A Life Well Led
Talk of monks and friars brings to mind images of the Middle Ages and Robin Hood.
But monks, friars and nuns, too, are continuing their age-old missions of visiting the sick and providing comfort, even if today's monasteries also stream their chapel services live over the Internet.
For Father Mark, a Capuchin friar who lives at St. Mary's Friary in Herman, being a friar doesn't mean being shut off from the world.
“A monk is monastic and a friar means brother. St. Francis of Assisi founded an order of brothers, and we've always been known as brothers, and while some of us have been ordained to be priests, some of us are not. But regardless of that, we are all brothers,” said Father Mark, who lives with three other friars in the friary attached to St. Mary of Assumption Church.
“We are active contemplatives, that means that we have a prayer life in the house together. The active part is we reach out to the community,” he said.
That could mean being pastor of the Roman Catholic congregations at St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Herman and St. Joseph Church in Cabot like Father Ward Stakem, the friary's guardian or leader.
“Our primary role is taking care of our parishes,” said Father Mark.
“Or it could be visiting the sick. We serve five different nursing homes in the Butler County area,” he said.
There are visits to the homebound, feeding the homeless, providing counseling, preparing homilies for Mass, presiding at Masses and attending to administrative tasks.
Father Mark, who was ordained a priest three weeks ago, said the friars begin the day at 6:30 a.m. with communal meditation in the friary's chapel. Following an 8 a.m. Mass, the friars eat breakfast together and begin the day's tasks. They return to the friary for evening services at 4:45 p.m. and then eat together before tackling the evening's work.“Like Jesus, we are in the marketplace. We are in the community, but we balance that activity with our fraternal life. That's kind of living the Gospel life. We go from life to Gospel and from Gospel to life,” said Father Mark.The monks of Holy Trinity Byzantine Catholic Monastery, between Butler and Saxonburg, have a more contemplative life, according to Father Leo, 80, one of three monks living at the monastery.Their lives revolve around prayer, study and services. They conduct four services a day in the monastery's chapel: at 6, 7 and 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.Holy Trinity was founded in 1948 when 14 monks came to the area from a monastery in Illinois. Father Anselm, 84, is the last of the original monks.“At one time, we had at least 30 monks here. We are down to three,” said Father Leo, who has served as the monastery's abbot since 1993.“I was a monk in Florida for 40 years. I came here in the mid-70s by appointment. I went back to Florida for 11 years and was elected abbot in 1993,” he said.“This monastery was built in 1971 because we were flourishing. We were staffing nine Byzantine churches from Buffalo to Indiana, but the majority were in the state of Pennsylvania,” said Father Leo.“We were pastors. We took care of the churches for the diocese. In 1993, there were 14 monks living here, and there were four priests stationed in parish churches. Some of them ran the parishes from here,” he said.
The population of monks has dwindled in the last 20 years, but Father Leo said two to three people, mostly neighbors, also attend the 7 a.m. service in the monastery chapel.“The rest of the day is given to private prayer and study,” Father Leo said.They have plenty of time for that since the monastery closed its farm operations in 2003, because age and ill health had ended the monks' ability to run the farm.He said the monastery raised 200 head of cattle and ran a church camp and retreat program in the past.Very few people visit the monastery for a retreat these days, he said, although the monks do hear confessions.“Our old boys' camp building is now used by Alcoholics Anonymous on Sunday and Wednesday nights. Father Anselm and I serve as the Fourth Step minister. They talk to the minister and tell all they did when they were drinking,” he said.Father Leo said that the fate of the monastery when its last monks are gone “greatly depends on the archbishop.”“Our lives are certainly winding down to the end, and everything that is here when we die will go to the Byzantine Archbishop of Pittsburgh,” Father Leo said.“There is a lack of vocations. Young people were not encouraged to become monks or priests. We are suffering from this lack of vocations; the whole church is suffering,” he said.“The society is terribly materialistic,” Father Leo said. “Church vocations are in a sense otherworldly. We can't see the good we do because we can't count noses or buildings.“Our situation is not unusual. Church history, like all history, is cyclical. Right now, we are at the bottom of the circle. We have to work our way back up.”
One monastery that's on the upswing, judging from all the expansion under way, is the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, founded in 1967 by Mother Alexandra, a former Romanian princess.The 10 nuns who live on the 100-acre site in Perry Township, Lawrence County, are overseeing improvements to the main building to better welcome the pilgrims who visit.“Our main work at this monastery is two-fold,” said Mother Barbara (all nuns who take their final vows in the Orthodox Church of America are known as Mother.)“First, we pray. There is prayer in the church services, and we pray privately for the whole world,” said Mother Barbara.She said the nuns pray for those who ask for prayers. Requests are made by telephone, mail and e-mail.“People ask for prayers with their problems: divorce, cancer, drug use, wife beating,” said Mother Barbara. “It is a real consolation for people as they go about their busy day that we are holding them up to God in prayer.“The second thing we do is offer hospitality,” Mother Barbara said. “People ring the doorbell. We greet them, answer questions. Groups schedule visits — the Red Hat ladies, seniors. They want to know a little about us or just walk our beautiful gardens.”Her fellow nun, Mother Paula, said the monastery has two guesthouses where visitors, after being vetted, can make reservations for longer stays.
“They can have a spiritual rest. They can give their souls a vacation,” she said.“We are not a retreat center; that is not what we are about,” said Mother Paula, but the nuns welcome visitors and look forward to having them learn about the nuns' lives.The nuns' two daily services, conducted in English at 6:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., are open to visitors.And beginning this year, the monastery has offered live streaming and recording of chapel services for those not able to attend services at their own churches.The nuns broadcast select services live from their chapel on Ustream. The services can be viewed at a later time on YouTube.In between services, Mother Barbara and Mother Paula said the nuns have to maintain the monastery.The abbess, Mother Christophora, assigns the nuns tasks, called obediences, such as cooking, baking, gardening, cleaning and greeting visitors.Mother Paula has been a nun for 10 years, and Mother Barbara has been a nun for 17.“We are all over the map in terms of background,” said Mother Paula of her fellow nuns. “We had one who came here in her 20s who was home schooled, and we had one who was an engineer from Penn State.
“Most of us came later in life; most of us had pretty full careers before we came to the monastery,” she said.Said Mother Barbara: “The thing that draws so many women is a sense of a call to do God's work. The specifics would be different in each case, but it's never to run away. It wouldn't last, and they would not be accepted.”“It's not to escape,” said Mother Paula. “It's a life of joy and full of struggles, but that's pretty much life.”<br></br><br></br><br></br><br></br>
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