A Week in a Monastery

Some of you know that each winter I spend a week in silent retreat at the Gethsemani monastery in rural Kentucky.  This year marked my twelfth annual pilgrimage.  Retreatants seek out the monastery from all over the world, and a few are familiar faces that I see each year.  This year the weather was frigid, hovering near 20 degrees all week, so much of my sketching was done inside the Abbey church and the Retreat House.  There is no retreat agenda, each retreatant seeks his or her own way.  Retreatants are encouraged, however, to participate in the Liturgy of the Hours with the Trappist monks, which begins at 3:30am each day, as it has since the 11th century.

Light snowfall adds to the stillness and quiet of the monsatery, only occasionally interrupted by the church bells.

The monks’ entry procession for Mass.

Father Damien, the former Abbot of the monastery, has become a trusted advisor over the years.  Here he is absorbed in the prayer offered during one of the seven services through the course of the day.

Retreatants eat in silence in a dining hall.  Large windows look out onto the beautiful rural landscape of meadows and rolling wooded hills.

Father Christian, the Retreat Master, offers wisdom at a daily gathering of retreatants.

This view of the exterior of the Abbey church and the monk’s cemetery was sketched on a sunny day during last year’s retreat.  The grave of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, peace activist and best-selling author of the 1960’s, is in this cemetery.