EWTN Live - 2014-2-26 - Abbot Philip Anderson - The Contemplative Life

let the Cowboys of the Old West a group of monks are pioneering a life of hard work and Benedict and spirituality in America's heartland and you'll hear their story tonight so please stay with us thank you thank you very much and welcome I'm father Mitch Pacwa and welcome to EWTN live our chance to bring you guests from all over the world and our guest tonight served as a Marine and then he left Kansas with 31 other men in the 1970s in order to join a Benedictine monastery in France on the condition that they would eventually be sent back to start a monastery in the United States after almost thirty years of prayer and work that dream was realized with the founding of Our Lady of Clearcreek Abbey in 1999 which is in the Diocese of Tulsa Oklahoma here to tell us more is the first prior and now the first abbot of Clear Creek monastery so please welcome abbot Philip Anderson welcome thank you happy to be here good to have you here and sounds like you've uh you know had a fairly adventurous life yes I'm feeling it I'm feeling it a little bit yeah how does it venture feel well you feel alive and you feel like well I better just keep having an adventure because if I stop and try to rest well then I'm gonna feel old but you know monks are kind of an adventure but there's a physical part to and living in Oklahoma can be an adventure out in the wild there yeah it's no you're not near the city of Tulsa are you well if you call an hour and a half by car near yeah but we are not really to nearing so it's fairly rural you look very rural large amount of land that you've been able to settle into a thousand acres these are the foothills of the Ozarks so it's kind of hilly it's not mountainous yet but it's so rather pretty yes and Clear Creek is so named because it's crystal clear except during storms or something and we have this wonderful clear water we swim in sometimes when he was looking and we're what led you to go to the Benedictine Order and to go all the way over to France to get this idea well that's a good question how many hours do we have now well half it was it was a story about converts I'm a convert and several of us at this monastery Oklahoma are converts through a program of humanities great books programs at the University of Kansas of all place we became during the 70s and there's turbulence of campus revolution we became interested in this radical vision which is Catholic instead of a radical vision of revolution you know political revolution and we really wanted we were looking either for hell or heaven it was held first and then we found heaven was a better idea so we said what can we do with this faith as Catholic faith and someone stole why don't you why don't we start a monastery here in Kansas there already were some a lot in America really but they were part of a first history where they started schools and they were missionaries and they're active and our professors thought we'd better to have a contemplative monastery in the old mold of the antique monastic life of just prayer and work and so two of these students went off around the world looking and they found a place in France it seemed just the right place and when you're adventurous near 20 years old it seems like the farther away the better the more you know sure adventurous it is and we wound up serving many of us going over there and in some stayed some so so much still in France you know some stayed there like like me and some didn't make it in the religious life and those who stayed eventually came with some Frenchmen and Canadians back to found clear Creek in 1999 yeah I do we recall when that was founded because I had saw doing some teaching in the Diocese of Tulsa while I was at the universe of Dallas so I wear of the founding now how was your community done what as it stayed the same growing bigger smaller have you done well for the times we live in and with you know the question of vocations being pretty scarce in 80s and 90s I think we've done quite well we started with 13 and we're up to 44 when I left now there might be another one when I get back but there were 44 when I left and for a seminary or some kind of institution where people come in and out that would not be a lot but for a permanent community people to enter for the rest of their lives it's a pretty it's a pretty good rate of vocations and yeah men yes so we're pretty we feel very blessed about that I want to continue even though our monastery holds about 35 so we're building sheds and things outside and they're living in that that's okay no so we can build bigger buildings sure no you know a lot of folks my dad was among them had trouble understanding why anybody would want to be a contemplative when you can instead get out and do something what would you say to them well I have trouble understanding how you could not be a contemplative but I guess that's just you know for us we're so active there was a saying in the Middle Ages you know oats to you and me go TC move in other words the most active of Leisure's because we have manual labor and we we do all sort of make our clothes we there's a lot of activity in that sense that makes a man feel like he's accomplishing something but it's just the most the first form of religious life is that why well you have to get back into the depths of what it's all about the gospel I like to remind people of the of the fourth chapter of Saint John where you have our Lord evangelizing by himself the Apostles are off somewhere else getting supplies and he here he is talking with the Samaritan woman giving the essence of things very quickly and what does he say that the father is looking for those who adore worship I like the word adore more of a Latin word adore and spirit and truth how does this is powerful this is this is what the contempt of life is about doing that and everybody of course every every Catholic every Christian has to do that but some people have to do it sort of as their specialty and so that's what we do and we focus on prayer but the earlier monks found that if you pray all day you go crazy you it used can't do it so st. Benedict ii found this balance we have life where you pray and you work and you have a variety of activities but the real purpose is to adorn the father in spirit and truth to live this deep spirit of the gospel and then the rest organizes around that and this is something that a lot of folks in the modern world would find difficult because from what you and i've talked about earlier you don't have a lot of the modern distractions you're not spending as much time watching football on television as you are praying would that be a fair statement that would be yeah could you see father the young people that have vocations they're looking for a high ideal they're not looking for a mediocre you know what men get older they're they're happy to have a little more leisure or whatever but the young people i want to make the monastery that attracts them you know they're the future and so they want a heart ideal sometimes they're looking for something harder than they can really handle and then we have to help with that and moderate them but we want to offer a really high sort of goal and so they understand that and they want to give up the you know easy leisure and and things and we we do though have to be reasonable and try to adapt and take into consideration where they're coming from and help them and we do watch a video once a year or something like this and you know it's amazing they do live without because when you have prayer enough it takes the place of all that much and so you know it all works out but it's a challenge but I mean who doesn't have a challenge I mean you know one of the things that has struck me I've been doing a lot of studies of the end of the Roman Empire its collapse in the barbarian invasions and what has struck me is that the most influential long-term influential people from that period were san agustin st. benedict st. Patrick st. Gregory all of whom spent time in monasteries apart from a decaying collapsing corrupt society and because they were apart they were able to give a vision for the future do you see this as part of your mission yes I think that's really quite true you can't draw a perfect parallel but there's something similar they say this is a little bit simplistic but there's a kind of comparison between st. Benedict the founder of this whole monastic uni they call him the father of the monks of the West and boëthius who was a political figure a Christian you know trying to work within the system he chose to stay and try to work things out in the political life and wound up in prison and you know what was the death st. Benedict chose to just go out and live in a cave and yet he he did so much more for Europe's and boëthius it's it's amazing but God uses these things so so I don't I don't know that we can just you know base what we do now on what happened then but I see some real parallels I think that's a very profound there's a kind of barbarianism now coming as there was in that time when the Roman Empire was falling and people looking for values and that's what I meant by you know the going back to the adoration spirited to start with the basics and the rest will develop from that it always has in you know you said that you're getting in 40 more men so you started with 13 in 1999 and now you have 244 it's a fairly significant increase not percentage-wise in such two questions from where do these these young men come where where do they come from they are from Oklahoma or where we've had a poss one or two from Oklahoma but right now I don't think any of them is from Oklahoma they're just from all over we have one from Australia one from New Zealand you know Canadians still but most are from America now and it's just really all over California or Virginia or various places these new colleges that have a strong Catholic identity Thomas Aquinas College or Christendom they're furnishing vocations homeschooling families I'm getting young men very young that coming out of homeschooling families and they have read about you know some and sometimes they've read very little but they're so young and full of dynamism but they learn very fast they catch up right away so we have people with less formal schooling than before but there are like an open book and they learn very well so homeschooling families is a source and often people from these new relatively new Catholic institutions that have a strong Catholic identity yeah I think that's something very important these you know I've been involved with a number of these schools visited quite a few of them and they're not fighting older battles against the faith these are young people who say this the Catholic faith is absolutely fascinating rich intellectually stimulating and they just dive into it and these seem to be coming for vocations to you and to some of the religious orders of women that are growing mm-hmm yes yes you know young people talk to one another and they they find their ways of knowing I want some a bishop in France was telling me you know I do all sorts of pastoral programs for vacations and the few that come never come through our program they come from somewhere else because they talked to Munro they know what's going on they look at websites and they you know and so that's right and I'm just amazed to see the seminarians that come to our monastery that stay with us you know apart from vocations just young people and it's not just the young of course we get all ages but young people are looking for something more adventurous I would use another word that you'd have to qualify to understand I think there's a profoundly important in all this is young people are looking for a life that they find poetic and I don't mean poetry in a bad sense like something not real true I mean something that you know touches their heart it's not just like a professional formation you know or the technical knowledge or whatever they want to do something that seems like it has a resonance with what people have done you know like riding a horse is something that people have done for thousands of years and now it's pretty much a sport for rich people I guess but it's something about this that just is in our psyche or you know the monk even oriental you know Buddhist monks but there's something is sort of in the history of the world and young people like that in some places now you know some more advanced or developed monasteries where they have big universities and amongst their teachers well then the young person sees well if I want to be a teacher I'll be a teacher to become a monk just then to do parish work or something doesn't seem right but our form of life being close to the land and being out in nature it's it's more poetic now they're more you know important things in life than that but for the young people I think that's initially they see us is something that strikes the rings a bell with them you know in that sense it's see that was gonna be my next question in fact you really got to it you know what is it that attracts these young men so they come from all over they have you know a clearer Catholic identity as part of their background but what is it then that they look for in the monastic and again more contemplatively cly 'f that's your leading well it's not because they've thought a lot about what contemplation is or you know it's just God I mean I don't know it's a mystery all as long as long as it's going on though I'm gonna try to help it but I don't know you know there's so many excellent people in communities in America that don't have too many vocations and they're doing everything they can it's a bit of a mystery you know I don't know part of its because it's new I mean relatively new and it's growing and when they see us building when we start we have funds we start building a debt seems we're attracting to see what something's going on here you know and they see other young people with with the habit on that we're really living life but it's it's really a mystery what attracts them you know I don't know for sure for me it was just such a revelation the church I mean it was such a great thing and to do something kind of radical strong not not you know everything's you have to moderate everything in life everybody likes to elect it to something kind of mystery I like to do like a jump out on a parachute or I have these ideas but the only thing you can do that's really absolute is in the theological realm you know the stands above virtues faith hope and charity there you can do something all the way the rest whether it's fasting or drinking or eating has to be moderated but at the heart of our vocation there's a radical choice and I think that speaks to everybody at a certain stage of their life in the young people know know one of the my high school used the Benedict and motto aura at libera so prayer and work and you've been describing aspects primarily of the prayer the contemplation because that's the primary but as you said if you pray all day you'll probably go crazy so uh you also work and that was part of st. Benedict's idea what kind of work do you have the monks - well we have a variety now we have monks studying for the priesthood who have more studies they do manual labor - and then you have brothers that aren't going to study for the priesthood and they have more time we have a wood workshop we have a middle of workshop we have a ranch with sheep and cattle we milk cows and make cheese that's so popular do we we can't get it to a store it's sold right at the ambu before we can you don't want to eat any if you can't come back because if you get hooked on it so you you know you you won't be able to get in eat so did you really me any and I didn't I'd say no I can't even get my fix but we you have to fix meals and so there's the kitchen work and everyone has to do a lot of that and we but you see that's more poetic working on a ranch or working out if we wanted to just make money for the abbot's we would just build a hangar a warehouse and put computers and have everybody all day under neon lights do something like that it's hard to earn your living with honest work anymore but it's good for the monks and so we do it anyway and little by little we do find ways of you know earning our way but we one way is just we make our own clothes and we make her own shoes we we make our own bread and so if you don't have to pay for all these things that's a kind of economy so we do a little bit of everything in manual labor you know now with some of this did you learn some of these skills like making cheese and bread when the monks were in France oh yes our cook learned to cook there and boy you know they know how to cook in France I mean it's not just a myth I is a a monk in a smaller I was in a bigger monastery for a while then sent to a foundation in France before coming to the foundation foundation as a new monastery I was in one in France zero and then we build up and I had a chance to do a little bit of everything including milking cows boy I never thought I'd do that in my life being from the city you know I've had a chance to do a little bit everything except cook I've never cooked but I learned a little bit of this making pottery and all these kind of things yes there's a variety of aspects of the work that keeps that prayer and work balance now one of the things I believe I've received from y'all are some CDs of chant oh is that true they all make CDs yes yes well you see my monastic family for those who know little about church history in more recent times the name of Solem was linked to Gregorian chant because after the French Revolution you know in the early 1800s Gregorian chant had sort of become corrupt and they rediscovered through manuscripts and they revived it and it's for part of our family heritage right it was solemn really did a lot of work to get the best manuscripts yes and learn how to use the chant and integrated into literature was much more beautiful than that to what they were doing before that and so we keep that tradition going of Gregorian chant in this is another part of the not exactly the contemplation but chant is part of the communal expression of prayer that is so key to Benedict in life well if you if you looked into this amongst know a lot about liturgies so it's hard to speak but you know you in a certain way you don't have the complete liturgy unless you have the church's own interpretation of it and the chant will bring out in a liturgical piece a certain spect of that meaning of it and so when you have the entire Divine Office as provided by the church whether it's the older right or the new right and you have the Gregorian chant you have the official music you know Vatican 2 so this has priority you know jaggery and Shan is a pride of place it gives you a certain insight into the text which is the Holy Spirit is guided by the church so there's a lot there too sacred music we see that I remember reading a really interesting book called why Catholics can't sing yes and one of the points he made about chant is that it's humble music the individual is not highlighted but there's this chant that everybody does together they know and they sing along and it doesn't emphasize virtuosity but rather the communal expression to draw the meaning of the word of God oh it's all subordinated to the meaning to the word of God but it's not simplistic it's very rich the melodies are very rich it doesn't doe give you that kind of you know like the the Italian tin or who's gonna give this incredible voice and erm is gonna go wow he's just you know you don't do that they're very few solos but it will bring tears to your eyes especially when you get used to it you know I was brought up when popular music a rock and roll kind of thing my parents were jazz enthusiast and I would hear classical music in but never quite saw why it was so interesting but then once on the monastery all other music cut off for about a year or so all your going in chant then it's kind of like the top of a stream up in the top of the mountains very pure water and then when you hear some polyphony you know sacred music of the Renaissance well then you say oh that's easier and now I see why people like it's easier and it's magnificent and then when you hear some Baroque music you say oh well this is downhill this is even easier in a way than Gregorian chant but it's much larger and you keep going downhill till you get to the Mississippi and then the Delta it gets pretty muddy down into the popular music and it's it's this final destination but it's is even so that muddied up quality and some of those hymns I've seen in certain Catholic in books well with a focus about themselves and it's lucky God is to have them there but it's interesting to take the trip down but you have to know enough Gregorian chant to really appreciate it before you can then sort of see how this works but isn't it a mystery seven notes of the diatonic scale an infinite amount of melodies and music comes out of this it's just sort of like you know in creation you know plants to come out of seemingly nowhere it's just really a whole education to study Gregorian chant you know and your phone well no it's a full monastery no longer foundations and and you know you've had Cardinal Burke come over to visit he's presently at Rome and he's been to community and you're continuing to grow like I said some of the monks are living in shacks right now sheds they're nice enough sheds but they're sheds you can do any more building for them we want to where we have a plan elaborated by a professor of Notre Dame very fine architect Thomas Smith and in fact his son is a sculptor and did part of the tympanum in the front of the church were sculpting I don't know how many people doing this we were doing sculpting and stone on our church right now and not many and we have elaborated the whole plan we've built about a third which is not bad in 15 years we said we're building 4,000 years so not a hurry a thousand years you know we want to build something beautiful for God I knew I think that young people are very sensitive to this you can build a modern building and pray in it it's fine you know you don't have to have something but we want something to last instead of like I'm you know a fast-food joint that's going to be built for ten years they'll tear it down we want to build for a long long time there's something beautiful so we need to continue but it's st. Joseph's got all the money it's just when he brings it around then we'll keep going upwards you know so the Holy Family had made job bringing them gold yeah I've got three fundraisers you know this has to do with Mother Angelica first of all there's you know the Blessed Virgin and she has come through often but she's too nice she's so nice you know infant Jesus now he has been big and he has come through too but he's kind of a he's a child he's sort of you know follows butterflies you sorta see Joseph there's a businessman what do we talk to st. Joseph you know you see he's really the businessman but all three or essential and we we pray the chaplet to the geology's it's everyday all the monks you know just for that for the continued development of the monastery great it's working it seems to be working not only in terms of external buildings but most importantly the living community well that's we learned you know in 1960 or so America there were so many vocations and every order in seminaries and you took that a little bit for granted and then after decades if you know kind of vocations drying up we've learned appreciate it's the living and in the in this in the ceremony or the rather the the Liturgy of the dedication of a church that's the that's the whole poetry of it the living stones you know that's really where it is is a living structure more than externals but externals were Catholic we you know we believe that the body is important and externals have their part in all this and so for us the buildings are the right setting as best we can build them you know but it's for the living stones that's for sure yeah we're gonna take a little bit of a break when I come back in about two minutes if you have any questions or comments that you would like to make to the abbot please do so and we'll be back with you for that thank you very much back first I would like to invite interviewed if I can to please come here on pilgrimage and be part of our studio audience join us at masses that we have everyday here both in the morning and at noon we'll also be able to give you information about how to get out to Hanceville to be able to pray with the sisters and our pilgrimage Department give you information about places to stay good places to eat get some fun Alabama barbecue over at the Golden Rule or raw fried green tomatoes ever had fragment tomatoes have a saw oh you have to come back to get you some of that and of course hamburger heaven that's for the cows going they made a hamburger so well in anybody if you can please join us at two zero five two seven one two nine six six or go to our web site ewtn.com and they'll give you all kinds of that information that you need to do that also want to let you know that if you're interested in contact our lady of Clear Creek Abbey you can go to their website which is Clear Creek monks org Clear Creek monks dot org or can also called nine one eight seven seven two two four five four now if you call them they might be contemplating and praying we're working so they'll get back to you when they can wasn't that but right that's right we're gonna start off with a phone call first Oh Mary hi hi were you from Minnesota oh great I understand it's pretty cold up there today oh it is we're getting our share of winter I guess so this is the end of global warming so it's with the end of global warming looks like so what can we what can we do for you today well I'm just wondering how do you know when you have a vocation and how did they give up everything like worldly items and we just pray for all of you god bless you and thank you so much thank you Mary a great question so how do you know you have a vocation the contemplative life and how difficult is it to give up your possessions well what happens is a vocation it's a little different with an order like the Jesuits or a particular monitor with the Benedictus it's usually you're gonna be attracted to go visit a particular place and you know the first time you go you're gonna say well how am I gonna know and you're not gonna know but you don't God doesn't tell you in the beginning everything you have to go step by step so a younger man typically will come to visit for two or three days he'll just see what he sees he'll go home and pray about it then he'll know what he wants to come back or not and that's all he's gonna know does he want to come back again for a little bit longer stay and during that stay he might then know whether he wants and to the novitiate which is just discernment you know you can leave anytime they want it's five years before you make a final commitment so you don't have to like go and know the first day whether you want to commit your life you know completely to this although if you had no inkling you wouldn't do anything so if you trust it's like swimming you have to trust the water right you have to trust the water if you learn to trust that God's gonna lead you in this and you go step by step it's sort of it happens there's a mystery to it that you can't really document or there's something a personal story how do you know if you're going to get married how do you know I don't know it's said I can't imagine it's never been married it's it's just a mystery you go you go into step by step and a good monster will help you through the process and you know the person will get to know all right what about giving up stuff well you know the hardest thing to give up is self-will you know there's there's things that are really tough to get up but give up but you know depending on how old you are and how you use you are two things you know it can be as something of a wrenching experience but you know what about st. Paul had to give up everything and what about you know that's part of the experience you know of a kind of a conversion if you're really serious about God you expect to have to do something and giving up things as part of it but when you get older and you get more and more used to things it's harder to imagine but you know the 20 year old you know they expect to something something hard and expect to have to make a sacrifice and they think they can do it you know I think when I entered the division I had all of $0.65 with me I just paid off my college debts you know working over the summer and stuff and you know what $0.65 wasn't that big no no sort of depends on each person's particular history but you know we have men come than like 35 well that's much more difficult they have a lot more things and it's a little harder but we just have to deal with it and if they can't they really can't give up things will do they just can't you know it doesn't you don't have to be a monk you know so I've certainly have known no one millionaire in particular who just realized his life was hollow and he was glad to get rid of it when he entered religiously he just just get out of my life because there's there's a great story about a desert father earliest monks were in Egypt just the way it was you know and this monk was a noble a patrician in Rome I mean our sin yes I think it's his famous artists Aeneas and so one day a monk came to another monks cave in there he was with a nice rug and he has a kind of a easy chair in there and this in a servant serving a table he said there's a scandalous in view of monk you have got a servant and he said well you know in Rome I had 500 slaves and I had several mansions and so for me just one easy-chair and the servant is very austere and so they they were supple about the what you could still keep their you know as a hermit we're more we're more standard about what you can keep what you can't the question man were you from Regina Saskatchewan Canada good to have you welcome and your question in Regina we have a director of the Eucharistic apostle Divine Mercy where an adoration Chapel there and we have people come every day to pray but we always have the problem of not getting enough adores with your experience of attracting the men to come to your Abbey do you have any suggestions that would help us to be able to attract people to come to pray too well this is a little out of my realm but I think this Eucharistic Adoration just a key thing this is so important in silence without any debate you're just transforming things so you expect to have to make an effort what I see is in certain places I know where it's just become a habit it'll be even several churches having Perpetual Adoration they have no trouble filling the lists it's just in the beginning you know getting over that hump word you people sort of get used to it so I would not be afraid to propose a lot of adoration even around the clock and if you have a program like this that's really audacious it'll tend to attract them more than if you just do a reasonable amount a little bit of adoration every day and try to do a you know but I know it depending on how many how much of a population you have around the place it could be a challenge but I think it's sometimes it's got a good size population yeah you know what suddenly one of the things you can perhaps advertisers you know to ask people are you tired of the rat race come into the quiet you know and just invite them to be quiet with Jesus the way you explain it it's part of it yeah you know and just and by coming to you know I mean one of the very interesting movies of a few years was that movie into the silence yes I know about that I've seen a little bit of it yeah it was about a Cartesian Carthusian monastery and throughout there was there are just a couple words spoken in the whole hours but it was fascinating and beautifully shot and just to invite people to come into the silence and out of the rat race and that that in itself can be very attractive and you know one of the monks on there was one of these students like myself from the University of Kansas who he he just had this sort of a little slightly different vocation instead of entering the Abbey I did in France he went to the cartoons in France and and you know their life is very similar to ours in fact we didn't watch the movie too much it's just like everyday this for us is what we all do those are putting their cows on there we don't care but my Jews when you're not a monkey it is fascinating to see there's a there's a monk gonna go feed the cat or something you know and and it's true they had they really cultivate that that silence and not the silence of a graveyard it's it's scary at first a little bit silence and then you get to be my age and you just can't get enough you know you have to always be talking and helping people but you know I think in my my case to just bring some young people and have them do it even if they're kicking and screaming and they do it for an hour they'll be changed and they may not come back in a week but they'll think about this again to be a year later you know but I don't know how you initially get them there it's really another thing is to be able to say to people sometimes in conversation you know I just had such a great time you know in adoration like the peace with which I come out of there it's just so wonderful I think just letting people know this makes the rest of the day worth living impossible oh and that that can be attractive well another caller hole Dan Danny you there yes I am there yeah where you from I'm from Connecticut great and what's your question my question is this can you explain what is the difference between a prior and an abbot and secondly be from Connecticut we have the very famous regina Lourdes Abbey which is a Benedictine abbey headed by mother Delores gray I was wondering how the ministries of Don Phillips monastery differ from that of regina Lourdes with that I'll hang up thank you thank you death so prior worlds that you know there's terminology and all this it's all very very logical once you get into it everyone's heard of Westminster Abbey or whatever an abbey is just a large monastery where they have a certain number and and the head of it is an abbot and it goes back to just Hebrew you know word of Abba Father it's just sort of you know and then when you have a monster that's slightly smaller you call this a prior or in an abbey like our IB we have the abbot and I have a father priors kind of second command in a sub prior you know you know and with the Franciscans its vicar asur they have a different terminology but there's the abbot the prior he's in charge while I'm gone you know and then a sub prior and a smaller it can be a perpetually like that when you have lesser monks you would have just a prior as they had the superior it's just a matter of terminology and your work versus that of original artists II well they have a somewhat similar history in that there was an American there this is during World War Two and she was at an abbey I think a Jew I forget the name i think was jawar and in france happened to be there and she wanted to go back to start a monastery in america you know and there was a film about this you know come to the stables yes famous there well done actresses and everything and so they are Benedict ins as we are the practice Gregorian chant they're one of the few that have you know that so that's a similarity there but it's different congregation of slightly different customs you know and we're not part of the court of the same sphere of Benedict ins but they are contemplatives they don't have any particular ministry they'd been there much longer than a longer history in America and they've sort of taken they have their own characteristics should I think we're they're different from ours yeah we've had them we don't have any actors in our in our monastery that I know of although they're all kind of act not yet so were you from st. Mary's and Chatham and watching New Year's Eve great and your question as a catechist I try to incorporate music but I'm wondering if there's a basics to chanting or how to make it more appealing you know there's nothing worse than bad we're in chant I mean when you have a choir of really old men they're just hanging in there and it just sounds so bad you know it's it's an art it's a really a high art and so the thing here is don't do it unless you can do it right we have workshops in our monastery you know people can contact us and we have resources and we're willing to help with this and so you know I would say once you know how to do it people young people will like it a lot you know yeah well certainly there have been great popularity with music by amongst in the album called chant yes and then there was there's some nuns who've had number one albums right on Billboard right you know for Gregorian chant right I know and so they do very well with that oh so these are some good things go to a brand in Georgia hold bread no father we have a monastery in Conyers it's outside of Atlanta it's called the monastery of the Holy Spirit are you familiar with that yes yes sir yes there are the Cistercian COCs oh of the strict observance what's the difference between yours and theirs that's a good question a lot as I said a lot of the Benedictines in Europe and America have schools because in Germany at some point the the Holy Roman Emperor said if you don't do something practical you monks we're going to end your existence you must do something for the society so they had to have schools and at that point and their schools were very good you know but Trappists had never had that Trappist Cistercian state they live a contemplative life according to the rule of Saint Benedict and we do too but they go back to it there was a branch of this you know on the time I've seen Bernhard when that some monks one of the stricter observance than what was going on at Cluny our family goes back to Cluny which is just the biggest monastery there ever was I think they had something like 1500 monasteries under there kind of influence in a high middle ages the church was as big as st. Peter's in Rome I mean this was just but I guess it got a little bit tepid or some thought they wanted a harder life they wanted a smaller monastery back out in the woods and that was mollem and then Seto and they weren't doing too well until the st. Bernard came along with 30 you know brothers and nephews and people and they built that up but it's the same rule of Saint Benedict and their contempt of monks without you know particular external works so we have a very similar life work manual labor prayer they have a little bit stricter on fasting and getting up earlier and everything but there's a lot of similarity between our project run speaking yes sign language we have times of silence too but we don't use like sign language in the refectory we just you know indicate we don't talk in the refectory we don't use the sign language too much because they found that some of these monks get so good to the sign language that they might as well be talking they can say you know something all happened well somebody once wanted to test this and he dropped a false note about some kind of sensational news on a staircase in a monastery and before the end of silence everybody knew all about it by so you know so they have chatty hands yes yeah so we figure you might as well just you know st. Benedict didn't Institute that that came later in the Middle Ages but it's a very fine institution so they're contemporaries they've written a lot Thomas Merton of course the famous one that really is is well known not only in America but in France he was very influential especially as earlier books and great history we we love this this kind of doctrine about the spiritual life that has a common root with us and we're very close the question my students man where you from from Florida great to have you question thank you you were speaking speaking about young people and in the monastery and I wondered if you could talk to us about late in life vocations people who believe that God has spoken to them and told them to you know what he told the rich men sell all you have and come follow me I deal with this all the time I think there's a whole generation special of women when they were young they were told don't do this because this is the church is changing and you don't want to spend your life in a cloister and then when they got older and now you're too old I know you can't enter because now you're too old you know so they feel like they've been cheated you know a really strict contemplative life women have told me that specially for women you almost have to start before you're 25 to be a Carmelite of a strict observance it can be done but it's just so hard to adapt that you know practically it's very hard but I mean if God is calling you God will find the means there there are some places where a person can enter you know at a more mature age the things you can do you know in the third-order there's various types of consecration there's always something that can be done but it's true that for a stripped contemplative life once you get over 35 it's very hard to adapt to this and in the olden days you would have like a queen or someone would leave the world and enter a monastery it's it's fine when you have one person among a lot of young people if you would have no issue with you know five or six people you know in their 40s 50s it would just be very hard to do you couldn't have that sort of cohesion you know so it's never too late to serve God you just have to see what he really wants and that doesn't depend just on your will that depends on what the other institution and you come together about so a person should just go to the best monastery they know of and take their advice and listen to them and see what can be done you know but it's never too late to have a vocation but the circumstances would just depend you know and you have to accept the reality that sometimes it's too late to be necessary I think in Tulsa mother Miriam accepts women who are a little bit older true and you know it has a few flickers she also started with eleven she was old so that's one possibility she's trying this and she has a waiting list of people coming so she's just beginning so whether how this is gonna work we'll see but she has that courage to the supernatural courage to try this you know and not just you know say no to everybody that's my 25 let's so now go to Linda have you but a Dickens were known for preserving Western learning in Europe do you currently have your eye on preserving anything the future millennia thank you and peace Thanks well with the internet and electronic devices you know there's not could be any problem about keeping books I think although you never know what might happen to the books if somebody decided to try to electronically change them all or something we want to keep that idea you know as applies to our time and we really put a lot of emphasis on study of philosophy and theology although the benedictions really came before the time of the university that's more in the dominicans domain but we really put a lot of emphasis on and I must say in the studies we were given at Fung combo Abbey in France it was just I just an amazed at the quality of philosophy in theology we had thanks in part to a dominican theologian who helped inspire the courses so we do we try to keep a certain tradition of art music learning but we don't have to copy manuscripts because that's that's already you know it's not done it's the understanding of it though you know understanding all this mass of culture is there a integer does it mean something that's what I think our real role is to try to say well what does what does all this mean not that we would impose an opinion on everyone but it's got to be wisdom has to have a certain unity to it if it's just a million different doctrines and you just sort of choose what you want where you're lost you know yes and I think that will be something that manure preserving a way of life of Prayer integrated with work and integrated with liturgical prayer preserving liturgy that is you know it calls us to the beauty who is God and you know that's all very important things to preserve I just wanna again let you know you can go to find out more about a lady of Clear Creek Abbey by going to Clear Creek monks dot org or call them nine one eight seven seven two two four five four hello Abbot thank you very much thank you being with us a great Sun been delight to have you and bring this information and if you would please join me in giving a blessing to our audience okay may Almighty God bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you and lead you in all of your ways by his peace bless you the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen and now we can bring you these programs and all the other shows that we do have these guests and formas inform us and to better Catholics because the network is brought to you by you so please help to support us keep us in between your gas bill your electric bill and your cable bill and we'll be able to pay all our bills too thank you you

Channel: EWTN

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Id: onKSNLNhlUY

Length: 56min 35sec (3395 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2014