Huntsville abbey is 'a light in our midst,' says Archbishop Wester

Friday, May. 15, 2015

HUNTSVILLE — As Archbishop John C. Wester, administer of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, prepares to leave Utah for his new assignment in Santa Fe, he took the time on May 9 to celebrate Mass with the Trappist monks at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville.

“We give thanks to God for their continued presence in our lives, for all that they have done for us and they continue to do and will do for us,” said the archbishop, who was joined by Monsignor Colin F. Bircumshaw, the diocesan vicar general, and Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald, vicar general emeritus.

In his homily, the archbishop recalled his first experience at the monastery when he, as a young priest, made a retreat there in the 1970s. He said that he was eager to join the rhythm of the monks’ life, but after one day of rising at 3 a.m. to pray matins, “I quickly discerned that I was not being called to do the vigils, and I spent the rest of my retreat at that hour sleeping.” 

The monks, however, have spent the decades since their arrival in the Diocese of Salt Lake City in 1947 prayerfully discerning the will of God, Archbishop Wester said. 

“They have spent a lifetime in relationship with the risen Christ,” he said, adding that in the monks’ prayer and work “this relationship with Christ has been what sustains them and will continue to sustain them, and that is the witness that they give. … Countless souls have been touched by the light of this abbey in our midst. As these holy monks have discerned God’s will, they have helped us to do the same through their counseling, through the celebration of the sacraments, and yes, through their vigils, through their prayer.”

The Mass was a moment “to give thanks to you all, for all that you are, and for all that you mean to us,” Archbishop Wester told the monks, all of whom are past retirement age.

In his remarks after the Mass, Msgr. Fitzgerald spoke of his memories of attending retreats at the monastery with his high school class, and said he got to know the first abbot well. 

Msgr. Fitzgerald, who was ordained in 1962, said the Trappists “had a tremendous impact on my becoming a priest.” 

The abbey has been a tremendous blessing to the diocese, he said, “and those who are buried in that cemetery and who have gone before us – they too have been witnesses to the power of Christ in our lives.” 

The Trappists monks in Huntsville and the Carmelites nuns in Holladay were the first to give witness to the contemplative life to Catholics in Utah, and “it’s been a blessing in my life and a blessing for this Church,” Msgr. Fitzgerald said. 

Father Brendan Freeman, the abbey’s administrator, thanked the bishop for “encouraging us in so many ways,” and expressed his gratitude to Msgr. Fitzgerald “for many, many years of supporting our community, and still doing it.”