The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-11-14
THE MONKS OF LII TRAPPE.

THE MONKS OF Id TR4PPE.
The following letter from an esteemed friend
of the STAR, who is now revisiting his native
land after an absence of forty years, will no
doubt interest many of our readers who, like
him, "have lopged" to see again the noble
institutions of dear old Ireland. His descrip-
ton of the life of the Monks of La Trappe
affords another proof of the charity and zeal
of the monastic orders, and is at the same time
a noble refutation of the oft repeated calumny
that the Church fosters ignorance and that the
monks lead g selfindulgent, lazy life.
MOUNT MRILERY ABBEY, !
County Waterford, Ireland, Oct. 3, 1875.
Here am, among the Monks of the Order of
La Trappe, men whose lives are more angelic
than human, and whose existence is constant
reminder to weddings of an Eternal Master
who will not delay to reward US all at q proper
time. / have been here five days, and must
leave this evening for Cork; but the thought
feel like sailor who is obliged to put to sea in
stormy weather leaving behind him safe and
quiet harbor.
AT O'Clock in the morning the monks rise
sound of their voices is heard through the cor
ridors of the monastery, it is like the wall of q
mother for an erring child. And surely these
holy men are doing penance for many poor
Faber, may be at last indebted to them for a
death-bed conversion.
At Complin the monks sing the grand old
Gregorian Chant in its purest style, and to hear
the solemn harmony swelling through the
dimly- Lighted church, after night has settled
on the mountain-side, brings tears to the eyes
of all.
The monks are constantly employed either
in prayer or labor, and they are always silent,
except the guest master and few who attend
to guests.
half-hour the Superior notifies them to raise
their thoughts to God-th us constantly uniting
the soul to it's eternal recompense.
Each guest has his own room, and certain
rules and regulations which he must observe
while he is in the monastery They are also
Silent while withiA the walls. The gueste
receive three meals day: for breakfast, tea,
bread, eggs and butter; for dinner, mutton,
for supper, tea, bread and butter. Such is the
bill of fare for the wanderer the guest,
while the noble, holy, Woodworking monk gets
only one meal and q collation. each day.
They never use meat, and the only drink
they allow themselves is water, aud yet from
in the morning until at night they work on
q bleak mountain side. But while they starve
themselves, they continue to extend great hos
pitalIty to strangers and to the poor.
The number of guests averages daily about
twelve; but they also feed about sixty poor
holy monks gratuitously, and are furnished
with o good dinner, and piece of bread is
given them in the evening when going home
Do you find anything like this noble charity
among our Protestant friendsf and yet they
are the first, 1 believe, to deolaim about the
ignorance of the Irish and the laziness of the
monks in general.
These monks make their own bread and but
ter, grind their own wheat, burn their own
lime,-in fact they make everything they use.
Their 600 acres, on the side, of o barren noun
tain, bloom like a lovely garden, where You
find all grain grown IN this country, and all
vegetables used in the monastery. They have
planted fine groves, built excellent stone and
clay fences (called here ditches), the latter
being covered with white thorn bushes or furze.
Their bakery and dairy are models of clean.
Illness and neatness, and while you admire all
that they accomplish, you wonder how they
can do SO much on only II meals day. Their
and they sleep with the habit on, like travellers
who expect at any moment the summons that
leads them onward. No wonder that the visitor
here feels he is in q holy place, no wonder that
the very air seems holy, and that everything
around breathes of Heaven and God.
These monks came from France about forty
two years ago, when driven out by the fary of
the revolutionary storm that desolated that
fair land, Then they numbered but three, now
they are, believe, over one hundred in the
monastery.
Often during my life, while in the swamps
of Louisiana or in the woods of Mississippi, l
have longed to visit monastery in my own
land once more. Thank God, my wish has been
granted at last, and tears fill my eyes tonight
as listen to the sweet chanting of the monks
and think of the still, silent, rootess ruins that
are scattered over poor Ireland: our noble
Iintern, for instance, and picturesque Dun
brOdy, with scores of similar abbeys whose
silence has been unbroken for three hundred
years. * Z ..--
Here is synopsis of the
RULES FOR GENTLEMEN MAKING RETREAT
in this monasteryi
LIST. He informs the Guest-Master of the IT,
tended length of his visit, which must not ex-