December 6, 2007
Focus: Q/A on Spending 3 Months in a Trappist Monastery
Dear Friend,
I was very pleased to have so many well wishes as I prepare to leave for the monastery on January 1st. I have to keep reminding myself it’s only three weeks from Monday! I have begun the ritual our mother taught us in preparing to go away. It was to open the suitcases on the bed in what we always called “the spare room” and throw things into them as you thought of them.
There were a series of questions folks asked that I had answered in one of my newsletters to the people of Our Lady of Grace and I will repeat them for you, since this weekly message goes far beyond our parish mailing list.
Fondly,
Father Nick Amato
Q: Why are you going? Why are you doing this?
A: While it may be hard to believe, I do have a history and a present of enjoying reflective time. Even as a child, I could remember my mother asking me what I was doing just sitting there, “I'm thinking” I’d reply, to which she’d quickly add, “Don’t just sit there, do something constructive.” As a teen I would take quiet walks in the woods alone or sit in the midst of the rushes behind our property and listen to the fall breezes rustle through them. In a year of spiritual discipline, called a notitiate, we lived a life of silence. That was one of the most memorable years I have experienced. For more than 30 years I have been committed to regular mental prayer each morning and evening. It has been in the silence that I have developed a closer relationship with Jesus Christ as a living person and found inspiration for preaching and teaching. Prayer and silence can have an impact in the life of all believers, so I am going to Mepkin Abbey from this January through March to connect more deeply to what is already a hunger of my heart – the need for silence and more intense prayer.
Q: What do you hope to gain by going?
A: I go with very clear goals. I would like the opportunity to review my life the past 65 years and discover how God has led me to where I am in ministry. Second, I would like – with the aide of a Spiritual Father – to discern where God is calling me when I leave Our Lady of Grace in a few years. Third, having assisted others in preparing to pass from this life to the next, I would like to prepare for my own passing as something into which I can enter fully and embrace in faith.
Q: Are you coming back to Our Lady of Grace?
A: Absolutely! My plan is to return on April 4, 2008, spend five months here, and then complete the second part of my sabbatical in Biblical Studies at the Ecumenical Institute in Tantur, Israel.
Q: What will be the biggest challenge you will face?
A: Those who know me know how strong willed I can be. Thus, my greatest challenge will not be keeping the silence, going to bed by 8:00pm, following a vegetarian diet, or refraining from all spirits. It will be giving up my will both in thought and in deed. No I won’t be in charge of anything!
Q: What’s the daily schedule like?
A: The schedule is as follows. It will be covered more completely in next month’s newsletter. (The monks pray eight times a day together in what are called the “Hours” of the Divine Office. They are: Matins, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. “Hour” is a time for prayer, not a duration of time.)
3:00am Rise
3:20am Office of Readings, followed by meditation and Lectio Divina (Sacred Reading)
5:30am Pray Lauds
Breakfast available
Time for reading and/or praying
7:30am Mass, followed by a period of thanksgiving, pray Terce
8:30am Community meeting for daily work assignment
12:00pm Clean up and prepare for the Hour of Sext
12:15 Midday meal, the one common meal of the day (Meals are in silence and prayer begins and concludes the meal. A book is read.) At the end of the meal, the Little Hour of None is prayed
1:00pm Time for a short siesta
1:45pm Work
5:00pm The Hour of Vespers
6:00pm Light supper, followed by time to take a walk
7:00pm Community meeting
7:35pm Compline calls the community to gather for the closing prayer of the day
8:00pm Lights out
Q: What will you be doing for the five hours of “manual labor” each day?
A: Every day the monks are assigned to gather eggs or work in the grading house, where the eggs picked the previous day are washed, graded, and boxed for delivery. They may work at the compost shed. The chicken manure must be collected; pine shavings must be mixed with the manure; the mixture must be turned periodically; and the finished product must be bagged for sale in retail stores. Feed is being milled and mixed for the 28,000 laying hens. Food is being prepared and cooked for twenty-eight monks and the guests on retreat. Other tasks include the cleaning of the Church or infirmary, cutting grass, painting, or working in the library. All of these tasks can provide opportunity for quiet simple prayer.
Q: The no talking, vegetarian diet, etc. all seem out of character for you.
A: You are right on that one; they do seem out of character! However, as I mentioned above, I do have a quiet side to me and it’s the other side people see most often in church. My energetic demeanor is counter-balanced by daily periods of mediation, more specifically called Centering Prayer. It’s generally in those moments that my inspirations for talks, homilies, and solving problems come.
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