Monastic Formation today
(Part Two)

Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat, OSB

President of AIM

Training for Monastic Life

In the final part of the Prologue to his Rule St Benedict presents the monastery as a school of the Lord’s service. That is, he means to make monastic life a place of permanent formation. In the same Prologue he gives some characteristics of the teaching shared in this school: the first and most important is the quality of listening in order to put into practice the effective fulfilment of the commandment of love.

At this point I would like to concentrate on one of the elements of the Prologue which seems to me to put an emphasis useful for formation in today’s world. St Benedict is not envisaging simply perfect fulfilment of an exterior observance which would constitute the measure of illusory success in the present situation: he is concerned above all with a perspective which integrates the dimension of eternal life already active but directed beyond the limits of today’s world. That is why he makes use of that verse of the Gospel of John which so well delineates the Benedictine purpose, ‘Walk while you have the light of life, so that the darkness of death does not overtake you’ (John 12.35, as quoted in the Rule, Prologue 13).

In the Gospel of John this light indicates Christ himself and darkness the adversary. St Benedict gives the verse a slightly different perspective, or even alters it, by adding ‘of life’ to ‘light’ and ‘of death’ to ‘darkness’. So he is insisting in general terms on the drama of human choice by putting an opposition between the short time of earthly life and the long ‘time’ of eternal death. He thus puts a special emphasis on the urgency of the choice of lifestyle.

1. An eschatological perspective and its consequences

Monks are called to live a very particular form of life in an eschatological perspective. Even though he grants that eternal gifts are already partly offered here below (RB 7, 72 and 73) St Benedict envisages the monk as living in tension from the fact that eternal life has not yet arrived. A certain number of observations in the Rule give concrete expression to this perspective. Thus St Benedict invites monks to ‘long for eternal life with all their heart and soul’ (4.46), to behave with ‘the good zeal which leads to God and eternal life’ (72.2). This is why St Benedict pressingly requires monks, ‘Let us run and do already now what will profit us for eternity’ (Prologue 44). Basically in monastic life we are forming and preparing ourselves for the superabundant life of the eternal Kingdom. As for the abbot, ‘he must always remember that at the redoubtable judgment of God he will have to render an account’ (2, 6, 34, 37, 38, 39-40).

In this context it is worth remembering the prayer so typical of monastic life, the Office of Vigils, which is a time of vigil directed towards the coming of Christ in the hope of light. There is nothing here which is not deeply Christian, but monks lay special emphasis on this dimension. It is what best characterizes monastic life with a temporal dimension which cuts across normal human attitudes. It is what sometimes makes monks a little difficult to understand and accept.

2. Running

The way of looking at life here below as a short passage to eternal life already begun and continuing beyond death invites monks not to squander time, and so to run towards the goal. St Benedict returns to this point several times. First comes the general principle:

‘So eager to avoid the pains of hell, we long for eternal life although there is still time and we are in this world and we can do all things in the light of this life, let us run and from this moment onwards do what will profit us for all eternity’ (Prologue 44).

This passage is very close to the quotation from John 12.35 already cited. So concretely anyone who wishes to live in this way, must take to heart the desire to live in the Kingdom, knowing that it will be possible to attain the goal only by running there ‘by good works’ (Prologue 22). Therefore, in so far as progress is made in religious life and in faith, the heart expands and the monk runs in the way of the commandments of God (Prologue 49). This is a consequence of the interior disposition for which the monk yearns, having his heart bent on eternal life, which in turn produces an expansion which means that he now runs in the way of the commandments of God. It is indeed a commandment as it should be, not an exterior order to be obeyed but an attitude consonant with the Greek word entole, formed from telos, which leads to the final goal.

Only after laying down this principle can Benedict envisage particular situations whose purpose makes sense only in relation to this principle. For example, the abbot must run (currere) with all his care and work not to lose any of the flock entrusted to him (RB 27.5). Chapter 5 of the Rule is ruled by this perspective of responding to the call. The verb currere is not used there, but particularly strong expressions occur which evoke the perspective of a yearning for eternal life.

The disciples, on their part, ‘moved by the sacred service they have professed or by fear (metum) of hell or by the glory of eternal life, as soon as the superior gives an order cannot bear to delay its execution, just as though God had personally given the order… those who are thus disposed, immediately renouncing their own interests and their own will, straightway (mox) put side what they had in hand and leave unfinished whatever they were doing. With a ready foot they obey the given order with the enthusiasm of the fear of God, leaving no interval between the word of the superior and the action of the disciple.’(…) ‘Such is the behaviour of those who ardently desire eternal life’ (5.3, 9-10).

This rhythm of obedience applies equally to the reaction to the summons to the Divine Office:

‘Monks should always be ready. At the signal given, they get up immediately and hurry to the Work of God, but with all gravity and modesty’ (22.6).

This occurs a second time in the Rule,

‘At the hour of the Divine Office all haste should be made to the Divine Office, but nevertheless with gravity, avoiding any grounds for dissipation. Nothing should be preferred to the Work of God’ (43.3).

The first passage is taken from the chapter on the monks’ sleeping-quarters and the second from the chapter on those who arrive late for the Work of God or for meals. We must recognise here a characteristic of Benedictine monastic life. It is always very striking to see in our monasteries how the monks hasten towards the church for the Divine Office, whatever their reason for haste may be – and it is not always to avoid missing out on eternal life!

Finally there is one other dimension of urgency to which St Benedict gives a special place in the life of a monk: the reception of a guest or of someone who knocks at the door of the monastery:

‘As soon as a guest is announced, the superior and the monks run (occurratur) towards him with all the marks of love’ (53.3). ‘As soon as there is a knock or a poor person calls, in all the gentleness inspired by the fear of God, the porter will hurry (festinanter) to respond with fervent love’ (66.3-4).

This is a feature of our Benedictine life, even if today it is sometimes difficult to face up with enthusiam to all demands, and often a slight distance is imposed in the interests of the service of love. This theme of haste takes its origin in the Bible. The Word of God itself speeds joyously on its course (Ps 18). It leaps down from its royal throne (Wisdom 18.15). Swiftly runs his command (Ps 147.15). People of God, the true prophets, holy priests and good kings, run to put the Word into effect: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring peace.’ The crowds run towards John the Baptist in the desert, towards Jesus throughout his public ministry. Mary leaves in all haste to go to her cousin Elizabeth after the annunciation. In the case of Jesus there is not even time to eat a meal at a fixed time. The disciples run to the tomb and come running back to announce the resurrection of the Lord. After Pentecost the disciples run in every direction to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth. St Paul is ‘racing towards the finishing-line’ (Philippians 3.14).

There is an urgency in running for the Good News, either to hear it or to proclaim it, for the time is short. ‘The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is upon us’. There is no time to lose. Be converted and believe in the Good News.

3. Running without haste in these last times

Finally, a few salient points on this theme of formation, monastic training, dear to St Benedict. Monks run in haste. This is obvious in monasteries, but what is their objective? Is it really the objective of someone who has observed that life is short and that there is no time to lose? Our business is often a feature of the pressure of contemporary society: work, administration, leisure are all subject to the rhythms for fear of losing control or marginalisation. It is certainly true that in many areas imperatives  brook no delay. But should we leave it at that? Should not our goal be progressively directed toward the final longing, that of completing life in God in the community of human brotherhood?

Essentially monks are, like all Christians, a people of the eighth day, though perhaps more sensitive. This day is beyond days, a dimension of history beyond history. The sense of monastic life is outside time, taking up a position, more or less pronounced, which makes it possible to be in the world without belonging to the world. This stance envisages an experience of God by liberation from the tyranny of the passions, and by prayer free from the constraints of time and space, based on a different scale of values. If there is to be any running, it is in the paths of love, in good works as outlined in the Rule, chapter 4, on the way of the commandments, with an expanded heart, in prayer, in the Divine Office, in obedience, in the care of sinners, so as not to lose any of the flock, in the reception of guests and those who knock at the door of the monastery.

It is a matter of breaking with worldly values, without despising them but committed to a different scale of values. Do we truly commit ourselves to such a course, to such training, to such formation?

Lectio divina

Dom Maksymilian R. Nawara, osb

Abbot President of the Congregation  of the Annunciation

We are formed by Being With

The next day John was standing there again with two of his disciples, when he saw Jesus walking by. ‘There is the Lamb of God!’ he said. The two disciples heard him say this and went with Jesus. Jesus turned, saw them following him and asked, ‘What are you looking for?’ They answered, ‘Where do you live, Rabbi?’ (This word means ‘Teacher.’) ‘Come and see’, he answered. (It was then about four o’clock in the afternoon.) so they went with Him and saw where He lived and spent the rest of the day with Him. John 1.35-39

John the Baptist is the messenger who came to tell people about the light (Jn 1.6), who made the straight path for the Lord to travel (Jn 1.23), and to make known the Lamb of God (Jn 1.29). He knew Jesus and expected Him, but even he needed time with Jesus in order to be formed. In the Gospel of John, the Baptist in conversation with the Pharisees reveals his identity: ‘I am not He’ (Jn 1.20-27). Very soon after that, the Gospel says: ‘the next day’, John met Jesus and recognized Him, giving the testimony to his disciples: He is the Son of God (Jn 1.34). Despite this, when, after listening to the news about Jesus for a long time, he was imprisoned, he sent disciples to Him with the question: Are you the one we are waiting for? (Mt 11. 3). We see clearly, he needed time with Jesus to be formed.

We live in a moment in history where technological progress allows us to do many things more efficiently and quickly. We have access to various things much faster and easier. Also, access to knowledge is at our fingertips, and education through distance learning is available in the monastic cloister. At the same time, a day is still 24 hours, and a week is 7 days. It would seem that we have more time. And yet… we live in a time in which we still lack time. Even in monasteries one can hear complaints that we don't have enough time for everything we want to do.

The Gospel stops us and draws our attention to the basis of every human formation.

It takes time for an encounter to become an acquaintance.

It takes time for an acquaintance to be a testimony.

Without this time, the testimony has no value because it lacks experience.

Go with Jesus

Two disciples of John heard him speaking about the Lamb of God and went with Jesus. The new stage begins for them: disciples of the Voice becoming disciples of the Word.

Following Jesus, following the same path as the Son, is a synthesis of the Christian experience. Christianity is not a collection of beautiful stories or moral imperatives; it is the reality of the person of Jesus who is followed because you love Him: ‘Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness’ (Jn 8.12).

Jesus turns to those who follow Him, and the first time (in the Gospel of John) He opens his mouth and speaks the first words. His first words are the question: ‘What are you looking for?’ This question is crucial for many reasons. What am I looking for in my life, in my work, in relationships? What am I looking for in the Church, in my monastic community? All these questions and many more are important to ask on any level of monastic formation. Jesus’ question is connected with time as well, because it is very true: I’m wasting my time on what I’m looking for. What am I looking for that I waste my time on?

The answer of the disciples isn’t ‘Yes’. They do not say: we are looking for this and that, they do not even say: we are looking for the Messiah. They ask another question: ‘Where do you live, Rabbi?’. This question expresses their deep desire to be with Jesus. And Jesus answers: ‘Come and see’.

This is where the path of the disciple of the Word begins. Move from ideas, theories, declarations, manifestos and slogans to the sharing of life. And to share my life is to share my time with Him. There is no other way to truly know Jesus than by sharing time with Him: in prayer and Lectio Divina. But this truth is closely related to the honest response to the question: What am I looking for? What am I looking for that I waste my time on?

Sharing

The Gospel says: ‘So, they went with Him and saw where He lived, and spent the rest of the day with Him’. Again, we come back to these key assertions:

It takes time for an encounter to become an acquaintance. It takes time for an acquaintance to be a testimony. The fruit of the time with Jesus is testimony: ‘We have found the Messiah’, we have found the light of life.

The monastic formation is mostly about sharing. Sharing daily life, time, work, everything. How can we learn to live together if we are not sharing time with our brothers and sisters on a daily basis? How can we know Jesus if not by sharing our time with Him? An acquaintance will become the testimony with time. On the monastic path we are formed by being with Him, as well as with our brothers and sisters.

Come and see! I want to tell you everything. I will guide you day by day.

Perspectives

Abbot Primate Gregory J. Polan, OSB

Sant’Anselmo, Rome

Formation for the Monastic Life

The key endeavor in monastic formation is the transformation of the heart. In speaking of the human heart, a biblical perspective can provide an essential starting place. In the biblical understanding, the heart is the locus of what we might presently describe as the effect of one’s mental capability combined with one’s emotional awareness. Ancient Greek philosophy, which for centuries has founded and influenced Western thought, separated mind from heart as two distinct functions in a person. For our purposes here, we would like to adopt the biblical view to consider how the mind and the heart may work in harmony. In the course of monastic formation, we acquire a significant amount of information regarding ancient traditions, historical persons, and developments and changes in the way men and women have lived the monastic life through the centuries. And what is thus learned must of course be reflected on, so as to be appropriated over time as an interior disposition. Does one choose to integrate the traditions, values and teachings of monastic formation into one’s life and outlook, so as to bring about the changes that are necessary for the good of one’s soul? This harmonious union of mind and heart has enduring importance insofar as we view the process of formation as a life-long venture. Its beginnings are particularly important in that they establish the rhythm required for lifelong conversion and transformation of the heart.

Establishing the centrality of the heart remains a lifelong endeavor; one might say that formation is a journey of the heart that, once begun, remains attuned to the quiet promptings of God’s voice in our lives. Both the Old and the New Testaments offer perspectives upon which an understanding of formation as a journey can be founded. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew people travelled from a place of slavery in Egypt and through the desert to a land of freedom under God’s providential care in the Promised Land. In the course of that trek they underwent the full gamut of spiritual experience—temptation, frustration, betrayal, fear, mercy, compassion, insight, conversion, and finally the fulfilment of God’s promise (Deut 8.1-18). Having lived through these encounters with sin and redemption, they were formed by God as a people of faith. In the Gospels, the evangelist Luke tells the story of Jesus’ paschal mystery in the context of a journey, a kind of spiritual travellogue. “[Jesus] spoke of his exodus that he was going to fulfil in Jerusalem… When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, [Jesus] resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem…” (Lk 9.31,51). Jesus himself encounters the same experiences undergone by his ancestors in the faith on their exodus: temptation, frustration, betrayal, fear, mercy, compassion, insight, and finally the fulfilment of God’s promise. Having shared fully in our humanity (with the exception of sin), Jesus made the human journey from birth to death—and ultimately to resurrection. Anyone who seriously wants to make this journey, to follow Jesus on the way of the cross—such a person must undergo a series of movements deeper and deeper into the heart. The heart is the place where initial belief, fervor, and conviction must eventually give way to a lifetime commitment to the journey.

Formation in the monastic life must take into consideration the world in which we live, the culture in which we are raised, the values we have unconsciously assumed. Technological advances that speed up the pace of life, the consumer culture in which we are perhaps unwittingly embedded, the level of noise that we have become accustomed to—these are so much a part of the life we now live that we seldom give them much thought. Only when technological glitches slow or impede our sense of progress or productivity do we recognize technology’s enormous impact on our daily life. Only when we have to go without something that we have come to assume is always readily available do we appreciate our dependence upon it. Only when we are in a place or an atmosphere of utter silence do we acknowledge that the noise now absent had become almost a settling influence. Such realizations can be moments of self-revelation and self-knowledge. They become moments when we can ask those probing questions: What is my life all about? Where am I going? How do I plan to reach my destination? And do I have the inner peace that will enable me to answer such deep questions?

I believe that the years of our 20s and early 30s are a particularly important formative period. We have moved out of adolescence and into adulthood, and we begin to look to the future, considering matters and issues that will have an impact on our lives for years to come. These are years when transformations take place in the processes of living, behaving and believing. And whether we come to monastic life during these formative years, or later after significant formation has already taken place, these years have a lasting impact on how we view ourselves, our world, and importantly, God. These are the years when many things change in our lives: our bodies, our worldview, our intellectual capacities, our perspectives on various values. The word ‘conversion’ bears an important meaning in our world today. It is often seen as a turning from one way of looking at life and what it means, coming to view it in a very different way; the term suggests a dramatic, life-changing shift in one’s outlook. But it is also true that there are ‘little conversions’, more subtle alterations in life, gently changing our direction in ways that will only be apparent after a considerable period of time—perhaps only at the end of a lifetime. For example, some people choose to marry and raise a family later in life after having established a solid career. Others will decide to complete academic degrees to assure employment before making a vocational choice of marriage or monastic life. What is important to consider is how deeply has a person probed his or her heart in the process of making such decisions? How well do they know themselves, their inner life? How much practice has been given to searching the heart with attention and care?

One virtue which must be embraced in the monastic journey to the depths of the heart is trust. The virtue of trust does not come easily today in a world of broken promises, of deceit or corruption from persons in significant positions of leadership, in a technology-driven world of meanings that shift seismically at rates unimaginable before. Yet in the work and process of formation, trust remains essential. First of all, trust must enable us to make that significant leap of faith—of relying on, confiding in, and submitting to a God who, though remaining invisible to the human eye, yet works wonders that are manifest to anyone who proceeds from a perspective of faith. Abraham stands as a primary model of trust. Knowing only that something deep within him was calling him forth to significant changes in his life, Abraham trusted that quiet inner voice; it remains our firm belief that the quiet interior impulse that moved Abraham was the voice of God (Gen 12-14; 22.1-19). The Virgin Mary also models a way of trust—at a moment’s calling and through a lifetime of believing (Lk 1.38; 2.19; 2.51b). To enter into the journey of formation, to remain committed to it, demands a level of trust which accepts the instructions given us, which tests and probes them in the process of appropriation, but always allows them time to find their resting place in the heart. In this process of interior exploration, trust is always an essential component: challenges will inevitably come at the outset, but this is because we are moving from a secular perspective into a monastic tradition. Both have their blessings and their challenges, but there must at least be a decision to trust in this new journey of monastic formation. The Psalmist gives a simple, direct instruction to all who find themselves in this situation: “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart” (Ps 95[94].7b-8a).

When a person is willing to trust, it becomes a stretching, yielding, broadening, and enlarging experience. Trust will encourage us to allow sufficient time to assimilate new and meaningful values that are offered to us. Trust often calls for a letting-go of worldly things. Though engaging, attractive or alluring in themselves, we are moved to abandon past behaviors and attitudes so that a real change of heart can take place. Trust may challenge us; it may reveal that our acceptance of what is asked of us is timid and transitory, because we fear that the familiar, the comfortable, may now be lost forever. Every one of us will face difficult times when only trust and love, developing slowly but surely, will lead us forward. Such situations often require us to recognize a call to obedience.

The very word ‘obedience’ is rooted in the Latin audire, ‘to listen.’ Some lexicographers suggest a nuance, ‘to listen within’. We know how central such inward listening was for Saint Benedict in regard to monastic life; it is the first imperative of his Rule. Furthermore, Saint Benedict directs us to ‘listen with the ear of the heart’. Might not such listening be the very footing of an interior edifice of trust? We can see how significant Saint Benedict held the virtue of obedience to be in securing growth and development in monastic life by how he speaks of it in the Rule. He writes in the Prologue, ‘The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience’ (v. 2). And near the end of the Rule, in Chapter 71 on ‘Mutual Obedience’, he writes further, ‘Obedience is a blessing to be shown by all, not only to the abbot but also to one another as brothers [and sisters], since we know that it is by this way of obedience that we go to God’ (vv. 1-2). Saint Benedict opens the Rule describing obedience as a challenging labor, but he closes by portraying it as a blessing. After one has labored at a task that is truly worthwhile, one may, when the task has been completed, see it as a blessing—a growth in virtue, an experience of new life. Step by step, experience by experience, we grow toward an obedience of the heart, led there by the growing trust within us.

The Epistle to the Hebrews presents the obedience of Jesus as a trait meant to inspire and to encourage us. ‘Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him’ (5.8-9). How astounding it is for us to ponder this assertion: Jesus had to learn obedience. This text also teaches us that the obedience of Jesus was redemptive for us. It is no great leap to see that our own obedience can also be redemptive in our lives, and in the lives of others. In his humanity, Jesus, like us, acknowledged and embraced obedience to the One he called Abba, as well as to his parents, whom the Father had given charge over him. Recall the scene when the young Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem to converse with the doctors of the law, while his parents frantically searched for him for three days. When in their anxiety about him his parents question him, he asserts that this was part of God’s plan for him—often translated as his ‘Father’s business’ (Lk 2.49). The text concludes, ‘[Jesus] went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart’ (Lk 2.51). Two striking elements emerge here: the obedience of the God-man Jesus to his human parents, and the identification of Mary’s heart as the locus of her pondering of this event, fraught with mystery both as words exchanged and as experience undergone. Jesus in his humanity is presented to us such that we can see the growth that takes place within him, a growth toward that perfect maturity which leads him to trust the will of God as the right path for his life. The new humanity of Jesus is our ultimate goal in life.

In retreats, I have often commented on how important it is to spend such days of quiet reflection in listening to one’s heart. And yet surprisingly, the heart, the center of our being, is where we sometimes choose to go, sometimes avoid going to, and even in some cases resist choosing to go. But it is essential from the outset of formation to go deep into one’s heart, to establish a rhythm of life that keeps us returning there, lest we run the risk of alienating our outward life from our deepest self—and also from God. One of the saddest realities that may arise in the midst of life’s journey is the avoidance or even rejection of true self-knowledge. Falling into such a pattern can make us strangers to our very selves. Returning time and again to the heart—in our prayers and in our challenges, in our blessings and searchings, our wanderings and doubtings, and yes, even in our sinning—there we will find the God who infinitely loves us. That love will be expressed in the divine comfort that comes to us—in consolation and instruction, in further challenge and blessing. It puts us in right relationship with the God who has brought us into being and continues to sustain us. The true path of formation is well expressed in the prayer of the Psalmist, ‘Of you my heart has spoken, “seek his face.” It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me’ (Ps 27[26].8-9a). Even at those times when the divine face seems hidden, we have only to keep returning to the heart, where we will find the God of love and mercy ever ready to receive and renew us.

Perspectives

Dom Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori

Abbot General OCist

Fruitful Terrain of Monastic Formation

Recently I was visiting a community of monks and during my stay I had the opportunity to participate in a community discussion. The subject of the discussion was the extremely original work of a Christian artist. The discussion was principally about his pictures, but there had also been the chance a few days previously to watch together a video on him, on his human and artistic career. The exchange among the brethren was very profound, since everyone had been personally deeply impressed by the witness of this artist. At the end of the discussion the abbot said in passing that this year, partly because of the situation created by the pandemic, there had been few moments of structured formation,  such as invitations to scholars to give courses or lead sessions. He questioned what effect this had had on their continuous formation. As for initial formation, he was aware that it had not been possible to adhere completely to the ratio studiorum prescribed by the Order. This is a worry that I find shared by many superiors and communities, especially those which are small and fragile.

However, after the community discussion it was clear that this community had no lack of continuous formation, precisely because it had in the course of the years developed a fine culture of sharing, of dialogue, of listening and speaking. I was reassured that monastic formation is living and effective if it occurs in a well-worked field, a field which is prepared for sowing, for the seed to germinate, to grow and to bear fruit. Or rather, to make use of another image still more expressive in the matter of formation, if the community is disposed to be a clay well-mixed, well-watered, of a good consistency, allowing the potter to give it a fine shape, adapted to the use for which it is intended.

In short, when a community works at its own conversion, when a community forms itself as a filial and fraternal community, when it is, as St Benedict would say, a place of obedient stability – that is, of silence and listening, of conversatio morum, on the road of conversion and life-giving communion, everything contributes to the growth of the community and of each of its members to grow and develop so as to expand into the perfect shape of Christ, the beloved Son which the Father wills to impress on us by the gift of the Spirit. Only the community must accept to become a building-plot, to become a house, a home and above all a temple of the presence of God. Without that, even the best of courses and sessions by the greatest scholars and professors will not succeed in forming and developing a community and its members.

I know some small and frail communities which can no longer invite high-class formators from outside, but which are so united in humility and desire for conversion that every crumb of truth and beauty which comes from anywhere and by any means becomes a seed of formation and edification. Everything forms us if only we have a heart humbly open to the conversion which monastic and community conversatio offers us and which we need. This makes communities where the meditative heart of the Virgin Mary is obvious, wholly alert to miss nothing offered by its Spouse the Word. If this attitude is lacking, a community will derive no profit from the most frequent and well-directed formation. The best seed remains sterile if it falls not on well-prepared soil but on marble, no matter how precious and well-polished.

For any formation to be fruitful it is important not to neglect the humus. If you don’t work the soil you will not get the harvest you desire. This is the great wisdom of monastic formation : it begins from below in order that what comes from above as the Word and Spirit of God may find a welcome and openness, that is to say a liberty which seeks and desires it and opens the door when the Word knocks.

St Benedict learnt at the school of the Gospel and the Fathers that nothing tends the soil so well as community life. To live in community makes conversion truly formative. Without the guidance of a community it is easy to give way to the temptation, as old as original sin, to attempt to model oneself by one’s own hands. But one’s own hands succeed only in putting on make-up as we look at ourselves narcissistically in the mirror of our ambitions and vanities. By contrast, when we freely consent to allow community life and obedience to form us according to God’s design, then we slowly discover that we are being modelled at a deeper level of ourselves, so that the true gift of our lives bears its fruit.

In this sense the pandemic has been a great challenge for monastic communities. On the one hand, we, like everyone else, find means of formation shared at a distance which offer the most frail communities new means of formation. But this opportunity shows also its own limits: it promotes formative communication but not formative communion. On-line formation is excellent for informing ourselves, but it does not suffice to shape us. It is like learning the theory of pottery without soiling one’s hands with clay. Better still, it is like a potter showing the clay the gestures which would shape it, without being able to touch it. The clay still has to find hands which take it in charge and shape it. This brings us back to the need for a real community conversation which anyway has become particularly sensitive when confinement has obliged monastic comunities to live in real enclosure.

When in 2020 we were forced to cancel the Course of Monastic Formation, a month-long course which we have been holding at the Roman Generalate for twenty years, we questioned whether we should replace it by an on-line course. But, quite apart from the practical difficulties of virtually gathering together students from Asia to the Americas, it was clear to us that we could not reduce the formation course to mere lessons. It would lack the community dimension which allows the teaching to take root immediately in the real life of the participants, teaching them the complete dynamic of monastic formation which is not merely sowing, but also ground which receives the seed, not only a word but also the heart which needs to listen in order to live in communion.

Meditation on the first chapter of the Rule of St Benedict on the types of monks reveals that the real difference between the two good models of monks (cenobites and anchorites) and the two bad models (sarabaites and gyrovagues) consists in the choice or rejection of being formed by someone else. Cenobites and anchorites confide their desire for a fullness of life and sanctity to the hands of God and of a community guided by a rule and an abbot. By contrast, sarabaites and gyrovagues follow their own personal tendencies. This has haunted us ever since original sin; it is a refusal to entrust oneself to formation by the hands of another. All are clay, destined to take on a fine and useful form, but the former group allow God and the community to shape them, whereas the latter slide wherever they happen to be, passively accepting the formless form of the slope on which they are sliding. The former entrust their longing for life and joy to a path which is successful; the latter, confusing the deep desire of their hearts with an instinctive tendency, allow themselves to be guided by the tendency itself, which leads nowhere. For the instinctive tendency is a misshapen desire which is closed in on itself and renounces the infinite to which it is directed.

Monastic formation, like any human and Christian formation, is a serious question. At stake is not the perfection of knowledge, even practical knowledge, but the fullness of the life for which we were created by the Father, purchased by the Son and animated by the Spirit. It is for this that we receive the Body of Christ which is the Church, and the membership of a community which is granted to us so that the form of Jesus may become the substance of our life and of all our relationships.

Perspectives

Dom Peter Eghwrudjakpor, OSB

Prior of Ewu Ishan (Nigeria)

Benedictine and Cistercian Association of Nigeria

BECAN Monastic Institute (BMI)

After many years of preparation and planning we have finally launched the programme of studies and training for monks and nuns from the various monasteries in Nigeria.

Classes began in August of 2018. We spent 4 weeks for the first year (2018) which might be regarded as an experimental year. Then, the second year (2019), we spent 8 weeks, and by God's grace, we hope to spend 10 weeks for this final year (2020) of this set of students. Thus, this first set will stay together for three periods in three years.

Worthy of note: after due consultation with a Catholic University here in Nigeria (Madonna University), which has accepted our application for affiliation, it was decided that the next academic programme for the next sets of students will run for two years instead of three as we are doing presently. The university will also issue to qualified students a validly recognised certificate. Thus, each year the students will spend two months of studies and examinations, then return to their various communities to resume the following year for the final modules to make it four months in all.

 This two-year program will commence by 2021 with the next set of students, that is, after the passing out of this present set of students finishing in October of this year.

The courses are:

1. Introduction to the use of English Grammar.

2. Monastic Spirituality

3. Introduction to Scripture

4. Monastic Fathers

5. Spirituality of he Rule of Saint Benedict

6. Monastic History

7. Fathers of The Church

8. Introduction to Philosophy

9. Latin

10. Church History

11. Sacred Liturgy

12. Methodology on Research and Writing Papers

13. Church Doctrine/Church Dogma

14. Canon Law for Religious

15. The Vows

16. Human Sexuality

17. Prayer

18. Moral Theology

19. Sacraments       

20. African Monasticism

21. Music

22. Palestine Monasticism

23. Introduction to Logic 

24. African Philosophy

25. Introduction to Epistemology

26. Metaphysics

27. Syrian and Byzantine Monasticism

28. Consecrated Life

29. Introduction to Computer

30. Human Development

In this first set we started with 24 students who came from all 17 BECAN monasteries, 14 lecturers and 3 non- teaching staff, all monks and nuns from the Nigerian monasteries.

The Programme is very good and well organized. We have a five-member organizing team. Three are always with the students when the programme is running, and two representatives from the BECAN monastic superiors who laise between the Institute and the BECAN superiors, and who oversee the programme from the point of view of the BECAN superiors.

Our hope is to eventually open this programme to monks and nuns from other monastic communities from other regions of Africa who can communicate in the English language. This will also guarantee continuity of the programme in the longer term.

Funding

At the moment each monastery contributes a certain amount of money per student, alongside food items and other gift items to cover feeding and welfare of all the participants - students and staff. Here BECAN communities show their first-class generosity. At the end, there is usually no lack.

No payment is made for the teachers except for the transport fare to the BMI area.

AIM

It is worthy of note here that the AIM USA has made a wonderful donation of three boxes of books which have just recently arrived. This is one way the AIM could assist the programme. We are gradually building up a library for this programme so more book- donations will be welcome.

Perspectives

Sister Marie Ricard, OSB

Community of Martigné-Briand (France)

The Formation ‘Ananias’

Since 2014, a programme has been running for formation of monastic formators of French-speaking countries. These sessions take place every alternate year in France and Belgium. The spirit of ‘Ananias’ consists in a magnificent dive, centred on the Word of God and lived out in a fraternal body. Such is the proposition offered to monks and nuns already mature in their community experience.

Who takes part? The sessions are aimed at Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries of the French language on all the continents. Applications are welcome from monks and nuns who already have a monastic formation and a certain experience of community life, brothers and sisters who are thought to have the capacity to take on responsibility.

Length: three months.

Numbers: 20-25. It is important to achieve a balance between monks and nuns, but this is a principle not always respected in practice.

Content: a few focal points

• Monastic life and the Gospel (the disciple of Christ lives by the Word)

• St Benedict

• The Psalter

• Monastic history

• Spiritual accompaniment

• Community life

• Human development, psychology and the spiritual life

• Liturgy and monastic experience

Obviously formation is not a university course. The objective is to open doors. Not everything can be given, not everything can be said, but it is a matter of forming the person to begin the task of forming and imparting the tools of research. The essential point of formation is transmission of life.

How? The life and the progress of the sessions

• Participants are invited to create among themselves a real fraternity during their three months of life together. This is the necessary basis of everything that happens. The sessions are about living, not simply information.

• The first two or three days are devoted to exchanges, sharing each one’s path of life, under the guidance of a skilled moderator. Each one is invited to formulate his or her expectations and questions.

• The participants are welcomed into different monasteries. In 2018: La Pierre-qui-Vire, La Coudre (Laval), Martigné-Briand and Bellefontaine.

• There will be pilgrimages and excursions.

• A senior (at La-Pierre-qui-Vie this was Dom Cyprian) accompanies the group during the whole period of three months. This is fundamental to achieve unity.

• Complementarily, Pastor Pierre-Yves Brandt, professor of religious psychology at the University of Lausanne, well versed in and warmly attached to monastic life, plays his part. He has come three times to visit the group for some days.

• The teachers are chiefly monks and nuns. These are joined by several lay teachers or professionals in one or another discipline.

• The objective of the whole course, and also of the reflection-groups, is to offer a rounded understanding of our monastic life. It aims to improve the acceptance of responsibility for formation and other responsibilities with respect to the brothers and sisters and to the outside world. Since the last session we have put a special accent on the personal accompaniment given to each participant.

• The stages occur in four monasteries. By a custom which has proved its worth, we start in La-Pierre-qui-Vire. Each stage develops a fundamental aspect:

1. The Word of God, pivot of our lives, centred on the paschal mystery. Handing on the Tradition, the time to revisit the Rule and the great fundamentals, obedience, self-emptying and poverty, spiritual accompaniment. Affections and celibacy, a more personal stage, which touches what is most profound in each participant, personal strengths and weaknesses.

2. The common life. The Church as a brotherhood, inculturation, fraternal life, vows. We are introducing a module on total ecology.

3. We stress the value of the excursions at each stage.

Il est important que chaque inscription soit portée par une motivation claire, tant de la part du ou de la supérieur(e), que de la part du frère ou de la sœur inscrit(e). Une lettre personnelle du ou de la supérieur(e) accompagne l’inscription définitive. Chaque frère ou sœur envoie lui aussi, à l’inscription, une lettre précisant ce qu’il/elle attend de ces trois mois.

It is important that each application is supported by a clear statement of motivation, both from the superiors and from the brother or sister. A personal letter from the superior should accompany the definitive application. Each brother or sister also sends a letter with the application, stating his or her precise expectations for the three months.

The three months form a single whole, that is, we would not envisage an ‘à la carte’ application, in that the proposal is specifically a course of formation, and is global. It is a matter of formation, not merely acquisition of knowledge or a method. This presupposes a personal investment in its length and in the stability of the group.

Knowledge of the French language is a requirement on which we must insist. Experience has shown that the brother or sister can truly profit from these three months only with sufficient mastery of the language, even if this requires a supplementary investment.

The session of 2018

The most recent session took place from 6th September to 28th November 2018, attended by nine nuns and six monks. This group was accompanied by Dom Cyprian of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire, who listened to each participant and oversaw the organisation. He will perform the same service for the next session, which we still hope to maintain.

The composition of the group was markedly African ; sixteen of the participants came from African countries. Nine sisters were from France (but four of them were not French in origin, and indeed two were African). We might add that the sole French monk was from Latrun in Israel. Interculturality was no mere theory. This balance ensured that there were most enriching mutual discoveries, though the inevitable difficulties must not be forgotten, the sort of misunderstandings which any shared life generates, especially when the contexts are so diverse. The strength of the group lay in its fraternal spirit which showed itself from the first day onwards. Sure of building on rock, the brothers and sisters did not hesitate to speak frankly to one another when tensions could have harmed the fraternity. This aspect struck us and gives us pleasure to mention. There was never any doubt that dance, singing and rhythm gave colour to these months. It goes without saying that the host monasteries generally were only too delighted to enrich their liturgical celebrations with this joyful novelty.

As for the content, we retained all that had been experienced in the two previous sessions, with a special accent on personal accompaniment. The richnes of the excursions, one for each stage, also deserves mention:

• Taize, with on this occasion the possibility of spending two days on this hill among the young people, and welcomed so fraternally by the brothers. A visit to Cluny provided a glimpse of monastic history of France.

• The Orthodox monastery of St Silouan, where the brothers and sisters participated in the eucharistic liturgy and felt a little more keenly the pain of the division of Christians since we could not receive communion together. We did, however, receive a very warm welcome.

• Ligugé, the monastery of St Martin, the most ancient abbey known in Gaul, founded in the fourth century by St Martin. The return journey took us to the Abbey of the Holy Cross, close by, which possesses a relic of the true Cross, which we venerated before Vespers.

• Candes, where St Martn died, then the Abbey of Fontevrault, now a cultural centre – another fine slice of monasticism to discover.

The Session of 2021

At the beginning of 2020 we undertook the preparation for the session of 2021. Because of the medical situation it seemed to us more prudent to postpone it till the following year. So the next session will take place from 7th September to 1st December, 2022.

Perspectives

Sister Marie-Lucie, OCist

Monastery of Vinh Phuoc (Vietnam)

Monastic Formation in Vietnam

Monastic life in Vietnam is full of vitality. There are 21 monasteries including two of the Congregation of Vanves, six of Benedictines of Subiaco-Monte Cassino, three of Cistercians of the Holy Family, nine of Cistercians and one of Bernardines, so six monasteries of women and fifteen of men, without counting dependent houses or foundations being prepared.

Every two years a three-day meeting on formation occurs for the Vietnamese Benedictines and Cistercians, comprising the study of a document of the Holy See on monastic life or the consecrated life in general. Initial formation is of course undertaken for each monastery both among the Benedictines and among the Cistercians. Sessions for the formators occur regularly. The Vietnamese province of the Congregation of Subiaco-Monte Cassino organises permanent formation: each year the province has a session of one week on spiritual or monastic subects. Philosophical and theological formation takes place either in the monastery or at the major seminary or in a Studium (Franciscan, Salesian, etc).

The Congregation of the Holy Family has put in place a formation commission which meets regularly and follows initiatives in this area. The Congregation has internoviciate meetings for two or three days every alternate year, for monks one year, for nuns the other. Similarly, there are also meetings between the temporarily professed, and equally sessions for the solemnly professed of all the monasteries of the Congregation. The Congregation also has a studium for the study of philosophy and theology for the monks.

In 1992 for the first time courses of theology for religious were able be organised at Ho-Chi-Minh City, thanks to Mgr Paul Nguyen Van Binh (of the Archdiocese of Ho-Chi-Minh City). The sisters of the three Cistercian houses (Vinh Phuoc, Phuoc Thien and Phuoc Hai) live in a house at Ho-Chi-Minh City, fitted out in 2007 with the help of AIM. This year 24 sisters are studying, 15 in the third year of theology, and 19 in the second year. The place is used also for open sessions of various religious congregations. During the year the house is occupied by some 15 solemnly professed Cistercian sisters. The house serves also as a meeting-point for sisters on business in the city.

We should mention also that meetings are organised for those who are solemnly professed. There are sessions in the Congregation of the Holy Family for different categories of people, some of whom have a special responsibility, guest-masters and mistresses, bursars, librarians, elderly professed, mature professed, professed younger than 40 years.

Perspectives

Brother Pius Boa, OSB

Abbey of Ndanda (Tanzania)

Monastic Formation in Tanzania

On behalf of Major Superiors of four Benedictine Abbeys of St. Ottilien Congregation in Tanzania which comprises Peramiho, Ndanda, Hanga and Mvimwa, I would reply your email concerning initiatives at different levels of formation as follows:

For initial formation during candidacy and postulancy, there is no a joint programme.

At the level of novitiate and juniorate there is a joint programme of the seminar organized by the Benedictine Union of Tanzania (BUT) for the preparation of temporary profession and final profession. The novices are given a one-week seminar each year.

For juniors, especially those who are preparing for final vows, there is a joint programme of a one-month seminar. They are taught by different teachers on the topics about the Rule of St. Benedict, monastic spirituality, Holy Bible, human resource management and book-keeping. There is also a one-week seminar for the senior monks (priests and brothers) organized by Ndanda Spiritual Centre (Zakeo) each year.

Concerning formators, most of them have attended the Monastic Formators Programme in Rome and some have attended monastic spiritual theology in Sant’Anselmo, Rome. Also, most of the superiors i.e. abbots, priors and bursars, have attended a leadership course given in Sant’ Anselmo.

Perspectives

Mother Anna Chiara Meli, OCSO

Priory of Mvanda (DRC)

Formation Sessions in the Monastery of Mvanda (DRC)

The monastery of Our Lady of Mvanda was founded from Our Lady of the Star (Parakou, Bénin) in 1991. In 2000 the Abbey of Vitorchiano sent five sisters to take up the responsibility of the development of this community. Mvanda was raised to be a simple Priory on 15th February, 2010.

For some years a need had been felt at Kikwit to offer to young candidates for the monastic life or the religious apostolate the possibility of a year of recollection and of pre-formation. In fact the formators of different communities find themselves increasingly confronted with the problem of a lack of solid foundations, both from the viewpoint of the intellectual and personal structure of candidates. Because of this, formators find themselves obliged to focus on aspects which should have been acquired beforehand, such as knowledge of French, a minimum of self-knowledge, basic catechetical formation, etc, instead of concentrating on purely monastic formation. Many have found this fiercely discouraging. From the viewpoint of the candidates for formation the risk is genuine of growing up with human and spiritual lacunae which are artificially filled by accumulation of knowledge, resting on a basis which risks being swept away by the first crisis.

The project taken up by the Trappistine nuns of Mvanda took a concrete form in March 2014. It was then that construction began of a centre destined to accommodate these activities. On 19th March 2014 a first planning conference took place in the presence of Dom Jean-Pierre Longeat, president of AIM, Mother Anna-Chiara, OCSO, of Mvanda, Sister Patrizia, OCSO, Sister Catherine-Noel and Brother Benedict (Tiberiade). The school is open to young people who live in community for at least one year as aspirants or postulants. The first year of study began on 15th September 2014 and ended on 19th June 2015. The time of formation is arranged in the mornings from Monday to Friday. A programme runs over three trimesters in a progression of an approach to the person:

• First trimester: History and my history

• Second trimester: Self-knowledge for self-construction

• Third trimester: An alliance with the Bible.

Courses have also been set up on geography, biology, history, French, etc.

For some years the Priory of Mvanda has organised also sessions for postulants and novices of religious congregations in the region, including monasteries.

Nzonkanda ya lutondo: school of love

This project of creating a school of formation for religious was born from a need felt locally for proposing for young monks and nuns a programme of formation more specifically oriented to the aim of their contemplative vocation. At the same time, by opening to other congregations who were prepared to send their young people, we hope to correspond to the appeal formulated in that fine document CIVCSVA on ‘the contemplative dimension of the consecrated life’ and to give also to young religious and apostolic religious a firm basis for their mission. It is clear that we have been inspired by the experiment made in Belgium and France with the Institut Théologique Inter-Monastique (ITIM) and the Studium théologique Inter-Monastères (STIM). However, we are trying to adapt our programmes and the level of the courses to our own African reality and rhythm.

We do not intend to offer our young people a formation of the type given by universities – that is what universities are for! If we cannot form saints either (that comes only from God’s work) we would at least hope that this may be the desire of our young people. Through this balanced human and theological formation our religious should fall deeply in love with Christ and his Church. Our approach attempts to allow our young people to ‘taste and see how good the Lord is’. A rigorous approach, rooted in Scripture and Tradition, careful to impart the teaching of the Church intelligently. This must not simply be repeated but should be assimilated for com-prehension (taking into oneself) and re-birth, an intimate experience of God and the Church.

The teachers aim to impart not so much a knowledge as a method of working. They are required to give the students a copy of their course and, as far as possible, an up-to-date bibliography. The first two cycles (and especially the first) are based as far as possible on Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Vatican II and the more recent papal encyclicals. In fact we offer two cycles, The first is aimed at aspirants, postulants and novices or young professed. The second is intended for simply or solemnly professed. The future will show whether a third cycle should be envisaged.

Perspectives

Dom Chad Boulton, OSB

Abbey of Ampleforth (United Kingdom)

What keeps you from Going Stale?

A Congregational response to the challenge

of continuing formation

In a pandemic, the horizon can shrink to getting through each day. In monastic life it becomes perhaps increasingly important to remember the broader and longer picture. What does it mean to belong to a Congregation? Not only the letter expressed in the Constitutions but the spirit fostered by mutual support, not only the structures of a Visitation but the dynamism of links between houses. What does it mean to grow throughout a monastic life? Not only the requirements of initial formation but the need for continuing development, not only individually but also collectively.

These two central questions were brought together when the General Chapter of the English Benedictine Congregation established a Continuing Formation Commission in 2017, in order to ‘support our communities in discerning how a culture of continuing formation can grow. They stressed ‘the importance of collaboration between the monasteries… believing that this is important for their well-being and even for their survival’.

Earlier in 2017 the Congregation for Religious (CICLSAL) had published ‘New Wine in New Wineskins’, which helped to shape this Commission.

‘There is the risk that continuous formation gets talked about a lot, but that very little is actually done. Organising theoretical courses on theology and covering themes of spirituality is not enough; it is urgent that we develop a culture of permanent formation…to review and verify the real lived experience within the community.’

The Chapter was seeking to build on the work done by the 2015 Forum, gathering the younger members of the Congregation, to draw together their ideas and proposals on monastic renewal in the EBC, including the topics of ‘community’ and ‘formation’. Their papers were presented to an extraordinary General Chapter that followed on immediately, and then discussed by all the houses individually. The 2017 Chapter was also responding to its own consideration of the Abbatial office and wanted further work on the nature of leadership across the Congregation.

This was a new type of Commission[1], asked not to produce documents, but to engage monasteries in the process of developing a culture of formation, emphasizing a sense of spiritual vitality that is wider than any theological updating or professional training. Such a wide-ranging task required a certain flexibility in its method, and six participants at the Chapter were chosen, to provide the necessary breadth and experience.

From the start we decided to meet up regularly, at a different house of the Congregation each time. These gatherings allowed us as a commission to build up our own understanding of and trust in each other. We always began with a careful ‘catch up’ of what had been happening in our individual or community’s life. To our surprise and delight, we found we got on well and actually enjoyed our times together. Each contributed their particular expertise and experience, either in official positions as chair, secretary, treasurer or in informal but vital roles as ‘conscience’, ‘sage’, ‘scribe’.These gatherings also allowed us to meet the community we were visiting, to pray, eat and discuss with them, and to hear their views on formation. Encouragingly these sessions were well attended and provided a fascinating snapshot of the different monasteries. We usually opened with the question ‘what keeps you from going stale?’, and this soon led into responses on both individual and communal formation. We got a sense of those communities which were used to meeting and talking together and those for whom these gatherings were moments of reticence and tension.

Part of our task was to organize two biennial Conferences as ‘strong moments’ in the overall process of developing a culture of formation. The first was held in 2018. After much discussion on our given topic of ‘leadership’, we decided on the theme ‘taking responsibility for your community’, inviting not Superiors but a broader cross section of four members from each house, especially welcoming those not usually participating at Congregational events.

We were greatly helped by the support and encouragement of the Abbot President, and by an external consultant, Caryn Vanstone, who had already worked with monasteries. She brought freshness and rigour to our discussions and enabled us to achieve a clarity and coherence that would not have otherwise have been possible. She particularly emphasized the need to see this conference as part of an overall process, involving both preparation and follow-up. One tool that proved remarkably useful was the art of ‘appreciative inquiry’. This reversed the usual monastic dynamic of focusing on problems and invited the conference participants to start with what was going well and to envisage how that could develop. This approach was encouraged both in interviewing their communities before the conference and in sharing their input during the conference.

The event itself was generously hosted by Buckfast Abbey, and superbly facilitated by Caryn and her husband, Bruno. There were some formal talks, but the emphasis was more on engaging the delegates, grouped around tables, through a structured progression over the four days, stirring up through challenging input, then allowing time for making sense and taking stock, before finally planning ahead. A central element throughout was the legacy of child abuse that was confronting the congregation through the public inquiry IICSA (Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse). There was, therefore, both honesty and humility in the participants’ planning for their communities. These plans were presented to the Superiors who attended the final day. After the conference communities were asked to select one of their delegates for a Facilitation training programme organized by Caryn and including the St Ottilien congregation.

The second conference for 2020 was planned to focus on Superiors, but also involving those whom communities had elected as delegates for the next General Chapter. There was a double aim, to equip Superiors with the ‘soft skills’ of leadership, and to develop a new way of meeting as a Congregation that could then influence the process of General Chapter. All our discussions and plans, however, were overtaken by Covid restrictions and we had to re-think. Forced ‘online’, we continued to meet fortnightly, and finally decided to offer a series of ‘webinars’ to the whole congregation, which started with a twenty-minute talk leading into forty minutes of questions and comments. There was a variety of speakers, monastic, religious, lay, but they all took different aspects of the pandemic crisis. These proved surprisingly popular and offered the chance for the different houses to see and hear each other, if only as squares on a Zoom screen. We also have just begun monthly online gatherings for those going to the General Chapter, Superiors, Delegates and Officials, in small groups which we facilitate. We hope that these will enable the capitulars to a deeper understanding of each other and a stronger collaboration with each other, to allow for a more fruitful General Chapter.

The last twelve months have been particularly challenging, but all four years of our time as a commission have been demanding. Our work has been on top of our existing commitments, which have themselves changed over that time, as some have taken up new positions, as Superiors, School Heads, Priors. In this final stage we are now considering how to hand on our work.

Reflecting on this narrative, I would like to offer some overall conclusions.

Openness to the Spirit

This was never a straightforward commission. There have been many moments of frustration when we have needed patience, as our understanding of our task has evolved. Amidst all the fluctuations and all our busy-ness, we have had to trust the Spirit, and not grab for a premature clarity, preempting or foreclosing the necessary debate and exchange. Changing circumstances, such as Covid, tested that openness to change, as we worked out how to adapt and change our cherished plans.

Model the message

This task has been formative for us, and we have ourselves experienced the sort of ‘cross-fertilisation’ that we are looking to encourage in the Congregation. There has been a genuine communion at work, a sense that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The importance of enjoying our gatherings, the human investment in building up the team, has been balanced by a healthy accountability in keeping each other honest.

Earthing the task

Our visits to each community have been vital in keeping us in touch with the reality of the lived experience for our monasteries. Groups that meet too separately can develop their own language, becoming increasingly distant from their primary context. In addition to their own community, each member was responsible for one or two ‘link’ communities, which ensured that between us the whole Congregation was connected.

Things old and new

Like the householder bringing from his treasure things old and new, we have tried to combine the strengths of our monastic tradition with insights from the broader Church and world. We have recommended speakers, books and websites to each other. Our external consultant has been crucial in sharing her wider experience in the right amount and at the right time.

Congregationality

The last reflection returns to those opening two questions about the purpose of a Congregation and the nature of formation. Our commission has developed our understanding of formation, taking us from the individual to the community and finally to the Congregation. One of the surprising discoveries has been that of ‘congregationality’, experienced in our community visits, at the Buckfast conference, in the lockdown Webinars. Just as a gathering of cousins meeting for the first time can discover a sense of family, so we have discovered a shared identity through the connections across our different houses. Nowhere has this been more true than in our time together as a commission.

[1] The others on the commission are Mark Barrett (Worth), Anna Brennan (Stanbrook), Cuthbert Elliott (St Louis), Francis Straw (Buckfast), Brendan Thomas (Belmont).

Witness

Sister Claire Cachia, OSB

Monastery of Martigné-Briand (France)

Les études de théologie au monastère

No one enters a monastery in order to study theology, but rather to take a path of interior liberation which can lead to holding nothing more dear than Christ. Nevertheless, it can happen that circumstances allow such study and that these circumstances are favourable to monastic life. This short witness would like to echo such a possibility.

Theological study can begin already in the noviciate, thanks to courses sent in or personal reading which can be appreciated more profoundly at the beginning of monastic formation. After temporary profession it is our custom to reserve a year for insertion into the community by work and fraternal life. Nevertheless, during this year I was able to complete a most enriching study on St Irenaeus. It constituted a good entry into theology, guided by a professor at the Catholic University of Angers. After that I participated in STIM, a cycle shared over three years. Quite apart from the fine teaching, this enabled me to experience exchanges and meetings with other young monks and nuns, and some links forged at that time have lasted till today. After this I completed the cycle for the Bac by sharing with the Centre Sèvres and its well-developed pedagogical method. Next I was able to complete the second cycle of theology at the Catholic University of Angers over four years by means of one afternoon a week at the faculty, thereby obtaining a canonical licence. Finally my studies were completed by the writing of a thesis at the Catholic University of Angers on the status of sense perception in the Questions to Thalassios of Maximus the Confessor. In my view the whole study of theology up to the canonical licence is aimed at the acquisition of a certain culture in theology which represents a major task with regard to the breadth of our tradition of Christian thought. But the work on a thesis is really a personal and creative task where it is possible to add one’s own little pebble to the building which is the study of theology, and provide a basis for the work of others who are pursuing this task. I completed these long studies in parallel with the tasks which were given me in community, first the kitchen, then the jam-workshop, then the pottery and the vegetable garden. I would like briefly to outline the benefits of theological study for monastic life.

The first point concerns our monastic tradition. The Rule of St Benedict counsels the division of the time not given to the opus Dei between lectio divina and manual labour. Lectio divina is the study of the Bible and the Fathers, a prayerful and nourishing study, and it is wholly possible to find this nourishment for the soul in the study of theology, provided that it is approached with a thirst for the mystery rather than a secret intention to derive from them a personal glory. The same distinction is of course applicable to manual labour. It should be added that it was in monasteries that the culture of antiquity was preserved in the West, despite the chances of history and political upheavals. In our day the upheavals which shake our society perhaps still require that monasteries should be places which encourage the transmission of a culture, notably that of ancient languages, the teaching of which has been brutally curtailed in recent years.

The second contribution of theological study is that of a human balance. Our nature is so made as to express itself in all its faculties, and just as physical labour allows the harmonious exercise of all the bodily forces, so study enables the exercise of mental energy. Hence study makes it possible to find a balance, provided that one has the taste for it. To concentrate on a subject and to deepen it is a discipline which allows one to defuse personal problems, to open oneself to the thought of another and to enlarge one’s interior world.

Finally, the third point I would like to raise is the most important. The study of theology can be a necessary support to monastic life in itself. At the time through which we are living at the moment monastic life is subject to brutal cultural changes. It is absolutely necessary to take account of our reasons for choosing this way of life, and what are its essentials and what can be lost without changing its very nature. In making this discernment the study of theology is very precious from several points of view. By the confrontation with the thought of Christians passionately involved in their faith such study can arouse an intense personal experience of the faith. It also expresses this experience, for it gives the possibility of putting the interior realities into words, thus giving them more strength, more conviction and making them communicable to others. Lastly it can become a nourishment for faith and an impetus to progress in the union with God. Regular and profound confrontation with an author in the perspective of needing to give an account of one’s work obliges a reader to enter into a process of thought much more consistent that when one reads the books simply by personal preference. It is a matter of building up a sort of interior construction capable of resisting storms and contrary winds, and which makes possible the contruction of an intellectual personality, a richness which can also be passed on to others who thirst for it.

Opening on the world

Professeur Italo de Sandre

Challenges to Christians and those living a Consecrated Life in a Troubled World[1]

The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying for help because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings.’ (Exodus 3.7)

1. To see and listen in order to know: Christians should know that these are the first steps in any work of mercy, and that mutatis mutandis this is also the heart of the social sciences. A first problem, and a question not always solved in the Church of today, is to be truly available and ready to see, to hear and to understand the reality of the life of persons and of society, and not only what is going well and satisfactorily and beyond question. Sociological observation does not put forward an ideology of society (as certain Catholic milieux, even of the highest status, express it and understand it) but seeks to contribute by seeing things as far as possible in their complexity, with recourse to trustworthy (repeatable), valid (capable of representing the reality which is being studied) and transparent criteria, subject to control and criticism. It was in this spirit that, to give an example, in the 1990s the religious institutes, both masculine and feminine, of the North-East of Italy linked up with the Socio-Religious Observatory of the Episcopal Conference of the Three Venices to set about an ‘Observatory of the Consecrated Life’. This published, among other papers, research on ‘Young People and the Consecrated Life. Another Way’, which was published as a collective work. The representations made by the young people among religious and priests were already disenchanted and in conflict with the more institutional aspects of the consecrated life, especially the priests (‘They have the answer ready before you put the question’). But even this period of listening and of openness in the world of religious was rapidly closed again. Another example: recently, to prepare a Church Congress of Aquileia (in the North-East of Italy) in 2012 the bishops of the Three Venices asked the Socio-Religious Observatory of the Bishops’ Conference of the Three Venices (OSReT[2]) for an important and complex socio-religious enquiry, whose results, no less critical than interesting, were presented and seriously discussed by many of those responsible for pastoral discipline; but the bishops did not think it wise to publish them and hardly took note of their final conclusions. Many Catholics, bishops, religious and lay, reckoned that they ‘already knew’ them and that they had no need for ‘sociological complications’. In our day, by contrast, the Pope, as Cardinal Bergoglio, was eager that, before and between the sessions of the Synod on the Family, all the Churches and all those who were willing to voice their own witness to this life should be heard. This was an unprecedented and important decision, perhaps more for its method than for its contents, which corresponds to the results produced. Who knows when and who would make this decision and so give full value to the experience of faith and life played out in the consciousness of the faithful? This was a complexity of experiences which cannot be neglected without doing violence. Personally I judge that even monastic ommunities should set up, in their various countries, little groups of researchers among the monks and nuns (or more generally, religious) to establish and understand their changing reality.

2. For some time now various studies have shown that between parents and children an important intergenerational slippage occurs in the values accepted on faith (for example, the truth of the Gospels and Christ) and in practice, especially in the domain of morals in general and particularly in the realm of affectivity and sexuality. The image of the Church was already very problematical because of its message of austerity. Nor should one suppose that the personal sympathy enjoyed by Pope Francis extends to a sympathy and a generalised confidence in the Church as an institution. Religious practice is finding ways which imply a reduced presence of the Church (‘not too much Church’), though stopping short – for the moment – of ‘no church required’. Take note of the crowds in special sanctuaries or place of cult, thronged not only with inactive and poorly instructed people, according to the canons of popular piety, but also by active and well-instructed people who are looking for a personal path, founded on confident faith in the variously welcoming places.

The attitude of women is not much different from that of men. All the same, as the level of instruction becomes higher, so do the critical positions towards Catholicism and the Church. This implies that the traditional transmission of the faith by women cannot any more be taken for granted. The active presence of women, both consecrated and lay, more critical and more mature, requires a dialogue of reflection, shared and profound. All the same, the traditional sense of ‘service’ must be intelligently revisited across the board among both men and women.

3. The centrality of the individual, at least in the West, has led people to feel and claim to be autonomous with regard to institutions social, civil and religious (but not economic, since the market strikes consumers in a thousand and one ways). Communication technology has led to an explosion in this phenomenon. The maturing of persons functions across a course longer and less certain, encouraged by a longer period of study and rendered less directive by the multiple choices and unlimited aspirations which have become possible. More and more, vocations to the consecrated life emerge at any age where the person has aleady acquired a mature personality, less (or with more difficulty) adept at accommodating the institute entered, making the identification and organisation of the common life more complex. The unity of personal life, both for a monk and for a nun, can no longer be taken for granted, and is not obvious in roles or behaviour. This autonomy of the person, felt and claimed, is centred on the body. The body is no longer considered as something negative, to be hidden and devalued in relation to the ‘spirit’. On the contrary, it is closely linked to the spirit and reason in an active and positive sense. The consumer society encourages experiences, trying out the five senses in the most numerous possible circumstances. Thus purchases are no longer made simply for possession and use, but in order to be lived with in an emotional, physical experience, either alone or with others.

Body-spirits have a sexuality and a role which are partially transformed. This applies not only to homosexulity (as is the case with opposing ideologies in Italy). The traditional inequalities between man and woman are no longer accepted either in society or in any particular sphere of life. Discussion and confrontations (even certain manifestations of street politics), which are emerging in the framework of the debate raised by the recent synod, have shown that even in the bosom of the hierarchy and among the Catholic ‘faithful’ there exist sometimes radical differences in the way of thinking, of governing, or living out the body and the type. Bodily types which concern also the consecrated life of women and men, priests and religious, including the choice of celibacy and a virginal life, were not thematised, perhaps deliberately. This remains the case even though in lived life they interact with male and female lay people, whose perception of body and gender is different, which raises problems for the elaboration of relationships and of education in the Church and in society. In relationships between religious institutions and society, between consecrated people and lay people, the way in which personality is expressed covers non-verbal dimensions in which the body is central, either for its richness or for its weakness, both in life and in communication and in existence in general, in help given and help needed.

4. In every society styles of life (ways of being, of thinking, of believing, of acting, of relating) become a central reality. They constitute a fundamental medium of verbal and non-verbal communication of personal values in the way life is lived. The importance of styles of life lies in the personalisation of belief and action in daily life. It must not be forgotten that in actual reality those who count themselves Catholic in fact adopt styles of life which are extremely diversified or even contradictory. In fact, many of those who call themselves Catholic observe neither the social morals nor the sexual morals taught by the Church, hold different political opinions, etc. This makes it necesssary to have, especially in the religious domain, a realistic estimate and a serious dialogical discernment about daily life in order to be mutually responsible towards one another, rather than merely reprimanding ‘the others’. This must take into account the increasing decline in the religiosity of the Church as well as a serious discernment of the faith which is truly present but often confused, especially among the young. Some theologians have described the simplistic attitude of the young as ‘the first generations of unbelievers’ or ‘little atheists’. This has led a large number of them, even among priests and religious, to say that nothing more can be done. This perspective does not give enough weight to the problem of the existence of a new spirituality (not necessarily anti-religious) which it is worth living and expressing, a spirituality to be studied, understood and dialogued. A very large number of people have already left the Church because the Church has turned its back on their way of life.

5. When I recall the reflections we used to make in the 1990s I find it apposite to recall the paradoxical invitation addressed to religious institutes of men and women not only to ‘come out’ as Pope Francis has encouraged them to do, but also – and even first – to open up, in an appropriate but concrete way, not only their ‘museums’ but also the doors to their daily life, so that a greater number of people may know the styles of life, human and Christian, not only the identity of the consecrated communities (the back office not only the front office), their inner courtyard, not only their outward façade, so that their humanity and their proximity may be appreciated – proximity also in the transparency necessary in a witness. Proximity also between religious institutes, between monasteries which should share more openly their experiences and the witness of their lives, both contemplative and active. Perhaps there are here ways of co-operating which are desirable or indeed necessry. In the past these were unthinkable because of the care to safeguard the identity of each institute, which made much of the witness of the choice of the religious and monastic life, if not of Christianity itself.

This need is reinforced (at least in the West) by the diminution or indeed extinction of vocations, by the ageing and numerical reduction of the members of many communities, which is approaching closure for some communities or religious families, or at least a reduction of life within the communities.

6. As for the Church in general, we may pick up the theme of ‘service’, already touched upon. Once more the words and actions of the Pope – whom it is not rare to see strongly criticized – seem to direct us nowadays to a true and effective service more than to the imposition of authority: real help to the weak, the poor, the marginalized, those who know suffering and also those who have abandoned the ‘regular’ path. ‘Authority’ in the institutional sense, both religious and moral, is normally understood as a legitimate form of the power to command, to make others do what the holder of authority considers just and good, shared actions and structures which function exclusively from above to below, in the form of order, rules, duties. In reality this is not the only form of power; it has a tendency to be rigid and at most only partly controlled. From the sociologiccal viewpoint it seems that there is frequent recourse to the rhetorical expedient which consists in associating a priori the term ‘service’ with this vertical model, even though it is not so perceived by others. In fact in our day, on the basis of everything that has been said, such a legitimation cuts across a total questioning, evident in the civil sphere, less shrill but also present in the religious world, as research has shown. But, when authority is neither recognised as legitimate (and so no longer enjoying confident acceptance) nor liked, what this authority does is interpreted and eventually accepted with a different force. The fact that it ‘serves’, lays down actions and pronounces words which ‘serve’ the life of persons and communities, will in fact be interpreted, even by interested parties. Authority must be recognised in a new way in a relationship which is no longer top-down, a command to obedience, as in former times, but in a relationship of respect free of humiliation, a reciprocal listening and so a dialogue on the needs and expectations, the possibilities and limits. In these days between authoritarianism and authority comes, for example, competence which must be granted its value (and in many spheres lay people are at least as competent as religious), empathy, the conviction that a capacity to work together and travel together is a richness. Service must be more easily recognisable as such, must give reason for its own validity without dressing up in the clothing of non-authenticity.

7. Everything we have said so far subtends a red line, a way of thinking of things and persons which must be described as ‘complex thinking’. Throughout the twentieth century science has cultivated a methodical and systematic sense of the complexity of knowledge and of life. In this domain maturity is reached essentially precisely at the moment of analysing with these new instruments society, persons, our world and the universe as a system. Pope Francis himself – though of course in theological and pastoral language – has implicitly expressed it in his own way in his first apostolic exhortation, and continually and increasingly given it to us in his discourses delivered in the United States, in Africa, in his Laudato Si’, in his post-synodal exhortations, in the dialogues with the press, given in the course of his journeys. To speak of complexity means to avoid reductionism and over-simplification, to avoid short cuts of the kind which accepts only what is convenient to us. It means knowing how to include in our reflection the implications of action taken. This implies eagerness to show how order and disorder, good and evil, justice and injustice are interwoven, how to look at things with realism, to map out where it is necessary to exercise discernment in order to be able to project and complete something better, to know how to recognise also the limits and conflicts in order to build bridges, to know that the whole is greater than the parts which make it up, but that – when for example it is a quesstion of persons, families, societies – paradoxically the whole is still less than the sum of its parts because each person and each family has its proper value, quite apart from the values of the group to which it belongs. A whole (for example, a family, a religious community, a Church) has its own DNA, its specific source-code, which is present also in each of the parts of the whole (such is the Christian conception of the person). The real complexity of religious experience is (as we have tried to explain) the fruit of a succession of mutations and of enormous importance: the absolute centrality a) of the subject, of the autonomy of the choices made by the person, b) of the technological innovations available to the person, which are also directly and indirectly linked to c) the limitless variety of millions and millions of persons, and so d) the simultaneous existence of a great plurality of experiences and religious institutions, e) always more dependent on the acceptance or refusal on the part of the individuals.

If one prefers to stick to a simplified vision, one will have the impression of being safe, but inevitably one will be shut in; one will not listen to oneself, but neither will anyone else.

[1] A contribution to the General Chapter of the Congregation of Subiaco-Monte Cassino in September 2016. Italo de Sandre is professor of sociology at the University of Padua. He teaches sociology of religion at the faculty of the Three Venices and at the Institute of Pastoral Liturgy of Padua. He is a member of the scientific committee of ORSeT, the Sociol-religious Observatory of the Three Venices. In recent years his research has been primarily directed to the fundamental problems of social action, and in particular the analytical implications of the processes of solidarity and communication, and the transformation of symbolic codes in the framework of a growing cultural, moral and religious pluralism.

[2] Osservatorio Socio-Religioso Triveneto, a centre of research formed in 1989 as an association between the dioceses of the Three Venices and an organ of the Episcopal Conference. Cf. https://www.osret.it/it/pagina.php/100. [Editorial note]

A page of History

Brother Daniel Ludik, Order of Holy Cross

Priory of St Benedict, Volmoed (South Africa)

The Priory of Volmoed,

Ecumenism in action

Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? (James 4.14)

On 30 August 2019, three brothers of the Order of the Holy Cross, an Anglican Benedictine Order, arrived at the Volmoed Retreat Centre near Hermanus in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, having left their monastery near Makhanda (Grahamstown) in the Eastern Cape Province with a truckload of bibles, breviaries, books, icons, statues, furniture, and a dog.

A brief history of the Order of the Holy Cross

The Order of the Holy Cross (OHC) was founded by Fr James Otis Sargent Huntington in 1884 in New York City, as an order of missionary priests who worked mainly with poor immigrants and for social justice. OHC soon developed a particular focus on education, including the founding of schools for poor children. In America, OHC has founded St Andrews School in Sewanee, Tennessee, and Kent School in Kent, Connecticut. OHC has also been involved in Africa since the early 20th century, with a foundation in Bolahun, Liberia, where the Order started St Mary’s School. This monastery sadly had to close in the 1980s due to the civil war there.

Desiring to continue its presence in Africa, and at the invitation of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, OHC founded Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery near Grahamstown in South Africa in 1998. The monastic community soon started an after-school programme and a scholarship fund, for the children of farm labourers in the vicinity of the monastery. However, one of the major problems identified in education in South Africa is a poor foundation phase, and so we decided to start a foundation-phase school that would cater for Grades Reception to 3, and thus Holy Cross School was begun in 2010.

The Benedictine embrace

Over time, and as society changed, OHC became more Benedictine in spirit and charism and, with the encouragement of the American Camaldolese, with whom the Order is in a covenant relationship, OHC officially became Benedictine at its annual Chapter in 1984, one hundred years after its founding.

As Benedictines, we were invited to join BECOSA (Benedictine Communities of Southern Africa) soon after our arrival in South Africa. This has been a most valuable resource for us as a community. It is not a well-known fact that there are monastics in the Anglican Church, so it is very important and helpful to us to be part of a wider monastic family. Through BECOSA, we have been introduced to the Monastic Formator’s Programme, which five OHC monks have attended from South Africa over the years. We have also, through BECOSA, been participants in various programmes and courses made possible by the generosity of AIM. This is probably an article on its own; however, it is also a good opportunity to say, “thank you”, again!

The Volmoed Retreat Centre

The Volmoed Retreat Centre came about in the early 1980s, during the height of apartheid in South Africa, from a common vision of Bernhard Turkstra, then a hotel owner, and Barry Woods, an Anglican priest, to have a place that is overtly Christian, yet where people of all races and faiths could find safety and welcome for healing and reconciliation. They eventually found a farm called Volmoed (an Afrikaans word meaning “full of courage”), from its origins as a leper colony in the 18th century, and a faith journey started in a wonderful place that has borne much fruit over the years.

The residential Volmoed community consists of a few retired couples who have all been to a greater or lesser extent involved in the day-to-day business of running Volmoed. The retreat centre is managed by a dedicated team of staff under a board of trustees, not all of whom are resident on the property. To complete the circle for the Order of the Holy Cross, Bishop Desmond Tutu also happens to be the current patron of Volmoed.

Moving to Volmoed

So, what brought the monks to Volmoed? Soon after its inception, Holy Cross School had been expanding by a grade a year. It had become clear that the school should continue to expand, beyond foundation phase and into a fully-fledged primary school. Owing to the building layout on the property, the cheapest and most sensible option was to convert the nearby monks’ enclosure into extra classrooms for the additional grades.

Initially, the monks moved into part of the monastery’s guesthouse complex, but this soon seemed unsustainable. We then started looking for alternative accommodation and, because of previous contacts with the Volmoed community, we asked them to help us with possibilities in the Western Cape.

Part of the ethos of Volmoed is to have a prayerful presence at all times. This had been offered by Fr Barry Woods until his death in early 2019. So, when we enquired about possibilities in the Western Cape, instead of pointing us to other options, they invited us to come and live alongside them as a prayerful presence.

Well, as they say, the rest is history and so the Priory of St Benedict at Volmoed came into being. As can be expected, to move from a fully autonomous monastery into an existing and well-functioning ecumenical space offers a particular set of challenges and opportunities.

Life at Volmoed

I have talked about Volmoed as a place of healing and reconciliation, so this is of itself a very vibrant ministry. Volmoed has relationships with various local and international organisations and communities dedicated to peacebuilding and reconciliation. One of those is the Community of the Cross of Nails at Coventry Cathedral.

Through the Volmoed Youth Leadership Training Programme (VYLTP), there is also a lively relationship with the Taizé community in France. VYLTP is a nine-week residential programme, after which one or two young people who have shown themselves suitable are chosen and sent to Taizé for three months to work in their volunteer programmes.

For worship, Volmoed has a chapel complex with a large main chapel, smaller sanctuary chapel and, on the lower level, several other rooms. Those rooms and the sanctuary are for our use. The rooms on the lower level we are using as a scriptorium, an office, and a small chapter room.

We follow our daily monastic Horarium and are quite often joined by members from the Volmoed community and/or guests. Our Sunday Eucharist is often attended by quite a number of locals who do not feel particularly connected to a local parish or congregation.

Volmoed has been offering an ecumenical communion service on Thursday mornings for the past several decades and these have proved to be very popular with the wider Hermanus community. The monastic community has been asked to lead the service on the last Thursday of every month, and we have used this opportunity inter alia to introduce the congregation to various kinds of chanting (via YouTube) which has helped to settle people down and bring them into a fuller sense of quiet, to the appreciation of a number of people, and not least the monks! These Thursday Eucharists have also introduced several Sunday attendees to us.

There are many other organisations and people in this area that we have either met or hoped to meet, with whom we could forge relationships and ministries. Sadly, though, for the major part of our time so far here at Volmoed, South Africa, and the rest of the world for that matter, has been in a state of lockdown or other restriction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our hope is to pursue those potential relationships as and when possible.

As a monastic community, we are grateful to God that we are in a position to offer spiritual direction, especially during these times. This ministry took off almost immediately after our arrival and has hopefully made some difference for some people. Many people are really struggling with not being able to be present when loved ones die, or not being able to be with those who are sick, or being alone while sick. On top of this, there is so much uncertainty and fear, often not helped by the news media. Nevertheless, on-line forms of communication have proved invaluable in this ministry, especially for those too far away to come and see us in person.

As James says, ‘yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring’, in these uncertain times, we do not know a lot of things; however, in Christ, we know what our life is and we give thanks daily.

Monks and nuns, witnesses for our times

The Sisters of Encontro (Brazil)

Mother Marie-Chantal Modoux

1919-2020

Madre Marie-Chantal (Marguerite) Modoux was born at Promasens, Fribourg, on 21st February, 1919, the eldest of four girls. She loved the mountains, the sky and also the sea. A born educator, she attended the École Ménagère and then worked as a tutor to a diplomatic family confined to the Vatican during the War. The Swiss Guard certainly took notice of ‘la bella rossa’ – she told us so herself. After that she worked in Spain. A female friend, an oblate of Ligugé, lent her Dom Marmion’s book, Christ, the Ideal of the Monk. When she finished reading it she closed the book and said, ‘It is that or nothing’. To discover where it should be, she contacted three monasteries and it was the response of Mother Thomas Aquinas of the monastery of Our Lady of Bethany in Loppem near Bruges in Belgium which won her. Everything was prepared for her to enter Bethany when Madame Modoux fell ill with cancer. Marie-Chantal, as the eldest, decided to abandon monastic life to look after her mother. However, the doctor said, ‘Your mother will live for many years. Follow your own path.’

On 16th October, 1953, she entered Bethany, and on 4th June of the following year began the noviciate with the name of Sister Marie-Chantal. Sister Anne Farcy, who would later come with her to Brazil, was the eldest of the white veils whom she must obey. Sister Marie-Chantal made her first profession on 21st August, 1954, and three years later solemn profession, on 23rd August, 1957. Her mother, who had gone into a depression at the moment of her entry to the monastery, was present at Bethany for each important moment. On 29th November in the same year Madre left for the Congo, completing the community founded by Bethany at Kikula, Likasi, where she lived for six years.

In 1960 Pope John XXIII made an appeal for contemplatives for Latin America, and Madre, whose heart was always attuned to the Church, said at a community meeting to Mother Columbe (at that time prioress of the monastery of Bethany and president of the Congregation), ‘I hope Bethany is going to respond.’ When she was on holiday in Belgium she heard that she had been chosen to be part of the group of founders for Brazil, and as superior. Her return ticket to the Congo was cancelled! Madre knew Spanish, and would have liked the choice of the Congregation to be for a country where Spanish was spoken, but God had other plans.

The founding group, Mother Marie-Chantal Modoux, Mother Marie-Claire Willcox and Mother Maria Stoll, set off by boat on 25th November, 1963. They arrived at Santos in December and then at Curitiba at the beginning of 1964. The Belgian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), who had participated in the discernment for the place of the foundation, had a parish at Pinheirinho, and they had found someone who would sell them some land in this area. It was a rural zone with no electricity, no running water, no telephone, etc. Everything still remained to be done. Each sister had found lodging among the religious in Curitiba to begin to manage the Portuguese language. As soon as the second group arrived, the construction of the future monastery began, wholly in wood, like the neighbouring houses. Our sisters followed the ‘Cenfi’ at Petropolis, a course of six months organised for foreign missionaries by the Episcopal Conference, an introduction to the history and culture of Brazil and above all the Portuguese language. It was based on rote-learning, not easy for adults but effective. From this era of the ‘Cenfi’ the sisters knitted faithful friendships with other missionaries, American and Canadian Benedictines, and above all Dom Robert Ogle and Dom Donald Macgillivray.

The canonical erection of the monastery on 1st November, 1965, was marked by the first visit of Mother Colombe. The beginnings were heroic, the long office of Vigils in the evening, with six psalms to each nocturn, the washing and ironing for the community and for the sacristy of the Sacred Heart Fathers, a daily bus journey of 3 km into town to the post-box, a single well which often served also to store the food. It was a life of poverty, like that of the first monks.

The post was slow at this time of a military dictatorship, with a ferocious censorship. How much they underwent without being able to share it with the founding monastery! It was the time after the Council, a time especially difficult for the religious and priestly life. How many religious and priests were listened to, helped and directed on their way by Madre! She had the gift of listening and of empathy. Her memory enabled her to retain the faces and names and the content of each meeting. People felt themselves to be understood and welcome; they frequently returned, feeling themselves loved and treasured. She kept up bonds of friendship by a very full correspondance, often sleeping no more than four hours a night.

Madre was also the formator of any vocation that came. Her discernment, her firmness, allied with the gentleness of her accompaniment in passing on monastic values, helped everyone she received to grow. Her courses on following Christ, her conferences to the community and her way of correcting faults were unforgettable.

In the 1980s, after the era when liberation was very much in vogue and almost unintelligible to contemplatives, there came a turning-point. Pastors discovered lectio divina, the need for a time of withdrawal to pray and evaluate activity, and the community received three requests from other dioceses who wanted to have a monastic community. Madre, always open to the needs of the Church, decided to make a foundation. At that time there were twelve of us. ‘Everyone must make her contribution’, she said. In the spirit of our Congregation the community chose to answer the request of the poorest, most remote place of all, a real ‘frontier-post’, and in 1989 the monastery of Agua Viva was founded in Amazonia in the prelature of Itacoatiara.

In 1998, a canonical visitation decided that our monastery of Encontro should be dissolved. Pinheirinho had become too crowded, too violent and too noisy. At the age of 80 Madre set out to find another property, build a new monastery, sell the old and start again in another country region, with mountains, a fine view, not too far from Curitiba and especially only 50km from Trappist monks. That brought the community at Mandirituba to sing ‘O Emmanuel’ on 23rd December, 1999. Madre remained in charge of the priory till 2000. As the crowning of the foundation, she had the joy of experiencing the dedication of the church of the new monastery in 2008.

The slogan of Madre was ‘The joy of the Lord is our strength’ from Nehemiah 8.10. She was very discrete about her spiritual life, never herself speaking about it. But there were signs, as for example her serene and luminous countenance, her joy, her faith, her presence at all the Offices, at all the works of the community, her availability to all who sought her. After giving up her charge as prioress she became a simple sister in the community, asking a blessing, asking the permissions normal to monastic life, presenting an account if she went out. Her Lenten schedule showed her great longing to know the Lord more and more, to live each day as if it were her last.

Madre was very jealous of her autonomy, but advanced age had arrived with its limitations. She lost her hearing, then little by little her vision, her ability to occupy herself on her own. The vigour of her life sometimes blinded her to her limitations, and she could not be left alone, day or night. This was a blessing for the community since each member in turn had a presence with Madre. Her great trial was not to be able to read, she who had built up our library, who read all the reviews, who always followed the life of the Church with such great interest. She never complained. Her only word was ‘Thank you’.

It the end we perceived a certain night of faith, a certain pain, her brow a little wrinkled, but always calm. The community prayer was for her and with her. Madre deeply loved her biological family and her monastic family.  She had been a great nun, a woman profoundly free. She was filled with a presence, wanting nothing but the joy of the Lord, and at the same time she was like a child, marvelling at everything.

She gave us a love of the Divine Office, of monastic life, the joy of praising, the spirit of Bethany, that is, openness, love of the Church, disponibility to mission, simplicity, zeal for fraternal community and welcome. Her presence was a source of unity, even when she was absent, too tired to be able to come either to refectory or to recreation, she followed the life of the community and asked the subject of meetings or reading in the refectory. We were with her in her humiliations, her moments of sorrow. On the final night we were around her, and renewed our profession as we sang the Suscipe together.

Her welcome had created a reservoir of friends. We received more than three hundred message of condolencce. For all these messages we thank you, in the sure knowledge that Madre is interceding for each of you from heaven.

Monks and nuns, witnesses for our times

Dom Michael-Davide Semeraro, OSB

Superior of Koinonia of the Visitation (Italy)

Charles de Foucauld,

Prophet of our monastic profession

The approaching canonization of Brother Charles gives the opportunity to drink once more from the spiritual experience of this seeker after God. By his unique way of living out the following of Christ he was the prophet of Vatican II, this moment of renewed understanding of the gospel. At the end of his most recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti Pope Francis wrote,

I would like to end by recalling another person of deep faith who, thanks to his intense experience of God, made a journey of transformation which brought him to feel his brotherhood of all men and women. I mean the Blessed Charles de Foucauld.

Although Brother Charles is described in the Ordo as ‘priest’ it seems to me that he could be said to have remained always a monk and a Cistercian monk. At a time when the experience of Brother Charles was already wholly mature, a letter written from Tamanrasset on 26th March, 1908, to his brother-in-law Raymond de Blic, shows that he was conscious of his evolution and of the challenge it represented for his future choices, ‘I remain a monk – a monk in mission territory – a missionary monk, not only a missionary’.[1]

From this point of view it can be said that there is work to do to understand better how the spirituality of Brother Charles is rooted in the monastic tradition at its purest, understood as a river of living water, the desire to search for God according to the gospel which traverses, sometimes secretly, a long and complex story. Brother Charles had a sharp sense of his personal history, linked not only to the passage of time but also to the places through which he passed. He also notes in his biblical meditations, ‘We should apply this psalm to ourselves; it is the story of our soul. God has withdrawn us from the world by his own hand.’[2] As Raymond Pannikar remarks, the life of every man and woman in this world is not only biography but also geography. This is particularly clear for Brother Charles, who wrote about himself to a friend in almost the same words as Thérèse of Lisieux in her autobiography, ‘Monk, living not only for God, but in view of him loving souls with all the ardour of my heart.’[3] The writer Norman Manea recently affirmed that in reality we are all equally the fruit of our bibliography, and this is true also for Brother Charles and for his itinerary as a reader and in his turn also a writer.

When Charles de Foucauld turned to God under the wise guidance of Fr Huvelin he spontaneously felt the need to become a religious, and said so with a stunning clarity in a letter written from La Trappe on 14th August, 1901, to his friend Henri de Castries, ‘As soon as I believed that there was a God I understood that I could not live otherwise than for Him. My religious vocation dates from the same moment as my faith.’[4]

In the logic of Brother Charles it is clear that he had to seek the most perfect form of religious life and, according to the spiritual sensibility of the age and his temperament which took him to heroism, such an aspiration of radicality and perfection is identified with austerity, ‘I wanted to be religious, to live only for God and do whatever was most perfect.’[5]

A retreat at Solemnes, followed by another at Soligny, finally led him to La Trappe, ‘It seems to me that nothing fits me better than this life at La Trappe.’[6] His motivation is clear, ‘Search for a life conformed to Yours, in which I can completely share Your abjection, Your poverty, Your humble work, Your burial, Your obscurity’.[7]

In the monastery, first at Our Lady of the Snows, then at Akbes, it seems that Brother Charles learnt to read two texts, first the Scripture – and very specially the Gospel – and then his own heart. At an epoch when, even in monasteries, devotions were much preferred to lectio divina Brother Charles learnt to immerse himself in listening to and interpreting the Scriptures. From this he drew each day, right up to the final evening of his earthly existence, light for his path, by following this fundamental rule taken up by Dei Verbum, ‘The great rule of intepretation of the words of Jesus is his example. He himself is the commentary on his words’.[8]

Many of the fundamental elements of the spirituality of Brother Charles have their roots in the Benedictine monastic tradition and, most especially, in the Cistercian school. The absolute preference for the mysteries of the life of Jesus and the contemplatiion of his incarnation as a means of following him are the fruit of listening to the texts of the Cistercian Fathers read at Vigils and in the refectory. Many of the themes and accents which are often presented as original insights of Brother Charles are in reality part of a tradition which Brother Marie-Alberic breathed with full lungs into La Trappe, later expressed in a wholly personal choice. Thus he writes on 24th April 1897 to Raymond de Blic, ‘I have left La Trappe, having received full dispensation of my vows, to find in another kind of life what I was looking for in La Trappe without finding it. Immediately afterwards Brother Charles testifies, ‘I love and esteem La Trappe.’[9]

It would therefore be very interesting to seek out and gather parallels between the insights of Brother Charles in his meditation on the life of the Lord Jesus – especially in the meditations on the gospels in the ‘written’ form which he imposed on himself – and the commentaries of Cistercian monks like Bernard of Clairvaux, Guerric of Igny, Isac of the Star, William of St-Tierry, Baudouin of Ford. That is a great challenge, for this research could produce a lot of surprises and perhaps lead to a deeper understanding of Brother Charles as a link to a tradition faithful but living, from which he draws the strength, courage and serenity of the innovations which are demanded of monks and nuns of our day.

In a recent declaration the Abbot General of the Trappists declared that for a century certain insights prophetically received by Brother Charles have become commonplace to monks of today:

‘Communities are becoming less institutional, linked to personal rather than formal relationships, as one sees in smaller communities and monasteries’.[10]

In the line of the purest Cistercian tradition the dream of Brother Charles was to find a Christian way in which this intimacy plays a significant part. For its part, this breeds charity and care, which itself culminates in ‘tender indulgence and compassion for sinners, which we need so badly ourselves, but often balance by severity for others.[11]

The ultimate root of this charity nevertheless remains an attitude of prayerful intimacy, passionate desire and love, which in the language of the day is described as pure love.

Brother Charles chose to put himself on the path of others in order to be able to meet them, get to know them and love them, He was, then, looking for a frontier position, long before such terminology was invented. A note from him is very enlightening, ‘Who would dare to say that the contemplative life is more perfect than the active or the opposite, when Jesus led both kinds of life. Only one thing is perfect, to do the will of God’.[12]

It is certainly no chance that Our Lady of the Snows preserves to this day the memory of the blessed Charles de Foucauld as though he had never left it, or had returned to it after a long absence. Did he look for anything other than a life ‘under the guidance of the gospel’ as St Benedict says in the Prologue to his Rule, putting himself to school from others in order to learn the unfathomable depths of love?

[1] Letter to R. de Blic, 26th March, 1908.

[2] Méditation sur l’Ancien Testament, Ps. 104.

[3] Letter to H. de Castries, 14th August 1901.

[4] Ibidem.

[5] Ibidem.

[6] Ibidem.

[7] Ibidem.

[8] Meditation on the Gospel, 199e, Mk 6.7.

[9] Letter to R. de Blic, 24th April 1897.

[10] Report of Dom Eamon Fitzgerald to the the General Chapter of the Cistercian Order, 14th September 2014 at Assisi, Collectanea Cisterciensia, 76 (2014) 4, p. 339-348.

[11] Ch. de Foucauld, Letter to L. Massignon, 15th July, 1915.

[12] Ch. de Foucauld, Méd. sur l’Évangile, 194e, vocation.

News

The Sisters of Palaçoulo, OCSO

The Foundation of Vitorchiano in Portugal

A grain of monastic life in the region

of Trás-os-Montes (Portugal)

We are writing to you from Portugal, where since October 2020 we have opened a new monastery, Santa Maria, Mãe da Igreja. For the moment we are living in the new house which will be the future guesthouse, waiting for the construction of the real monastery.

Here we have begun regular life and made the first steps towards organising productive work. For the moment we are making rosaries, selling booklets of prayers for children, prepared while we were still at Vitorchiano, and now we are beginning to produce almond biscuits. Our territory of 28 hectares, beyond the part destined for building, already has a plantation of nearly 500 almond-trees (the almonds to be used for the production of biscuits), and an orchard of various fruit-trees for the needs of the community and its guests. The guesthouse consists of eight blocks linked together to form a single building; it resembles a small aldeia, that is, it reproduces the characteristics of a village typical of this region.

The outside of the guesthouse is partly covered by shale, to stress its similarity to the typical style of the neighbouring stone-built villages. We have set up a substantial part of the guesthouse as a real monastery: apart from the rooms which we use as cells, we have arranged spaces for the necessary services (laundrette, sewing-room, bursary, office for the superior). On the ground floor we have created the normal places: the little chapel serves as a monastic choir, the future reading-room is a scriptorium, a meeting-room, a chapter-room and of course a refectory and kitchen.

Thanks to the presence of an outside staircase which maintains a certain separation, we have set up part of the house for a few guests who already want to share our life of prayer. We are asking the Lord to bless us with some local vocations.

We are at Palaçoulo, about two kilometres from the village, near the frontier with Spain, in the fairly deserted frontier region of Trás-os Montes, from which young people emigrate; the few villages dotted around are generally inhabited by elderly people. The surrounding countryside has something unspoilt and unlimited; there are few houses and few farmers still at work. This means a broad sky, and it is amazing in this little Portugal to find oneself under a sky which follows the horizon unbroken. Nature here in the wide valleys has something unspoilt. A few eagles hover over the steep slopes of the River Douro.

From the logistical point of view our situation is pretty unusual. We live in a country of rich Europe and yet we find that we need to respond to the construction demands of a new-born world. Every day we are confronted by the absence of adequate structures and infrastructures and a definite inertia on the part of the municipal authorities who provide even the most elementary services only with difficulty.

The stages of this fondation have been marked by a difficult experience: on the one hand it is a true miracle, and on the other hand it demands patience, tenacity in which we have to remind ourselves why it is worthwhile to move and risk constructing a grain of monastic life in our secularised and sceptical Europe. It truly has a touch of the miraculous that the generosity of the parishioners of this place was willing to grant us part of their land (our property at the moment is composed of 32 previously different lots). Touching is also the generosity of the bishop and the local parish priest who have woven relationships, organised meetings and help, and contacts to bring Cistercian life back to this country. But also patience and tenacity, for we have also encountered multiple bureaucratic difficulties with the lack of funds and the lack of interest of certain large enterprises which have obliged us to pay for connexions of electricity and water, to install and manage drainage, to connect up the internet (at the moment we depend on a satellite system) and also the lack of an adequate road into the village. We have built this road partly ourselves, and it will now be completed with beaten earth and gravel, thanks to a great effort on the part of the municipality. At present we are working on the project of the monastery, an enterprise much more demanding than the guesthouse, both because it has been conceived to house forty nuns and because the building is intended to include workrooms.

The building was conceived to fit harmoniously into the natural environment, and be adapted to the hilly nature of the terrain. For this reason we planned a division of buildings over several stages. A traditional monastic plan envisages a cloister in the centre, the heart of the house. Around it open other developments in which the life of the monastic community can proceed. The church, duly oriented, is positioned on the high ground so as to be visible from afar. The workrooms are on the lower floor with the local crafts, while the upper floor will be used for the dormitory and the infirmary.

Nous travaillons actuellement au projet du monastère, une entreprise encore plus exigeante que l’hôtellerie, à la fois parce qu’il a été conçu pour accueillir quarante moniales et parce que le bâtiment est destiné à inclure à l’intérieur les pièces pour le travail.

Why are we here? Why did we leave our monastery where we were happy in the large community which we love? The answer is simple enough: the Bishop of Braga, who believes in monastic life and its capacity for witness and Christian attraction, invited us to his diocese. Our present community, composed of ten sisters, comes from the monastery of Vitorchiano, which in fifty years has founded eight monasteries of which the first was in Tuscany. Vocations at Vitorchiano have been numerous and there was no room for everyone. After that foundations were made in countries where there had not yet been Trappist monasteries, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Czech Republic and now in Portugal. In addition we have helped a monastery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by sending five sisters to help the frail local community. In each case the initiative came not from ourselves, but always from a bishop who invited us, or from others who invited us to make a foundation in their diocese.

Why did we make all these foundations, often in difficult conditions either from the economic point of view or from other difficulties? Because such a mission, the fact of bringing Christ to others, is characterisic of all Christians, and especially religious institutes and consecrated people whose charism has been officially recognised by the Church. Monastic life, which goes back to the first centuries of Christianity, and in the course of the centuries has developed in different forms, contributing equally to the rise of civilisation and culture, has always encouraged and favoured mission to make Christ known through the witness of a life of prayer, fraternity and work. This witness has been received in places and cultures very diverse. It has been enormously widespread, granted the difficulties and dramas implied by human history.

In addition to the mission and despite the vow of stability which ties the monk to his own community, monasticism has always promoted xeniteia, that is, the fact of going to bear witness to Christ in a foreign land. There the conditions of life, the language and customs make such witness difficult and painful. Thus the missionary monk and nun more and more resemble Christ who suffered and died for us.

News

Brother Maximillian Musindal, OSB

Prior of Cairo (Egypt)

Catholic Coptic Benedictine Monks

Celebration of three years of our Foundation

Our humble life began in a rented apartment in the centre of Cairo belonging to the Comboni missionaries. Next we rented a Franciscan villa at Mokattam. This was our first official residence in Cairo.

Today, on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we celebrate exactly three years since the canonical recognition of the Coptic Catholic Monks of St. Benedict. As a new foundation, we can only look back and count our blessings.

In this report, I will give a very brief reflection on what we have managed to achieve, our challenges and the focus into the future. Inshallah a detailed report with photos will come later after we have completed our 7-year strategic plan towards financial stability of the foundation.

Housing

Our humble life started in a rented apartment in downtown Cairo owned by the Comboni missionaries, which could hardly accommodate five persons. There was a dire need to search for a more spacious facility with its own compound. With help of the then apostolic Nuncio in Egypt, Mons. Bruno Muzzaro the financial support of the Abbey of Muensterschwarzach, we rented a Franciscan villa in Mokattam which became our first and official residence in Egypt. To accommodate our guests, we put up three cabins providing six more rooms with indoor bathroom facilities. We also purchased a 30-acre agricultural farm in the province of Ismailia which had on it a small 3-bedroom villa. One year later, we extended our property by purchasing 15 more acres from our immediate neighbor making it 45 acres in total. By the time of the canonical recognition and official launch, the villa was equipped with a Coptic-style chapel dedicated to St. Benedict that was blessed by His Beatitude Ibrahim Ishaq, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria. Late last year, an Egyptian-Canadian Coptic catholic priest, Abuna Bishoy Yassa offered us a property he owned. After some discussion and consultations, we accepted to take the offer, which is our first property in Upper Egypt. It is a sizeable plot with a villa on it that requires some renovations and adjustments to become a monastic house. We hope to make this house the nursery for our vocations. Most of our interests are in Ismailia, and the future financial stability of our foundation will depend on how we manage the space here.

Accommodation

When we bought the Ismailia property, on it was a villa with 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, 2 bathrooms, a front veranda which we later transformed into a chapel, and a dilapidated swimming pool behind it. Given the increasing numbers, thanks to our benefactors we put up two other floors. We currently can host a total of 10 persons. This is enough to host all the brothers at once. Initially it was a big challenge. Beside the main entrance we put up a permanent structure to host our live-in security guard, a simple Mosque for our workers and a room for the police officers just in case the government sends some officers to provide security. Opposite the security house is a small self-contained one-bedroom villa suitable for young people that can host a maximum of four persons. As time passed, many religious in Cairo and Ismailia prefer our place for some quiet environment for either retreat or just recollection and rest. This developing phenomenon requires us to increase the rooms to accommodate our guests.

Olive and Mango Farm

The farm in Ismailia is gradually changing, when we acquired it, it was in a very bad shape. After a long process of cleaning and changing, replacing the old irrigation system (thanks to Missio Muenchen), we are on a steady path to benefit from it. The initial 30 acres has 3247 olive trees of which last year we crafted almost 200 trees that all survived. The newly acquired property of 15 acres has young 2292 olive trees. This gives us a total of 5639 olive trees. Besides the olive trees, the farm has 1873 mango trees of which we crafted around 100 trees.

Dates, Lemons and Oranges

Present on the farm at the time of purchase were 80 trees of oranges which we have been using for our home consumption. We also decided to plant 100 trees first. We have a project for the remaining 100 that we hope to plant sometime next year (2021) if it is approved. Just this month we planted 35 trees of lemon and 5 tangerines. The two will make part of our fruit orchard.

Water Purification Plant

One of the most essential projects we have is the water purification plant. The water available is salty. It meant that we always had to but drinking water.. This project does not benefit us alone. Around our monastery is a big village. Women and children had to walk long distances searching for fresh water. We have extended a pipe to supply piped fresh water to them. With the tap outside the compound and near our main gate, we witness to many of these Muslim poor families through the fresh water supply.

Social Help

Our monastery in Ismailia is surrounded by several poor villages. One way of gaining entry into them is by supporting the very needy widows and their children. Currently, with the support of St. Ottilien procure, we give a monthly stipend to 13 widows and help in buying stationery and bags for their children who go to school. Depending on the needs of the family, we give between €10 to 15 per month. This might look small but it saves some lives. This has become one of the effective means to witness to our gospel values among our neighbors. They appreciate and consider us their friends. Early this year there was a terrible stormy rain in Egypt. Almost all the neighboring villages collapsed. People had nowhere to sleep. It was a real disaster. All our workers were homeless. One even requested to come with his family to live in the monastery until he builds a new house. Our confreres from Muensterschwarzach were in Egypt when this tragedy happened. With the help of Muensterschwarzach procure, all our workers have permanent houses. We really appreciate this kind of support. This means a lot to us as a community of monks surrounded by Muslim families. The little we do to touch their lives speaks louder than reciting the whole Bible to them. They always ask what kind of Christians we are. This question speaks volumes to anyone who has the understanding of the religious life in this country. Besides the above, there are always those who come to knock on our gate begging for bread, or medicine or even for a blanket. If we have, we always offer. If we do not have, we give a kind word. The fact that they come knocking is already a sign of confidence.

It is also important to mention the role being played by the procure of Muensterschwarzach. Egypt is experiencing high influx of the refugees from Africa and the Middle East. The Eritrean and Sudanese refugees are taken care of by the Comboni Fathers. In the past few years, the overwhelming numbers exceed what the Comboni fathers can offer. When it comes to pastoral care, they requested Father Maximilian to help in the home visits and administration of sacraments. During their main hour of need, the procure of Muensterschwarzach came in to support their education and basic needs. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the situation worsened. Since, the refugees depended fully on donations, the procure of Muensterschwarzach assisted a lot with money to buy foodstuffs, sanitary towels, face masks, etc. We really appreciate this kind of social help. This help coming from a Benedictine monastery, it speaks volumes about who Benedictines are and what we stand for. The challenge remains. We formed a board to look into the ways of sustaining these refugee families fully dependent on donations. We came up with several projects and realized that it is hard to obtain papers for some projects due to the restrictions put in place by the civil authority. The only viable project is one that can be run directly by the church for the sustainability of the refugees. The technical team is working on the project before we can share it with the bodies that support these Eritrean and Sudanese refugees in Egypt.

Personnel, Vocations, and Formation

We are a community of 6 members, one finally professed (Abuna Maximilian), two junior confreres (Br. Bruno and Br. Arsanius), two novices Abuna Emmanuel and Br. Antonius), and one postulant (Mikhail). In addition, we have one oblate novice (Abuna Bishoy from Asyut diocese). Until November 23, 2020, we had three junior confreres.

Just before the Covid-19 invasion, we had three young men aspiring to join us. With time, two changed their minds. One is still determined to join us by April next year. The greatest challenge is that more young people from the Orthodox church are calling to inquire about us and expressing the wish to join us than do the Catholic young people. The tension between the two Churches is evident. Some Catholic bishops are not so keen on us admitting young people from the Orthodox background. They see it as an invasion. They rule is that for one to be deemed to have changed from the Orthodox Church to Catholic, he must have finished six uninterrupted months in a Catholic parish. The recommendation of the Parish Priest is not enough. He also must obtain one from the Bishop of the diocese where he joined. The fear of some Bishops is that if those from the Orthodox background will one day be the majority, they will in future end up influencing the whole community. How true this is, only heaven knows. We have three young men from the Orthodox background requesting to join us. We have advised them to take the first steps so that by July 2021, they will have accomplished the six months requirement. During this period, they will be visiting us to ‘come and see’. It is not a surprise that we are attracting even the Orthodox young men.

Our novitiate in Egypt has a team of formators. Since all this formation program is contacted in Arabic language, our confrere, Br. Arsanius plays a very significant role. He translates for the Abbot President who teaches via zoom. He also translates all the lessons on the Rule of St. Benedict that we use in class. We should also remember that he is the one who translated the RB into Arabic while he was a novice in Tigoni. We cannot fail to mention the role played by the Abbot Emeritus of Muensterschwarzach, Fidelis whose many visits to Egypt to offer short conferences and courses to the community have always enriched our formation. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted this mission. We trust that once a remedy is found, Abbot Fidelis will resume his visits. We miss him! Abbot Fidelis has helped to strengthen our bonds with the Coptic Orthodox great monasteries of St. Makarius and St. Anthony the Great. We are still exploring how to maximize on these relationships so that some formation programs can be conducted in these monasteries since we have the same roots. This is a challenging venture that only we Benedictine monks of the Catholic Church can exploit.

Liturgy

Our liturgy is Coptic. For the past one year, we have been working on the structure of our liturgy. We had different trials before settling on what our liturgy looks like. The entry of Abuna Emmanuel was a blessing to the community. Being a Coptic Catholic priest, we had to learn a lot from him about the Coptic Rite. Mass, office of the hours, special liturgies follow the guidelines by the Synod of the Bishops of the Coptic Catholic Church. The two languages for our liturgical celebrations are Arabic and Coptic. We have Mass three times in a week, Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Our day begins at 5:30AM in Summer and 6:30 AM in winter. The Coptic Catholic prayer Book (Agbiyya) provides for the Morning, Terce, Midday, Evening, Night, Office for monks and Midnight prayers. Usually we pray the morning, Midday, Evening, Night, and the Office for monks (given that we are the only ones to pray this office). On the days we do not have Mass, we also pray Terce. Every Saturday evening, instead of the Evening office, we have the ceremony of the incense (a very solemn liturgy with a lot of incense) that includes part of the Night Office.

Missionary Exposure

As Missionary Benedictines, our missionary exposure is very significant. Some of our confreres have had the chance to visit our Benedictine abbeys and priories for either formation or experience. Abuna Emmanuel just before joining our community, had two weeks in Tigoni in Kenya. He needed this to have a first-hand experience in a Benedictine community to refine his intention. His experience was positive and upon his return, he was convinced that this is what he wanted. He then joined us. Br. Arsanius had his second part of postulancy and the whole novitiate in Tigoni. While in Tigoni, he visited Tororo in Uganda. Last year (2019) he participated in a meeting in Germany. While in Germany he had the chance to visit some of our monasteries in and outside Germany. Br. Bruno recently (October-December) had the chance to visit St. Ottilien, Muensterschwarzach, Schweiglberg, Georgenberg Abbeys. All these experiences enrich our foundation.

Conclusion

To conclude, we wish to give special thanks to all those who have stood by us and helped us to be where we are. We value each one of you for your unique contribution. Without your valued support, things could have been different.

News

Closure of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Desert (France) and Opening of the first Village of Francis

Taken from the internet site, ‘The Village of Francis’

(https://abbayedudesert.fr/ouverture-premier-village-francois/)

Le 4 octobre 2020, le premier Village de François s’est ouvert à l’abbaye Sainte-Marie-du-Désert. La veille, près de cinq cent personnes, dont cent-cinquante moines et moniales, étaient venus entourer les huit moines de la communauté pour leur départ et la passation au Village de François. Au cours d’une messe d’action de grâce présidée par l’évêque du lieu, Monseigneur Le Gall, a eu lieu la passation.On 4th October, 2020, the first Village of Francis was opened at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Desert. The previous evening almost five hundred persons, of whom one hundred and fifty were monks and nuns, came to join the eight monks of the community for their departure and the hand-over to the Village of Francis. The hand-over occurred in the course of a Mass of thanksgiving presided by Mgr Le Gall, the local bishop.

Obviously moved, Father Abbot placed his cross at the foot of the altar and then handed over the keys of the Village of Francis. ‘I confide to you the abbey, take care of it.’ With these words Father Abbot definitively effected the hand-over. A page of history of the abbey was turned after one hundred and sixty-eight years of monastic life at Our Lady of the Desert. Obviously it was a departure not without sorrow, but tinged with hope, for in the course of the Mass we were reminded that if a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it bears much fruit. The monks hold this hope that tomorrow will be born a fine Village of Francis which will bear fruit.

Faithful to the monastic vocaation of upholding the world and its people in prayer, the Village of Francis intends to welcome the most vulnerable to raise them up by offering a life of fraternity and care. Abbot Pierre-André Burton made no mistake: the Village of Francis is ‘a fine ambitious project, in which families will provide a solid framework for the unfortunate’. From an economic point of view, monastic life will continue, its services will be kept up and the monks depart in confidence.

The team of the Village of Francis was surprised by the impressive number of spontaneous volunteers from exceptional families who wished to take part in the adventure. The Content family was the first to arrive in September. Olivier and Marthe arrived on 20th October with their little daughter. During November came Aynard, Garbielle and their two children. Aynard looks after the economic development of the Village. Vincent and Una, a young couple, are expected in the next few days. There will also be Pierre-Henri and Ségolène, Ferréol and Ombeline, François and Jeanne… Many families intend to join the Village of Francis to live out this fraternity with the most vulnerable. The arrival of each person occurs progressively. Vulnerable people, accompanied by their associations, will arrive from January 2021 in the course of the works. Each will be received and set up thanks to experienced associations, such as the association ‘Magdalen’ for former prostitutes. A group of elderly people is being prepared with the structure called ‘Cette Famille’, Projects for settling street-people and the handicapped are being studied and formalised with their members. Important works will be necessary in order to welcome each person. The Village of Francis is looking for several hundred thousand Euros in order to complete the accommodation. But the first Village of Francis has been opened. The Abbey of Our Lady of the Desert is not dying, but is being transformed, and the links of friendship with the monks will last for ever.