Monastic Decline and the Loss That Goes With It

[Malachi]

“Monastic life,” says Fr Hugh Allan, the abbot of a Norbertine community in Chelmsford in England, “is that reminder to the world to be careful how you live here and now because your life and actions now are what will echo for eternity. The cemetery is full of people who thought they were indispensable.”

A strange sense of beautiful abandonment accompanied me as I passed between the soundless cloisters of the Cistercian monastery Santa María la Real de Oseira in north-western Spain. One cloister was overrun with purple lavender flowers, the air replete with their tender aroma. In another, flocks of house martins flew around mossy stone pillars, apparently oblivious to the holy environs while depositing plenty of avian waste on the ground. Great stone staircases that two Humvees abreast of each other could drive up led toward another level of endless corridors and rooms. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE