Awesome article/video on traditional Benedictine monastery

Here is a surprisingly fair and balanced take on the Traditional Our Lady of Guadalupe Benedictine monastery of Silver City, NM.   I will state straight up that this monastery is affiliated with the SSPX, but don’t let that fact turn you away from some inspiring photos in the video below, nor from the elements of traditional Catholic monastic life these monks embody. I pray for their complete unity with the Church.  Thanks to reader Dismas for the link!

The Benedictine order of the Catholic Church dates to the sixth century and St. Benedict, whose 73-chapter “Rule” serves as a spiritual and moral guide for the monks who follow it. According to the Our Lady of Guadalupe website, it is a “compact practical code of living” rooted in “equilibrium and balance of moderation.”

While some monasteries run schools or parishes, others commit to a life of simplicity and contemplation, and Our Lady of Guadalupe adheres to the latter.

As old-fashioned as they might be – Brother Bernard likes to say, “We’re very sixth century” – they don’t reject all the trappings of modernity: They use electricity and washing machines; they maintain a website; they have a telephone in a little gift shop that sells medallions of St. Benedict, books and handmade paper; and they carry a communal cellphone when they travel. They roast coffee to raise funds to keep their monastery self-sustaining.

“Things we can do by hand, we do,” Brother Bernard said. “We’re not against technology when it is used for the right reasons.”

“We found this secluded place, an environment from which the young monks could learn,” Father Cyprian said. “The forest, mountains, creation, the beauty of the music and the language: These are elements that teach the monks to connect with the monastic fathers of antiquity. What we do here is exactly what has always been done, with no change. The monastic life was revolutionary in its ideal because the monastic fathers who grouped themselves together launched this very unique way of life where all the means to serve God and serve the church are first and everything else is secondary.”

Prayers for all

On the eve of Christmas, the monks begin the prayers usually said before dawn at 9 p.m., leading up to a midnight Mass.

They see their ascetic life – including their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience – as an emulation of Jesus’ early life before he began preaching, said Brother Bernard, and they consider Jesus’ birth in a manger as a symbol of how God reveals himself to the humble.

Like many families on this day, they will celebrate with a feast. And, as always, they will mark the day with many hours of prayer.

The monks, despite their seclusion, say their prayers are not for themselves alone but are for the world.

One recent weekday morning, Maria Juarez brought her two sons to the monastery’s Latin Mass, sung in Gregorian chant – a Mass that “brings you to tears,” she said.

“I’m grateful for the monastery,” she said afterward. “I think for me to have come to know the faith, someone had to have prayed for me. I feel they are praying for us, for the world.”

Boy do I know that feeling.  God bless that woman, I know exactly how she feels. My coming into the Faith took me by total surprise.  It just sort of happened, not because of any willed intent on my part, but because of the prayers of others.  It’s amazing that I forget that at times…..which reminds me how much I am constantly in need of Grace!

When I say pray for me, I do mean it!

I hope you enjoyed this little article.