O, Brother Benedict, Where Art Thou?

This month’s Vanity Fair magazine ran an article on a Trappist monastery recently built in the Czech Republic. The abbey was designed by the same architect who conceived Calvin Klein’s flagship store in Manhattan as well as various projects for Martha Stewart. Now I really do think that Trappist monks who take a vow of silence and who work very hard at making jams, honey and wine should not be denied beauty in their surroundings, after all, “God is in the details.” Muslims are required to pray five times daily, but monks who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict must pray seven times including Matins conducted at an ungodly hour in the middle of the night. I would think that an ugly environment might be more distracting to prayerful concentration than a beautiful one.

 

As I looked at the photographs in Vanity Fair I had to agree that the Czech cloister is indeed beautiful. Built in a minimalist style for which the architect is apparently known, the simplicity of design in fact, mirrors the simplicity of the lives of Trappist monks, a cloistered Cistercian order. The Cistercians were founded in the 12th century by Saint Bernard of Clairveaux who became the Abbot of the monastery of Citeaux and bade his monks return to the austere Rule of Benedict as an alternative (some would say reform) to the worldliness of the Cluniacs. My oldest brother’s name is Bernard (we call him Ben) and I have teased him on occasion by citing his patron namesake, Saint Bernard who, while giving his monks a rationale for banning female visitors to the monastery said (and I write this from memory so it may not be verbatim, but it’s pretty darn close), “It is easier for a monk to resurrect the dead than to resist temptation in the presence of a woman. If I do not believe you can do the former, how could I believe you could do the latter?”

 

Anyway, just within a few past entries of this blog  I myself celebrated the beauty of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, so I certainly would not deny the monks their chic abbey. But then, the author of the article reported that the Abbot of the new Czech monastery had meetings with Calvin Klein to discuss the robes that would be worn by the monks. Designed by Klein, the robes were to be fashioned from wool woven from the oldest loom in Lyon and “embellished with ancient gold thread found in Milan.” But then, evidently, the Abbot said something to piss Calvin off so the robes were never made and Calvin presumably flew back to his flagship cloister on Madison Avenue.  I couldn’t help but think of the photographs I’ve seen of Pope Benedict XVI wearing Prada shoes and Gucci sunglasses. The Pope’s designer wear was justified by Vatican spokesmen who declared that the papal haute couture were gifts. I remembered the Gospel story of the woman whose use of expensive perfumed oil to anoint Jesus’ feet was followed by objections voiced by the disciples who asked, “Could this oil not have been sold and the money given to the poor?” Jesus replied, “The poor you will have with you always. I will be with you for only a little while longer.” Wouldn’t it be possible for the Vatican to enroll in eBay and auction the Pope’s designer accoutrements for more justice serving causes? Wouldn’t the Pope appear more like an appropriate successor to the Petrine inheritance if he wore Teva sandals instead of Prada slippers? But then, he will not be with us always.

 

How ironic it is that the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger took the name of the Saint who authored The Rule, the 6th century manual for daily monastic life that has served as the guide for ascetic and cloistered religious brothers and sisters for fifteen centuries (and still does). The Rule treats everything from the requirements for prayer and service to the amount of beer each monk is allotted at meals. I have often been asked in the past if I had ever considered the religious life of the nun. I knew at a very young age that such a life was not for me. I had no desire to live in community with women even in a secular setting as teacher or nurse. I figured whatever a secular nun could do I could do without taking vows (not to mention those things I could do that they could not). And a cloistered, contemplative life was also not an option. A brief perusal of just a few of the rules of Benedict makes it abundantly clear why I would have been ill-suited to convent life.

 

To deny oneself.

To chastise the body.

Not to seek after pleasure.

Not to be given to wine.

Not to be a murmurer.

Not to love much speaking

Not to love much boisterous laughter.

To obey without delay.

 

This last, most assuredly, the deal breaker.

As a child I flunked Lent and could not keep the three hour silence of Good Friday.

Sitting on my grandfather’s porch one Good Friday afternoon, my little pious self attempted to observe The Silence from noon until three when Tommy the mailman walked by. He said, “Hi!” and then passed. I had two choices, shout to Tommy’s back and fail yet again at expressing my love for the crucified Jesus, or not respond and risk hurting Tommy’s feelings. I raised my little voice and chose the human relationship over the divine one. To take a vow of silence for a lifetime was simply out of the question.

 

My little girlfriends and I would suffer from attacks of “Church giggles” that left us shaking in our pews. One of us would point to something in church that she just knew the other would find hysterical (like an old woman's funny hat), or we’d make a funny face and it would be all over for us. As soon as any of us made that guttural throat sound that is sometimes emitted in the attempt to stifle a laugh, we were goners and would suffer the disapproving sneers of praying adults and the “tsk, tsks,” of other more restrained little girls who considered their quiet piety to be a mark of their superiority and of God’s greater love for them.

 

I awaken more mornings than I care to admit at 5:00 or 5:30 and my mind begins to race so that I cannot quiet it enough to even fall back to sleep. To attempt to quiet it enough for seven hours of daily prayer would be torturous indeed. This is the reason why I have been so prolific in this little journal of mine. I awaken and write. There is little else one can do at this hour that does not risk awakening neighbors adjacent to my own walls.

 

The contemplative life of the cloistered nun would have been as contrary to my personality as Maria Von Trapp’s. I could well imagine my own Mother Superior and seasoned nuns singing about me in the courtyard of the convent:

 

“She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee,

Her dress has got a tear.

She waltzes on her way to Mass,

And whistles on the stair.

And underneath her whimper

She has curlers in her hair.

I’ve even heard her singing in the Abbey!”

(which in my case, no doubt, would have been “Subterranean Homesick Blues”).

 

No, I could not have adapted to such a life.

Though I might have tried for a little while, had the habits been designed by Vera Wang.