In Vermont: A Modern Monastery

By Susanne Washburn

It is still dark when the priory bell announces the day. In the small, spare chapel built of fieldstone and used wooden beams, 14 brothers gather for their vigil prayer. They arrive singly, dressed in work clothes and blue Oriental-style overblouses. In the choir space, illuminated by a single candle, they wait in quiet meditation until all are present. With them on this weekend morning are some 40 visitors.

"Calm is the night, O Lord, as we wait for you," begin the seated brothers of Vermont's Weston Priory, singing one of the simple contemporary hymns written by their own Brother Gregory. "All the stars are laughing at our wonder." They continue antiphonally, "Christ yesterday and today/ The beginning and the end/ The alpha and the omega." And then they sing, "Glorify the Lord with me/ Let us praise his name/ Those whose spirit is crushed/ He will save." After John Denver's recording of Annie's Song is played, two brothers strum a simple accompaniment on guitars as monks sing, "When we come to the table of life/ We keep faith with the risen Christ/ Giving in freedom, love, as did Jesus his life."

Now they sit in one of the frequent periods of meditation that separate portions of prayer. They end in song: "We go on waiting/ Knowing you have come." In 30 minutes dawn has waxed to daylight through the windows above their heads.

For centuries monks followed unchanging, intricate patterns of prayer and work while withdrawing from the world to try to discern God in their own lives. Seeking the same goal, the brothers of Weston have developed new forms of prayer and work that draw them into the outside world in ways uncharacteristic of contemplative monks. Small and simple, a fledgling beside centuries-old Benedictine monasteries, Weston Priory has become a beacon of new directions in monasticism since its founding in 1953 by German-born Abbot Leo Rudloff. At the time, Rudloff, who also headed the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem, had modest hopes for Weston. But it proved more robust than he had imagined. He says now, "It's like a little plant. What comes out you have no control over; it grows according to its own laws and potentiality."

From the start, Weston was not a traditional monastery. With the encouragement of the Benedictine abbot primate in Rome, the brothers updated rituals while keeping faithful to the spirit of Benedictine monasticism. When several monks failed to appear for matins at 4 a.m., for example, the brothers examined the need to make the prayer more their own. What had been an hour and a half of psalm singing and Scripture reading is now a third as long and much more contemporary. Among the readings are excerpts from modern theologians like Edward Schillebeeckx and Henri Nouwen and from Third World proponents of "liberation theology," who consider social and economic activism central to the church's mission.

The two hours after morning vigil are for personal prayer and an informal breakfast, the one meal the brothers do not take in common. Eating almond granola, fresh fruit and a delicious home-baked whole wheat bread, they can look through the refectory's east window and see a tracery of pink clouds on the horizon and wisps of mist flitting across the priory pond. Six times each day the brothers come together to read the Gospel, meditate, pray and share insights into the Scriptures. Recurring themes such as God's infinite love for his creatures and people returning God's love by serving others are explored and re-explored, plumbed but never exhausted.

Six hours a day are given to priory work. Back in the 1950s, this usually meant looking after the cows on the priory farm. Today the brothers sustain Weston with more creative labors. One brother is a potter whose work is on permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian. Another, a bookbinder, specializes in restoring antique volumes. Several others are graphic artists. Environmental concerns have led some brothers to turn most of the priory's 300 acres into a tree farm.

But the priory is best known for the prolific talents of Brother Gregory, a self-taught musician who plays the guitar, the piano and the organ. He has composed some 200 songs to celebrate the faith, using scriptural themes and nature metaphors. His music echoes the Gregorian chant sung by Benedictines for more than 1,000 years. Since 1971 about 100 of Brother Gregory's songs have found their way, through the priory's songbooks and records, into Catholic congregational singing across the nation. Weston's music is one reason that crowds as large as 1,300 are drawn to weekend liturgies in the summer.

The monks prefer not to focus on themselves as individuals. They see their real work as creating a community, "striving," as Brother Elias puts it, "to become one heart, one mind, one spirit." Brother Mark says, "Our choice is one another. Not wood chopping, music writing, pottery throwing, but to live the Gospel."

Today the monastery has five workshops, a monks' dormitory, four guest houses, a visitors' center and a gallery shop. But even when it was only a converted 19th century farmhouse and hay barn, Weston welcomed outsiders. These visitors have led the brothers to worlds unexpectedly far from the priory's hill. In 1974 two papal volunteers, a native Vermonter and his Chilean-born wife, stopped at the priory en route to Mexico, where they established a farm cooperative. That acquaintance eventually took the entire Weston community to Mexico on two extended retreats. First the monks spent a week visiting poor urban centers or traveling by horse or burro along narrow footpaths to remote villages. Another week followed in seclusion while the brothers reflected on how much they had learned about faith and Christian living from these simple people. Other friendships have taken the brothers on similar retreats to Appalachia, the West Indies island of Dominica and one of the oldest religious communities in the U.S., the Shakers of Sabbathday Lake village in New Gloucester, Me.

Another priory friend, George Young, a dance teacher with Experiment in International Living, a student-exchange program, taught the monks to dance about ten years ago. Doing dances of folk origin was first a bad-weather recreation, then a way to make visitors feel at home. On days of celebration, the monks might incorporate a Yemeni desert dance or a Serbian wedding step into their Mass. Brother John, Weston's prior since 1964, explains how recreation entered the liturgy: "For us, dance is a prophetic community sign, a way to express our hopes, our fears, our faith. It is a sign that contradicts the cynicism and despair that are celebrated today in consumerism and the arms race."

Last month, at a disarmament rally in New York City, the brothers prayed for peace while dancing around a newly planted Japanese dogwood tree in Central Park. Their trip had included two other stops, one in New Haven, where they joined in a prayer service in support of a man facing criminal charges in connection with a protest against Trident submarines, the other in Washington, D.C., where they participated in an evening of prayer and music for Salvadoran refugees. "Radical peacemaking," the monks believe, is a natural outgrowth of the Gospel.

Ever since monks went out into the desert in the 4th century, they have challenged Christians to live up to the example of Jesus of Nazareth. On their quiet Vermont hilltop, and in forays out into the world, the brothers of Weston are trying to fashion a thoroughly modern community of faith. Their faithfulness to one another is the prime expression of their faithfulness to God. In an age when infidelity is the norm, theirs is an eminently contemporary witness. --BySusanne Washburn

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.