Even monks “go on retreat,” an annual week of greater silence, solitude, prayer and rest. We do it at the monastery, not somewhere else, and it becomes a pleasant and even enjoyable time for the monastic community.
This year we are greatly blessed to have Abbot Elijah Owens, monk and leader of Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas, as our retreat-giver. He is a dynamic speaker and no one comes late to his conferences, which occur twice a day, each lasting about half an hour. His picture below was taken today in our chapter room.
Abbot Elijah’s theme for the retreat conferences he is giving flows from a saying of the famous 11th century Abbot Hugh of Cluny Abbey in France: “For it is the light of Christ we seek, the likeness of Christ we become, and the peace of Christ we share,” which Abbot Elijah abbreviates as: Seek, Be and Share.
In his introduction to the retreat, even before he got here last Saturday, Abbot Elijah let us know that, “We will enter these days of retreat not to escape the monastic life that God has given us, but to look at it anew in the light of Christ.”
When all is said in done, Abbot Elijah wants us to be ever more ready to say with Saint Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Letter to the Galatians, chapter 2, verse 20).
Outside of the conferences, we carry on the monastic horarium (schedule), praying the Divine Office, celebrating the Conventual Mass, and engage in some amount of work, to keep the house running, especially cooking, some office work, care of our animals (sheep, donkey and chickens) and tending the Giftshop in the mornings.
Abbot Elijah is also giving a homily each day at Mass, based on the Gospel of the day and applying it to our monastic journey in the desert.
We are deeply grateful to Abbot Elijah for his inspiring conferences and edifying presence in our lives this week.
Please keep us in your prayers during these days of retreat, which will end this coming Saturday, November 22nd. We keep you in our prayers as well.
Abbot Christian and the monks.
