What do monasteries do

Sisters and guests gathered in prayer in the oratory. We pray together with guests, so people can give voice to their joys and their struggles.

Community is experienced when oblates gather. We do all these things because we need these same things as well. Monks and nuns are human beings who want to be listened to and welcomed. We need nurture and hope. We seek the holy within and around us.

On our best days we find these things in our God and in the community and, out of that abundance, we share what we have found. Read other Living in Community blog posts, by various community members. I see abundance coming. What do monasteries do? How did monasteries preserve knowledge? What was the function of mediaeval monasteries Class 11?

What is the difference between an abbot and a prior? What religion is a prior? What do you call an abbot? What is an abbot in charge of? Who appoints an abbot? What is the difference between an abbot and a monk? Who works in a monastery? How do you join a monastery? Can a monk be married? Can monks watch TV? What are monks not allowed to do? For example, three monasteries in Latin America: the first runs a school, but few monks work in it, others are parish priests, the youngest study and do the chores.

In future they hope to set up some workshops. In the second, a young foundation, some younger members study, others do the chores, the community lives mostly on donations. In the third, just being founded, the few monks already there do no remunerative work. Each community adapts to circumstances, recognising the monastic value of work which enables the community to live. The expression "to work for a living" covers all these different kinds of work.

According to the Rule of St Benedict work plays a fundamental role in monastic conversion and the various practical expressions mould both persons and communities.

We have begun to gather together some examples of the way in which monasteries earn their living, so that we can share our experiences and reflect on the practical and spiritual meaning.

What we give here is only a beginning. Some monasteries, already aware of this project, have sent various descriptions of their work, others have chosen to respond point by point to a questionnaire; some of these will appear in a future number.

Photos, even without a commentary, also give an insight into our monastic practices. Does your work enable you to pay the ordinary expenses of your monastery, this does not include building work and investments?

What work do you do? Does this work contribute to the personal progress and monastic maturity of individuals and the community? In what way? Approximately what hours do you work, does this vary during the year? Is there a good balance between Office, lectio , personal prayer, community gatherings, hospitality?

Other houses and those who look for guidance from the monastic way will be encouraged, and Charities willing to enable monasteries to become more autonomous will also be informed. This kind of dialogue is of inestimable value. The way we work has a direct impact on an important contemporary question of world interest, that of the environment. Monasteries often undertake interesting initiatives, ambitious or modest though they be. A future Bulletin will take up this line of thought.

The first group of sisters went to St Cecilia's from India in In two pioneers who were members of the Ryde community were sent to India. A plot of 11 acres of land was purchased in Byrathi village in Bangalore in The Indian sisters returned to their homeland in By now the monastery and chapel were erected and the Blessing took place on 26 July After that the pioneers returned to England.

From the start we tried to be self-supporting by taking on work compatible with our monastic contemplative life with its motto of Ora et Labora. We also retained the full round of praise by the celebration of the daily Eucharist and Divine Office. Interspersed between the liturgical services are times for private prayer, study and work. Prayer alternates with work and work becomes a prayer.

Since our whole life has been dedicated to God, all we do has a supernatural value. As a contemplative community in a poor country we have always had to depend on work for our livelihood. St Benedict in the 6th century recognised the dignity of work as he says in the Rule, "then are they truly monks when they live by the labour of their hands as did our Fathers and the Apostles. Like primitive Benedictines, we cultivate the soil, grow grain, vegetables and fruits. We have a poultry farm and a dairy farm, a coconut grove and a vineyard.

We make altar breads, church vestments and greeting cards. In the monastic life we are not asked to forgo our natural gifts but to use them in God's service. We started our poultry farm in , the same year as the blessing of our monastery. On 8th September, the Birthday of Our Lady we saw an advertisement in the papers for the sale of 45 laying birds. Mr Sebastian took a personal interest in our farm and gave us useful advice.

Next, with the help of a donation, we built our first proper shed for laying birds and ordered the day-old chicks from India Poultry Farm incubators.

From the profits of this first attempt we built a house for 1, birds using the deep litter system by which the birds are on 6 inches of rice husk The droppings transform this husk into rich manure within 6 months which is used in the fields. Later we built three more sheds and adopted the cage system which saves on labour. We now have 8, birds in different stages, day-olds, growers and layers. As the price of poultry feed has gone up we buy raw materials like maize, ragi, jowar when in season, and manufacture our own feed with a regular formula.

We have found poultry farming a fairly good source of income which helps us to be self-supporting. In Bangalore the climate is favourable for breeding hens.

The eggs are sold to a dealer with whom we have a contract who comes twice or three times a week in his van for collection. Our dairy farm started in with one cow we named Sundari which means beautiful. She was a cross-breed Jersey-Holstein and with her came her calf Surya Sunshine. We now have a dozen cows and half a dozen calves. We use the milk for the community and sell some of it to pay for the feed. Cow dung is used as manure in the fields and also to feed the Gober gas plant which supplies fuel for cooking.

Gober means cow dung. In we also bought coconut saplings of the Tiptur variety available in nurseries in Bangalore. The trees have now grown up and provide us with a small income. Under the umbrella shade of the coconut trees we have planted 1, coffee plants and installed the drip irrigation. Coffee plants need a lot of shade. As the coconut trees and coffee plants need to be irrigated in the dry season, with the help of AIM we have sunk a bore-well.

From the start we have grown vegetables, paddy, ragi and potatoes. We have also experimented with mushrooms and mulberry plants. We receive rains in the monsoons from July to September, even then the rains are not enough and we have to depend on the bore-well, besides the open wells.

It also has a trailer for conveying loads on the farm. On 10 November we were given an altar bread machine which Fr Mayeul de Dreuille osb bought from a Carmelite Monastery in France as they had bought another one. Later we received a second one which was a gift from AIM. Our third machine for making thick hosts came from the Mother Prioress of the Benedictines of St Lioba. We now supply altar bread to parishes and religious communities in Bangalore.

We are grateful to our benefactors for helping us in this very monastic work. We still cut our hosts one at a time which involves a lot of labour. We would be grateful for an electrically operated cutter. In the land at the end of the property was levelled and pits were dug.

On March 8th of the same year grape seedlings of the Thomson seedless variety were purchased. On deadline, he can assemble something passable in a few minutes. Smaller pieces might take two hours. For the podcast, eight hours of work are boiled into only a few minutes of music used to fills gap between narration or conversation.

So size matters. So does timing. Fall and spring prompt more creativity. Location has worth, too. He can write at his computer, but the keyboard gives him a platform to test the melody as he goes. But some feedback never hurts. Father Julian Peters still has the recipe. When you spend your childhood crafting your culinary skills in the kitchen with your grandma, the safekeeping of family heirlooms is paramount.

Father Julian keeps the paper in his office, the one with a desk and chair. His other office is the kind with an oven and stove. He likes to eat. But he rarely cooks for himself. With cooking, you have a beginning, middle and end. I enjoy providing things for people, to provide an occasion, to have a good time, to enjoy a meal. The dynamic of what happens when people sit down to eat is timeless. Because of her, he still makes a Polish soup with smoked ham hock.

Because of her, he never orders apple pie from anywhere; she created his gold standard by using red apples, making the crust from lard to form a pie that stands on its own rather than slithers on the plate like lava from a volcano. He honors a recipe once. After that, nature over nurture. He has a noodle pot, rolling pin and Pyrex cake pan from one of his great-grandmothers. Sometimes you need that.

Food is the first point of intersection but there are so many other values that get strengthened and promoted on the way.