Fr. Dave's Thoughts - May 10th, 2024

Dear Friends,

I hope that you all had a blessed Ascension Day yesterday! It has now been 40 days since our Easter celebration and in another 10 days, Sunday May 19th, we will celebrate Pentecost together. At that point, the Great 50 days of Easter will be over for another year.

Over the next several weeks, I want to share with you some of the thoughts that came to me over the past couple of weeks that I was away. I will begin today by simply writing about my retreat time. On Monday, April 22nd, I made the short trip down to St. Joseph’s Abby in Spencer, Massachusetts which is just outside of Worcester. St. Joseph’s is a Trappist Monastery. The Trappists (also known as Cistercians) are Benedictine monks who adhere to a fairly strict interpretation of the Rule of St. Benedict. It was my first time there and I have to say that it is truly the most beautiful and serene place that I have been in a long time.

There were eleven of us, all men, on retreat that week. I think the guest house can accommodate fifteen guests in all. I was on a specifically “men’s” retreat simply because it fit into my schedule. Among us there was a Roman Catholic priest, two Episcopal priests, including me, three Roman Catholic deacons and five Roman Catholic and Episcopal lay persons. St. Joseph’s is a very quiet place. Everybody had their own small room with a private bathroom. We ate all our meals in silence and we were all required to remain in the dining room until everybody had eaten. We then worked together to do the dishes and set up for the next meal. The food was incredible. I have been doing retreats at various monasteries for years and this is the best I have ever eaten by a long shot.

Anybody can do a retreat at St. Joseph’s or most any monastery or convent for that matter. At the Abby in Spencer, you can go for a week or for a weekend; you can go on an all male or all female retreat or a week or weekend that is mixed. It seems that the weekends fill up the fastest. Once you arrive, you will be encouraged to put your phone away for the time you are there and keep silent as best as you can. You are also highly encouraged to go to Lauds, which begins at 6:00 a.m. followed by the Mass. The other Episcopal priest and myself were the only two that did not participate in receiving the Eucharist, though I don't think the monks themselves would have cared. In my experience, Roman Catholics who belong to religious orders are much less interested in keeping non-Catholics away from the altar especially in this day and age. The two of us who were the Episcopal priests in the group felt that given the fact that we are clergy in a non-Roman Catholic tradition, it would have been rude for us to assume their hospitality with regard to the sacrament, so we both abstained and that was okay with me.

There are about 25 monks in Spencer from all over the world it seems. I would say about a quarter to a third of them are priests, the others are lay brothers. They pray six a times a day. The day begins at 3:30 a.m. with Vigils and then Lauds and Mass at 6:00 a.m., Tierce at 10:00 a.m., Sext at 12:15 p.m., None at 2:00 p.m., Vespers at 5:40 p.m., and Compline at 7:40 p.m. The guests are invited to pray all the hours except Tierce and Sext. In between these hours of prayer, the monks work making Trappist Jam which you can find in the supermarket. This is how they support themselves.

As guests, we were given the opportunity to meet for an hour each day together with the monk who was assigned to be with us that week. For us it was Father Isaac who was such a welcoming and gracious guy. During that hour each day, Fr. Isaac shared with us his thoughts on the Passion of Jesus as it is recorded in Mark’s Gospel. I thought what he had to teach us was really insightful, and some of that may actually show up at some point in a homily or two. We’ll have to see about that. We were also invited to seek some spiritual direction from Fr. Isaac at some point during the week. He helped me greatly with a few things that have been on my mind.

By the end of the week, the eleven of us, even though we didn’t talk much, had a special bond that meant a lot. Even though we will probably never see each other again, we made a difference in each other’s life at least for that week.

Anyway, I wanted to give a flavor of life there. I am sure that I will make my journey back there again sometime. There are some pictures below that will give you an even better idea of what it is like at St. Joseph’s Abby.

Over the next couple of weeks, I want to write a bit about St. Benedict and the Rule that he wrote way back in the early 6th century. It is a classic of Western literature. Thanks for reading.

Peace,

Dave