A change in mission
Jill Callison
Argus Leader
published: 9/12/2004
After decades of outreach, activities center at
monastery
ARVIN - From dawn to dusk, Blue Cloud Abbey's bell marks
the passage of time, wrapping it in 15-minute parcels.
The bell also summons the monks to prayer four times a
day, bringing them together from sleep or work or
private Scripture reading.
Inside the abbey, Indiana sandstone walls muffle the
bell's tolling. Outside, it peals across the monastery
cemetery and over farm fields dotting Whetstone Valley.
The ringing marks the passage of time in this prayer
community where residents base their lifestyles on the
writings of a sixth-century monk while dealing with the
blandishments of a modern world.
The two dozen cloistered Benedictine monks at Blue Cloud
have always had God and prayer as a primary focus. But
prompted by the declining number of monks that live
within its walls, and their age, the abbey has had to
narrow even further its religious outreach in recent
years.
Once a community of 80, whose members worked in Native
American schools and missions as well as in Roman
Catholic parishes throughout North and South Dakota, the
monks today generally work within the abbey walls.
They continue to staff a mission in Coban, Guatemala,
and assist at two area parishes, but otherwise, they
offer hospitality and spiritual guidance through a
retreat center at the abbey, open to clergy and
laypeople. The abbey also has become a haven for
recovering alcoholics taking part in 12-step programs.
"We try to be generous with what we have," said Father
George Lyon.
Nationally, the number of monks today is "significantly
smaller than in past years," said Abbot Peter Eberle of
Mount Angel Monastery in Oregon. He is the leader of the
Benedictine communities with which Blue Cloud is
affiliated. "Most monasteries are top-heavy, with lots
more older than younger members."
And the monks' numbers have dwindled at a faster pace
than even diocesan priests.
Catholics see the shortage of priests in their parishes,
said Brother Paul-Vincent Niebauer, vocations director
at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. They don't
see the empty rooms at monasteries.
"It's hard to choose a lifestyle you don't know exists,"
Niebauer said. "The burden is on us to help people
understand the life we live."
St. John's Abbey in the early 1960s housed more than 400
monks. Now, that number has dropped to fewer than 200.
Still, there are signs of resurgence. Despite the
sexual-abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic
Church in recent years, St. John's University has seen
an increase in enrollment. As vocations director,
Niebauer also sees a greater interest in community life
than he did several years ago.
Blue Cloud Abbey also has some hope for its future.
Brother Michael Peterson, 34, has been accepted as a
permanent member of Blue Cloud Abbey. His final
profession of vows on Friday was the first at the abbey
in 11 years.
Brother Crispin Rork, 42, now a novice, will make his
first profession of vows in October, beginning the
three-year path to final vows.
"We pray and trust God will send us new recruits," Lyon
said. "If more people knew the beauty of this life and
the satisfaction one can find in this life, we wouldn't
be low in membership."
Missionaries
Benedictine monks came to Dakota Territory in the 1870s
to work with native people. The monks opened missions
and schools on four reservations.
St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana supplied the first
missionary monks to North and South Dakota. In the late
1940s, the abbey decided to establish a new community in
the area and bought 2,000 acres of land in northeast
South Dakota.
Most monasteries have clearly distinguished identities,
said Sister Mary Forman, who teaches monastic studies at
St. John's University School of Theology. For Blue
Cloud, that identity first came in mission work and
schools.
Benedict, founder of a prayer community 1,500 years ago,
wrote the guidelines by which the monks live, The Rule
of St. Benedict. Simply put, it instructs its followers
to pray, work and study.
Benedictine monks take vows of obedience, stability and
conversion of life.
"Your first obedience is always to God, and that's why a
person joins a monastery," Abbot Thomas Hillenbrand
said. An abbot serves as a monastery's superior,
somewhat like a business' chief executive officer.
"Then you have to become obedient to the superior and
then to the novice master and then ... even to one
another."
The vow of stability roots the monk in his community.
"This really becomes your home, and these monks become
your brothers, which is really kind of nice," said
Hillenbrand, who has guided Blue Cloud Abbey for almost
12 years.
"You know they care for you and love you and support
you, and also that they will probably correct you or get
on your nerves at times, and you'll get on their nerves,
just like a family."
The third vow, conversion of life, is, as Hillenbrand
said, "the biggie." Every morning, the brothers vow to
become a better monk, a better Christian, a better
Catholic.
"Each day you try to let go of any of those things that
might pull you back, any particular sin or any
particular vice or evil inclination or passion,"
Hillenbrand said.
Later religious orders adopted the vows of poverty,
chastity and obedience. The first two are covered in the
Benedictine vows, the abbot said. Poverty is part of
their life since they share everything in common.
Chastity falls under conversion of life.
Seeking God
Men come to the abbey not to escape the world or
marriage, Hillenbrand said. They come to deepen their
prayer life and relationship with God.
He acknowledges that a cloistered life is unfathomable
to many.
"Without the reality of God, this life would be kind of
stupid," Hillenbrand said.
The most important contributions monastics can make to
today's world is to critique the culture and offer a way
of life that says "having is not more important than
being," said Forman, the St. John's professor.
"Monastics aren't the only ones addressing those
questions, but I think we've gotten practice over the
centuries with trying to live with those kind of
questions and a particular God focus," she said.
At Blue Cloud Abbey, the monks also keep the abbey
going. That includes the upkeep of the building itself,
which was built by the monks. For income, the abbey
relies on donations from supporters. Neighbors rent the
tillable land and pastures. Those who use the retreat
center give donations.
Most monks have more than one responsibility, anything
from baking bread to mending the habits to gardening.
Brother Chris Wesely oversees the greenhouse and the
fleet of cars, while Father Christopher Uehlein works in
the development office. Brother Rene Wilson is in charge
of the infirmary and the kitchen.
But when the prayer bell rings, the monks stop what
they're doing and head to the choir stalls in the church
sanctuary where services are held.
Discarding their casual clothing for black habits
crossed with leather belts, with sandals or tennis shoes
on their feet, the monks recite the psalms at a slow,
measured pace. For Eucharistic services, priest-monks
don white albs while brother-monks remain in black
habits.
The priest-monks, who have been ordained, can say Mass
and administer sacraments. "Otherwise we do the same
kind of work in the monastery," Brother Benet Tvedten
said. "Priests and brothers both wash dishes."
Over the years, the guidelines set out in The Rule of
St. Benedict have been changed. The monks no longer
sleep with a lantern burning all night, nor do they wash
the feet of visitors.
But prayer remains the primary focus of their day, which
generally begins at 6:45 a.m. with lauds, or morning
prayer. Breakfast follows, eaten in silence.
After breakfast they scatter to their assigned tasks.
The monks gather again at 11:30 for Eucharist with day
prayer. Vespers, or evening prayer, is 5 p.m. with
vigils, or night prayer, at 7:30. The evening meal
divides the two; usually the monks eat in silence while
one reads aloud from a book.
On Sundays, Eucharist and noon prayer are separated.
There is no night prayer on Thursdays. That gives the
monks a chance to gather in recreation, Tvedten said.
Tvedten, 68, made his first profession of vows in 1960
and took final vows three years later.
"I went to school with Benedictines at college and fell
in love with the Benedictines as soon as I met them,"
the North Dakota native said. "There are times when I
thought I wanted to leave the monastery, to leave
contemplative live, but I have no regrets for having
stayed."
Brother Sebastian Goldade, 62, first entered a seminary
in Nebraska when he was 14, shortly after his mother's
death.
"People say I missed something, and maybe I did,"
Goldade said. "Maybe if I missed it, that was a good
thing."
For anything they might have missed, the monks at Blue
Cloud Abbey say they have gained more by following their
vocation.
"We're very much a part of the world," Tvedten said.
That world takes them away from the monastery, sometimes
for long stays at the mission in Guatemala or to advance
their education.
Being a part of the world also means that on Nov. 2, the
monks will drive to the polling place in nearby Marvin,
Peterson said.
Work among the people
Monks such as Father Stan Maudlin, who worked in Native
American ministries for years, have forged lifelong
relationships with reservation families.
Maudlin, an Indiana native, first came to South Dakota
in 1935 and was ordained in 1942.
"I'm so grateful I lived with the Indian people," said
Maudlin, now 87, with a lung condition that sometimes
requires him to use an oxygen tank. "They were victims
of racism, but they would take me into their hearts."
In recognition of his travels through Indian Country,
Fort Thompson residents gave him the name "Tikdisni,"
which means "Never at Home."
Fifty-five years ago, Maudlin's travels took him beyond
the reservations to the rolling fields near Marvin,
about 35 miles northeast of Watertown. He'd been told to
find a place for an abbey.
The monks lived in a farmhouse while they built the
three-level abbey. The first chapel was a renovated
chicken coop. The first years sometimes proved
difficult, Father Julius Armbruster said.
"One of the brothers who was here (at the start) came
back and said, 'You know, we must have been fools to
start this place,' " said Armbruster, who celebrated the
60th anniversary of his ordination earlier this year.
Father Odilo Burkhardt, now 86, helped build the abbey.
From the beginning it stressed hospitality, he said.
"St. Benedict, who wrote our Rule, said there should
always be someone at the door to welcome the people who
come," he said. "Monasteries have always been a place
where people come to. The idea is for people to be
refreshed by talking to the monks."
Touched by scandal
The sexual-abuse scandals that have rocked the Roman
Catholic Church in recent years have brushed the abbey.
One monk who admitted to abusing young boys at a North
Dakota day school more than a decade ago was removed
from the abbey to a secure retreat center. The elderly
monk has since asked to come back to the abbey, but
Hillenbrand has said no.
"You do all you can as a community to heal the victims,"
said Hillenbrand, who has written letters of apology.
Allowing the offender's return would be hurtful to those
who were harmed, he said.
As the monks look to the future, some new ministries may
take shape.
Brother Paul Friedman, who spent 20 years at the abbey's
mission in Coban, said he expects Hispanic ministry to
expand at the abbey as the state becomes home to more
Spanish-speaking residents. "We have a loose, informal
contact with Hispanics now," he said.
Blue Cloud Abbey became independent from St. Meinrad in
1954. In the half-century since, the monks have carved
their own independent focus.
Their daily operation is independent from the bishop of
the
Sioux Falls diocese as well, except in matters of
liturgy. But years ago, the late Bishop Lambert Hoch did
exert his authority in a different area.
After staying several nights at the abbey, listening to
the bell toll every 15 minutes, Hoch ordered them
silenced in the night hours.
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