his custom Antony had gone to visit the monasteries of the mountain, deep in the desert. Alerted by Providence that his end was not far off, he said to the brothers, ‘This is the last visit I am making to you, and I will be very surprised if we meet again in this world. The time of my departure is near, and I am like a traveller in a strange town, ready to return to his own world. My departure is near, for I am almost a hundred and five years old’. When they heard these words his disciples burst into tears; they took the old man in their arms and covered him with kisses while he spoke to them. He spoke to them happily. He exhorted them never to relax their efforts, never to be discouraged in their exercises of piety, to live as though each day were their last.

His brothers wanted to force him to remain with them to conclude his sacrifice but he would not agree. He returned to the deserted mountain where he had fixed his dwelling, and little more than a month afterwards fell ill. He called the two brothers who looked after him in his old age and said to them, ‘I am going to follow the way of my fathers, as the scripture says, for I see that the Lord is calling me. So bury my body yourselves, hide it in the earth and be faithful to my instruction: no one but yourselves is to know the place where my body will be. On the day of the resurrection of the dead I shall receive it incorruptible from the hands of the Saviour. You are to divide my clothes in this way: you are to give to Bishop Athanasius one of my two sheepskins with the cloak on which I was lying: he gave it to me new, and it has grown old from the use I made of it. Give my other sheepskin to Bishop Serapion; as for you, you may keep my leather tunic. Good-bye, my children, Antony is going away and will no longr be with you’. When he had spoken these words the two disciples embraced him. Antony drew up his feet and looked at the angels who were coming to meet him as friends, and their presence filled him with joy. So he gave up his spirit and rejoined his fathers.

The two disciples faithfully observed his instructions: they buried him and dug him into the earth, and to this day no one knows where he is hidden except these two disciples. As for those who received the sheepskins and the worn-out cloak which he had bequeathed to them, they preserved these relics as infinitely precious, for in looking at them they thought they were still seeing Antony, and when they dreamt of him it seemed to them that he was joyfully giving them his lessons and counsels.

Testimonies

Nathalie Raymond

The Cemetery of the Benedictine Monastery

of Thiên Binh, open to life

Original by the standards of the Benedictine tradition, though this was no accident, the cemetery of the monastery of Thiên Binh has progressively arrived at its present shape over the years in response to its spiritual function. Open to other religious congregations, both male and female, and also to lay Catholics, it has been at the heart of a community reflection on its spiritual function.

Missionary monasticism

The monastery was founded in 1970 by Father Thaddeus, who came from Thiên An, which in its turn had been founded by La Pierre-qui-Vire at the end of the 1930s. From the beginning the idea of a missionary monasticism was very prominent, especially in a difficult political situation, notably one of war. It was a matter of responding to the needs of populations displaced because of conflict, and also to give a formation to young people who had issued from modest circumstances by means of a technical school.

Today the economic and political situation is very different, but there still exists an uprooted and neglected population, migrants from the countryside who have come to seek a better standard of living in the megalopolis of Saigon. The monastery continues its efforts to respond to their urgent needs, not only in the matter of education but also in health-care. The monastery has a dispensary where the poor are treated by traditional medicine and drinking water is distributed free of charge, from a well which, thanks be to God, has never failed.

This care for physical well-being is, of course, partnered by care for spiritual health. The Benedictine monks welcome and accompany those who require it; they pray for them and celebrate Mass for their intentions. They are also full of gratitude to the benefactors who enable them to continue these activities. So without any damage to the Benedictine way of life the monastery takes a full part in dynamic interaction with the exterior and reciprocal enhancement of life. Nor are the dead excluded from this process.

Care for the Dead

Because of the relative youth of the monastery, so far few of the monks have died, only three: Dom Thaddeus, the founder on 31st January, 1995. Nevertheless the question of the spiritual function of the cemetery arose rapidly because of concrete facts brought to the notice of Dom Thaddeus. The first people to be buried in the cemetery were the members of a poor family, victims of the explosion of a bomb at the end of the 1970s. This could not leave Dom Thaddeus unmoved, for he was always very responsive to the needs of the poor. Then the Sisters of a Vietnamese Congregation (the Lovers of the Cross) asked permission to bury their dead sisters there. Since then several other congregations of religious have made the same request. Catholic lay people have received the same privilege. There is a very practical reason for the requests, the lack of space in the metropolis of Ho-Chi-Minh City. The pressure for space is so strong that it is impossible to enlarge or even maintain cemeteries. In addition this does not enter at all into the priorities of the Communist government. Cremation, very widespread in the country and the sole possible solution in view of lack of space, remains difficult for certain Catholics to imagine. Hence the search for cemeteries.

The joy of being able to rest in peace next to a place of prayer is an equally strong motive for fervent Catholics, not only religious. This gives the cemetery of Thiên Binh an exceptional character in the Benedictine world (granted that the cemetery is outside the enclosure): an inter-congregatonal cemetery for males and females and open also to the laity. These characteristics have obliged the community to gradually clarify the spiritual function of the cemetery. Such a reflection, over several years, conducted in the light of the Holy Spirit, has led to the realisation of a sort of prolongation of the multiple exchanges which the monastery has had with the world outside it. This is founded in the communion of saints celebrated in the Church and in the memory of ancestors which is dear to the Vietnamese heart. It is in fact very important in Vietnamese culture for the living to be aware of how much they owe to those who have gone before them, and to honour these predecessors.

The diversity of the ‘inhabitants’ of the cemetery also reflects the diversity of the Church, and it is good to imagine that the interchange between the monks and the outside world, begun in this life, continues beyond death. It is good to see here a prolongation of the missionary activity so beloved of the founder and his successors. Besides, who knows the debt which the monastery owes to these ancestors who have now entered into the light of God? In exchange for a few clumps of eaarth how many graces granted by the intercession of these saints for the pursuit of activities achieved by and for the living?

The Celebration of the cycle Life-Death-Life

In thanksgiving for this communion between living and dead a Mass is celebrated every year in the early morning of 2nd November in the cemetery when the Church commemorates its faithful departed. One this occasion religious and biological families of those buried in the cemetery come together with the monastic community to pay homage to their ancestors in prayer and the celebration of the Eucharist. Incense-smoke accompanies these prayers, and the incense-sticks continue to burn on each of the tombs after the celebration. It is a very important moment of recollection which makes the mystery of life and death in the same cycle palpable.

This cycle of life-death-life is materialised in another way in the cemetery. A visitor from outside would be surprised to see many plants growing there, flowers or decorative plants on the mounds of earth, but also bushes, small palm-trees, and in one section of the cemetery plants of curcumin, whose roots will later be used by the monks for medicine. This vegetation furthermore makes the cemetery a refuge for many birds. It is therefore a space which expresses the fact, which lies at the base of our faith, that life continues and is stronger than death.

In the course of events, then, (in which the hand of God is visible) this cemetery has acted as a sort of prolongation of the missionary emphasis and the monastic welcome which lies at the heart of the Benedictine monastic vocation. By its special and open adoption into the life both of the Church and of the cycle life-death-life the cemetery reflects also the communion of saints. Let us thank God for all the fruits which this special place holds in so many hearts.

Testemonies

Monique Hébrard, journalist

The Cemetery of the seven monks of Tibhirine

The silhouete of the seven Trappist monks is engraved in the darkness of the night of 26/27th March, 1996. This final image of the magnificent film of Xavier Beauvois leaves us in uncertainty: were they hostages in some unknown location? Had they been assassinated? If so, where were their bodies? Everyone knows how difficult it is to mourn when the bodies of the victimes of an air crash or a crime have ot been recovered.

The darkness of uncertainty was lifted – into a terrifying clarity – only on 30th May when their bodies were found, and then only seven severed heads. The remains of the seven monks rest now in the cemetery of the monastery of Our Lady of the Atlas where they had lived. Thousands of people from every land come there to pray. Christians, but increasingly also young Muslims attempting to find some meaning.

I was deeply haunted by this place without ever having gone there, and so I leapt at the opportunity to go these on the occasion of the beatification on 8th December, 2018, of the nineteen martyrs of those ‘black years’ of the Algerian civil war which had cost thousands of lives.

Crossing the threshhold of the monastery one descends through the trees, passing the springs which provide water for the farming. Then one reaches a clearing decorated by lavender and rose-bushes, impeccably maintained by Youssef and Samir who are still in charge of the farm. Seven plaques with seven names, in the order of their entering the monastery, the first being Brother Luc, the doctor who so well incarnated universal fraternity by his care of any who presented themselves, the villagers but also the wounded of the GIA.

The gardeners are with us. Their care for this freshly-raked earth of which they are the custodians expressed their faithful love and respect for the spot, bathed in silence and surrounded by emotion, but also a profound peace and mystery. ‘Tibhirine’ means ‘garden’, garden of paradise, tilled with love, amid fruit-trees. A garden of olives, a place of suffering and death. As a prayer, groups often read the testament of Christian de Chergé, a penetrating message of brotherhood and communion, proclaiming that Life and Love are stronger than devastating hatred. It is not easy to emerge from the silence of this spiritual journey as one climbs up again to the ground above.

When we were at Tibhirine it was Advent. In the chapel, situated in the storage-house of the old winery, the crib had already been set up, and seven figures awaited the arrival of the Saviour.

Testemonies

Mother Pascale Fourmentin, OCSO

Abbess of Koningsoord, Arnhem (Netherlands)

Nature, between heaven and earth.

Koningsakker, the natural Cemetery

of a monastic Community

‘Konigsakker’ is the name of the natural and ecological cemetery linked to the Cistercian abbey of Koningsoord in the Netherlands. Clearly the name of the cemetery and that of the abbey begin with the same word, ‘Konig’, the Dutch for ‘king’. It is not so much the name itself which is important as the similarity, which expresses the link between the cemetery and the abbey.

But what is a natural cemetery? Why does a Cistercian abbey make a fuss about the use of such a cemetery? Is this compatible with monastic life? These are reasonable questions which spontaneously arise when one speaks of the kind of project. The purpose of this article is to offer some elements of an answer both by explaining the concept of a natural cemetery and by sketching the development of the project. This initiative, unprecedented in Europe, has raised many community reflections on the monastic, cultural and ecclesial issues of such a project.

1. Nature, the final resting-place on earth

We may have forgotten that nature is certainly the most natural place where human  beings have always been buried. Of course the requirements of ritual, places, and symbols have rapidly led to the development of specific places where people have expressed themselves in one way or another according to their religion and culture. The current situation of inhabitants of overcrowded cities, whether religious or secular, the closure of many parish churches, the need for relations of the dead to renew their time-limited concessions, family displacements within or beyond the country of origin, and also of course the increasing prevalence of cremation, have all put a question-mark to our way of burying the dead. The appearance of a natural cemetery falls into line with these reflections. They began in England but were soon exported to the Netherlands, and the movement has undergone considerable expansion in the last ten years.

The principle of this kind of cemetery is simple, burial of a dead person in nature, returning the body to nature. There is no distinctive mark, no stone, no cross, no enclosure. The principle is that nature itself will take care of the tomb. Living nature continues to develop. This makes clear the close link between life and death, at least on the natural plane. To carry this link a little further, this concept of cemetery also aims to  chime in with the the development and preservation of nature. In fact certain cemeteries have also the concrete purpose – and this is the case with Koningskker – of ‘creating’ nature. Koningsakker has transformed forty acres of maize-field into a natural reservation in harmony with the environment. This natural reservation plays its part in the development of flora and fauna of our region. In the Netherlands conservation is considered important, and land use is firmly linked to preservation of nature.

In concrete terms, someone wishing to be buried in our cemetery chooses a place, which is then recorded in the GPS system. It is therefore always possible to find the tomb, even in the middle of a field of heather. The person buys the right to be buried in this position for an undetermined time. It will remain there always and nothing will be done to the tomb. When all the tombs have been sold the nature reserve will endure. After burial the relations may choose to plant a wooden roundel with an engraving of the name of the dead person. This roundel, like everything buried with the person, is biodegradable.

Apart from the ecological aspect, the human aspect plays a large part in this project, including human accompaniment at every stage. Beside a constant welcoming staff at the cemetery, every stage from the choice of the position, through the burial itself to the visits of relations after the funeral is carefully accompanied by a competent and trained staff. The staff is there to listen, accompany and provide counselling. Care of nature and of persons is a constant feature in this type of project.

2. The Birth of a Cemetery

How did we come to embark on this project? It was the fruit of a slow community process. Two independent elements met to put us on this track. The first was concern to be sure of a zone of silence around the monastery.  The community moved ten years ago because of the expansion of the town where the monastery was previously situated. We did not wish to live through again the same sort of scenario, which is not so simple in a country with such an intensity of population. The maize-fields attached to the monastery were a risk for our solitude. An opportunity to buy this land presented itself and we felt a call. At the same time our own monastic economy experienced a structural disequilibrium which needed to be solved. These were the basic ingredients. At first sight the idea of developing a cemetery seemed to us ridiculous. In any case, we did not know what we were talking about. Little by little we informed ourselves, we visited other places were such a project had been realised, and we exchanged ideas about the possibility. After the first reaction of rejection in the face of the idea of living next to a cemetery, other arguments began to arise: the encyclical Laudato Si’, ecology, a new relationship between death and ways of burying, the lay-out of our property, the instruction of St Benedict in Chapter 4 ‘to have death daily before our eyes’, the current attitude to the earth and our management of it. We needed to reflect also on our Catholic identity in the heart of a Protestant region. The cemetery is not a Catholic cemetery for, as for all our guest arrangements, we wanted to be open to everyone. We want to be quite clear about our Christian and Catholic identity. Anyone who wants to be buried here must respect this, just as our guests must respect our way of receiving guests. Despite the extremely secular surroundings in which we live, the people are aware of our witness in this project. For them too, as for their families, it is a way of making contact with the abbey.

Koningsakker opened its gate, one might say, on 1st September, 2019. As in the whole country, there is a real taste for this new kind of cemetery and the initiative from which it flows. For us this is a confirmation of our decision. Nevertheless, it remains for us to keep a close eye on the project, to listen to what is done there, to adapt the formula to requirements and to our objectives. The community has lived through a constructive experience during the development of this project. We live it as a witness to our faith in the resurrection at the heart of a contemporary ecological advance. We work in concert with the people in this line of business. The cemetery is run by layfolk, but we observe a discrete presence, and especially pray for the dead who are buried in our cemetery. Paradoxically enough, the development of this project, which was a load to bear, has refreshed our community and united us around an innovative and risky project, which has already begun to bear fruit.

Testemonies

Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat, OSB

President of AIM

The Manufacture of Coffins at New Melleray

What charm,[1] but also what hard work in the lovely environment of the monastery of New Melleray near Dubuque in the State of Iowa (USA), with its three thousand acres of forest and farmland! Less numerous and more advanced in age than previously, the monks continue to enjoy this place at the same time as needing to seek something which can generate sufficient income for them without causing them to sink too much under the excessive weight of the work.

It is a generation since the Abbey of New Melleray counted one hundred and fifty monks living from the revenue produced by a mixed farming enterprise of milk-cows and pigs. In recent years the abbey has depended on the gifts of guests, pensions of senior monks and the sale of soya and maize, without the income always covering the annual expenditure.

New Melleray is not the only abbey which has had to face such economic demands. Of course the Benedictine monastic life considers work to be an essential part of its charism. But with the increasing accent on technology and internet, not to mention safety regulations and legal requirements, the conception of work has changed, and the monks have been compelled to adapt to this. The community of New Melleray has found a way of earning money which is compatible with monastic life. The monks voted to give up their enterprise of animal-farming, in part because it did not leave them enough time for contemplative life. There was a feeling of dissatisfaction among some who said they had not entered the monastery to work in a factory. The monks then envisaged creating a furniture factory, but a friend who was a businessman dissuaded them. At about the same time a neighbouring farmer who had discovered an interest in the sale of coffins asked them to construct this sort of product in the monastery workshops. This seemed to have some interest, and, after the community had deliberated the proposition, a partnership was set up. To the monks this seemed appropriate since for them, according to St Benedict, every hour should be accepted as the most decisive hour of all, that of passing to the Father.

A layman manages the construction of coffins for the Trappists and supervises the workers, while the monks begin work at 9.30, pause at midday for prayer and a meal, and then return two hours later, finally putting down their saws and hammers at 4.30 to go to Vespers. Another lay person is also employed as counsellor of the families for Trappist coffins. This is a very rich contact where the Holy Spirit can be seen to be at work among the Trappists, the clients and the employees, listening to the life histories and the final days in the heart of the families. In the monastery everything necessary and possible is done to console the families. Each coffin is constructed in a spirit of contemplative prayer. After sale each coffin is blessed to mark the beginning of the final journey.

Anyone who has asked for a Trappist coffin or urn is mentioned at the commemorative Mass of the abbey. The names of the dead are inscribed in a commemorative book, and a tree is planted in the monastic forest next to New Melleray, a living memorial of the dead. A letter is sent to the families informing them how they can support the ministry of the monks, and a card on the first anniversary of death. The monks of the abbey pray for the dead and their families. All are invited to participate in the commemorative Mass, to visit the workshop and to learn about the life and activity of the community. All the clients are invited to renew contact with the monks whenever they wish.

Each coffin is delivered with a cross personalised by an inscription of the name and dates of the dead person. This family remembrance is a way of honouring the dear departed each day. The massive wooden coffins come from nature and return to nature. This is a gesture of recognition of the gifts received from God. The workshop of New Melleray is not content merely to furnish a product, but sees this work as a participation in Christ’s own work of love and mercy.

[1] This article was written based on several sources of information.

Opening on the World

Professor Roger Gil, neurologist

Director of A Space for Ethical Reflection (France)

Lessons for life,

drawn from Paul facing Sickness and Death

The vocation of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is to publish articles belonging to what may be called the scientific side of medicine; its objective is innovations in diagnostic both preventative and curative. But from time to time it happens that the periodical opens itself to the human and ethical realities of medicine. The most famous example of this is certainly the article of Henry Beecher published in 1966,[1] which provoked a crisis of conscience in western medicine by reporting a certain number of scientific works related to research on human beings which had not respected the dignity of the human person. In 2016 the NEJM gave it glowing homage[2] by showing that ethical reflection is not a curb on research but a condition of its human importance.

In August 2018 the NEJM published an article which also considered the human aspect of medicine, by telling a clinical story entitled ‘Life Lessons from Paul in the Face of Death’.[3] Paul was a rabbi who died three years after the diagnosis of a widespread cancer of the colon. He was 64 years old when stomach pain led to the discovery of an already widespread stage 4 cancer of the colon. He underwent a colostomy (articifial anus), followed by the most modern treatments, but died 34 months after the diagnosis. The author of the article, a doctor and in addition Paul’s own brother, outlined the three lessons which Paul had given his people during the additional months of life which medical treatment had given him.

Look back in order to learn to live for the future

Paul had never detected the cancer of the colon. He had no regrets about this, but was rather in agreement with the philosophy of Kierkegaard, according to which life must always look to the future, although it can be understood only on the basis of the past. He encouraged his wife and children to make this discovery. He knew that nothing could change what was happening to him, but he realised also that by telling his story he could allow others to escape the same destiny as himself. He helped others who were afraid of detecting a cancer of the colon to realise that the distress of the discovery was passing, but the reward was lasting.

Go on with your work

Paul, a rabbi, belonged to the conservative branch of Judaism, midway between the reformed and the orthodox: he held to openness and inclusion, respect for diversity and the faith of others. Despite his illness, and even in the face of heavy chemotherapy he continued to serve the community and to preside at religious ceremonies. Three months before his death he officiated at the funeral of a member of his community. Before his death he said that he hoped that the same would be done for him. And so it was.

Keep an aim in life

Because of his illness the marriage of his daughter was postponed, but forty-eight hours before the wedding he was taken to hospital because of internal bleeding. A few hours before the wedding he gathered his strength to be present. His close family helped him dress and be present in a wheelchair. He addressed his family and friends and said to them that this week-end belonged to the young married couple. In his disarming manner he spoke in a way which put everyone at their ease and injected humour into a situation which could have been experienced as sad. That night, when his family helped him to bed, it was clear that he had reached the end-point. And, wrote his brother, in the ten days which followed he was called to God.

His brother insisted that he had made the best possible use of the time of good health which medical skill had granted to him. Like him, his brother was grateful to the scientists, the doctors, the patients who had risked making clinical experiments and achieved this prolongation of life which he had achieved, thanks to new treatments. He lived for two more years, with an illness which twenty years previously would have led to a painful death in a few months. He used this time to teach how to live, and his family used the time to learn how to live.

The progress of medicine receives its full sense only as permitting people in the grip of illness to continue to give sense to their life. Only thus is it possible that medicine said to be ‘personalised’, but which is in fact highly exact, to the point exceeding any individual, can be allied to personal treatment. One of the purposes of bioethics is to promote this alliance.

[1] H. K. Beecher, « Ethics and Clinical Research », The New England Journal of Medicine 274, no 24 (16 juin 1966) : 1354‑60, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM196606162742405.

[2] David S. Jones, Christine Grady, et Susan E. Lederer, « “Ethics and Clinical Research” – The 50th Anniversary of Beecher’s Bombshell », New England Journal of Medicine 374, no 24 (16 juin 2016) : 2393-98, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMms1603756.

[3] Jeffrey M. Drazen, « Life Lessons from Paul in the Face of Death », The New England Journal of Medicine 379, no 9 (30 août 2018) : 808‑9, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1808695.

Liturgy

Sister Marie-Pierre Như Ý, OSB

Priory of Lôc-Nam (Vietnam)

Liturgy for the Dead:

Traditions of Vietnam and monastic Rites

From traditional burial to Christian burial: the lessons of history

The correspondence between funerary rites traditional in Vietnam and the tradition of the Church has a very long history. It is a matter not merely of the work of a few experts or the fruit of learned research, but rather of the whole people of God, which reflects the authentic sense of the faith within which it can mature. To estimate this we must run through the historical debates in China and Vietnam which have led to the decision to return to the cult of the ancestors.

In China and Vietnam, a historical approach

At the time of the ‘Rites Controversy’ in the sixteenth century, a time of lively controversy between the missionaries of different religious Orders, the question of the cult of the ancestors with regard to funerary rites was particularly thorny.[1] How much of the cult of the ancestors is ‘true and holy’ in the eyes of the Catholic Church?

In the face of this question, Pope Clement XI, by the Decree of 20th November, 1704, put an end to the Rites Controversy by forbidding Christians to make offerings in honour of their ancestors either in the temples or in their own houses, or to keep their funerary tablets. In the Constitution Ex Illa of 19th March, 1715, he renewed these prohibitions and ordered all missionaries to swear an oath to the apostolic authorities of their mission. Pope Clement XII, in his Bull Ex Quo Singulari of 11th July, 1742, upheld the decisions of his predecessor.

To regain the unity of teaching and action in the apostolate among the missionaries of the mission to China and its neighbours, the Legate, Mgr Messabarba, by the Instruction of Macao on 4th November, 1712, authorised Chinese and Vietnamese Christians to make offerings and gestures before the tablets of dead ancestors. The decree stipulates that these offerings and gestures may be made also in a cultic building, in front of the coffin or the tomb because they express respect and piety[2]. This ruling did not, however, calm the controversies within the Christian community. By contrast, Mgr Saraceni, Vicar Apostolic of Chan-si and Chen-si, outlawed the permissions about the tablets within his vicariate, while Mgr de la Purificatiton, Bishop of Pekin, accepted it. Next, under Popes Clement XII (1730-1740) and Benedict XIV (1740-1758), the question of the cult of ancestors with relation to funerary rites does not seem to have been definitively resolved. At this moment, to avoid all doubt, the Vietnamese Catholics abandoned the installation of an altar to the ancestors and their tablets in their houses. But they remained faithful to the pious memory of the dead by forming the custom of coming together and celebrating Masses for the repose of their souls. Towards the end of the seventeenth century[3] the Jesuit missionaries maintained that the cult of ancestors was a purely civil reverence, a witness to filial piety and gratitude towards ancestors and parents who had gone before. This view was shared also by Chinese literature[4].

Two centuries later the Congregation Propaganda Fide in its Instruction Plane compertum of 8th December, 1939, approved by Pope Pius XII, expressed the view,

‘It is lawful and fitting for Catholics to bow the head and make other civil marks of respect for the dead or before their images and the Tablets which bear their names’.[5]

Thanks to the Congregation Propaganda Fide the cult of ancestors in connection with funerary rites is now permitted: it consists exclusively of acts of veneration for the ancestors and dead parents. So this rite must be emptied of all superstition. The cult of ancestors is therefore permitted, but how should it be practised without any superstition?

The Debate over the Cult of Ancestors and the Opposition to it

At his arrival in Vietnam in 1628 Mgr Alexandre de Rhodes realised that certain funerary practices were superstitious and ridiculous, for example, the burning of votive papers. So he did not hesitate to condemn them. He forbade also the festival, the Cung Giô, which the Vietnamese were celebrating in memory of their dead parents. After observing what the Vietnamese were doing and what they believed he concluded that this ceremony rested on three errors: the first was that the soul of the dead persons returned into the houses of their children whenever they pleased or when their children called upon them; the second was that the dead fed upon the offerings prepared on the altar of the ancestors; the third, the most absurd, consisted in the belief that life and material prosperity depended on the dead parents, and could be blocked for ingratitude if they failed to celebrate the Cung Giô[6]. According to the Sino-Vietnamese tradition, however, lack of filial piety is considered a crime. Fr Lou Tseng Tsiang has most accurately described it in these terms:

‘Filial piety is the foundation of all moral perfection, the source of all fruitfulness, and none of our human actions escapes its laws. All people are bound to be inspired by it and to practise it in all respects.’[7].

The Re-establishment of the cult of the ancestors

Has the cult of ancestors a religious character? If it has, why is it unacceptable to the missionaries? Accepting the survival of the dead amid the living and the good grounds for the rites performed in their honour, Tran Van Chuong writes,

‘The cult of ancestors is aimed at recalling to the living the memory of the dead. It springs from the morality which prescribes fidelity to memory’[8].

Hô Dac Diêm expresses the same view,

‘This cult takes its origin in filial piety. A pious son must always have present in his memory the imperishable memory of his parents’.[9]

In the same vein Fr Cadière remarks,

‘Distinctions must be made: the ritual acts concerning the cult of ancestors do not in themselves have a religious character, but this is an exception. For the immense majority of Vietnamese the ancestors continue to be part of the family after their death’[10].

Finally, long discussion among missionaries reached this conclusion[11]:

‘The offering of funerary rites to the dead should be made in the fullness of love and a solid and perfect respect… Love and honour parents after their death.’

In 1675 the Instruction to the Seminary of the Missions Étrangères states in its second directive,

‘Do not expend any zeal or advance any argument to convince these people to change their rites or customs unless they are clearly contrary to religion and morality… Introduce to them not our countries or the usages of any particular people but the faith which does not reject or harm these rites’.[12]

In this way, as we have seen the Church requires us to take time, to have prudence and discernment. It was necessary to wait for Vatican II to have a full resolution of these questions.

A Proposal for the adaptation of the monastic funerary ritual to Vietnamese culture

For the great majority of Vietnamese the ancestors continue to be part of the family. For many the cult of ancestors is, in one sense, a religion of adoration of ancestors. For example, on the day of the commemoration of ancestors the tombs are decorated and all members of the family must come togther in the ancestral house to show their gratitude and strengthen the family bond by sharing a meal. At midnight before the New Year the most solemn celebration of the ancestors occurs, etc.

This is the reason why today’s Christians of Vietnam have no desire to be different from their fellow-citizens. Why? In days past the Christians were regarded by their fellow-citizens as people who had cut their roots, that is, they were suspected of abandoning the duty to pay cult to the ancestors after the funerary rites, and that condemnation persists to his day, even though the Church of Vietnam has made sure of retaining the traditional funerary rites.

How should the monastic ritual be adapted to the Vietnamese culture? What latitude do we have to harmonise the funerary rites to the Vietnamese culture, especially in Benedictine contemplative life in Vietnam? It seems to me that before any adaptation it is necessary to understand that:

• The funerary ritual of the Church, particularly in monastic life, is not content merely to mount a funerary symbolism. It has also the function of a cult, that is, the celebration of the salvific plan of God, and it proclaims its faith in the kerygma: Christ died and he is now risen and, with him, all those who believe in his name.

• The accent is placed on the dead person who is participating for the last time in the liturgical assembly, and for whom one is praying, and also on the living who need the consolation of hope.

• The body is an integral part of the person. Deprived of life, it is not ranked as a mere object. It is the body of a particular person, a body which has shown love, tenderness, friendship, which has been marked by the sickness, by the whole history of this person. A body whose wounds are called to the transfiguration of the Resurrection. The body of the baptised dead person has become the Temple of the Spirit, touched by sacramental actions of the Church, nourished by the Eucharist. The way in which it is honoured at the funeral bespeaks the immense dignity of its vocation to eternity [13].

Next, the ritual is the expression of a theology. To begin with, this theology expresses the link which exists between the Passover of Christ and that of the dead person. This participation in the paschal mystery of Christ is linked in a significant way to the baptism by which we have been incorporated into Christ. The paschal character of death is marked also by the fact that it is a veritable transitus to eternal life, and is a communion of saints for the soul already purified and waiting in corpore (in the body) for the resurrection of the dead. In addition, the theology of the ritual recalls that the Church never ceases to believe that the communion of all its members in Christ ‘gains for each one a spiritual help by offering to the others the consolation of hope’. Finally, the ritual underlines the importance of honouring the bodies of the dead, since they have been the temples of the Holy Spirit.

Thus what we suggest is that we must avoid the danger of keeping in the expressions of popular piety towards the dead those unacceptable elements and aspects of the pagan cult of our ancestors, such as the invocation of the dead by means of practices of divination. Additionally, being Christans, we need to familiarise ourselves with the thought of death, and accept this reality in peace and serenity[14] since Christ died and is risen. However, this proposed adaptation certainly brings with it a difficulty with regard to the traditions long anchored in Vietnam.

[1] Exterior actions such as bows, prostrations and offerings are practically the same in the cult of the ancestors and in the Christian rites of burial. But do they have the same meaning?

[2] See the thesis of Antoin DUONG QUYNH, Un aperçu historique de la controverse en Chine, ISL, Paris, 2001, pp. 96-106.

[3] See WIEGER, Histoire des Croyances religieuses en Chine, 1re leçon – CADIERE, Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Vietnamiens, pp. 266-273 – HOUANG, Âme chinoise et Christianisme, Ch. 1 – TRAN VAN HIEN MINH, La conception confucéenne de l’homme, Saïgon, 1962, p. 57.

[4] The study of Chinese philosophy and of the ancient books on which these rites were based leads to the understanding that the sacrifices offered to the ancestors express only the homage of gratitude and a profound respect which excludes any religious dimension.

[5] Cf. Sacred Congregation for the Faith, ‘Instructio circa quasdam caeremonias et juramentum super Ritibus Sinensibus’, in AAS, 32, 1940, pp. 24-26.

[6] Cf. Alexandre de RHODES, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, Paris,1999, pp. 70-77.

[7] Dom P.C.LOU TSENG TSIANG, La rencontre des humanités et la découverte de l’Évangile, p. 51.

[8] TRAN VAN CHUONG, Essai sur l’esprit du Droit sino-vietnamien, p. 17.

[9] HÔ DAC DIÊM, La puissance paternelle dans le droit vietnamien, Paris, 1928, p. 30.

[10] P. CADIERE, Ibid., p. 41.

[11] Quoted in the edition of pieces presented by the Jesuits to the Congregation to answer the ‘Questions about China and its neighbour’ in the archives of the Missions Étrangères.

[12] G. GOYAU, Les prêtres des Missions Étrangères, Éditions Ouvrières, Paris, 1956, p. 24.

[13] Pierre JOUNEL, La célébration des Sacrements, Desclée, Paris 1983, p. 905.

[14] The Vietnamese have the custom of crying out loudly before the body of the dead, and this funerary rite is sometimes ambiguous about the presence or absence of the dead person.

Meditation

Brother Irénée Jonnart,

abbey of Chevetogne (Belgium)

Giving up the Sleep of Death

‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will be the coming of the Son of man’ (Matthew 24.37): to identify the good news of salvation with the violence of a flood engulfing all living beings is hardly acceptable. At least we should discern behind this apocalyptic picture the arrival of a new world, regenerated and rich in promises – beginning with the promise of the Lord never again to repeat such a destruction (Genesis 8.21)!

In fact the gospel context invites us rather to understand the reference to Noah as an appeal for vigilance and confident expectation of a happy event, already to be welcomed. However, for this it is necessary to wake up. Of course the world is asleep, not so much in appearance, for yesterday and today people were ‘eating and drinking and marrying’. But there is a difference between a biological existence – and of course it is indispensible to nourish ourselves and to procreate – and a fulness of life consisting of joining the trumpet-call of a thrust which comes from something outside oneself and acts on a person irresistibly – like the movement of love.

It is this fulness of life which links to Noah entering the ark, symbol of the deepest human interiority. In this sanctuary is found the source of light and life, the switch which we must plug into. This is also where the Son of man resides. Thus we must welcome the Life which is dozing in everyone and puts oneself at its tempo. This initiative demands a purification, and that is the significance of the Flood. A bath of regeneration at the heart of the primeval waters, those of the first days of the world and those of the fetus, a baptism which brings back to life and the profound memory not only of the origins of life in oneself but also its progress.

But what of other people, those situated outside the arc of salvation: ‘two men will be in the field, one will be taken, the other left’? Here, as each time two opposing types of people are contrasted with each other in the gospels, it is plain that the two are one, merely  two aspects of the same person – that is, ourselves!

Also it is a matter of purifing the old man residing in each of us in order to make room for the New Man, raised to new Life, ready to become a Watcher, that is, someone vigilant, not so much someone in a permanent state of alert as ready to counteract his own inertia and his preconceived ideas of what will happen, for ‘the hour is coming when you do not expect it and the Son of man will appear’. Not settled into a preconceived scenario but open to whatever comes. That embraces the rest of humanity, for being alert includes also taking a turn to looking out for others.

This is what Noah has to teach us: he is conscious of a certain responsibility for the arrival of a new creation. In consequence all human beings are invited to experience that the purification of the world and the spread of Life in its fulness passes through their own interior life and comes into being by their own state of alertness.

A glimpse of History

Fr Nicholas Stebbing, OSB

Community of the Resurrection (Zimbabwe)

Anglicans and St Benedict

Anyone who knows about English history knows that Henry VIII was famous for his wives, for his break with Rome, and for his destruction of monastic life. All the Protestant Reformers dispensed with monastic life on various theological or moral grounds. Henry’s destruction was neither theological nor moral. He saw that the monasteries and religious orders were where the strongest opposition to his rejection of the Pope would be found. He also needed the money he could raise by selling off the monastic property, and he could gain support from the lay nobility by selling them those estates[1]. He used Thomas Cromwell as his agent in this and within a few years between 1532 and 1540 a flourishing monastic life was destroyed.

Three centuries elapsed before religious life returned to the Church of England. Even now most Anglicans probably do not know there is such a thing as Anglican Religious Life. However, in the nineteenth century there was a revival of Catholic life in the Church of England, commonly referred to as the Oxford Movement which later grew into the Anglo-Catholic movement. Anglicans rediscovered the full sacramental life, a strong theology of the Church and a tradition of prayer that went back through the ages. This made them want the religious life, too. They wanted a tradition of prayer that gave them access to a far greater, more generous and more amazing God than that of the National Church. And they wanted women and men who could work in the slum areas of the cities.

The first Anglican communities were of sisters and began in the 1840’s. They needed to prove to the Church that they were not parasites or idle romantics and so they took on parish work, teaching, nursing and social care. At the same time they tended to have a monastic style of life, wearing traditional habits, saying a full office and committing themselves to prayer. They largely imitated their Roman Catholic sisters. By the end of the nineteenth century there were thousands of these Anglican sisters.

On the men’s side, religious life began again with the Society of St John the Evangelist in 1865. In the 1890’s both the Community of the Resurrection and the Society of the Sacred Mission came into existence. All these communities of men were largely priestly, did much in the way of missions and retreats and began mission work in South Africa and India. In the twentieth century a number of small Franciscan communities came together to form the Society of St Francis. Also in the twentieth century, after some abortive attempts, the first Benedictine community, Nashdom Abbey[2], was founded.

As with the Roman Catholic orders, the years since Vatican II (1962 onwards) have seen a steady decline in numbers as Religious have struggled to adapt their life to a changing world. Many communities have gone out of existence. It is hard to know what the future of Religious Life in the West will be.

When the ecumenical movement brought down the walls between Anglicans and Catholics, Catholic religious began to visit Anglican communities and said ‘You are all Benedictine monks (or nuns)’, except of course the Anglican Franciscans. ‘No, we are not’ we said. ‘Yes, you are.’ And they were right. It seems that Benedictine life was inherent in the Anglican Church and so religious life naturally took that form. Where did it come from?

First, when Archbishop Cranmer reduced the Roman Office to the Anglican version of Morning and Evening Prayer and made that compulsory for all priests, he created an Anglican devotional life that was centred on the same psalmody and scriptural reading that had formed monastic prayer. Though much attenuated, the structure and regularity of the daily office was the same.

Secondly, uniquely in England, most of the cathedrals in medieval times had been Benedictine monasteries. When the monastic life was destroyed, the cathedrals had their deans and chapters of canons who functioned much like a monastic chapter. They had their choirs which sang the daily office. The life of worship went on and was well attended by the laity. The liturgical praise of God came to be one of the cherished glories of the Church of England.

Thirdly, the two universities of Cambridge and Oxford had been largely religious foundations. After the monks had been banished, the fellows and dons remained largely clerical and unmarried. They and their students lived a common life, ate together, prayed together at compulsory chapel worship, and continued the Benedictine practice of sober, sound learning. One must not claim too much: there were many abuses, much laxity and many failures. Yet the principle remained, and when the founders of Anglican religious life in the nineteenth century looked around for a model, they naturally replicated the life of their Colleges. Common life, common prayer and sound learning could be seen as a basis of Benedictine monasticism.

All this happened so naturally it was largely unnoticed. It was only as Roman Catholic Benedictine life came to renew itself in the twentieth century, and as ecumenical contacts drew the two sides together that we realised how naturally Benedict finds himself in the Anglican Communion. He was always there!

What difference did this make?

Our own Community of the Resurrection with its mother house at Mirfield in Yorkshire made friends after Vatican II with the Benedictine Abbey of St Matthias in Trier. This friendship grew steadily and has become deeply important to both sides. We visit each other and learn from each other. The monks at Trier were developing a new style of monastic life faithful to the teaching of Benedict yet very much engaged with the life of the city. They showed us that Benedictine life is not all of one style. There is room in it for many different charisms each living in faithful dialogue with the orginal Rule. To be honest it has not been easy for many members of our Community to accept a Benedictine identity and to become part of the Benedictine family. Many couldn’t see the need. Many were afraid this would impose unacceptable changes on them and their ministries. It has taken about twenty years for the apprehensions to die away and finally in 2018 we asked for and were given affiliation to the Congregation of the Annunciation. We are still exploring what this will mean in our Community life but some things have become clear:

– We are part of a bigger family and in dialogue with a great tradition. Instead of the really small world of Anglican Religious Life with its short history of less than two hundred years, we can now draw on the huge resources of fifteen centuries of Benedictine life.

– A key area is in the matter of formation, both initial formation of novices and the ongoing formation of the Community. In the past new members came to us largely as ordained priests who had had their formation in seminaries run in a quasi-monastic pattern. Those who came as laymen generally had a strong formation in the life of Anglo-Catholic devotion. All that was required was that they be socialised in our Community ways and traditions. If that was ever so (and some doubt it) it is not true now. Much of the tradition has died in Anglicanism. People come to us with little reliable formation in prayer and the sacramental life. This has to be built up on solid foundations and a good strong monastic orientation needs to be uncovered as well. Weaknesses in our living of the monastic life are very clear to some of us and the difficulties of on-going formation need to be faced. This is a problem we share with many other Benedictine communities.

– We have found that Benedict’s Rule, instead of removing us from a real world of Christian life into some exotic monastic world (as some feared) actually does the opposite. It has helped us to see that the real coalface of the life is our brethren living together day after day with the brothers or sisters God has given us and accepting that it is that process which really enables us to grow into the people God wants us to be. It really is the Sermon on the Mount which all Christians try to live by.

At the same time it has helped us set the various ministries we do into a context that makes it possible for them to be better integrated into our monastic life. We still teach theology, preach in churches, talk with retreatants, visit Europe in various kinds of ecumenical exchanges, work with the Church in Zimbabwe and South Africa and even do things in the United States. It is a lot for a small and ageing community but it seems to be working and it seems also that there are now some young people who want to join us in it. That is the best proof that something good is happening!

Ecumenism

Do we Anglicans have anything to offer the great Benedictine world? Well, there is the fact we are Anglicans. St Benedict wrote his Rule before the current major schisms in the Church had happened, and Benedictine life flourished in Europe and England for nearly a thousand years before the Reformation so tragically tore Christians apart. We who follow the Rule of St Benedict are united in far more than what divides us. If we can heal some of the breaches that still divide us we have a real gift to offer the Universal Church. Ut omnes unum sint – ‘that all may be one’ is something we need to do more than just pray. In living the Rule together we make our prayer more real.

Pray for us brothers and sisters of St Benedict!

[1] An interesting parallel can be found in Zimbabwe from 2000 onwards. Robert Mugabe needed to break the power of the opposition and buy support from his followers. So he sent in his ‘war vets’ and others to take over white farmers’ land without compensation. The farms, which were supposed to be given to the poor were mostly given to his own supporters, with disastrous consequences for the country. Similar stories can be told of life in Eastern Europe under Communism or indeed in the Roman Empire under Pompey and Caesar!

[2] The brothers left Nashdom in the 1980s to set up at Elmore. In 2010 the last four monks moved from Elmore to Sarum College, an Anglican study-centre [Editorial note].

Monastic Work and life

Brother Bernard Guékam, OSB

Abbey of Keur Moussa (Senegal)

The Prayer of our Hands

The monastic work at Keur Moussa was from the first oriented towards the diffusion of agricultural and pastoral techniques, elementary literacy, health care, prevention of endemic illnesses, maternal and child health for a population within a range of thirty kilometres. These activities were seen by the local population as unfolding before their eyes a human and religious identity. So one guest remarked, ‘You pray as much as you work’, meaning to stress that there is no difference between the monk in choir and the monk in the workshop, orchard or chicken-run. The opposite is also the case. No other formula would be so well adapted to dispel the distinction between ora and labora. This moves the question to ‘What is the specific trait of our monastic identity in Senegal?’

The piggery seems to me to be the image which reflects, perhaps not perfectly, an aspect of our daily life at Keur Moussa, not only in the activity itself but especially in the way it determines and directs lives and makes a space for dialogue. The pig is an animal which sets up frontiers between the three great monotheist religious, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Our country is, of course, a land where Islam is deeply rooted, and the sight of a pigsty in one of the backstreets shows in a single glance the multiconfessional and multicultural character of the society.

In the monastery the piggery is the preserve of the noviciate. It often constitutes the first test of the young man newly entered on monastic life. In fact care of pigs, just like that of goats or cows, knows no Sunday or free day, and consequently demands a regular presence, especially in the morning. For a young man plunged into monastic life work in the pigsty, since it requires a fair amount of vigour, is decisive for the capacity of the candidate to endure in monastic life. Consequently this activity is a symbol of the risk taken at the present time by channelling one’s life into the narrow boundaries of monastic life.

The spiritual art

On the subject of manual labour St Benedict states just this in the Rule, ‘Then they are truly monks, if they live by the work of their hands, as did our fathers and the apostles’ (RB 48). Clearly he sees in manual labour a structure from which becoming a monk effectively takes its form. This is surprising, because elsewhere in the Rule, when he is discussing the divine Office, St Benedict affirms outright that those who do not recite the whole psalter in one week are lazy and indolent towards the service they have undertaken (nimis iners devotionis suae servitium, RB 18). By this he suggests a quality of being, while on manual labour he makes this labour the criterion of the process of becoming a monk. In the chapter on manual labour St Benedict includes also the times of the practice of lectio divina in the course of the day in order to make clear the prayerful context of the activity. This means that all manual activity in the monastery, as well as ‘maintaining a healthy balance of body and spirit, exercising and developing the various talents which God has given us’ (cf. the Declarations of the Congregation of Solesmes, no 63) has a value for God and for the salvation of the monk. If lectio divina is considered by St Benedict a sort of work, it is necessary to rethink and revaluate the terms ora et labora. Manual work, itself a prayer, is with regard to prayer the oil-nut of the palm-tree, to be harvested, ground and pressed. Correspondingly, prayer as far as it is prayer of the hands is for work the anvil on which the red-hot iron takes shape. This is why in the monastery manual labour is normally done in silence unless speaking is necessary. So manual labour is not simply an activity which must be hurried through in order to have leisure for prayer. It is itself a preparation for and a prolongation of prayer.

In the monastic context manual labour is a cosmic path to self-knowledge, to personal growth as a monk. To paraphrase Michel Foucault in another context, one can say that manual labour turns out to be a perfect exercise of personal care, not egoistic, but in so far as personal actions on oneself, actions by which one moulds and modifies oneself, by purification, transformation and transfiguration. Indeed, self-control is necessary, since it outlaws all (economic) dependence which would harm the ideal of unity (monos). This notion of personal care by manual labour may be set beside the motto of our monastery (The desert will bloom). It contains the notion of testing the deserts of our emotions, of our need for recognition, by the practice of mercy, peace and compassion. It is a means of gowth, protection and preservation.

A Moslem guest, unexpectedly present at our table, can experience more or less the delicate sensitivity that we owe him to ensure that he is at ease in the monastery: the preparation of another dish which will provide him with as much taste as peace if the unmentionable meat happens to be the day’s dish. So inter-religious dialogue has its place at our table and on our plates. The desert begins to bloom for us from the moment when we are careful not to reduce our guest to our own preconceptions.

To return once more to our pig-farm, it is interesting to note that we have often happened to ask the help of a Moslem neighbour for transporting food to a nearby destination. This service is, of course, not free of charge, but it is gladly done, and the neighbour keeps a portion of the product for his sheep, which he loves as dearly as we do our pigs. This occasional labour enables him to round up his meagre revenue; without it he would not manage to feed his wives and his numerous children.

A statement of identity

The Benedictine principle which fully confers on manual labour its character as a statement of the hidden identity of the monk occurs in Chapter 48 of the Rule, devoted to work, where Benedict carefully prescribes the way of treating the tools of the monastery in the same way as the sacred vessels of the altar. God is not absent from human labour. He is present in just the same way as in the community gathered for prayer. Thus this other statement of Benedict, ‘Nothing should be preferred to the work of God’ in the same sense as the injunction which he makes on the subject of manual labour, ‘Then they are truly monks, if they live by the work of their hands, as did our fathers and the apostles’. Fundamentally it is a matter of not giving preference to one’s own self above that of Christ, who according to St Paul is the life of the monk, ‘For me to live is Christ’.

Our main activities, that is, the orchard, the kora-workshop and the different professional workshops designed from the very foundation to train young peole anxious to gain employment, have been and still are the marks of a Benedictine presence in the village of Keur Moussa. The surrounding population have, from the beginning of our activities, certainly understood better what we are from our activities by seeing us work. As the local proverb puts it, ligey jamu Yalla la; which translates literally ‘to work is to pray to God’. Even today with social change, the forested savana has been transformed into a little commune. Those who come to the monastery are amazed that it is less luxuriant than in an earlier time, but it is still developing, facing crippling climatic change, such as the salination of stretches of subterranean water as a result of diminishing rainfall, the disappearance of some vegetation and the arrival of birds and their devastating effects on fruit-production.

The Courage to Adapt

Our community itself has learnt to puzzle out its identity from the areas of activity and the socio-cultural and political changes of its environment. From the outset the founders had the courage to take a completely different direction, no longer taking as their starting-point questions arising from strict demands of monastic life, but on the contrary taking as a starting-point the demands of the place itself, pressing to reformulate a genuine monastic discourse. The missionary theories of a bygone age, such as that of transplanting, did not do much to face up to these challenges, since there was no question of replanting the young shoot five thousand kilometres from its place of origin and expecting it to bear the same leaves and the same fruit as those of its homeland.

The double meaning of the motto chosen referred in the first place not to the reality of the new soil but rather to the ‘desert’ as the most authentic symbol of monastic life. It might be said that the monks also perceived the need to incarnate a political messianism, in that the place where they took root, without being a geographical desert, was on the verge of political hopes of liberty, of the personal advancements associated with the dawn of independence. In this situation no better motto could be found for this beautiful utopia than the messianic prophecy of Isaiah, ‘the desert will bloom’.

A willing Search

The prophetic character of this motto of the monastery of Keur Moussa and the promise which it contains have marked out the furrow of the desire to transform the site as soon as it became habitable. This has led our original peasant neighbours and our present fellow-citizens to see us as a people with economic power and reserves of practical ability. On the contrary, we realise that we still do not know enough or at least that we have not yet come completely to understand ourselves. The possible risk of refusing to take on board the need to be ready to be permanently on the move and working towards this utopia continues to express itself in a somewhat ill-fitting identity.

To regard ourselves as contemplatives, as we usually do, brings a double effect. On the one hand it reduces our identity to people who have resolutely taken leave of all activity; on the other hand, that of the tendency to separate from the ordinary means of economic production, indeed even an imaginary denial of any economic undertaking. That would suggest that the best way of preserving the integrity of this monastic utopia lay in the complete negation of all manual labour. The expression ‘to seek God’ is a far-reaching definition of the monk’s task according to St Benedict and the ancient monastic spiritual tradition. It seems to me that this phrase is the best expression of the purpose of monastic life as a search for unity (monos). Far from creating a division, this labora, understood as a prayer of the hands, constitutes the essence of monastic life, and by this very fact takes on the character of a spiritual exercise – provided that it is directed to Christ.

Monks and nuns, witnesses for our times

Dom Armand Veilleux, ocso

Abbaye de Scourmont (Belgique)

Dom Ambrose Southey

(1923-2013)

Kevin Southey was born at Whitley Bay, in the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle on 22nd January 1923. A few months after his 18th birthday, on the 25th September, 1940, he entered the Abbey of Mount Saint Bernard in Leicetershire. Closure of the Abbey had been planned by the Order a few decades earlier, but it had had an exceptional renewal of life under the abbacy of Dom Malachy Brasil, who came from Roscrea in 1933.

At his clothing the young novice received the name Ambrose. He made his solemn profession in 1945 and was ordained priest in 1948. A few years later he was sent to Rome to study canon law (1951-1953). At his return to Mount Saint Bernard he was appointed sub-prior, and the following year prior. When Dom Malachy, seriously affected by sickness, resigned in 1959, after twenty-five years as abbot, Dom Ambrose was elected to succeed him. A few years later, in 1963, the community of Mount Saint Bernard, continuing to flourish, was able to make a foundation at Bamenda in the Cameroons, and its young abbot began gradually to take on important responsibilities in the Order. In 1964 he was elected Abbot Vicar and in 1974 Abbot General. Hence all his life was closely linked to that of the Order, in a period particularly important in its evolution. It is almost impossible to relate one without the other.

When Dom Ambrose retired from the post of Abbot General in 1990, the Holy See had just approved our new Constitutions. This was the summit of a long process of aggiornamento begun with Vatican II. Dom Ambrose’s humility and discretion were such that not many people knew the part he had played in this process right from the beginning. It is worthwhile to explain it.

At the Chapter of January 1964 at which Dom Ignace Gillet was elected Abbot General Dom Ambrose was chosen as Abbot Vicar. In our former Constitutions this role was more important than it is today. The Abbot Vicar was in charge of the General Chapter. Dom Ambrose stood out in this function by his ability to listen to others and by his respect for every individual as well as for the process as a whole.

The Chapter of 1964 was pretty brief, for it was the election of a new Abbot General, since Dom Gabriel Sortais had resigned the previous autumn at the beginning of the second session of Vatican II. All the same the agenda contained some points considered urgent. It dealt particularly with the question of lay brothers, which had been under consideration for a long time under the presidency of Dom Gabriel. The abbot of Westmalle, Dom Edouard Wellens, requested that the holding of another General Chapter should not be delayed, ‘in view of the urgency and importance of questions which are preoccupying many of the young and fervent elements of our communities’ (Minutes, p. 11). Being caught unawares by this situation and not wishing to decide the question himself, Dom Gabriel decided to create a special commission to study it, and Dom Ambrose received the duty of presiding over this meeting.

At the opening of the meeting Dom Ambrose expressed its purposes: ‘It is a question of studying the nature and origins of the difficulties felt by young religious about the exterior forms of our life, and to propose to the Most Reverend Father some conclusions or ‘vota’ which could possibly be submitted to the General Chapter’ (Minutes, p. 1 – Archives of the Generalate). Dom Ambrose managed this meeting which proposed in its report to the Abbot General that they should meet again to prepare a submission to General Chapter.

The second meeting took place at Monte Cistello in December 1964, and was, like the first, presided by Dom Ambrose. No General Chapter had ever been so well prepared, so that the Chapter of 1965 decided that a similar commission, called a ‘Preparatory Commission’ should prepare the following Chapter. This Commmission was to become an important organ of the Order.

Dom Ambrose made the first moves as Promoter of the General Chapter in 1965, which met before the end of Vatican II. It was in the course of the next three Chapters that the wisdom and tact of the new Promoter were to show themselves. The General Chapter of 1967 was held at Cîteaux, 20th May to 5th June. On the 6th August of the previous year Pope Paul VI had promulgated the Motu Proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae, giving a certain number of norms for the application of Perfectae Caritatis. This document provided for holding during this period of renewal a General Chapter, which could be held in several successive sessions over a period of several years. It also gave this General Chapter the power to approve ad experimentum a certain number of changes to Constitutions. Hence the Chapter of 1967 allowed communities a certain number of experiments, notably in the liturgical domain.

The Abbot General, Dom Ignace Gillet, was sincerely convinced that some of these decisions, in particular the use of the vernaclar in the liturgy and the possibility of re-structuring the Divine Office, constituted an act of disobedience to the decisions of the Council. Some of his interventions with the Congregation of Religious created a malaise in the Order, so much so that at the opening of the Chapter of 1969 a significant number of the members thought he should resign. It was in a personal meeting between Dom Ambrose and Dom Ignace that a compromise was found which was to permit the Chapter to continue its work serenely. This Chapter, in the course of which the Declaration on Cistercian Life and the Statute on Unity and Pluralism were passed almost unanimously, that the decision was made to ask the Holy See to allow a Law permitting the renewal of the liturgy which respected the spiritual experience of each community. This was a turning-point in the evolution of our Order into the modern era. It also set off the process of renewal of our Constitutions which would continue until 1990.

When Dom Ignace offered his resignation at the Chapter of 1974 in accordance with the intention he had expressed to Dom Ambrose at their ‘summit’ meeting in the course of the Chapter of 1969, Dom Ambrose was elected Abbot General at the first scrutiny by a large majority. Once he had been elected, he announced, with the fair play for which he was known, that out of respect for the majority of Chapter members who had voted in favour of a limited time-frame, he would submit himself afresh to a vote of Chapter at the General Chapter following 1974.

During the Generalate of Dom Ambrose and under his peaceful and appeasing leadership the Order tackled a number of fundamental questions whose solution would complete the editing of our Constitutions. First of all there was a long debate about ‘collegiality’, which was the object of arduous discussion among the regions of the Order, arising more from cultural sensibilities than from divergences over the essentials of Cistercian life. More important was the debate over the relationships between the two branches of the Order, male and female. These discussions issued in the vision of a single Order composed of monks and nuns, under the authority of two independent General Chapters. A subsequent development led to the acceptance by the Order and by Rome of a single Chapter.

During this period Dom Ambrose had to preside over three General Chapters of major importance in the modern history of the Order. The first was at Holyoke in the USA, where the monks refined their Constitutions, then the Chapter of El Escorial the following year, where the nuns did the same for their Constitutions. Finally the first RGM (mixed general meeting) at Rome in 1987, where monks and nuns established the definitive text of their Constitutions. After examination by the Congregation of Relgiious and discussion with them, these were promulgated by Rome at Pentecost 1990.

Faithful to his promise, Dom Ambrose raised again at the end of six years his offer to resign and submit to another vote of Chapter. He was dissuaded from doing so, for the almost unanimous opinion of the Order was that he should remain to govern the Order until the conclusion of the long elaboration of the new Constitutions. Therefore he presented his resignation at the General Chapter of 1990. For everyone and especially for those who had lived through with him several successive General Chapters, it was a joy to have his presence by invitation as guest of honour at each following General Chapter until 2011.

The Abbot General of the OCSO can wield a great moral authority because he has so little juridical power. At the General Chapter of 1951, after the resignation of Dom Dominique Nogues, Dom Gebriel Sortais as Abbot Vicar gave a long speech about what was expected of an Abbot General. This was a sort of programme, which he furthermore put into practice during his twelve-year generalate. He saw himself as an elder brother of the other abbots, helping them not to falter in difficult circumstances. He delighted in the limitation of power of the Abbot General, seeing his authority to be in the order of confidence, affection and persuasion (See Minutes, 1951, p. 36-39).

This is the spirit in which Dom Ambrose exercised his ministry for sixteen years. Being a canonist he realised that the General Chapter is a college, and that a college is of its nature a moral person where decisons are taken with equality of rights. No one exercises authority over the Chapter, but within it there is a President who has the responsibility of calling the Chapter, establishing the agenda and enabling all to exercise their rights. Dom Ambrose, by his infrequent interventions, knew how to exert extremely strong moral authority when the fundamental values of the Order were at stake and important decisions needed to be made.

Dom Gabriel Sortais had accustomed the Order to a long circular letter from the Abbot General at the beginning of each year. Like his predecessor, Dom Ambrose maintained this tradition but in his own style, which was much appreciated. While Dom Gabriel’s letters easily slipped into a long treatise about the spiritual life, those of Dom Ambrose were rather in the spirit of the Fathers of monasticism, a sharing of experience on specific questions.

Remaining true to himself and avoiding always identification with his office, Dom Ambrose from the moment of his resignation became again sub regula vel abbate. Not long afterwards he was offered an important post in the Vatican. To the person charged with asking him whether he would accept this post he answered without hesitation, ‘I must speak to my abbot.’ The next day, having discussed the matter with his abbot, he answered that, having left his ministry as Abbot General, not because he was tired but simply because he thought that it was due time for him, after so many years out of the cloister, to return to ordinary monastic life, it would not be logical or coherent on his part to accept a post which again took him out of his monastery. This did not prevent him from remaining willing to take on more humble assignments.

At the time when Dom Ambrose was the young abbot of Mount Saint Bernard there was among the monks the Blessed Cyprian Tansi. It was reasonable that Dom Ambrose should go to Omicha in Nigeria for the beatification by John Paul II on 22nd March 1998. It is not every day that one can be present at the beatification of someone whose abbot one has been! Nevertheless, during all the festivities Dom Ambrose, the retired Abbot General, mixed with all modesty among the other monks and nuns gathered for the occasion, without ever trying to draw attention to himself. The monastic foundation in view of which Michael Cyprian Tansi had come to Mount Saint Bernard could not be founded in the Cameroons in 1964 during the abbacy of Dom Ambrose. When, not long after his resignation as Abbot General, the community of Bamenda needed a superior ad nutum he willingly accepted this assignment. He did the same a few years later at Scourmont in Belgium. Having first accepted this ministry at Scourmont for one year, he consented to remain for a second year, but made it his business to look for someone younger who could take on this ministry for at least several years. This did not prevent his remaining at Scourmont for some years as novicemaster. After that, still in the same spirit of service, he fulfilled the ministry of bursar for several years at the monastery of Vitorchiano in Italy, before returning to his own abbey of Mount Saint Bernard to leave his final years in peace.

He died peacefully, soon after participating in the community concelebration, in the morning of 24th August, 2013. He was 90 years old, professed for 71 years and priest for 64. He had been abbot of his community for 15 yeaars and Abbot General for 16. A long life of service of God and the Order in a great spirit of simplicity and modesty.

Monks and nuns, witnesses for our times

Sister Maria Maddalena Magni, OSB

Benedictine of the Isle of San Giulio (Italy)

Mother Anna Maria Cànopi

An enduring love

The island of San Giulio is a little rocky mountain which emerges from the waters of one of the most suggestive of the lakes of northern Italy at the foot of the Alps. In the middle of the island an ancient basilica is to be found, built in honour of the apostle of that area, a Greek priest, Julius, who died – according to tradition – at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, having built his hundredth church.

In the course of centuries history has left its majestic imprint, without ever managing to erase the grace and enchantment produced by its solitary beauty. The attractive and silky waters of the lake have provided a sort of natural enclosure which did not fail to seduce a group of nuns, called by the bishop to become guardians of the heritage of the faith of the holy apostle as much as by the search – in those troubled and difficult times – for a place adapted to prayer. Thus it is that on 11th October, 1973, the history of the Benedictine Abbey Mater Ecclesiae began.

On 21st March, 2019, the day of the Transitus of St Benedict, the sisters surrounding the bed of Mother Anna Maria Cànopi, and lavishing on her all their love, bade her their last adieu. For a long time, forty-five years, she had been their Mother, full of wisdom and guidance for the community. In the course of time she had become a personality loved and recognised by thousands of people of every origin and social class. This was brought home to us in the days before her funeral, when people of very diverse adherences approached her coffin with great emotion to bid the Mother their final adieu.

Mother Anna Maria was born on 24th April, 1931, in a town near Pavia, in the bosom of a large farming family where real Christian love reigned supreme, very simple but capable of showing itself in profound relationships of affection. Her brothers and sisters, seeing her delicate complexion, soon realised that she had not the same physical constitution as they did, and so decided, by a common agreement of the parents, to send her to study. Family trials – don’t forget that these were the cruel war years – did not spare her, and brought her real suffering. In addition, during her studies she had to put up with separation from the tender cocoon of the family. This gave her experience of the solitude of town life and opened her still more to attachment to the One who alone can fill the human heart.

Apart from her university studies she became a social worker, giving herself generously to the service of the most deprived. She once wrote, ‘I felt a great compassion for these poor people, and realising that above all they needed spiritual help, I felt myself always drawn not only to do something for them but to offer them myself, wholly and in prayer, uniting myself to the sacrifice of Jesus the Redeemer who alone can renew the interior of the heart’ (Une vie pour aimer, Interlinea, Novara 2012, p. 27).

Having understood that in order to bring Jesus to others she needed to consecrate herself to him entirely in silence and continual prayer, she began to mature her monastic vocation, and thus on 9th July, 1960, entered the Abbey of Sts Peter and Paul at Viboldone, near Milan. Among the sacrifices and renouncements which cost her most dearly was the interruption of the beginnings of a promising literary career. Some of her poems had already attracted the attention of the critics. Soon enough the Lord gave her back generously what she had sacrificed for him. Concrete circumstances put the pen back in her hands, a pen which quickly became the privileged instrument of her witness to the faith: from the first labours on the literary revision of the new Italian translation of the Bible to the composition of the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum in 1993, requested by St John Paul II; she was the first woman invited to take this initiative. Mother Cànopi, endowed with a simple and clear style, enriched by great poetic gifts, thus achieved a reputation such as she had never imagined. She left a corresponding legacy, made up of some hundred books, translated into several languages. These books were the fruit of her lectio divina on the Word of God and the monastic teaching, as for example the work ‘Gentleness, Source of Peace’ which had a quite unexpected success, even among lay people. This great literary activity was obviously the fruit of so many hours of prayer, of retreats given to the sisters during different periods of her monastic life, and above all of her burning desire to help everyone come nearer to the Word of God.

If the environmental context of the beginning of the adventure presaged a sort of semi-eremitical life, in fact the seed of monastic life fallen among rocks flourished abundantly and beyond all hope. The poverty which we lived was a joyful one, and led us to hope for everything from the hand of the Lord. Prayer in choir was our principal activity, accompanied by manual labour and hospitality. In fact from the beginning there were many who wished to take part in our liturgy, listen to the Word of God and be schooled by the loving and spiritual guidance of our Mother Anna Maria. Very soon new sisters began to arrive and we had to resolve the question of buildings which had fallen into disrepair. Our growth did not stop there, and we were literally forced to accept the proposal of founding a priory at Saint-Oyen in the heart of the Alps, then another at Fossano in Piedmont. Soon we were also in a position to send other sisters to support other monasteries in need of help. At present our community is composed of seventy nuns, including those of various nations, drawn from other countries of Europe and indeed other continents, North and South America and Africa. With them we share the desire to live the gospel at the heart of a monastic fraternity, in order to link in prayer to the heart of every member of the family.

In the conviction, according to the teaching of our Father St Benedict, that the monastery should be a ‘house of God’, we have also welcomed among us nuns who were at Rome for studies and could not rejoin their countries of origin during vacation. This has opened our hearts to the richness of monasticism as it is lived in different cultures, and has brought us long-standing friendships. It has even happened that a Buddhist nun became particularly close to our Mother in friendship. This attitude of total openness to those who stayed with us or wrote to us, for example missionaries, has always helped us to feel at ease in all the countries of the world, in the knowledge that by prayer we could be present everywhere, where no other human aid was possible. On 11th October, 1980, when Mother Teresa of Calcutta visited our diocese of Novara, Mother Anna Maria was asked to write her a letter in the name of all contemplative sisters. In a text already of a prophetic tone Mother wrote, ‘The tension which lives in you, the burning desire of universality which carries you across all frontiers, holds me unmoved beneath the Cross, in order to rejoin the one source which conquers hatred and succeeds in uniting what is divided.’

This burning desire to adapt to each individual, to give hope to every person, has given us in our hearts a deep feeling for our society, so sick with egoism, distress and painful solitude. Mother Anna Maria shared with us a great sensibility for the weight of suffering which so many people daily off-loaded onto her maternal heart and in turn received the comfort of a fully loving attention. Even prisoners were not excluded: in her own words she visited them spiritually every morning before plunging into the choir office, moved by an intense longing of her heart to welcome all people in order to present them to the Lord. With some prisoners she held a correspondence over several years.

It was the ceaseless and unyielding search for humble love that upheld the perseverance of Mother Cànopi, hour by hour, day after day in the loving witness of fidelity to monastic life. Mother Anna Maria loved life deeply and naturally, as the most precious gift of all, and this gave her a special gift of intercessionn for couples desirous of a child. She never felt herself to be ‘an exceptional person’. She never adopted the stance of a ‘great leader’, but her bearing constituted an eloquent witness. An indomitable will upheld her till the last days of her earthly existence. She was always ready to offer a word to anyone who asked her advice, and to thank all those who over the years had supported the growth of the community. Endowed by nature with exceptional gifts of sensitivity and intelligence, purified by constant contact with the Lord and his Word, she approached each person with complete openness, knowing how to simplify problems presented to her, sharing her immense compassion, an unbelievable capacity to suffer with those who suffered and rejoice with those who rejoiced. Above all she was a woman of peace, forgetful of herself, capable of forgiveness, or – better still – incapable of feeling offence. Her motto, humiliter amantes expressed what she lived. She also left to the community a directive expressed by the invocation, Funda nos in pace: establish us in the Peace which is Christ himself, our unique love and our only desire.

As her physical force declined with the passage of years it seemed that by contrast her capacity increased to welcome and offer up each impairment of life, until she herself became wholly prayer. She always held between her fingers the holy rosary and never failed to follow the liturgy from her sick-bed.

She also had the humility and wisdom to arrange for her succession, taking part in the nomination of an abbess who could take up this delicate task after her. All this has allowed us to live out a profound continuity in our story, and allowed us to move forward without sterile regret for the past.

Mother Anna Maria was and remains an immense gift which the Lord made to his Church, and especially to the monastic world. Reassured by her promise to remain always with us, we would like to give heartfelt thanks for her, continuing to live everything she gave us. Only thus can we be and remain her spiritual daughters as worthily as possible.

Monks and nuns, witnesses for our times

Mother Nirmala Narikunnel, OSB

Abbess of Shanti Nilayam

Mother Teresita D’Silva

Founder and former Abbess of Shanti Nilayam (India)

‘I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is reserved for me for me the crown of righteousness, which the righteous judge will give me on that day’, and that day came for Mother Teresita on 12th November 2019. I am sure the Lord has invited her to himself with the words, ‘Come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world’.

Audrey D’Silva was born to Dr Oswald D’Silva and Mrs Blanche D’Silva on 7th November 1933 and was baptized in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation, Dadar, Bombay and received the name Florence Louisa but was always called Audrey. She was born into a big family of ten children, seven girls and three boys.

Audrey underwent her matriculation in 1951 and got good results. Soon afterwards she started teaching in Dadar Convent; she attended Sophia College, in 1952 received her teacher’s diploma in 1953, and received her religious teacher’s diploma in 1963, both at St. Xavier’s college under the Jesuits.

She was president of the Bombay Junior Curia. In 1960, Fr.Benedict Alapatt, a Benedictine monk, had gone to their meeting to speak about Benedictines and the beauty of the singing of the Divine Office. Fr.Benedict suggested that she go to Sri Lanka to St. Helen’s monastery at Wennappua. She went there during her holidays and there first read the Holy Rule. Then Father introduced Stanbrook Abbey and they forwarded the letter to St.Cecilia’s Abbey. Thus started correspondence with Mother Abbess Bernadette Symers. She resigned her teaching post and left India on 13th October 1963, spent a few days in Rome, and had a public audience with Pope Paul VI, then flew to England to St.Cecilia’s Abbey. On October 21, 1963 she started postulancy, and made 1st profession on July 2nd 1965. During her Clothing she received her name- Sr.Teresita. She left Ryde in 1968 with Mother Abbess Bernadette Symers for the Asian Monastic Congress at Bangkok and returned to India with Mother Abbess and arrived in Bangalore at Shanti Nilayam on 16th December 1968.

The blessing of monastery and chapel and solemn profession took place on 26th July 1969, by the then Archbishop Lourduswamy. The pioneers, Mother Clare and Sr.Mary Joseph, left for Ryde on 27th July 1969. Mother Teresita D’Silva was appointed superior by Mother Abbess Bernedette Symers and from then on she took the responsibility of Shanti Nilayam till she resigned in 2013 due to ill health.

Mother Teresita was a person deeply rooted in prayer, a lover of silence. She had great love for monastic life, a life of prayer and work. Deeply rooted in faith, she was a Spirit–filled person. She preferred nothing to the Work of God (the Divine Office), and she instilled the same love and desire in her sisters. She spoke little, prayed much and was the best teacher and very good guide. She was Novice Mistress for some time. From 1970 till she got very sick she took classes for juniors, guiding sisters and retreatants.

In 1982 Shanti Nilayam was raised to the status of a Priory and Mother Teresita was elected as Prioress. In 1993, Shanti Nilayam was raised to the status of an Abbey and she was unanimously elected as the 1st Abbess. She was President of the Indo-Sri Lankan Benedictine Federation; and travelled many times to Rome and other countries. She had great zeal to spread monastic life in various parts of India. She travelled to give talks in vocation camps to bring new vocations. During her time we have made four other foundations, in Gujarat, Shillong, Dindugal, Myanmar and the fifth one at Jamshedpur is still in process. Even though she was ill, she continued to carry out the duty of Divine Service, in the school of the Lord’s service faithfully. When in the house she always was there at the Divine Office; till five months ago when she was confined to bed. She was treated at St. John’s Hospital and was under the care of Baptist hospital doctors for the last two months. God’s call came to our beloved Mother on 12th November 2019 at 3pm. May God give her reward of eternal rest! And may her soul rest in peace. Amen.

Thanks to all who were present for the funeral and all who prayed though unable to be present. We are very grateful to Mother Abbess Ninian and all the sisters of St.Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde, for their support and prayers. Special thanks to dear Fr.Jerome, President of Indo Sri-Lankan Benedictine Federation, Mother Metilda, Prioress of Grace and Compassion, and Mother Vandhana, Prioress of Lioba Sisters, for their presence, and other major superiors from India for sending their representatives for the funeral. Thus all the Benedictine families in India were represented. We are also very grateful to AIM for the messages and condolences and all the other monasteries who sent their condolences and prayers.

News

Dom Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori,

Abbot General of the Cistercian Order

To Benefit All

In Praise of the Carta caritatis[1]

Just before the solemnity of Christmas, on December 23, the exact 900th anniversary of the approval of the Carta Caritatis will occur. During this year we have much meditated on and studied this ancient document, which is in reality the birth certificate of our Order. With surprise, and a little contrition, we have realized how necessary it is for our awareness of and for the vitality of our identity, of our Cistercian charism, grafted onto the fundamental charism of St. Benedict.

[…] It is pointless to celebrate and study, to organize symposia, if then one does not live it out, if the impulse that the Holy Spirit puts into the foundational texts do not impel is to live out our vocation with more intensity today, in the present situation of the Order, of the Church, and of the world.

Desiring the good of all

Perhaps we should focus our attention most on the catholic dimension, in the literal sense of “universal,” with which our first fathers conceived of fidelity to their monastic vocation. All seems summarized for me in a phrase in the first chapter: “Prodesse enim illis omnibusque sanctae Ecclesiae filii cupientes – Desiring to benefit them [that is, the abbots and monastic brothers] and all the sons of Holy Church.”

The Carta goes on to explain the realms in which and modalities with which one desires to make explicit and effective this desire for the good of the Order and the whole Church, but I think we must first of all appropriate this desire for the good and its universal reach, because this is like the breeze that can give (and give back) meaning and vitality to all that our vocation enables us and asks us to live out. […]

The center that unifies and emanates

The Church was born from the open side of Christ, as Eve was from the open side of Adam. The Fathers of the Church meditated on this mystery a good deal. And the first Cistercians seem to have drawn the Carta Caritatis from the very contemplation of this mystery that unites charity, the Church, and the salvation of the world. This document’s insistence on charity and the salvation of souls is thus centered on the ardent desire (cupientes) to benefit (prodesse) all the children of Holy Church. This is the definition of the charity of Christ that is expressed in the paschal moment in which he offers himself for the salvation of the world, giving birth from the Cross to the Church, bride of the Savior and mother of the saved.

[…] To be aware that our vocation and mission as Christians and monks and nuns always emanates only from this mystery that helps us not to be dissipated, to lose none of our life, of our thoughts, of our words and actions, of our efforts. If in monasteries there is often much toil to manage time and activities, to live our human relationships in harmony and mercy, especially to manage the weaknesses in which we seem to sink, this comes above all from a lack of attention to the central mystery of our and everyone’s salvation. If, instead, the center is clear and we prefer it, then all that we are and live can emanate it.

Prodesse

The word that we must underline in the Carta Caritatis, then, where it speaks of the ardent desire to serve all the children of the Church – and all human beings per se are the children of the Church, because the Church is called to be a Mother that transmits the life of Christ to all mankind – the word that defines the fruitfulness of our life and vocation, then, is the Latin verb “prodesse,” which literally means to “be for,” hence to help, serve, be useful, be a good for others.

The ardent desire to benefit all is the desire that God has especially given to the human creature, made in his image as Father and Creator, and blessed to be fruitful in generating: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (Gen 1:27–28).

We are not truly human if we do not desire to transmit life, if we do not desire to benefit others more than ourselves. In Christ we are given to be fully human, fully fruitful through the universal motherhood of the Church, whether through matrimony or in virginity. This fruitfulness is always possible, because it is a fruitfulness of grace, brought about by the Holy Spirit itself who, carrying out the impossible, made the Virgin Mary’s womb fruitful to bring the Son of God to light in our humanity.

Like a grain of wheat

In the current situation of the world and of the Church, and of our communities, many doubt that there is still any possible fruitfulness in our life and vocation. How is it possible to be fruitful by diminishing, and sometimes even dying?

The Church constantly comes to remind us that what is not possible for our own powers and capacities is always possible for the faith and love which, in hope, cast the situation in which we find ourselves into the ground as a seed. What makes even death fruitful is the love with which we cast our lives into Christ’s bridal gift to the Church so that it can generate children of God in the whole world.

But this is not just the secret of the fruitfulness of death: it is above all the secret of the fruitfulness of life. Whoever considers himself fruitful without dying to himself remains sterile, even if in the eyes of the world everything seems to ensure his success.

[…] At the time of the approval of the Carta Caritatis, Citeaux had generated twelve monasteries. There were thirteen of them, then, like Jesus and his twelve apostles. They knew they were still small and weak, but they sensed a force that was making them grow, that was pushing them forward. They were aware, above all, in the light of the Gospel, that their success was not tied to their power or number, but was all contained in the desire to give their life for the Kingdom of God. mindful of St. Benedict’s counsel to the abbot, that he must concern himself more with benefitting than with dominating – “prodesse magis quam praeesse” (RB 64.8) – their desire was not to win, to conquer spaces of power, but to be of benefit, for the Church and in the Church, by sacrificing themselves, losing their lives in the service of Christ, for the life of the world. The life of the world is that all human beings become children of God.

[…] Prodesse. We must reappropriate this little word, the only one that can make our life and our communities beautiful, happy, and useful, in whatever circumstances they be found, along with the whole Church, with all its treasures of grace but also its human weaknesses.

[…] Prodesse omnibus, to benefit all: How does this desire and this vocation judge our often instinctive and perhaps self-referential way of judging our problems, our crises, and of seeking solutions to them? Are we truly animated by this desire for the good of all, or do we think that the solution will be what only helps us? Do we have the faith that poverty, too, weakness, and even death, when lived out in Christ, can benefit the whole world?

[…] How beautiful, how necessary and urgent it is, for all our communities, with all the monks and nuns that compose them, along with all the people united to our charism, that we be able to return to formulating this word with our life, this word transmitted by our fathers, “prodesse,” as in this ancient manuscript of Stična, contracted and yet entirely stretched and expanded, “like a bridegroom coming from his wedding chamber” (Ps 19:6), that is, like Jesus who is born from the Virgin to benefit all human beings with the gift of his presence, his love, his salvation!

[1] An extract from the good wishes for 2020 sent by Dom Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori to all Cistercian communities.

News

Éric Delaissé,

Leader of CERCCIS, Cîteaux

International Colloquium

Collège des Bernardins, Paris, 16 and 17th October, 2019

The Carta Caritatis (1119-2019)[1]:

A document to preserve the Unity

of Communities

The Association for the Spread of Cistercian Culture (ARCCIS), in partnership with the Collège des Bernardins and the Foundation of monasteries, organised a colloquium in Paris on the 16th and 17th October, 2019, on the history and the effect of this fundamental text which is celebrating its ninth centenary.

Cîteaux was founded in 1098. The year 1113 witnessed the birth of its first daughter, La Ferté. The entry of Bernard de Fontaine and his companions into Cîteaux led rapidly to the establishment of new daughters. It is in this context that the editing of the Carta Caritatis must be understood. The text was born of the care of Abbot Stephen Harding to organise the relationship between Cîteaux and the new communities issued from it. It was important for the monks to retain the spirit of Cîteaux in the new establishments and to regulate the relationships between the monasteries. The prologue of the document anyway explains that ‘this decree must carry the name ‘Charter of Charity’ because its objective, putting aside any burden of material debt, aims only at the charity and usefulness of souls in matters divine and human’.

If we are celebrating the ninth centenary of the Charter we must recognise that the text has known several stages. Its composition dates probably from 1114, but this continues well after the death of Stephen, in the course of the twelfth century. Generally four stages are distinguished: 1. The Charter of charity and unanimity, today lost; 2. The earlier Charter of charity, approved by the Pope in 1119; 3. The Resume of the Charter of charity, composed in about 1124; 4. The later Charter of charity, approved by Alexander III in 1165, but originally by Eugenius III in 1152.

The text of 1119 already notes the essential principles which must regulate Cistercian communities. The first chapter of the Charter explains that ‘the mother-church [the founding abbey] does not ask any material contribution from its daughter’. Another aspect is the relationship to the Rule of St Benedict. On this matter the second chapter stresses that ‘the Rule shall be understood and observed by all in the same way’. This unanimity is elaborated also right through the third chapter, according to which ‘all shall have the same liturgical books and the same customs’. Over and above the chapters regulating the relationships between the abbeys, it is important to note that the Charter of Charity endows the Cistercian Order with mechanisms essential to its healthy functioning. Thus the fifth chapter institutes an annual visitation of the mother-church to its daughter: each year the abbot of the mother-church is obliged to visit all the churches which it has founded. In the same vein, the seventh chapter establishes a general chapter of the abbots at Cîteaux: all Cistercian abbots must present themselves once a year at Cîteaux for a general meeting.

After an introduction by Dom Olivier Quenardel (Abbey of Notre Dame of Cîteaux) the Paris Colloquium brought together, around seven axes, historians, monks and nuns, but also directors from the world of business, to make a point about the history and the relevance of this thousand-year-old text. Five of the axes are linked to history. The first was consecrated to the Charter in the twelfth century and its different versions. In this framework Alexis Grélois of the University of Rouen dealt with the genesis and evolution of the text, stressing the importance of a serious study of the dating of the document, and underlining the need to re-evaluate the role of the episcopate in its elaboration (‘The genesis and evolution of the Carta Caritatis in the 12th century’). Studying the versions of the Carta, Monika Dihsmaier (Heidelberg) concentrated especially on the mechanisms of making decisions at the general chapters (‘Entscheidungsfindung und die Versionen der Carta Caritatis).

The second axis of the colloquium considered the role of Stephen Harding and Bernard of Clairvaux in the construction of the Order. In the course of his paper Patrick McGuire (Roskilde Universitet) showed that, despite his prominence, no influence from Bernard can be demonstrated in the Carta. He discussed the relationship between Bernard and Stephen, since the latter played a central part in the establishment of the structure of the Order (‘Abbot Stephen of Cîteaux and Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux: Bonds of Charity?’). Fr Alkuin Schachenmayr (Abbey of Heiligenkreuz) discussed Stephen as the presumed author of the Carta. In this connection he emphasised the perception of the abbot - notably his veneration – in the course of the centuries. The paper of Martha G. Newman (University of Texas) constituted a third axis of the colloquium, studying the place of the Carta in texts at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries (‘The Benedictine rule and the Narrow Path: The Place of the Charter of Charity in the Exordium Magnum and other late twelfth-century Cistercian texts’). She showed that no text of this period presents the Carta Caritatis as the central characteristic mode of Cistercian life; they insist rather on specific elements contined in the Carta, such as the General Chapter and the annual visit of the abbot-father to the daughter-house. A fourth axis of the colloquium centred on the application of the Carta. Constance Berman (University of Iowa) dealt with the practical application of the text (‘The Charter of Charity in Practice’). Her paper showed that in the 1170s the preservation of peace and charity seemed to be a recurrent worry in the texts. Jörg Oberste (Universität Regensburg) asked what had enabled the Cistercians to preserve the spirit of their foundation (‘Auf neuen Wegen Altes bewahren – Was leistete die zisterziensische Ordensverfassung des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts?’). He showed that the Carta should not be understood as a Constitution in the sense of a simple juridical system, but that it aimed rather to protect the Rule and the ascetic life practised at Cîteaux. The Carta as a source of inspiration in other religious Orders was the object of a fifth axis of the colloquium. In this connection Guido Cariboni (Università Cattolica of Milan) discussed the regular Canons, concentrating particularly on the canonical reservoir stemming from Saint-Martin of Laon (‘La Carta Caritatis quale documento per fondare un’abbazia’). His paper showed that documents stemming from Saint-Martin of Laon and its affiliated houses present elements adopted from the Cistercians; in certain cases they even anticipate the experience of Cîteaux as it appears in the earlier versions of the Carta.

Some parts of the colloquium touched on other aspects of practice. Thus a sixth axis concerned openness to management in civil society. Hubert de Boisredon, director general of Armor, a specialist enterprise for inks and printing aids, offered a re-reading of the principles of the Carta from an entrepreneurial standpoint (‘La Charte de charité, une source d’inspiration pour des sociétés d’un même groupe’). Finally a seventh axis of the colloquium was devoted to the Carta and how it is lived today in the bosom of the Cistercian family. For this topic a round table brought together representatives of the monastic communities of the Cistercian family: Dom Vladimir Gaudrat (Abbey of Lérins, OCist), Dom Jean-Marc Chéné (Abbey of Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine, OCSO), Mother Mary Helen Jackson (monastery Notre-Dame de La Plaine, Bernardines d’Esquermes). The colloquium was concluded by Dom Gérard Joyau (Abbey of Notre-Dame de Scourmont). He discussed the place of the Rule of St Benedict in the process of unity of Cistercian communities (‘La règle de saint Benoît, fondement de l’unité des abbayes cisterciennes selon la Charte de charité’). He noted how much the Carta, a document nine centuries old, is still a text for Cistercians of today, with institutional mechanisms which endure with regard to respect for the tradition of each of the elements which compose the Cistercian family.

[1] Printed with the generous permission of the review Collectanea Cisterciensia.

News

Dom Enrique Contreras, OSB

President of EMLA

Introduction to the 12th Latino-American Monastic Assembly (EMLA)

Six years after the previous meeting of monasteries of Latin America (EMLA), held in Mexico, we experienced another meeting on monastic life in our continent. The organisation of the meeting had been entrusted to the Conference of Monastic Communities of the Southern Cone (SURCO), since the service revolves between the three zones into which the Latino-American Monastic Union is divided. The two others are ABECCA (Benedictine-Cistercian Association of the Caribbean and the Andes), which includes the UBC (Benedictine and Cistercian Union of Mexico) and the CIMBRA (Conference of Monastic Exchange of Brazil).

A Monastic Encounter

The custom of monastic encounters is very ancient in Christian monachism. From the origins we find evidence of this practice. Thus in the foundational text of our monastic life, the Life of Saint Antony by Athanasius of Alexandria in the middle of the fourth century we find:

On a certain occasion the monks begged Antony to come down and visit them and observe them, as well as the places (where they were living) for some time. He set off with the monks who had come to look for him. A camel was carrying food and water for them, since this desert was very dry and devoid of drinking-water except on the isolated mountain where it had been found, and where Antony had given himself up to asceticism. On the way the water gave out. It was very hot, and all were in danger. They went around but could find no water. They could go no further and lay down on the ground, leaving the camel to wander off. The old man, seeing that everyone was in danger, deeply afflicted and groaning, went off by himself, knelt down and stretched out his hands to pray. At this very moment the Lord made water spring up at the very place where he was praying. So all drank and renewed their energies. Having filled their gourds they looked for the camel and found it. In fact the ropes were tangled on a rock and the camel could not move. The monks took it in charge, watered it and loaded it with their provisions of water. Then they could continue without danger.

When they arrived at the more distant monasteries everyone, seeing Antony as a father, embraced him, and he, just as though he had brought provisions from the mountain, nourished them with words and distributed to them spiritual goods. In these mountains there was great joy and zeal to make progress and comfort from their shared confidence (cf. Romans 1.12).

The text here given gives certain important pieces of information, but above all the desire to share the life-experience and the teaching of a great saint. Nevertheless, for this desire to be fulfilled it was necessary to make a long journey, not without danger and serious difficulties. Once these obstacles were overcome the meeting allowed them to profit from the great joy of a blessed exchange.

EMLA

In the course of the years the Latin American meetings have many, many times confirmed the importance and the happy desire to share the pains and joys of our common vocation among monks and nuns. That is the main objective of our structure of EMLA. I add immediately that the history of this structure has not always been easy. However, the need to encourage one another has always prevailed in a fruitful exchange of our expriences of the monastic charism.

The Life of Saint Antony shows that travelling, even if today it brings less dangers than previously, should not be taken lightly: long distances, long hours of travel by air, bus or car, long lines of waiting. The current dangers, perhaps greater than previous ones, test the monastic patience of which we hear so much. Nevertheless, the difficulties are always compensated by the great advantage which we receive from our meeting. We can sum them up in the words of the Psalmist: ‘How good, how pleasant it is when kindred live in unity’ (Ps 132.1).

The Fruits of EMLA

The Life of St Antony sums up admirably the fruits of the fraternal encounter. For a start, a share in the feast of words which brings us a fine spiritual benefit. Next, the joy and ardent longing to make progress in the spiritual life. Thirdly, the encouragement flowing from mutual trust. Thus in our meetings we nourish one another with the bread of the Word and the bread of the Eucharist. This precisely was the central theme of the twelfth meeting of EMLA: Eucharist and monastic life. By chance, this meeing began on the day celebrating the memory of St Jerome, that great lover of the Word of God. Equally we shared the nourishment provided by the conferences, the round-table discussions, the group meetings, plenary meetings, personal exchanges. And all this with the absolute certainty of gaining spiritual nourishment.

We also found, not only in this meeting of EMLA but also in earlier ones, the profound joy of discovering that we were not alone on this path of following Christ. We want to renew ourselves in the sincere and ardent desire to make progress in the life of the Spirit.

Something special

The Life of Saint Antony spoke to us of strengthening, thanks to shared confidence. At our twelfth EMLA this was fundamentally translated into two words, simplicity and harmony.

A simple harmony typified our daily life in our meetings and especially in our pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Cura Brochero, like an invisible cloak over the spaces of the pastoral and spiritual house which José Gabriel de Rosario Brochero founded and animated, and which is fully active. Comparisons are often odious, so I resist any way which might suggest, ‘It would have been better if…’, despite our many human limitations. The twelfth meeting confirmed the need to travel in order to come together, meet one another and share and dialogue. We were enabled to uphold our spiritual progress with joy, making use of the talks which encouraged and renewed us to follow Christ with ever greater devotion.

A Wish and a Worry

It seems to me that our twelfth EMLA aroused an almost spontaneous desire to deepen our experience of lectio divina. The matter was mentioned sporadically, but several times as it arose during the meetings, but it deserved a treatment more thorough and more profound, which would open the way to a renewal of the practice so essential to monastic life.

At each EMLA I feel a pre-occupation, perhaps too personal: What about our return to the sources, to the teachings of the monastic fathers? It is true that the demands of our times are numerous, as well as the challenges we must face before the realities of a complex age. But does this exempt us from paying careful attention once more to the teachings which our fathers in monastic life have left us?

In all these cases EMLA confirms again and again for each one of us, with a new and greater urgency, the need to meet one another in order to continue to grow in the confidence and joy of knowing that God the Father loves us to the end in his Son (John 13.1). It is this which sustains us in our shared monastic vocation.

As the Life of St Antony teaches us, relying on the teaching of St Paul: ‘Let us be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, yours and mine’ (Romans 1.12).

News

Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat, OSB

President of AIM

Journey to Argentina,

October, 2019

Monday 23rd September

Heading for Argentina, for the meeting of EMLA, the gathering of the superiors of monasteries of the Benedictine family of the whole of Latin America. Argentina has more than a dozen monasteries of the Benedictine family: three were founded by the Abbey of Saint Escolastica in Buenos Aires (Cordoba, San Luis, Rafaela); the community of Cordoba itself founded the monastery of Parana. Among the monasteries of men there is Lujan and Los Toldos and Nino Dios (which has founded another community in Argentina, El Siambon); two Trappist monasteries in the area, one of monks (Azul), one of nuns (Hinojo); two communities of Tutzing at Buenos Aires and Los Toldos, and one community of Benedictine nuns at Santiago del Estero. This is a rich history, which began in the nineteenth century. During my journey I had the opportunity to visit seven of these monasteries.

At the airport of Buenos Aires two sisters of Santa Escolastica were there to welcome me, and we set off for their monastery, an hour’s drive by car. After I had settled into the guesthouse I asked to celebrate Mass before lunch. This I did in the crypt, and to my great surprise a number of sisters joined me for this unplanned celebration. I celebrated in French, but the librarian had produced books so that the sisters could follow and respond in that language.

During the afternoon I made an expedition to a branch of the ocean, which is only fifteen minutes away. On my return we had a meeting of the community, in a circle in a vast room. After listening again to the gospel of the day we exchanged all kinds of questions about our lives. It was a warm atmosphere, which gave a good impression of this Argentinian visit.

Tuesday 24th September

I was up at 4am. Vigils are at 5.15, Lauds at 7.30 and Mass at 8.30. The morning was spent in a visit of the monastery. Tucked into the suburbs of Buenos Aires, not far from the banks of the River Plata, this community of Benedictine nuns aims by its prayer and contemplation and its work to be a lighthouse for all the inhabitants of the city.

It is said that for many years Dom Andrés Azcárate, a monk of Silos in Spain, and founder-prior of the Abbey of San Benito in Buenos Aires, wanted to found a monastery of nuns in Argentina. Many young Argentinians, attracted by the Benedictine life, encouraged him in his efforts. The Prior, knowing well the Spanish abbeys and the fervour of their observance, then sent the first candidates to Estella (Navarre) to begin their monastic life and their initial training. The civil war in Spain interrupted these attempts. In 1937 the Prior approached the Abbey of Santa Maria de São Paulo in Brazil, whose founder and abbess was Mother Gertrudis Cecilia da Silva Prado, to take up this work of formation. This abbey belonged to the Brazlian Benedictine Congregation, but its first sisters had been formed at the Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation at Stanbrook in England, which began the foundation in 1911. The Abbey of Santa Maria, following Stanbrook, observed the customs of the Benedictine life established by Dom Guéranger for the sisters of Saint Cecilia of Solesmes.

At Santa Maria on 15th October, 1938, the Prior asked Mother Abbess and the community to admit the first Argentinian girls for the foundation of Santa Escolástica. Mother Abbess accepted this request and opened wide the doors of their abbey to the seven candidates. On 8th December of the same year, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the first stone of the building was laid. While the world was fighting terrible wars a new Benedictine monastery was founded in Argentina, bearing the motto ‘PAX’. The abbey was to be placed under the protection of the Queen of Peace. On 7th September, 1940, the profession of the first novice took place at Santa Maria, and on 21st November that of six other Argentinians. Meanwhile, the number of Argentinians gathered in the noviciate grew and all were very fervent. Today the community is composed of some thirty nuns. Their activities consist in a workshop for vestments, another for artistic objects, a bindery, and a printery for cards and postcards, a chocolate-workshop and a guesthouse. The liturgy is both in Spanish and in Gregorian chant. The buildings of the monastery are spacious and the property extends over eight acres in the middle of the town of Victoria.

In the afternoon Mother Abbess appointed two sisters to accompany me to the bank of the River Luján in the town of Tigre. We walked a little along the river and had a long discussion about the situation of the country and the Church. Secularisation is galloping, the bases of faith are questioned, while popular devotion is very lively. In any case, the transmission of the faith, in Argentina as in the rest of the world, is coming to experience an especially difficult phase. This is bound to have an effect on religious life. The community of Santa Escolástica, lively and dynamic as it is, has received no novices for eight years.

Wednesday 25th September

Next day went to the old abbey of San Benito in the centre of Buenos Aires. As I have already said, this foundation came from the Abbey of Silos in 1914, and lasted until 1973 at which date the monks transferred to Luján. We were welcomed by Dom Pedro, a monk of Luján, who is holding the fort to keep the monastery as a pied-à-terre for the monks of his monastery, since it still owns the place and they are trying to rent it: several organisations have succeeded one another since the 1970s.

Immediately striking is the disproportion of the building, which could be used for a very big project. In fact Dom Andrés, the founder-prior caused to be built in stages an abbey which could hold some hundred monks, but the foundation never really succeeded. At the time of its greatest glory there could have been up to fifty monks from Spain, but they were essentially recruited among the oblates of Silos. A tour of the buildings, empty of inhabitants, was eloquent. Furthermore, the building was never completed: the cloister has arcades on two sides rising into the void, and even the towers of the church are unfinished. One can imagine the efforts spent on this gigantic project.

For lunch we went to the Benedictine sisters nearby. They are sisters of the missionary Congregation of Tutzing, and are five in number. All full of energy, they carry out several tasks, such as running a hostel for girls who have various difficulties with immigration, especially from Venezuela. They also look after young people in this quarter, as well as receiving guests – in addition, of course, to the regular life. As is normal among the Tutzing sisters, the community is very international: the Prioress is Brazilian, two of the sisters are Argentinian, one Korean and one from Namibia. The atmosphere is very open and relaxed. There are two Tutzing communities in Argentina.

In the early afternoon we left with Dom Pedro for the monastery of Luján, where I was to stay for the whole of Thursday. On the way we made a detour by the cathedral of Buenos Aires to pray in communion with Pope Francis, who had been archbishop there for some time. We crossed the city of Buenos Aires, which numbers three million inhabitants, stretched to fourteen million by the surroundings. After an hour and a half of travel we arrived at the monastery and were welcomed by Abbot Jorge, recently blessed (14th September, 2019) after a time as Prior Administrator. After dinner I met the community during their recreation. The monks number about fifteen and represent several generations, the youngest being more than 30 and the oldest 92 and 93.

Thursday 26th September

After breakfast, Lauds and Mass we left with the abbot to visit the basilica of Luján , a few km from the monastery. The little plaster statue, some 38 cm high, known today as the Virgin of Luján, dates from 1630. A local landowner wanted to build a chapel on his land consecrated to the Virgin Mary. He asked a friend who lived at Pernambuc in Brazil to send him a statue of the Virgin, and he sent two, one of Our Lady of Compassion (la Consolata) and the other of the Immaculate Conception.

At this time the roads were dirt-roads, and while the cart carrying the statues was travelling into the country north of the city from the port, night fell and the cart had to stop on the banks of the River Luján. Next morning at the moment of starting the oxen refused to budge. The carters removed one of the statues, but the cart still would not move. They reloaded the statue and unloaded the other, and the cart moved normally. Then they realised that it was the statue of the Immaculate Conception which was preventing the cart from moving. They concluded that it must be a miracle: the Virgin wanted to stay there. The coloured man Manuel was, it was said, a warm and simple person, to whom the mission of looking after the statue was confided because there was, as his master said, no one else. The statue remained in a hermitage, 25km from the present basilica, for 41 years. In 1671 it was moved into an oratory, the gift of Doña Ana de Matos, and after a certain time the work of construction of the first sanctuary began. It was in this chapel that the first pilgrimages and the first miracles happened. And the guardian of Notre Dame, charged with looking after the pilgrims remained Manuel for the rest of his life. He died with a reputation for holiness, and was buried behind the chapel, which stood till 1740.

At the end of the nineteenth century, after the pontifical crowning of the little statue and the first official pilgrimage from Buenos Aires, in gratitude for the graces given during the epidemic of yellow fever, the construction of the cathedral was begun, and it is today one of the most important centres of pilgrimage in Latin America. It was build at the initiative of a French priest, Fr Salvaire.

After the basilica we visited the crypt, where reproductions have been brought together of statues of the Virgin from many countries all over the world. I had never appreciated the extent to which the appropriation of the image of the Virgin permits each national or regional culture to identify with the reality of this first disciple of Jesus, with the result that she thus becomes the mother of all those who follow her Son. It is a way of making the faith more accesible.

On our return we stopped at an ancient house on the land of the monastery (the property extends over six hundred acres, mirroring the large farms of Argentina!). This house has been transformed into a centre of agricultural formation for the girls of the district, run by a foundation dedicated to this kind of project. At the moment there are forty students, spread over two years of formation. At the spiritual level the establishment is the responsibility of Opus Dei, and a chapel is in course of construction on the site. The staff is, of course, careful not to teach anything which would run contrary to the directives of the civil authorities, especially on matters of family and social ethics or bioethics.

In the afternoon the abbot took me to visit the economic activity of the monastery: the shop is about one km from the monastic buildings and is run by a family employed by the monks. The care of the cattle (90 milk-cows) is also in the hands of employees, and the jam-factory in which both monks and lay people work. I visited also the surroundings, and in particular a former spinning-mill set up by a family from Belgium in the last century. Its founder had social ideals inspired by the social teaching of the Church. Besides the factory, he created a group of activities to help the population rise out of poverty, a school group, leisure activities, a covered pool, etc. His children inherited the work but were unable to continue it, and it finally failed. The school remains, but the other activities have definitively stopped. The monastery contributed generously to help those who found themselves out of work at the closure of the factory.

At the end of the afternoon we took some time to read together the gospel of the day, and share the insights from it. For this we sat beside a steam belonging to the disused spinning-mill, where the local people love to come and relax. All through the day the abbot spoke willingly about the situation of the country. It is traversing a deep political crisis. Poverty is gaining ground and the political situation is particularly tense. Many members of the Church of Argentina are working hard for the poor, and the bishops often speak about this crisis.

In the evening there was another meeting with the community. We exchanged some presents, for the next day I was to leave for other communities in anticipation of the session of EMLA in the next few days.

To be completed. See Bulletin No. 119 https://www.aimintl.org/en/communication/report/119