April 2008 Print

Benedictine Monks

Silver City, New Mexico, USA

 

Founded in 1991 in the southern Rocky Mountains that overlook Silver City, New Mexico, Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery is the home of a young community of Benedictine monks. The secluded, mountainous site, the silence of the surrounding nature, the austere beauty of the high-desert terrain all join together to bespeak the particular vocation of this monastic foundation: the primacy of contemplation,¹ a return to the spirit of the monks of Christian antiquity who, with the blessing of the Church, established a unique way of life lived for the honor and glory of God alone.

Our monastic roots link us not only to the early days of St. Benedict, who was born in the 5th century, but also to the more recent past, to the Christendom of France, in the year 1850, during the pontificate of Pope Pius IX. Living in a time of restoration in the aftermath of revolution which reduced the great European abbeys to rubble, Fr. Jean-Baptiste Muard, a diocesan missionary, was inspired by a signal grace of Providence to restore the monastic apostolate of the Church to its purest and original form, as lived by the disciples of the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, the Desert Fathers in particular. Being led by the hand of God, he walked as a pilgrim from France to Italy, eventually arriving at the hallowed shrine of St. Benedict in Subiaco, east of Rome. He would later meet with the Holy Father still in exile at Gaëta, who under the duress of revolution still raging and tearing apart Italy in the name of unity, had made himself abbot of St. Benedict's original monastery. This heroic intervention of Pope Pius IX to save the Benedictine Order from extinction in his overall struggle to restore the Church in the time of unprecedented crisis would become the foundational principle of our present monastery.

From Rome, Fr. Muard would bring the Rule of St. Benedict back to France at the same time as other great works of restoration were already underway. The Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance was thus born and under the continued guidance of Pope Pius IX foundations were established throughout Europe, rising from the ashes of once glorious Christendom.

The restoration of the Church, in the mind of Pio Nono, would come through the Queen of Heaven, who herself would confirm his teaching through the miraculous apparitions at Lourdes, and also in the restoration of the contemplative monastic Orders. The faithful echo of this determined action would be heard again in our own day in the words of Archbishop Lefebvre: "Without Monasteries, without religious consecrated to prayer, the Church will never be revived from the present crisis."²

The conflict of civil revolution, the destruction wrought by World Wars, and the universal disorder of Modernism have become as the great fire that germinates the seed of the giant solitary redwoods, and today in the critical context of restoration, the contemplative Orders are yet once again being refounded. The sons and daughters of the saintly Fr. Muard have preserved his fervent desire for a return to the purity of the Rule of St. Benedict with its emphasis on the contemplative monastic life. In this work is found the integrity of a life, the sana doctrina, the sane doctrine of the Church as found in the lives of her greatest saints.³ This newest branch of the great Benedictine tree is once again flourishing, and the cause for the beatification of Fr. Muard is in Rome.

Archbishop Lefebvre and the Benedictines

The last words spoken to the founders of this monastery remain forever engraved in their hearts:

"Now is the time to do the impossible, you must do the impossible to establish oases of the Faith, where the true spirit of the Church can be found. It is your duty to persevere in the true Faith. The impossible must be done to establish this Monastery."⁴

With this small taste of the magnanimous spirit that guided the entire career of Archbishop Lefebvre, the monks of this monastery as well as the other religious houses scattered throughout the world have responded to this voice of the sensus Ecclesiæ, the sense, the instinct and the mind of the Church,⁵ to do with certitude, to do now what the Church, quod ubique et semper, has always and everywhere done in times of crisis.⁶ In this spirit of faith, confirmed by the teaching Magisterium of the holy popes of the recent past who warned the entire world of an upcoming crisis unprecedented and unequaled in magnitude, monasteries of Tradition have received the Archbishop's blessing and encouragement to come into existence. History thus repeats itself, the actions of a holy pope and a saintly archbishop being but the repeated interventions of Divine Providence working through worthy intermediaries to guide the Church in the turbulent times of crisis.

The Rule of St. Benedict and the Monastic Vocation

Hearken, O my son, to the precepts of the Master

and incline the ear of thy heart;

freely accept and faithfully fulfill the instructions of a loving Father,

that by the labor of obedience thou mayest return to Him

from whom thou hast strayed by the sloth of disobedience.

To thee are my words now addressed,

Whosoever thou mayest be

That renouncing thine own will

To fight for the true King, Jesus Christ,

Dost take up the strong and glorious weapons of obedience.⁷

 

With astonishing perfection these opening words of the Rule express what is the true nature of the vocation to the monastic life. It is nothing other than the response from a son to follow in his father's footsteps. The monk is a prodigal son who returns to his father's house, and this homecoming is a wonder of grace, the fundamental grace upholding every vocation to the religious life. The Father is God the Father the Almighty, who wills to call his adopted sons home to their ultimate end, to the eternal "facie ad Faciem–face to face" of the beatific vision.⁸ The vocation thus begins in light of this vision, and it will be in union with the Son of the Eternal Father that the monk will have constant recourse for hope and perseverance through the dura et aspera, the hard and demanding challenges of the present life that will one day lead him to heaven.⁹ The son, now no longer estranged, as a new soldier in a new Knighthood,¹⁰ must train and strengthen his grip and grasp of the unfamiliar strong and glorious weapons of obedience, in imitation of His Saviour, knowing that he, too, will be redeemed by none other than the same means as shown by the sign of the Cross.

The Order's motto is PAX, pax Benedicti, heir to the pax Romana, the peace of ancient Rome. The once temporal, political peace of the Roman Empire would be transformed into the peace of Benedict, the peace of the Divine Order, the supernatural tranquility of order, radiating from the interior city of the monastic cloisters to the cities of Christendom.

Just as Divine Revelation finds its twofold expression in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, the Sacred Liturgy and the Holy Rule are the two pillars of the Monastic Order.

St. Gregory the Great, pope and biographer of St. Benedict, wrote of his Rule: "Remarkable for its discretion...it is the synthesis of the entire teaching of the Holy Gospels."¹¹ Organized in 73 chapters like the books of Sacred Scripture, and concentrated into a compact practical code of living with its discretio or equilibrium and balance of moderation, the Rule of St. Benedict is a permanent foundation stone of Christendom and one of the invariables of history. This Rule written by a great saint has produced not only an unbroken tradition of sanctity but also vast societies of holiness, with both the monastery and the Christian city bearing its hallmarks.

For over 15 centuries the Depositum Monasticum, the deposit of the monastic spirit, like a mirror image of the deposit of the Faith, has been inviolably carried across the expanse of time intact. Thanks to this Rule, which enshrines the spirit of the Essential, and which has left out nothing for Christian living, both within and without the monastery walls, for religious and laity alike, the same spirit that has founded Christendom is also the same means unto its restoration in our present day.

Gifted with a penetrating depth of wisdom and experience, St. Benedict is the doctor of human nature, knowing the balance needed for true conversion. He calls his monastic way of life a school where the austerity of the letter is supplanted by the largesse of the spirit, the law of love. "Therefore we establish a School of the Lord's Service...based on the teaching of charity, in founding which he hopes "to ordain nihil asperum, nihil grave, nothing bitter, nothing burdensome so as not to dishearten"^12: he exhorts the young monk "not to be overcome with fear and flee from the way of salvation."

The vocation is universal, "multi sunt vocati, for many are called,"¹³ and they are to convert to God "in toto corde, with the whole heart."¹⁴ In this sense the fallen state of human nature is not to be cast away or condemned, but rather restored and redeemed, both in body and soul, through Ora et Labora, prayer and work. The practice of the virtue of modestia, the ancient ideal of moderation and patience, thus makes up one of the great teachings of the Benedictine school, safeguarded by the encouragements of fraternal charity. The Benedictine vision is therefore one of the heart, seeing the longanimitas, the long term, in the longer work of a lifetime, which in fine every part of man is to be raised up, sanctified and perfected in grace.

If there must needs be some strictness of discipline, let it be understood that this is unto the preservation of Charity. Let all things be so tempered and ordered that souls may be saved.¹⁵

Ora

"Media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi.–In the midst of the night I shall rise unto thy praise."¹⁶

The Benedictine is a contemplative. The primacy of prayer is the guiding principle of the monastic horarium. The monk lives the inverse of the secular day, rising at night in order to be about the things of his Father.¹⁷ The bell rings at 3am, he rises and goes to the Church to begin one to two hours of the Divine Office of Matins sung in Gregorian Chant, returning afterwards to the monastic cell for solitary study. At the break of dawn, the bell rings again for the Divine Office of Lauds, concluding the first part of the waking hours of the monk.

By 7:30am the monks have completed four hours of prayer.

"Septies in die laudem dixi Tibi.–Seven times a day have I given praise to Thee."¹⁸

Seven times during the day, called the Hours, the bells will call the Benedictine to return to the monastery church to attend to the Opus Dei, the Work of God, which divides each part of the day with prayer, the universal prayer of the Church. "Let nothing be put before the Work of God... let nothing be preferred to the love of Christ."¹⁹ The Work of God is the essence of Benedictine life.

In mid-morning, between sessions of study, the Conventual Mass, the community High Mass sung daily in Gregorian Chant, is the heart of the day. The hours of Prime, Terce, Sext, and None continue the Laus perennis, the unending praise of God, which the ancient sundials fixed to the side of the churches of Christendom marked with a shadow, indicating each passing hour of prayer.

Meals in a monastery are a reflection of the Liturgy, where the brethren take turns preparing and serving the community repast, taken in silence in the Refectory, while edifying readings sustain the spiritual and intellectual formation of the monks. The Benedictine is "a disciple of Christ";²⁰ everything in the monastery is an uninterrupted teaching, by which God makes use of all things great and small as instrumental causes to communicate His grace, "being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus...and this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding."²¹ Not only in the highest and most sublime liturgical actions performed in the Church, but also in the most humble labors of the hands in the fields where in all things, at all times and in all places, the disciple of Christ is being formed by the masters of nature and grace. "Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus–That in all things God may be glorified."²²

Labora

The spirit of contemplative prayer now becomes action, and manual work, fills the remainder of the day beneath the watchful gaze of God, in imitation of "the Filius fabri, the son of the artisan."²³ Labor, the second half of Benedictine life, is a constant recourse to St. Joseph, called upon daily to guide the hands of the laboring monks.

As prescribed by the Rule, the monastery operates a farm, several workshops, and a gift shop apostolate. The arts and crafts of manual labor are thus expressed in husbandry, with the products of various farm animals such as dairy and the spinning of wool, bakery, leather and iron work, woodworking, letterpress printing and other noble works that utilize materials made by God unto His greater glory, where the Divine Order overflows into every aspect of living so as to achieve an integrity of life. As the living descendants of the Desert Fathers, the monks work in joyful obedience and silence, communicating by sign language, "to weave or to unweave their baskets,"²⁴ as it shall please God! "We are happy, O Israel, because the things that are pleasing to God have been made known to us."²⁵

Thus formed according to the mind of his Father, "in hominem perfectum–a complete man,"²⁶ the Benedictine has responded to the call of God in his vocation, to live out his days in the service of things divine, "corda et corpora–with heart and body" working together in harmony,²⁷ "for He hath established in me the order of Charity."²⁸

The Monastic Day comes to its end in the evening with Community Rosary, and the prayer hours of Vespers and Compline at sunset. The monk retires at 8pm.

Pax Intrantibus, Gratia Petentibus

The monastery is a place of retreat. The welcoming words of "Peace to those who enter herein and grace to those who come here asking" is the inscription placed above the entry gates of many houses of the Benedictine Order. The monastery is a refuge of peace and hospitality for retreatants. A monastic retreat consists in spending a few days or a week living the same life as the monks, by following the schedule of the Hours of the Divine Office, by praying and working along side the monks. Additional meetings with a priest add to this over-all predication which is the monastic retreat made both with and without words.

Ora et Labora Camps for men and boys are also part of our apostolate. The monastery opens its doors to organized groups who come to live the monastic life for a week during the summer months or at other times throughout the liturgical year. In this the seed of vocations is planted for the future, to be harvested in due season, as the Master decides. "For great is the harvest but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest."²⁹

A priest of the community is also assigned to be the chaplain for the members of the laity who desire to live the Benedictine life. Called Oblates, these are the original equivalent of what has become the Third Order in the religious orders of the Church. Thus wishing to live the spirit of the Rule of St. Benedict in the world, Oblates are attached directly to the monastery, and are considered as members of the same spiritual family, drawing spiritual strength from the monastic community to persevere in the sanctity of the married state.

The Future

Vocations are the future! To the aspiring Benedictine it suffices to repeat the words of Our Lord, who is the divine recruiter: Come and see! For anyone wishing to study his vocation more closely, a visit of one to two weeks is recommended. A letter of request is the only protocol.

Future plans also include the construction of a neighboring monastery of cloistered contemplative Benedictine nuns, who are presently being formed in our affiliated convent in Europe. The Benedictine ideal of twin monasteries will thus be fulfilled in the near future, being in the traditional image of St. Benedict and his twin sister, St. Scholastica.

Although monasteries are traditionally involved in various kinds of light industry as a means of self-support, the spiritual formation of our communities still living in the period of foundation must necessarily come before any business pursuits. For the present moment, the monastery is sustained through the charitable help and support of dedicated benefactors. No donation is too small to make anyone part of our extended family of friends!

Offers of property have been made to us as well, inviting us to establish new monasteries both in America and abroad. One day this will most assuredly become reality, but for now we recommend these invitations to Divine Providence who alone can order all things with force and might, yet with sweetness and wisdom.³⁰

 

Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,

I have appointed watchmen,

All the day and all the night long,

they shall never hold their peace

from praising the name of the Lord. (Is. 62:6)

 

As we were going to press, the Monastery of Our Lady of Bellaigue announced the death of its founder, Rev. Fr. Dom Angel Ferreira da Costa, Prior of Our Lady of Bellaigue, March 9, 2008, on the evening of the first Sunday of Passiontide in the 18th year of his monastic Profession and the 13th year of his ordination to the priesthood. R.I.P.

 

For information: Rev. Father Cyprian, OSB Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe 142 Joseph Blane Road Silver City, NM 88061 USA Tel: 505-388-9279 www.ourladyofguadalupemonastery.com

Monastery of Our Lady of Bellaigue 63330 Virlet France Tel: 04 73 52 33 26 www.bellaigue.com

Monastery of the Holy Cross Caiza Postal 96582 28601-970 Nova Friburgo RJ Brazil

 

¹ "A monk is nourished only by the practice of contemplation, rejoices with tears in the hope of heavenly rewards, foregoes even the things he is allowed to have, strives to converse intimately every day with Our Lord, does not disturb his mind with any preoccupation of the passing world but always expands it in expectation of heavenly joys." St. Gregory the Great in Homilies on Ezechiel.

² Quoted in the French MJCF review Savoir et Servir, special issue on vocations.

³ Titus 2:1.

⁴ Among the last writings of Archbishop Lefebvre, extract from a personal letter to Fr. Cyprian, March 1991.

⁵ "This is my heritage, what I have received in my seminary formation, the sensus Ecclesiæ, the experience of these great men of the Church who have taught us, I in turn give to you" (Archbishop Lefebvre).

⁶ The criterion of the true faith, St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium.

⁷ Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict.

⁸ I Cor. 13:12.

⁹ Rule, Chapter 58.

¹⁰ Expression borrowed from In Praise of the New Knighthood, St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

¹¹ Life and Miracles of St. Benedict by St. Gregory the Great, Book II of The Dialogues.

¹² From the Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict.

¹³ Mt. 20:16.

¹⁴ Joel 2:12 from the Lenten Liturgy: "Convert unto me with thy whole heart, etc. "

¹⁵ Rule, Chapter 41 and Prologue.

¹⁶ Ps. 118:62, quoted in Chapter 16 of the Rule.

¹⁷ Lk. 2:49.

¹⁸ Ps. 118:164, quoted in Chapter 16 of the Rule.

¹⁹ Rule, Chapters 4 and 43.

²⁰ Rule, Chapter 6.

²¹ Phil. 1:6, 9.

²² Rule, Chapter 57.

²³ Mt. 13:55.

²⁴ Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

²⁵ Baruch 45:4.

²⁶ Col. 1:28.

²⁷ "Therefore our hearts and bodies must be made ready to fight under the holy obedience of his commands." Prologue of the Rule.

²⁸ Cant. 2:4.

²⁹ Mt. 9:37, also quoted from Archbishop Lefebvre in footnote 2.

³⁰ First of the Greater Antiphons of Advent.

 

Dear Friends,

Just a little note in order to give you some news of my vacation in New Mexico. Still not knowing if it would be possible for me to return to the "old continent" this year because of the length of the procedure to renew my visa, I thus decided to visit the famous Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Silver City in New Mexico.

Certainly, I very much regret not being able to see you again this year, but when one considers that I have been able, thanks to God and your generosity, to return each year since I left France in 1984, I truly cannot complain. It is then a little sacrifice to offer, but when one thinks of the life of the missionaries in poor countries or countries at war, once again one cannot complain but much sooner thank God for all of His favors.

Thus, I arrived here on the 29th of June, the anniversary day of my 29 years of priesthood. It is needless to say that I do not regret the trip (even if I lost my suitcase, which remained for two days stuck somewhere in an airport...grrrr!). That is sometimes part of the small inconveniences of traveling!

Here I am, then, in this beautiful Benedictine monastery situated in a landscape of dreams. Perched about 7,000 feet in altitude in the mountains, the monastery overlooks a magnificent valley of forests bordered by mountain chains which spread beneath our eyes for miles and miles without the least habitation in sight. The setting is truly magical. Nature envelops you in her majestic beauty and leads you irresistibly towards Him who has designed this masterpiece. This magnificent picture speaks to you of the perfections and of the love of our Creator, and lifts the soul, as though naturally, to the contemplation of the divine mysteries. As for the silence which surrounds the monastery, it seems as if wishing to play a melodious symphony which the heart alone can hear, in honor of the invisible Master who yet renders Himself visible through the incomparable beauty of His work.

Thanks be to God, this site will keep for a long time yet its idyllic charm because the monastery is the last property of Silver City that looks out directly onto one of the largest natural parks in the United States. The neighbors of the monastery are therefore stags, wild boars, rattlesnakes, coyotes, bears, wild cats (lynx), and of course the famous mountain lions. As the whole of this little group normally walks about at night, there is no danger to take walks during the day and to take nice picnics in the forest like the one that we took today with the monks and the boys who make their summer camp at the monastery. This made a very agreeable and a very pleasant day.

This monastery was founded fifteen years ago by Fr. Cyprian, who spent eight years in the Benedictine monastery of "Le Barroux" in Provence, France. He began all alone on this mountain in a mobile trailer. There was absolutely nothing else but rocks, trees and the nocturnal neighbors described above. Today, he has built this superb monastery in the style of the Spanish missions that houses about twenty monks, of which the average age is around twenty-five years old. Besides the plumbing and the installation of the electrical system (which require special permits) the monks, along with help from faithful from all over the country, have done the majority of the remaining work. It is hardly believable! It is impressive to see the monks at work and to see the organization of the monastery! They are always on the go! They have a fully equipped woodwork shop and the monks make all of the furniture of the monastery on site: windows, doors, tables....All that they are able to make, they make by themselves: the stained-glass windows of the church, shoes, bread (not wine...it is not necessary), and they already have a little farm which supplies them with milk, wool, and soon, eggs and vegetables.

They have an architect who, of course, makes all of the plans but who also knows how to "handle the trowel," I assure you. They heat their cells in the old style with wood stoves, using the wood given them by the Forest Service of the National Park. Despite the altitude, Providence has equally allowed them to find a source of water that freely furnishes the monastery with drinking water.

Their temporary chapel resembles the Cistercian abbeys of Provence, but the monks have already made the plans for the construction of the abbey church, which would be a reproduction of that of Cluny. As vocations now flow into the monastery, they are going to raise up the dormitories by one floor in order to increase the number of cells, but they first wish to finish the guesthouse and the retreat house for visiting priests. Truly, they have taken my breath away, and you can now understand why I was telling you that I do not regret this visit. I was saying yesterday, joking with my confreres at Los Gatos, that I had lost my return ticket and that they were going to have to let me stay here...! Hum, I don't know what Bishop Fellay would think of it?

But I must admit that that which impressed me the most on arriving here was not so much the splendid setting, the superb buildings, or still yet the skillful and almost relentless work of these monks fighting to survive and grow in this arid and hostile nature; no, that which charmed me the most was the monks themselves! This community of young men lost in the mountains living the strict rule of Saint Benedict in silence, prayer and work is a vibrant testimony of faith which seizes the soul and directs it to God more powerfully still than the contemplation of the beauty of the landscape.

I was captivated by the piety and the dignity of these young monks in prayer. Literally situated between heaven and earth, this community of monks, as Moses praying on the mountain for the people, prays and intercedes for the Church and for the world. The sight of these robust men, retired in the solitude of their mountain and of their church, chanting night and day in humility and fervor the Divine Office and the Holy Mass, is a catechism lesson that is not found in books. These good monks remind the world of the essential and preach to us, by their example, the true meaning of life and what ought to be the true relationship between men and their Creator on earth, if they wish one day to contemplate Him in heaven.

How edifying it is to see these young monks, to whom it is difficult to give an age, giving themselves without reserve so as to join the Heavenly Court by their prayers and their chants, in order to procure glory to God and salvation to men! Their faces, already chiseled by fasts and vigils are imprinted with a gravity and a serenity that reflects the peace that has long since taken possession of the depth of their souls. When you pass a monk in the cloister, his eyes are lowered in humility: he is in prayer and you would not dare to disturb his recollection. But, if you venture to address yourself to him, then his eyes raise and shine, his face illuminates and this good monk receives you with a radiant smile which reveals the goodness which abides in his heart. Ah, this smile of the monks which speaks to us more than by words of the Charity of the Heart of Jesus. This smile, which greets you, has the gift to pour into your hearts a heavenly sweetness which breaths forth and communicates the peace of God.

The biographer of the holy Fr. Muard, the founder of "La Pierre qui Vire," wrote of him: "All of Fr. Muard was in the expression of his face, in the goodness of his smile, in the sanctity that shined forth from his person." These monks in Silver City who are from the lineage of "La Pierre qui Vire" have inherited well from their founder. They have truly chosen the "better part" and I thank God to have been able to take these days of vacation amongst them. This has certainly reminded me of the first calls of my vocation when I had made two retreats in 1967 at "La Pierre qui Vire" and, myself, almost became a son of Father Muard! What a consolation for me to find myself, forty years later, in this Benedictine atmosphere which made the first calls of God resound in my soul.

I pray that you also will be able to have the experience, if your time permits it, of some days of solitude and silence in order to rest and revivify your soul in God. I assure you that it is worth the while; and if you are not able to visit a Benedictine abbey, may you at least be able to make a good Ignatian Retreat like those that we preach at Los Gatos.

I hope that you are all well and that you will spend some good holidays this summer; and may they be as restful for the body and the soul as those that I am passing at this time in this beautiful Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Be very certain that I do not forget you in my prayers addressed to Our Lady, asking Her to bless and to protect your dear families.

 

Fr. Jacques Emily

 

July 11, 2007

Feast of the Solemnity of St. Benedict

"The love of Christ must come before all else!"  (Rule of Saint Benedict)

Daily Schedule

3:00 AM Rise

3:30 AM Matins

4:30 AM  Lectio Divina (Divine Reading)

5:30 AM Lauds

6:00 AM Angelus, Private Mass, Mental Prayer in the Choir

7:00 AM Breakfast

7:30 AM Prime, Chapter

8:00 AM Lectio Divina

9:30 AM Terce, Conventual Mass

10:30 AM Class, Study or Manual Work

11:45 AM Sext

12:00 AM Angelus, Lunch

2:00 PM None

2:15 PM Manual Work

5:30 PM Vespers, Mental Prayer in Choir

6:30 PM Dinner

7:30 PM Compline, Angelus

8:00 PM  Retire