Listening for God's voice
Journey helps Catholics to focus on God by seeking silence amid the world’s noise
Benedictine Brother Maurus Zoeller, guest house manager and director of retreat programs, gives a tour of Saint Meinrad Archabbey’s Church of Our Lady of Einsiedeln in St. Meinrad on Aug. 6 for pilgrims participating in the archdiocesan summer pilgrimage. The pilgrims also visited Monastery Immaculate Conception, the home of the Sisters of St. Benedict, in Ferdinand, Ind., and Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Ky., during the three-day pilgrimage. (Photo by Mary Ann Garber) Click for a larger version.
By Mary Ann Garber
Holy men and women religious who devote their lives to God and prayer inspired Catholic pilgrims during the archdiocesan summer pilgrimage on Aug. 6-8 to three monasteries in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky.
“It is good that we are here,” Msgr. Frederick Easton, spiritual director, told 53 pilgrims in his homily during an 8 a.m. Mass at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis before the three-day bus trip.
(See a photo gallery from the trip here)
One highlight of the first day of the pilgrimage was a visit with retired Archbishop Emeritus Daniel M. Buechlein at Saint Meinrad Archabbey’s Church of Our Lady of Einsiedeln in St. Meinrad.
Archbishop Buechlein warmly greeted the pilgrims, who thanked him for his two decades of ministry as the spiritual leader of the Church in central and southern Indiana.
“It was good to see Archbishop Daniel ready for our visit,” Msgr. Easton said after a tour and Vespers prayer service at the historic archabbey church built by Benedictine monks who came there from Switzerland in 1854. “It was a great chance to reconnect with him, and lift the spirits [of everyone] on both sides.”
The archbishop retired to Saint Meinrad—his former home as a Benedictine priest—in September 2011 to continue recuperating from a stroke that he suffered in March 2011.
St. Bartholomew parishioner Virginia Hammond of Columbus traveled on the pilgrimage with her granddaughter, Vanessa Hammond, a fifth-grade teacher at St. Rose of Lima School in Franklin.
“I enjoyed seeing and meeting and talking with Archbishop Buechlein,” Virginia Hammond said. “I enjoyed everything during the pilgrimage.”
When Vanessa Hammond welcomed her new students for the first day of classes on Aug. 15, she planned to tell them about visiting Saint Meinrad Archabbey, Monastery Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Ind., and the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Ky.
“I enjoyed going to Saint Meinrad,” she said. “I had heard a lot of wonderful things about it so it was nice to be there. I will tell them about the monks and their way of life.”
Before visiting Ferdinand and Saint Meinrad, the pilgrims stopped for lunch and a tour at Huber Winery in Starlight, where Ted Huber welcomed the pilgrims to the Hoosier Homestead Farm owned and operated by his family for more than 100 years.
In 1843, he said, Simon Huber emigrated from Germany to southern Indiana then bought 80 acres of land nestled in the scenic hills to plant a grape arbor and apple orchard.
Today, the Huber farm has grown to more than 600 acres and the sixth generation of the family works the land. In 1978, they opened the winery.
“Grapes naturally will turn into wine,” Huber explained during a tour. “In the Bible, there are many references to grapes and wine.”
After lunch, the pilgrims traveled to Ferdinand, a scenic town in the Evansville Diocese where four young Sisters of St. Benedict established a monastery on top of a large hill in 1867 then taught the children of German immigrants.
In 1870, the Benedictine sisters established a school for girls, which they operated for 130 years until dwindling enrollment forced them to close it in 2000.
Construction began on the historic monastery church in 1915, but World War I delayed its completion until 1924. To save money, the sisters carried bricks up the hill each day for the workers.
In 1999, the sisters replaced the tile roof on the 87-foot-tall dome. Interior restoration work on the ornate Romanesque-style church, known as “The Castle on the Hill,” was finished in 2005.
The sisters pray the Liturgy of the Hours three times a day at 7 a.m., noon and 5 p.m. in addition to daily Mass celebrated by a Benedictine priest from Saint Meinrad at 7:30 a.m.
From this monastery, which was home to 500 sisters during the 1950s, the sisters founded monasteries in Beech Grove, Kentucky, Arkansas and California. The sisters also established missions in Belcourt, N.D., as well as Peru and Guatemala.
Now, about 110 of the monastery’s 161 sisters help continue 145 years of ministries by praying, serving others and operating their Kordes Retreat Center.
After an overnight stay at Saint Meinrad’s Guest House and Retreat Center, the pilgrims celebrated Mass with the Benedictine monks, whose seminary has educated priests serving at parishes in the state, country and other countries.
Recalling his years of priestly formation there, Msgr. Easton said he has always been inspired by “the monks’ legacy of prayerfulness, spirituality and liturgical formation.”
On the road again on Aug. 7, the pilgrims journeyed to the remote Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Ky.
Father Louis, a Trappist monk better known through his writings as Thomas Merton, is buried near the stark white monastery church not far from the fields of the monks’ farm established more than 160 years ago.
Trappist monks live a simple life centered on contemplative prayer and the strict observance of silence by following the full Divine Liturgy of the Hours—Vigils, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline—and daily Mass. They also practice lectio divina, meditative reading of Scripture.
On their farm, the monks make cheeses as well as fruitcake, fudge and caramel candy flavored with Kentucky bourbon.
“Contemplative monks call us to occasionally step back and meditate and be quiet for a little bit,” Msgr. Easton said. “… The example of these monks as well as those at Saint Meinrad teach us to find in a more contemplative spirit a source of deeper happiness in our lives. I think that’s the message of monasticism for our world.”
St. Luke the Evangelist parishioner Jean Trebnik of Indianapolis was glad to visit the Abbey of Gethsemani again.
“I’ve done many retreats down there,” she said, “and it was almost like coming home and meeting an old friend again.”
After an overnight stay in Bardstown, Ky., which was voted “the most beautiful small town in America” in 2012, the pilgrims celebrated Mass at the historic Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral, a national landmark built from 1816 to 1819. The first cathedral constructed west of the Allegheny Mountains in the former Diocese of Bardstown is now part of the Archdiocese of Louisville.
Columbus resident Paula Stahl, a member of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis, said after the pilgrimage that she appreciated this time away to focus on God.
“People need silence in this busy world to be able to hear God speak,” Stahl said. “You can’t do that in the noise of the world unless you find time for silence.” †
