What is more metal than spending your vacation at a slightly gothic monastery, where they vamp it up a bit only by saying old ritual prayer around sunrise. Like most of the setting of that classic old movie, The Name Of The Rose, with Sean Connery not as 007 but a centuries-back grand inquisitor, going after 666-ers! He’s fair, but you don’t want to piss him off.
But I digress, oh you vampire Slayers. Don’t get huffy Buffy.
Many years had passed since I last visited the St. Benedict monastery, now upgraded to an abbey, with a bit of modernization but not too much, in the foothills of Massachusetts.
That was not the only change to the pair of guest houses run by the brothers, now slightly-graying-and-balding men rather than young adults, which is well known to many church parishioners on the south end of the Superior diocese, which includes Hudson.
The carpet was a bit worn from wear, caused by the many sandaled footsteps made up and down its almost-football-field long hallway that is lined and packed with relics, photos, elaborate pencil drawings on yellow poster-size paper, many of them portraits of the monks themselves, and other decorations befitting a religious order. Most impressive is a mirror with several yards of embossed silver lining and lots of ornate crosses and crucifixes. So more metal. There are Sacred Hearts everywhere, many emblazoned by plenty of fire coming out of the top, where there also may be a crown of thorns, stabbed with thick daggers, and dripping lots of bloody tears.
The nearby swimming house on a lake that greeted visitors, (and featured a rare time the brothers foresook their robes tied at the waist with rope or belt or priestly garb and sandals, depending on their tenure and status within the small Benedictine community) had been sold, but the monks were still joyous to see me at the monastery itself, like they are in their several-times-daily chanting. (I reminisced greatly and with a tear as I both visited, attended Mass and penned this piece.)
— The term Deo is oft seen on scrolls, especially in the most prayful places, and in occasional cases spelled Dio, as in the musician, which is rare in church circles. A truly red-letter-day. —
The adjacent small fruit and vegetable and jelly stand with big bins run by a group of likeminded nuns and located across the way, along the rural road in the foothills spreading out 30 miles from Boston, is no more, and the fields cut with tresher leading across descending hill and dale and very-old fashioned farm hosting a few dozen head of cattle is no longer tended to.
But still the monks worship and are gracious with omnipresent smiles and listening ears and are accommodating to the visitors, sometimes sent their way by local bishops if travelers have no place to stay, squeezing in short chapel services about the spoken-singing of The Hours almost every other hour; the main of the such services are held three times each day, and have sometimes elaborate titles, such as The Divine Office. They start at 6 a.m.
This is except on Saturdays when the ritual is cut short by an early evening night with the guests of G-rated, family-oriented movies still run by projector. (There used to be the late Friday night basketball game on a half-court tile floor that was one one end of the barn, even with a small kitchen, with the brothers and a few handpicked other men from the immediate area playing with unusual competitiveness while still in their robes, in this, which was formerly the parish hall. This was for the town of Still River, a berg that you otherwise would never know or have known existed.)
Sessions are held to the odd sounding, and supported by art-pieces Devotion to the Holy Face (of Jesus) and how does one practice it? The mission statement on a nearby wall uses archaic terms like the brother’s devotion to being in mortal slavery to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
It is kind of like a step back in time. Even the bell tower that has a big wheel alongside to run it, along with its high four-legged tower with shrubs in the middle and wooden-studs-slotted-as slats between.
The two large guest houses themselves and a barn and a main building (that houses the rather big dining-hall-and-commons-area, and the chapel and the brothers’ end bedroom quarters) on the other wide of a long gravel path are likewise present in the buildings by themes of Trinitarian threes, whether it be the number of over-years-constructed-building-additions, and the trio of roof-covered, windowed-narrow-hallway-routes winding to the Old School chapel.
It all looks and feels very Gothic. Visitors may freely walk the grounds, including the old cemetery, but are cautioned not to wander between it and the brothers quarters.
The prayers and hymns are in Latin, largely, or newer and Old English or a combination of both, and the languages used seem very quaint and decidedly Medieval or even Middle Ages. Some of the older attendees are now having trouble kneeling and bowing, so they stay seated much of the time in the single row or sometimes two of pews, facing sideways, alongside the small but wide altar and Blessed Sacrament complete with large-scale decor on the back wall that is many centuries old
Who is there?
The small number of guests at one time are a disjoint conglomeration of largely odd professionals (particularly architects interested by the old buildings) and academics and a few housewives, often married people who spend a retreat or regular, almost bit of weekly time away from their spouses and children, adult or otherwise. This is what dinner conversation, always attended by a monk or two, often is centered, as all of these people are decidedly Catholic, and for the most part conservative. The guest houses have become more modernized with some ceiling lights, among other things, but feature a small bed and desk, for study or pleasure reading. The houses may serve as a weekend retreat location for teen youth from across a large area, and in back of one on a sparse, slightly slanted lawn is a net for volleyball, under a large oak that protrudes into what serves as a court.
Beforehand, when they were brothers not many titled father, going back to the past millennium, a group of them started traveling to Hudson every summer for a week or two to visit and press the flesh with major donors in the area for their monastery, which has big buildings that are solidly constructed as was the order of business in colonial times, but unlike many of them simple and scaled back so to be inexpensive. Carol Landry, a parishioner at St. Patrick’s there, would each July play host.
Landry, though now past retirement age, still is an active volunteer at the church, among other things cooking up elaborate meals and at Thanksgiving hand-delivering them to homebound people, with fare that was far fancier than that served up at the monastery, although what was there is plentiful and beautiful in its stripped-back simplicity.
When have they last crossed paths? As the decades went on, the contact waned bit by bit, as the brothers were just getting too far into middle age and beyond to run the road, although Christmas cards and an occasional phone call are still exchanged. One more change from the days of being young and more eager monks. Daily prayers starting at 6 a.m. was enough.
Off past the parking area, now paved, are the big hayfields and a pasture, followed by a miles-long stretch of woods that leads up to a valley and then off to another small mountain, which one can see decorating the sunset.
The services made me harken back to my Lutheran background, surprisingly, with shared terms with Catholics such as Nuct Dimmicus, the Collect, and Kyrie Eliasion (like the ’70s song) with variations in the spelling given. The frequency of their use is more than you usually see in a Catholic Missal, and some of the language takes on the vernacular you might see on a black metal album cover or concert stage.
The term Deo is oft seen on scrolls, in occasional cases spelled Dio, as in the musician, which is rare in church circles.
The encore at the week’s main service is long, with more bowing, as the monks take position with backs turned to the audience and fronts to the altar, and the Gregorian Chant becomes more frequent. This is a thing of unexpected beauty, where it becomes more like a concert. As they process out, with eyes down and no eye contact made, the abbot sprinkles the audience with holy water, and I swear the drop that fell on my thumb left a burning sensation. Hell Awaits?
Those of you, going back to the start of this piece, who are movie buffs will get the irony of that.