S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 A N N O X X , N . 1 Località Case Sparse, 164 · 06046 Norcia, PG Italia

HAPPY EASTER!

S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 A N N O X X , N . 1 S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 A N N O X X , N . 1

New Guardians for the monksA monk responds to questions about the decision to get dogs

Q: Why did the monks decide to get dogs?

A: The idea first arose once we realized how many stray animals, including wild boar, had started coming onto our property. They were especially coming onto our trail that leads to our little hermitage. Sometimes, because we walk at night or in the early, early hours of the morning, some of the monks have had close encounters with wild boars, myself included. It can be a frightening experience because boar can be dangerous. In Italy, there are special kinds of dogs that have been bred for hundreds of years to be guardians and protectors of property and livestock. So it wasn’t that the monastery needed pet dogs; rather, these are animals that can provide a service to the monks in the monastery.

Q: How have the monks responded to

the new “residents”?

A: They are puppies right now, so everybody smiles when they see them. We’ve set them up in such a way that they don’t interfere with the daily lives of the monks. But this has been good for the puppies, because they are getting to know how the community functions while not being spoiled by the monks. One monk has been charged with the duty of looking after them, but the other monks see them as they go to and from prayers, for example, and when they do, they smile.

Q: What breed are the dogs?

A: The breed that we chose is the Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog; it is claimed that it is one of the

A tradition restored: Visiting Norcia’s Benedictine nunsBY A NOVICE OF THE MONASTERO DI SAN BENEDETTO IN MONTE

On Laetare Sunday, I had the joy of participating in the renewal of one of the community’s old traditions – the annual visit to our religious sisters, the Benedictine nuns of Norcia. This visit used to take place closer to the feast of St. Scholastica in honor of St. Benedict’s own

annual visit with his sister. This year, however, that feast (Feb. 10) marked a very special occasion for the sisters. It was the day they moved back to Norcia after having to spend more than two years away following the earthquakes of 2016.

We arrived at the convent on foot, our boots dusty after a pleasant walk in the late-afternoon sun. Our knock was answered almost immediately, and the porter sister joyfully rang the bell to alert the others of our arrival. Ushered into the cloister courtyard, we were surrounded by buildings that are still deemed unsafe for dwelling. In the middle of the courtyard, the sisters had set up a temporary monastery using pre-fabricated trailers, or “containers.” First of all, we made a visit to the chapel, where the oldest sister in the community was praying her rosary. The beautifully painted tabernacle, taken

from the old church of St. Anthony that is attached to the convent, starkly contrasts with the mostly bare, lifeless gray walls of the container. As we knelt before it, I was struck by a sense of the deep peace and stability that rests in a house built around the Lord’s Presence. I understood why the sisters were happy to be back in their home, despite the containers.

Out in the courtyard again, we were graced with hospitality, especially in the form of an abundant supply of delicious homemade pizza. Taking a seat next to Sister Benedetta, I asked her how their re-establishment was going. “Slowly,” she said – or, as they say here in Italy, “piano, piano” – but “patience is the virtue of the strong.” She asked me what sort of work I had been doing, and I told her about a rock retaining wall that the novices are helping to build behind our monastery. After a little more conversation and a tasty piece of crostata baked by Sister Benedetta herself, we rose to take our leave. Sister offered me auguri, or good wishes, on building the retaining wall, and I wished her auguri on rebuilding their life in Norcia – that life centered around Our Lord’s Presence. Piano, piano.

oldest breeds in the world of dogs. They have been raised here in central Italy for hundreds of years, if not back to the times of the Romans. They are large, white dogs, and they have this guardian, protective instinct built into them. They aren’t attack dogs and they don’t direct sheep, but they protect livestock. They naturally bond with animals or people or property and then they naturally want to protect those things from intruders. They are very smart and independent.

Q: Is there a particularly Benedictine reason

to have dogs?

A: Monasteries have always aimed to be sacred places where, insofar as possible on earth, the disharmony between Man and Creation wrought by Original Sin is restored to harmony, because monasteries are places where men consecrate themselves to God. So monks really want to take care of their property, to make it look beautiful, to protect it. They want to make their land as fruitful as possible in terms of vegetables, fruits and herbs. In other words, all the things at a monastery should be oriented to serving their Creator. The Canticle of Daniel, the Benedicite, which we pray at Lauds on Sunday mornings, is basically a prayer commanding all living things to bless the Lord. So, in a little way, by having dogs and directing them to protect that part of Creation that is within our walls, as well as to aid us in our lives as monks, we bear witness to a restored Creation, which will only fully come to pass at the consummation of the world.

S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 A N N O X X , N . 1 S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 A N N O X X , N . 1

New Guardians for the monksA monk responds to questions about the decision to get dogs

Q: Why did the monks decide to get dogs?

A: The idea first arose once we realized how many stray animals, including wild boar, had started coming onto our property. They were especially coming onto our trail that leads to our little hermitage. Sometimes, because we walk at night or in the early, early hours of the morning, some of the monks have had close encounters with wild boars, myself included. It can be a frightening experience because boar can be dangerous. In Italy, there are special kinds of dogs that have been bred for hundreds of years to be guardians and protectors of property and livestock. So it wasn’t that the monastery needed pet dogs; rather, these are animals that can provide a service to the monks in the monastery.

Q: How have the monks responded to

the new “residents”?

A: They are puppies right now, so everybody smiles when they see them. We’ve set them up in such a way that they don’t interfere with the daily lives of the monks. But this has been good for the puppies, because they are getting to know how the community functions while not being spoiled by the monks. One monk has been charged with the duty of looking after them, but the other monks see them as they go to and from prayers, for example, and when they do, they smile.

Q: What breed are the dogs?

A: The breed that we chose is the Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog; it is claimed that it is one of the

A tradition restored: Visiting Norcia’s Benedictine nunsBY A NOVICE OF THE MONASTERO DI SAN BENEDETTO IN MONTE

On Laetare Sunday, I had the joy of participating in the renewal of one of the community’s old traditions – the annual visit to our religious sisters, the Benedictine nuns of Norcia. This visit used to take place closer to the feast of St. Scholastica in honor of St. Benedict’s own

annual visit with his sister. This year, however, that feast (Feb. 10) marked a very special occasion for the sisters. It was the day they moved back to Norcia after having to spend more than two years away following the earthquakes of 2016.

We arrived at the convent on foot, our boots dusty after a pleasant walk in the late-afternoon sun. Our knock was answered almost immediately, and the porter sister joyfully rang the bell to alert the others of our arrival. Ushered into the cloister courtyard, we were surrounded by buildings that are still deemed unsafe for dwelling. In the middle of the courtyard, the sisters had set up a temporary monastery using pre-fabricated trailers, or “containers.” First of all, we made a visit to the chapel, where the oldest sister in the community was praying her rosary. The beautifully painted tabernacle, taken

from the old church of St. Anthony that is attached to the convent, starkly contrasts with the mostly bare, lifeless gray walls of the container. As we knelt before it, I was struck by a sense of the deep peace and stability that rests in a house built around the Lord’s Presence. I understood why the sisters were happy to be back in their home, despite the containers.

Out in the courtyard again, we were graced with hospitality, especially in the form of an abundant supply of delicious homemade pizza. Taking a seat next to Sister Benedetta, I asked her how their re-establishment was going. “Slowly,” she said – or, as they say here in Italy, “piano, piano” – but “patience is the virtue of the strong.” She asked me what sort of work I had been doing, and I told her about a rock retaining wall that the novices are helping to build behind our monastery. After a little more conversation and a tasty piece of crostata baked by Sister Benedetta herself, we rose to take our leave. Sister offered me auguri, or good wishes, on building the retaining wall, and I wished her auguri on rebuilding their life in Norcia – that life centered around Our Lord’s Presence. Piano, piano.

oldest breeds in the world of dogs. They have been raised here in central Italy for hundreds of years, if not back to the times of the Romans. They are large, white dogs, and they have this guardian, protective instinct built into them. They aren’t attack dogs and they don’t direct sheep, but they protect livestock. They naturally bond with animals or people or property and then they naturally want to protect those things from intruders. They are very smart and independent.

Q: Is there a particularly Benedictine reason

to have dogs?

A: Monasteries have always aimed to be sacred places where, insofar as possible on earth, the disharmony between Man and Creation wrought by Original Sin is restored to harmony, because monasteries are places where men consecrate themselves to God. So monks really want to take care of their property, to make it look beautiful, to protect it. They want to make their land as fruitful as possible in terms of vegetables, fruits and herbs. In other words, all the things at a monastery should be oriented to serving their Creator. The Canticle of Daniel, the Benedicite, which we pray at Lauds on Sunday mornings, is basically a prayer commanding all living things to bless the Lord. So, in a little way, by having dogs and directing them to protect that part of Creation that is within our walls, as well as to aid us in our lives as monks, we bear witness to a restored Creation, which will only fully come to pass at the consummation of the world.

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MONASTERO DI SAN BENEDETTO, ITALIA

The Prior's 2019 Easter Sunday HomilyThe prophets prophesied falsehoods, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things… they healed the breach of my

people disgracefully saying: Peace, peace: when there was no peace. (Jeremiah 5:21 and 8:11)

Throughout Lent, the monks read from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, whom the Church has always understood as a forerunner of Christ. Like many of the prophets, Jeremiah tells Israel many things that they would rather not hear. He rebukes false prophets, he rebukes priests for applauding the false prophets and he rebukes the people for loving both. With the words of the Passion fresh in our ears, we can see Jeremiah’s words as similarly applicable to those who put Christ to death, to those who refused to admit that God’s love might have truly intervened in sending His Son. Yet as we witness the ever-greater crisis now engulfing the Church, we may take the prophet’s words as being addressed to us today. We must not cry peace when there is no peace.

Today, the concept of peace often means indifferentism in the guise of charitable tolerance. It is leading many to accept that error and truth can coexist without causing harm, or worse, that truth itself cannot be known. On the other hand, we all take for granted certain practical life-saving truths, like the meaning of a stop sign or red light. But what about the “stop signs” and “red lights” that save us from eternal death? These indications come from our faith and the Church. The great tragedy of our time is that when it comes to final death -- the death of our soul for all eternity -- there are modern-day pseudo prophets who tell us that the truth of these ultimate things belongs to each of us, it is ours to decide, ours to interpret.

This would be all the more troubling if it weren’t for the fact that it is quite unoriginal. It’s not that this error has been around for 50 years or 500 years, but since the Fall of Man himself. When faced with the suggestion that the truth about good and evil might be found outside of himself, Adam could not resist the fruit. His desperate effort to make truth his failed, but his very attempt took root in his descendants. It resides in each of us, resisting those words of Jeremiah: “Woe is me for my destruction, my wound is very grievous. But I said: truly this is my own evil and I will bear it.” (10:19)

“Bearing the wound” is exactly what Christ does. He brings us to the one fact we strive, in all futility, to avoid: Death. In dying for us, He takes on that wound. Through the practice of our faith and in dying to ourselves, we have the chance to follow Him to Glory -- His Glory, which is the Glory of God the Father. The Resurrection shatters humanity’s varied and vain interpretations of reality and restores man to God.

Our hope in these 40 days of Easter is that you and your families might rejoice in the hope of new life in Christ, where true peace reigns, mindful again of the reassuring words of Jeremiah: “And when I have plucked them out, I will return and have mercy on them: and I will bring them back, every man to his inheritance.”

ABOVE: The veneration of the Cross during the Good Friday liturgy in Parasceve.

BELOW: Scenes from Holy Saturday.

BELOW: Br. Michael represented the monastery at the Stations of the Cross the town of Norcia organizes yearly.

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Signs of SilenceFather Basil explains the community’s study of monastic sign language

Q: Where did monastic sign language originate?

A: Monastic sign language started in the Benedictine houses of the Middle Ages, especially at the Abbey of Cluny, even though historically it has been the Trappists who have really held on to it and kept it alive in many ways. Our community started learning the language from a monk from the Monastery of Le Barroux a few years ago, but the disruption wrought by the earthquakes forced us to stop for a while. Now that our common life is more settled in Monte, as well as the fact that we have a few new monks in the community, we have returned to our study of it.

Q: Can you give an example of a monastic sign?

A: We often have to communicate in silence things of a sacred nature, pertaining to feast days and liturgical matters. In order to say “Our Lady,” for example, you trace a veil around your face. That

could help us to understand that it is a feast of Our Lady, or time to say the Angelus, or something like that.

Q: What is the spiritual value of silence?

A: St. Benedict in the Rule explains that silence is part of our own separation from sin, that is, it helps us avoid sins of the tongue, such as saying things that are not good or not necessary. It helps us foster a spirit of prayer and union with God. Beyond not speaking, which in Latin is taciturnitas, there is also the value of silence, which is peace and quiet in the environment. Both are parts of the Benedictine idea of silence, the latter making it easier to reflect and pray.

Q: How often do the monks need to use silencethroughout the day?

A: In the monastery, we have times when we cannot speak. For example, we have the period from after Compline until after Prime the next morning, which is called the night (or grand) silence, and during this time no talking is allowed. But even during the day silence is required throughout the house yet sometimes we must communicate something important, and that’s when monastic sign language is used. So the problem isn’t with communication itself. It’s about removing occasions of sin and helping ourselves and the other monks keep focused on prayer during periods of silence. It also helps us bear witness to the true, God-given purpose of speech and helps us remember how much our words matter.