I'll Drink to That

                                                   St. Benedict's Abbey, top, in Hamont-Achel, Belgium

In my late twenties -- more than half a lifetime ago -- I found opportunities to step away from a very busy ministry in Southern Ontario to visit a Cistercian monastery about an hour away in the Hockley Valley. The grounds were beautiful, the chapel was holy, and the smell was heavenly. 

As with most monastic communities, the expectation was that they were financially viable, and so the brothers baked fruit cakes which were hot sellers, so to speak. They were connected to the Trappist monastery in Kentucky called Gethsemani, which was home to Thomas Merton.Y

I have visited a number of monasteries and convents across the continent through the years but none of them brewed their own beer, a European monastic tradition. I obviously made some poor choices. 

A historic photo shows monks working in the bottling room at the Saint-Sixtus Abbey's brewery.

PHOTO: HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

This monastery in the Hockley Valley didn't survive because the monks were old and that simply couldn't recruit novices, a challenge everywhere. you may know of the Oka monastery in Quebec, and its famous cheese. The reality is that the brothers sold the brand because they could no longer sustain the dairy farm and cheese production. This is now commonplace. I read an article recently n the Wall Street Journal, of all publications, which begins: 

HAMONT-ACHEL, Belgium—Trappist breweries are facing a supply problem: They’re running out of monks. Brothers at the picturesque abbeys are aging, and fewer men are taking vows these days. But in order to be labeled an “Authentic Trappist Product”—which commands a price premium as well as historical cachet—real monks need to be involved.

This may not seem like a problem which would affect most of us, whether it's the absence of beer or Christmas cakes.Yet this is more than the loss of time-honoured food and drink. These monastic communities have been remarkable places of prayer, often going back centuries Because hospitality is an essential aspect of monastic life, an article of the Rule of St. Benedict, they welcome visitors who may need a spiritual oasis for restoration or soul-searching. Another monastery I visited in New Brunswick while serving a downtown congregation in Halifax offered this invitation: 

Guests are welcome to come on retreat.  You do not have to be Catholics or even Christians, but we expect you to be looking for God... Guests create their own retreat by joining the prayer of the community, by praying and reflecting quietly, by reading and they can also walk in the fields and woods or sit in the guesthouse garden when the weather permits.

The guest brother here was a warm, kind man in his sixties who worked as a stone mason in his youth until experiencing a call to monastic life.

There were occasions when a cold beer would have been enjoyable, but the atmosphere of prayer and the sense of God's presence were the reasons I went. And I never did get a piece of that cake!