ENGLISH MONK TELLS OF MONASTERY WORK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18769, 27 May 1929, Page 10

ENGLISH MONK TELLS OF MONASTERY WORK.

MANY HOURS OF TOIL AT VARIETY OF TASKS. A contributor to an English newspaper describes “ the working day of a modern English monk,” as gained at first hand. He writes as follows: It was with diffidence that I knocked upon the oaken door of the monastery, for, though monks are famed for their hospitality, they do not care for publicity. But I was courteously received, and the only restriction imposed upon me was that I should not mention the community by name. Suffice it, then, that it ivas a Church of England monastery, in a county not a hundred miles from London, in an out-of-the-way part of a very out-of-the-way village. My conductor, a monk, led me down a long corridor and left me in a guest room. It was carpetless and bare of furniture, have a table and one or two chairs. Some Arundels were hung upon the walls, and a large crucifix was over the door. We went into the great garden. There seemed no end to it, and monks were busily engaged, in their black habits with sleeves turned up and cowls thrown back, on all sorts of manual tasks. Some were digging in a vegetable garden. Some were working on beds that, when the sunshine came, would be a mass of choice blooms, to deck the chapel altar, and to be sold in town for ladies’ drawing-rooms. Some, I saw, in the distance, were tending cattle. A few were engaged in house painting. Work Done in Silence. There was no noise. The monks worked in silence. Silence seemed, to them, to be a precious thing, which we, in the noisy world, have not come to know. But Brother Ambrose chattered. “You will notice,” he said, “that, though to-morrow will be Friday, there is no conventional fishing scene. Half the visitors who come here ask us if we fish. The ‘ to-morrow will be Friday ’ idea does not bear the faintest resemblance to an actual day in a monastery.” “ It is a hard life, I can see,” I said to him. “ How many stick it out?” “ Slackers and sentimentalists run through the sieve in a few months and go. We don’t, however, get up in the middle of the night, but early in the morning. Ten to five-thirty is an average night. Common life makes for economy of time when well organised. So plenty of work gets done. Prayer and worship count as work, for they are hard labour when properly performed. “ Work is balanced in three directions. The first is worship, the second manual labour, the third intellectual. The first is always first. The second is never altogether omitted, but varies in accordance with education, temperament, etc. The degree in which the second and third are divided varies. Thus a choir monk and priest will do| from one to two hours’ manual labour to five or six intellectual; a lay brother vice versa.” “ Will you give me a day’s timetable?” I asked. “Why, yes. Our day’s routine is roughly this; From 6 to 8 ,we worship. From 8.30 to 9we breakfast. We work until dinner, which is at 12.30. Prayers are said. Then there is an hour’s recreation in the common room . . . tea . . . vespers . . . work . prayers and so to bed. There is constant variety, and occasional reshuffling of duties makes for an absence of monotony, which compares very well with the monotony of office, factory or field.” Visits to Relatives. “Do you leave the monastery often?” “We see our relatives from time to time. They very seldom visit us, as it is not easy for us to ‘entertain’ them in any extended sense: but we all go away for a fortnight each year as a general rule.” The monk saw that I was making notes. “Here’s a message to my brethren in the world,” he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye. “They think that we are fat and fed; they say—l’ve heard it said when I was in business, long before I even dreamed of becoming a monk—that it’s an easy life; that a monastery is a coward’s castle. “Well, tell them that life is less idle here than in the world; less selfish; more manly. Look you! We do all our own work, don’t we? Some of it’s as rough as navvying. We have no women to rim to if we are ill. And if our brace buttons burst off we ourselves put them on.” A bell rang then, to summon us to dinner. We passed a group of monks who were resting on their axes. One tree lay felled beside them, another was half cut through. One of them, a fresh-looking man of 30, with a black beard, nodded to Brother Ambrose. “Showing your friend our pastures?” he queried. “Tell him what idle fellers we are.” His axeburdened companions groaned at the pun. Then they, too, made their way in. The chapel was filled with a heavenly fragrance, which quieted me. I heard many intercessions made. It seemed as if this cloistered spot were the clearing house of many tangles. Into it, I learned, each day’s post brought sheaves of appeals for pra}^er. A Young Man Who Left. I sat at table, and ate a frugal meal, more plentifully spread before me than for anyone else. A glass of wine was given me, but the monks drank water. I went the rounds of many narrow cells, like the cubicles in a prison. Browsed in the library. And then I left, regretful that my visit was over I wished that I could be one of the brethren. Somehow, it seemed, the bottom had been knocked out of my own life. Here was reality in a futuristic world. Brother Ambrose walked down the drive with me. “Do 3'ou ever wish to give it up?” I asked him, as we shook hands. “Good lack! No. But newcomers sometimes do. I said good-bye but yesterday to a young man who arrived six months ago, knowing all about monastic life—or thinking he did—but left, still believing that he is right and all his superiors wrong. A touch of pathos But, as a rule, the sun shines here from midnight to midnight. ’ As if to say “Amen” the sun shone out at that moment, and steeped the old oaks and elms in golden hue.