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A Place Where One Learns On approaching the abbey church at Our Lady of the Genesee in Piffard, New York, there are two mounds of earth placed directly in front of the entrance. The Japanese landscaper who created the scene purposefully designed it. The first mound is choppy and demonstrates the turbulence of the world. The second is smooth representing tranquility, a peace we all desire. At first I am tempted to think that the monastery is an “even place,” as an old Irish neighbor of mine would say. It is then that I notice the cross, large and simple, perfectly placed, standing between the two mounds. It reminds all who enter the abbey church of what life is really like for the members of this community and any serious minded Christian community. Contrary to appearance and a vow of stability monks are not separated from the world but intimately united with it. It is the cross that unites them. Paul in his letter to the Galatians would say of the reality of the cross of Christ: “Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” In a short documentary film presented at Globians Film Festival in 2005, a young monk of the Abbey of the Genesee offered his own personal reflections on monasticism. “The life is a blend. At times it’s a garden like Eden. At other times it becomes a battleground, an arena. There is a balance that challenges one to grow and stretch themselves.” During a recent visit to Genesee a member of the community shared with me that some new facts have come to light regarding the gruesome slaying of their Trappist brothers at the monastery of Tibehirine in Algeria in March of 1996. It seems that Islamic Algerian terrorists, accused of the murders, were not responsible after all. Rather it is likely that it was the French backed Algerian government forces who mistakenly mowed them down in a botched rescue attempt. Their bodies were then decapitated by the Algerian soldiers to make their deaths look like an act of terrorism, according to a French military attaché in Algeria at the time. I am surprised by the monk’s telling of the story. He is not angry or upset at those who did the deed or those who lied to cover it up. He is simply grateful for the truth. “Truth,” he says, “often comes through the Cross, the testing and turbulence of life and death.” He quotes with great affection the 9th century abbot, Theodore of Studios. “How splendid the cross… It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree had destroyed us; a tree now brought us life.” In 1965 another Trappist, Thomas Merton, wrote Blessed Are the Meek. It became a primer on the Christian Roots of Nonviolence. Merton said:
Whether I enter the dark abbey church at Our Lady of the Genesee buoyant or broken, the ancient psalms chanted by the monks before a crucifix suspended from the rafters pursue me and somehow unites me once again to their author and to all creation renewing my Christian vocation. Fr. Kevin Lawrence |