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IF YOU WANT TO BE A REAL MONK
I O I INI the t rappists
;■ ' i : By F.L. Kerzie C.P.A.
Go to bed at severij rise at two in the morning, chant or drone the
gregoriari Divine offibe oh meditate.until six in an’unheated chapel,
work in the field four or five hours daily to earn youfikeep by the sweat
of your brow, study or bury yourself in what they call mystic theology
the rest of the day ( if you are not washing dishes), eat only what we
.Americans commonly call slop, never any meat unless very ill, no fish,
no eggs, no fried'chicken or apple pie or beefsteak or hot dogs or ham
burgers, not see milk or even cheese for weeks at a time, never talk
unless in sign language, if audible only to your superior or when you
are confessi/ig your trumped up ugly sins, sleep on straw without taking
off your working habit-that is, no foiling, the fantastic life of
American Trappists in their half dozen monasteries ir. this free land of
ours. Do not apply for admission for they practice the most severe se
lective draft you can dream of. You really must be with one foot in
heaven already before they let you cross their threshold, and a woman
never. There is, I believe, only one Trappistino nunnery in this coun
try, just imported from Ireland.
Above is the incredible story told us by Thomas ilerton in his recent
very fascinating volume, called "The Raters of 3iloe" which I am this
day donating to your .village library.
These monks, of very ancient origin in Kurope, have now had for more
than 100 years the two monasteries, Gethsemani in Kentucky,' and New
I. allery in Iowa. They have grown so fast in the last twenty years that
they have been forced, to establish themselves in the following other
American localities:
Pecos Valley, II.IT. near Santa Fe, under the Sangre de Cristo Renge
Bleckstone Valley, Rhode Island, between Providence and Pawntucket,
Reter County, Utah, 18 miles east of Ogden -(the^ live in quonset huts)
Rockdale Cpunty,. Georgia, near Conyers, in the ICu Plus Klan country,
their monastery as yet a barn.
They seen to do strange things, these monks, settling among Mormons- and
Klu Kluxers. I find it uncanny trying to analyze their mentality yet•
it must be admitted that at least by example th^y are .punishing the
modern world. But let us hear the .interesting apology for their lives
by Thomas Merton himself who had been .an .American Marine corporal .in
Okinawa, then rejected all inducements of his relatives who tried to .
keep him from going Trappist. He has in the very short four or five
years after the war become a Trappist priest, has published books and
poems,( now running into the more than 300,000 sales and still going ■
strong. .
’.rites Merton page XVII: •
‘‘If ever there was a country where men loved comfort, pleasure and ma
terial security, good health and conversation about the weather and the
’.otid Series ana the Rose Bowl-; if ever there was a land where silence
".ado men nervous and prayer drove them crazy und penence scared them to
death, it is America. Yet, .quite suddenly, .Americens--healthiest, most
normal, most energetic, and most optimistic of the younger generation of
rr'.oricans-have taken it into their heads to run off to Trappist monas
teries and get their head»s shaved and put. on robes and scapulars and
■ ork in the fields and pray half the night and sleep on straw and, in a
word, become monks...,(Answering why they are doing it, he continues'...
there is something in their hearts that tells them they cannot be happy
in an atmosphere whor.e people are looking for nothing, but their own
p] .asure and advantage and comfort and success^ They have not come to
t.e monastery to escape from the realities,of life.but to find these
.Titles: they have felt the terrible insufficiency of life in a civil
ization that is entirely dedicated to the pursuit of shadows... ihot is
Copt, on page 3