The wary monk of Westmalle
The entrance of Westmalle Abbey
My phone call to the Westmalle Monastery in Belgium, famous for its world-renowned beer, was answered sternly
“Do you speak English?” I ventured.
“A little.”
“Hello. Yes. I was wondering how I can visit the Abbey?”
“When?” he asked.
“September” I replied giving him two dates.
“Why?” he asked.
“Well…” I paused. His direct question surprised me. I didn’t think my inquiry would lead to an inquisition. “I’ve always wanted to visit a monastery. To take some time to reflect, to think about our place in this world and connect with God.”
In truth, to “live with the monks” had been a goal of mine since I took a seminar in college twenty years before on Transcendentalism, a 19th-century movement focused on concepts that had started to hit home for me after I left the safe confines of high school: individualism, intuition, and the inherent goodness of humanity. Reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance was a revelation for me. It didn’t shake my faith, but it made me wonder if I needed to look in more unconventional places to keep growing spiritually. My parents were not strict Catholics but they were conservative in their approach to everyday life. As a child, I was a pleaser. I didn’t want to buck trends or social norms. I wanted to live squarely on the grid.
After my introduction to Transcendentalism, I took every class I could find on Emerson and Thoreau. I started pushing myself to hear the voices that only one can hear in solitude, something that has never come easy for me. I questioned Emerson’s belief that, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.” I wasn’t completely sold. It’s hard to extricate ingrained beliefs and a desire to conform, especially at a place like the University of Notre Dame, which in the 1990s was the epicenter for conventional thought. I was still convinced that other things, mainly rituals like Communion, Penance, and memorization of the Nicene Creed were more sacred than the integrity of my own mind. But slowly I started to recognize that sitting in the silence of Notre Dame’s Basilica, by its pristine lakes at daybreak, or the Grotto at night, was more enlightening than the manic ritual of Mass.
Before I could shovel some more nonsense at the Westmalle attendant, he cut me off and said, “OK” crushing the K with his guttural accent. “Good. See you soon.”
I started to pull out my credit card, but by then he had already hung up the phone.
I arrived in Antwerp, Belgium, in September of 2016, at the end of a business trip. I’m an organized traveler. I view visits abroad as exercises in precision not aimless frolics. I tend to ease up by the end of family vacations, usually just when we’re about to head home. It takes time for me to settle down after being detached from the stress of work life. This time I fretted over whether the Westmalle attendant had made some note about my visit. What would happen when I showed up without a printed out receipt from hotels.com, or a credit card transaction I could point to as proof that I was to be admitted behind the closed doors of the abbey? I had been tempted a few times to call him up to confirm the details but I was intimidated by his curt demeanor. I didn’t want to get off to a bad start.
In Antwerp, this afterthought visit had now become the centerpiece of my anxiety, a feeling which perhaps foreshadowed the lesson I was to receive. I spent my night walking the beautiful streets of this underrated city filled with exquisite architecture dating back to the Middle Ages. Its main square, the Grote Markt, is lined with cafés and guildhalls with elaborate facades. I’d focus on the beauty and then drift as I always had when I found myself alone. I started to doubt that this was a good idea. I missed my family. I questioned whether I was doing something that would prove unfulfilling, that I was just ticking an item off my bucket list, the subject of a cocktail conversation that I could share to the amusement of others. I convinced myself that I was just romanticizing the monastic life and that a weekend of solitude in a picturesque Belgian monastery was irresponsible. I should be at home watching a college football game or taking my daughters to their soccer games, not eating pommes frites in a café eight hours ahead and almost five thousand miles away.
After a restless evening, the next morning I boarded the bus to Westmalle at the gothic Antwerp train station. The first twenty minutes of the fifty-minute bus ride from Antwerp to Westmalle was unimpressive. We made stops in crowded neighborhoods and soon made our way to the suburbs, lined with office centers, car dealers, and supermarkets. They were more subtle and compact than in the U.S. but the message was the same: here’s where you buy stuff. The landscape began changing methodically as we grew farther from the city. The surroundings transformed from an urban center to more pastoral landscapes. Antwerp was no by means a tense city, but thirty minutes out, I found myself growing more relaxed by the sights of running streams, lush fields, and quaint farmhouses and cottages. The bus stops became more infrequent and the passengers donned more flannel shirts and rustic ware than the button down attire of the city folk whose stops were closer to the urban confines.
A teenage boy boarded and greeted me in Flemish. When I nodded and said “Hello”, he smiled and responded to me in broken English. He wanted to practice and I was an easy target. We engaged in small talk before I asked him when the Westmalle stop was. “You’ll know,” he said. And he was right. A few minutes later, the bus slowed to drop me off on the side of the road at a nondescript shelter. It reminded me of a scene in a war movie, when the American GI comes home to his tiny Iowa farm town. I wasn’t greeted by Pa in his overalls and Ma and Sis in their summer dresses. Instead, as the bus chugged away down the empty country road, I set my eyes on the impressive, red-bricked façade of the Westmalle Abbey at the end of a long tree-lined street that could easily be transplanted to some Southern charm city like Savannah or Charleston without causing a stir amongst the Old Guard.
My first thought was that it seemed bigger than I imagined. It looked like a compound, bounded by a brick wall and canal. It was a spacious rambling structure with an open field that one could roam for hours while getting lost in dreams and deep thought. If my visit had been spawned by a longstanding desire to be alone and challenge my notions of prayer, this was my graduate level of course. And that frightened me. Not in the traditional sense of being in harm’s way, like visiting a haunted house or finding a mountain lion on the side of a hiking trail, but fear wrought from intimacy, of looking deep within oneself and being uncertain of what I would find.
Standing on the side of the road I continued to examine the abbey in the distance about six hundred yards away. The massive wood arched doors of the Abbey’s entrance looked daunting but also humble. Unlike Antwerp, with the ornate meticulous buildings and elaborate window stained glass, Westmalle Abbey seemed reserved. I was overcome by a sudden confidence that this was a destination rather than a chance encounter. I was meant to be here, even for a brief visit.
As I ambled down the brick street, awkwardly hauling my large suitcase complete with souvenirs for my children on an unseasonably warm Belgian day, a car pulled up. A woman with gray hair, glasses, and a wide grin rolled down her window and instructed me to “hop in.” It was less an invitation than it was an order from above.
“Are you here for s a visit?” she said in English that could have passed for someone from Connecticut rather than the municipality of Malle, Belgium.
“Yes,” I replied before squeezing myself into her compact vehicle.
“I’m worried if they know I’m coming. I talked to someone but he never took my name down,” I said.
The woman laughed. “That’s Brother Benedict. And you’re fine. There’s always plenty of room. We love visitors, especially from the U.S.” She explained that she was a volunteer at the Abbey. “And how did you find out about us?” she asked.
I was about to tell her that I was deeply involved in my local parish and that a visit to Westmalle had come highly recommended. But that would be a lie for I wasn’t fond of the priest who had just been assigned to my family’s local Catholic Church, which ran the school my daughters attended. He was young and while it may be sacrilegious to admit, he wasn’t the type of person I would’ve enjoyed hanging out with at any time in my life. He was tightly wound and his homilies centered around Scripture rather than the application of Christ’s teachings to everyday life. Whereas I could talk to many of the priests at Notre Dame and my Jesuit high school with ease, the new priest was stiff and I therefore felt disconnected. I didn’t need to be inspired at every homily but I felt like I was missing something in my life.
Concerned that this answer may not be well-received or well-translated, I told her that one of my work colleagues had introduced me to Westmalle beer. I fell in love with it and had wanted to visit the place to admonish those responsible for adding ten pounds to my frame.
She laughed and when I told her that really, I had a bucket list, and spending a night at a monastery was on it, she nodded.
“Well,” she offered, “regardless of why you’re here, everybody needs to weed the garden of their souls from time to time.” In one sentence she had encapsulated my goal better than I had articulated it on prior occasions when asked. I thought that upon my return, perhaps talking less was something I could take away from this experience.
She dropped me off at the gate and she went her separate way. I gathered my bags and peered at the massive front doors of the Abbey’s residence. The entrance of the Abbey reminded me of my first day of Kindergarten, when I had wondered what lurked behind the Gargantuan door at the entrance. I opened the door and stepped in, the prospects of seeing what was on the other side outweighing any self-doubts.
The lobby inside the door had a store with cheese and beer on display, but no one was there to greet me. I reached for my smart phone and started scrolling for messages. After about ten minutes, a man in a white robe, brown sash and sandals appeared. He was bald and had a neat trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, was in his mid-50s, and strongly built. He walked with a self-assured gait and his deep voice bolstered his authoritative presence. He introduced himself as Brother Benedict. He gave me a firm handshake, eyeing me for that key first impression hiring managers look for in a job interview. His eyes went straight to my phone, which I had jammed in my pants pocket. His welcome was neither rude nor unfriendly. I realized that he was the one I had talked with on the phone and his attitude bore the same inquisitiveness, as if he were making a split-second moral judgment.
Brother Benedict then walked me across the manicured lawn to the guest house, which was in the process of being remodeled. There was no check-in, and no pleasantries that you might expect when staying at a hotel, “How was your trip?” “How long will you be staying with us?” Instead, Brother Benedict showed me to my room, which was sparse but spotlessly clean. There was a wardrobe for my things and a desk on which there was a sheet of paper with the daily schedule.
Vigils Night Prayer 4:00 Midday Rest/Quiet Time 12:30
Reading & Reflection 5:00 Nones Afternoon Prayer 14:00
Lauds Morning Prayer 7:00 Labour 14:15
Breakfast 7:35 Vespers Evening Prayer 17:15
Manual Labour for the Monks 7:35 Evening Meal 18:00
Terce Morning Prayer + Eucharist 10:45 Quiet Time 18:30
Quiet Time 11:30 Compline Night Prayer 19:30
Midday Meal 12:30 Bed 20:00
I read the itinerary and cursed myself, along with the ghost of Emerson.
“So quiet time is only at 11:30 at 18:30? I can play my music at all other hours?” I said with a smile, which Brother Benedict didn’t return.
“No,” he replied sharply. “The bathroom is down the hall. All good?”
“Great,” I said. “But what happens. What do I do?”
“You will know” said Brother Benedict, providing the same answer the boy had given me on the bus.
“Is there a key?” I asked.
“No,” he said firmly raising his eyebrows. Of course, I thought, it’s a monastery.
“And Wi-Fi?” I asked. “Can I get the password?”
“No. No wee-fee,” he replied firmly pronouncing Wi-Fi as wee-fee.
I showed him my phone. “There is wee-fee but it requires a password.”
He looked at the phone and paused as if weighing the matter. He then looked at me authoritatively, as if I were a teenager asking for a prolonged curfew. “No wee-fee,” he said. “You are not here for wee-fee.”
After he left, I immediately began to struggle with the newfound liberty of time and nothing to do. I had been cut off from the outside world and it was uncomfortable. When time is a commodity to be measured and apportioned among well-defined options, I was at ease. Now I was being offered boundless time as a gift and I had no idea what to do with it. I had become so engrossed in work and distractions that I shut down when offered freedom. I had become a prisoner of obligation, duty, pressure and work stress. I peered out the window and saw two men who looked like the ice cream moguls Ben & Jerry, in deep meditation. I picked up Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I sat in the desk chair and my joints started aching from the wooden chair, which was a far cry from the ergonomic chairs I enjoyed in my home and work offices. After five minutes I opted for the bed. I began reading The Transcendentalist but fell asleep before making it past the first two pages.
At 6:00 p.m., Brother Benedict awakened me with a hard knock on the door. I opened it trying to feign like I had been in a deep state of meditation but he could tell from my raspy voice that I had been sleeping. “O.K. Now we eat,” he said sternly.
He led me to a small dining room in the same guest compound. The room was modest and decorated in the Cleveland Parochial School style. Pictures of what I assumed were former abbots adorned the walls. There were sturdy tables that were unremarkable but for the fact that they were likely hand carved and made from one of the many trees that occupied the property. I sat down and received a plate of fish, cheese, salad and a roll by the woman who had dropped me off earlier. She was not as jocular as she had been earlier. She was joined by another woman who was in her seventies and whose demeanor was even more serious. They said nothing, abiding by the policy of silence, the rules for which had not been explained to me by Brother Benedict but that he had assumed I would follow despite my threat of playing AC/DC outside of quiet hours.
Silences in social situations makes me feel awkward. I’m the one in meetings or during dinner parties to break the ice, asking questions or striking up a conversation. I looked at the women as we ate, raising my eyebrows and making grunting sounds of pleasure or inquisitiveness as I passed the butter or salt and took bites of the fish and cheese. They ate in silence, staring at their food and stoically wondering why Big Foot had been invited to the Last Supper. I wanted to ask for the beer but felt that it would appear presumptuous, like I was there for free beer and Wi-Fi, not meditation and an opportunity to reconnect with my spiritual side.
After dinner, I walked around the Abbey grounds. The Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Heart of Westmalle, or “Westmalle”, was founded in 1794 by the Order of the Cistercians. The monks who occupy the Abbey, about twenty-five in total, are Trappists and therefore dedicate themselves to a communal life of prayer and work, and specifically the four pillars of poverty, obedience, the monastic way of life, and loyalty to the order. None of them, I surmised, cared much for ESPN or Netflix, and without each at my disposal, I went to bed earlier than I ever would at home. I was planning on an early start.
*****
I awoke the next morning at 3:45 a.m. to the thunderous chiming of bells emanating from the Abbey. As I groggily walked outside the guesthouse en route to the Vigils prayer session I was guided by the stars that filled a clear pitch black sky. I entered the clean, modern church with a certain sheepishness, expecting the Monks to advise me to leave, a reprieve I would have accepted with pleasure. Instead, I saw Brother Benedict at the organ. He looked surprised when I sat down.
The church is organized simply but methodically. There are rows of pews for the general public in the back, with individual seats reserved for each monk along opposite walls, with half of the monks facing the other half. Brother Benedict was tucked away on the left side nearest the pews as a bridge between the Monks and the small audience. In front of the church is a lectern, altar and seats occupied by those monks leading the prayers.
As I sat down in one of the pews Brother Benedict pointed at three numbers that had been posted. These were the Psalms and hymns that the monks would chant. He was signaling that I could follow along in a Missal. It was a courteous gesture but I had little confidence in keeping up as they were only in Dutch. The monks started appearing one by one. They varied in age. Each would enter, find his assigned seat and then sit silently. Right before the prayers began, I could hear a click-clack noise that was getting progressively louder. Finally, an older brother appeared. He was hunched over and aided by a walker. As soon as he found his seat, Brother Benedict launched into the first hymn, led by a soloist, a young man in his twenties with glasses and a slight frame. The other monks provided back-up, chanting along to the beat of Brother Benedict’s organ playing and the young brother’s lead.
Although half asleep, I was immediately enraptured by the beauty of this simple gathering. It was teamwork and art blended as one. The Chicago Bulls meets the Vienna Philharmonic. Time and place may have influenced my reaction for I was sitting by myself in a Belgian monastery in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and with no family, phone or book to distract me from the artistry before me. It was only through unfettered detachment from my ordinary world could I truly engage in this experience. The drama of sheer silence shifting suddenly into an outpouring of emotion was an electric charge more jarring than an espresso. I felt like I had entered unconscious and the performance was a defibrillator for my soul. The monks weren’t merely reciting lines, they were part of the hymn, as if the performers were transfigured into the performance itself. Mind and body through prayer had become one. I could only observe. That didn’t make me envious, only curious.
Watching the performance made me question the underlying notions of solitude and community. None of the monks spoke to each other. There were no smiles, nods, or conversations. They sat stoically and methodically before chanting along. But this wasn’t like the recitations of the Our Father my friends and I would repeat at Mass with glazed over eyes awaiting Communion and the end of Mass. The monks weren’t joyless or devoid of passion. There was intensity in each monk’s chanting as they seemed to feed off the other. Each appeared to be in an individual trance while connecting to his inner Soul. By doing so together, as a community, they simultaneously created a force of nature that seemed to embody goodness in a way that I had never seen before.
One could perceive the music as bland but it was powerful in its simplicity and its rawness. The beauty was in the perfection of its execution. The monks were not performing jazz or improv, but the result was not rigid. It was a disciplined art that fed off each monk’s passion and unyielding trust in the man next to him – that he will not stray from a selfish desire to be the center of attention.
Maybe I had not yet achieved the goal of “living with the monks” but by 4:30 a.m. in Belgium, I was as close as anyone could be. As the third soloist finished the morning hymns, and Brother Benedict sharply rounded out his notes, I felt sated for I had entered without something I didn’t know I needed. And now I had a taste of it.
I went back to my room and I was surprised that I didn’t return to the comforts of my bed. I picked up my copy of Emerson and began plowing through it with a renewed determination. It might have been the moment but his words seemed to resonate more with me. “God enters by a private door into every individual,” Emerson wrote in Intellect. Despite my initial reservations and stubbornness to open myself up to this experience, I had been enlightened by the presence of something greater, call it God or divine inspiration, in that small room in Belgium.
I returned for morning prayer at 7:00 a.m. I was still the only one in attendance, just me and the Westmalle brothers. This time I entered with more confidence. I braced myself for the performance before me and they did not disappoint. It was a different form of prayer. I was listening rather than reciting and through this change came the revelation that I was witnessing something special and that I was therefore special, that my life had meaning. That while I did not know who my Creator was, or where I came from or where I would end up one day, I knew that I was created.
For the rest of the day, I followed the itinerary, growing more comfortable with each task. Every minute away from Wi-Fi and the other distractions of life helped me unwind and detach from the daily grind of the worries and anxieties that had dictated my life for so long. I went to the Eucharist service at 10:45, ate lunch, and then went back to my room to read. I was again buoyed by Emerson as I reached back into my own sub-conscious: “Make your own Bible,” Emerson had instructed in one his Journals. “Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
At lunch, a volunteer who I had seen around the property invited me to help in the garden. I accepted and he led me to rake leaves and water plants. One of the monks was assisting as well. I noticed it was the younger monk who was a soloist from both sessions. As he approached me, I broke the vow of silence and said “Hello.”
“I have relatives in the United States,” he said in a voice that was harmonious even when offering a simple response.
“I live in Seattle, but I grew up in Connecticut,” I replied. “Where are you from?”
“Nearby,” he said, and it was clear that the conversation was going to be brief. I imagined the brother had exhausted his verbal quota. Nevertheless, I tried to see if I could get more out of him.
“What brought you here?” I asked.
He stopped what he was doing. He looked around at the blue skies, the bucolic farmland, the garden, and the overwhelming serenity. He bowed as he left, and the words of Emerson in Self-Reliance filled the void:
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that through the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that lot of ground which is given to him to till.
That night, I ate dinner by myself as the volunteers had left early. Brother Benedict offered me with the same meal I had the night before: salad, cheese, fish and a roll. After dinner, I walked around the secluded grounds. The weather remained unseasonably warm. I looked at the clear night sky and stars and thought of my father, who had died ten years before my visit to Westmalle. After he died I rarely took time to reflect on his impact and the loss of losing one of my creators. I was busy caring for my mother and dealing with the litany of administrative issues that are inherent when someone leaves this complicated world of paperwork and bureaucracy. After he died, there were times when I wanted to cry but my attention shifted to 401(k) succession plans, guessing passwords, and hacking accounts to track down assets and liabilities. And then as time went on, his absence became normal and the memories of our times together, often challenging but always impactful, became sidetracked by the more pressing concerns of daily life.
In the late summer of 1988, before my Senior year of high school, my father and I drove across the U.S. to deliver a car he had purchased for my brother, who was starting his Junior year at the Air Force Academy. My father could have just bought the car in Colorado, but he claimed he had gotten a better deal in Connecticut. In truth, he wanted to spend time with me and see first-hand what the vast American landscape had to offer. It had always escaped him in his New York bubble. My father was born and raised in New York and worked on Wall Street but had not really ventured much further than Vermont. He planned the trip for weeks, analyzing maps laid out on tables like Napoleon preparing for battle. He went to Sam Goody and Tower Records to stock up on Willie Nelson and John Denver tapes. I was sixteen and didn’t care about the route. To me, Kentucky was no different from South Dakota. Mostly, I was worried about how many altercations we would have during the drive. My father was an aggressive driver and had an edge about him that made it difficult for him to get close to anybody except for his wife and children.
My fears ultimately proved unwarranted. My father relaxed with each mile we drove, our route taking us across the Canadian border, past Niagara Falls, and into London, Ontario. We had exhausted our entire stack of music tapes by the time we parked in Mount Rushmore following a brief stint at Wall Drug. Our conversations were pleasant but not profound. Those conversations were reserved for my mother, who still questions the universe like a Buddhist monk. My father was not a deep thinker. He was a man of action and results.
By the time he reached the Yellowstone entrance in Wyoming he seemed to have arrived at a contemplative state. We woke up early one morning as we always had when he was in charge of the schedule. But this time he did not blare “On the Road Again” as we drove along the scenic Yellowstone highway, the sky purple and red from a fire that had engulfed some of the park. On the plains hugging the side of the road, a herd of bison was slowly coming our way and about to cross our path. Back home, my father would have gunned the car, not worried about grazing the leader. This time, he pulled over and stopped. He got out and watched as the herd crossed the road and he, a city slicker with a penchant for fighting and gambling, was at their mercy. After the majestic passing, we drove in silence for the next hour. His head was on a swivel, taking in the beauty of early morning Yellowstone under the haze of smoke and the dawn of a new day. He didn’t need to say anything. And I didn’t need to say anything. We both knew what we were feeling and seeing.
My father spoke often of the trip but not of that specific morning until one night while he was sitting in bed with my mother. It was the year he died and the combination of medicine and fear of a failing heart made him maudlin. He relayed the story to my mother, describing what he had listed were his best days. The time he laid eyes on my mother when he was sixteen and working at Walgreen’s. The time he returned home from Vietnam to see my brother for the first time. And this time – when he and I came face-to-face with nature as the bison crossed our path during that morning in Yellowstone. As I looked at the serene Belgian night sky I made a connection: Yellowstone was my dad’s monastery. It was his time to look deeply within himself, to find something in the abyss of his soul that could only be found after days of introspection, reflection and listening to John Denver for a week straight.
I went to bed that night at peace. I had grieved not through tears or an emotional catharsis but by experiencing something my father had discovered years before. Fathers are forever looking for bonds with their Sons and Daughters even after they’re long gone. He was gone from this world but we had still connected and that was miraculous in a way. For prayer and solitude had served as a portal to find something I didn’t know was there.
The author with Brother Benedict
I awoke at 3:45 a.m. the next morning. I had only spent a day at Westmalle but I gained confidence with each hour there. I was disappointed to be leaving later that day but I couldn’t shirk my responsibilities. To “Live with the Monks” was not a goal but a gift to hit the Pause button on life as my father had done years before. I had somehow been able to do that in college. To find a few minutes to regroup from obligations and a hectic schedule. To sit in an empty Cathedral and reflect about what was important. Like the best concierge at a 5-star hotel, Brother Benedict seemed to know that. I’m sure I wasn’t the first one to have walked through that Abbey door needing a reboot. “You’re not here for wee-fee,” he had said. And it was not a demand but a challenge.
As I closed my eyes and took in the rhythmic hymns of the Vigils Night Prayer, I realized that we all go to pray in whatever place of worship we find comfort in, be it a church, oratory, synagogue, mosque, mandir, or pagoda to find two things: clarity and forgiveness. The woman who first greeted me was right. My mind and soul needed a cleansing, and it was clear that the weeds blocking my growth were the stresses and anxieties that still engulf me, paralyze me into becoming the version of myself I want to be. I’ve always worried of trivial things out of my control. It’s a constant battle, a daily fight that I still wage long after my trip to Westmalle.
But I’ve come to recognize that pulling these weeds is a necessary act of being human. For tilling one’s mind not only brings peace but the clarity that we are all flawed people. By seeing our individual flaws, we see the community of being human. That we are not God but that we can get closer to Him by inviting Him in through the private doors of our soul and mind. And when we do, we receive the second gift of prayer: forgiveness. I, like so many others, have self-destructive tendencies. I beat myself up over small things. My memory is powerfully scary. And while it is helpful to recall stories and events to the wonder of its subjects, I sometimes lay awake at night drowning in thoughts of my own mistakes, errors, and embarrassing foibles. I am often a slave of my past and the anxieties that haunt my present. I often fail to heed Emerson’s message to: “Finish each day and be done with it…. To-morrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely….”
What I remember most about sitting in the Westmalle Abbey Church while listening to twenty-five monks chant Psalms and Hymns, was that I was forgiven. Just like my father had found forgiveness years before. I was not perfect but I was forgiven.
Later that morning, when I arrived for the Terce Mid-morning Prayer, for the first time since I had arrived at Westmalle, the pews were filled with people – local residents who attended the Abbey for weekend Mass. It made me feel as if I was the intruder, an outsider to this local community. I was about to turn around when I saw Brother Benedict wave me over. He had pulled a chair out next to him. I sat down in front of the pews, which were occupied by the local residents. I was now adjacent to the monks. It was not only a polite gesture but an invitation to gain a different perspective, something closer physically and spiritually. Or, maybe two days of sleep deprivation had earned Brother Benedict’s respect.
The monks entered in the same procession, ending with the same click-clack, click-clack, click-clack of the older monk. The monks lived in solitude and silence but they were not alone. They communicated not through idle conversation but with a passionate and focused prayer. They knew what they wanted, and they were confident how to get it. Each chant, each sound connected to the other monks but ultimately to something greater. Their hearts and souls were their companions, their minds the lands they tilled. The monk with whom I had worked in the garden nodded at me. This time, when Brother Benedict struck the chords of the opening hymn, I chanted along.
