A TASTE OF MT. ANGEL

To relate a month-long, life-changing experience in two minutes is impossible so I’ll give you a tantalizing Taste of Mt. Angel Imagine living in community for a month with 35 Spirit-filled Benedictine nuns, aged 32 to 93, some who have lived together for over 50 years at the monastery. Some were previously married and have adult children and grandchildren. Many had active professional lives, mostly in the field of education.
Only one still wears a traditional habit, the others wear casual street clothes and “dress up” clothes for Mass on Sunday. These blessed women have taken vows of stability, poverty, chastity and obedience and live their lives as “brides of Christ” serving our Lord Jesus in a myriad of ways in the little Oregon community of Mt. Angel. The basic Benedictine rule is one of “ora et labora”, prayer and work, and their lives are centered on this rule.
They run a prayer and conference center, a homeless shelter, a migrant farm workers temporary residence and a food, clothing and furniture distribution center. They grow much of their fresh produced and in season can fruits and make jams for the winter. Many of them do hand work which is sold in the bookstore of the conference center to help support the monastery.
The rhythm of the days begins with Morning Prayer and Mass followed by breakfast which is eaten in silence except on weekends and Feast Days. Mornings are spent in various duties and assignments with Noon Prayer before lunch. More work and rest follows in the afternoon with Evening Prayer before dinner. An hour of community recreation including cards, jigsaw puzzles, hand work and just visiting precedes Compline, the prayer service which brings the day to its close at eight in the evening. Since their days usually begin at 5 or 5:30, most retire early.
The hours of prayer consist of the chanted or spoken psalmody, usually antiphonally interspersed with long periods of blessed silence. I came to treasure those times of silence in prayer and found my heart opening in ways that I’ve never experienced before.
The sisters accepted us with warmth, love and deep appreciation for our time of service with them and constantly showered us with the blessings and joys of their deep friendship. My little bit of heaven there became the kitchen, where I spent the entire month as an integral part of the culinary prep team.
Leaving Mt. Angel was painful and we continually relive our daily experiences with those blessed sisters already sure that we will return soon to walk their journey with them.
The quiet constancy and depth of their faith has in turn helped deepen my faith and shown me a new way to live in the world but still be not “of it” and I have been blessed a thousand-fold by this amazing experience.

Tom