Living for today – the Huntsville monks move on

IC photo/Alex Harrington

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Father Patrick Boyle, 89, greets visitors in the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity's book shop in Huntsville. Fr. Boyle has been a monk at the monastery for 67 years.

HUNTSVILLE — Four years ago, Father Brendan Freeman, who was the 11th abbot of New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Iowa, retired after 30 years as abbot. He didn’t experience the retired life for very long, however. Fr. Brendan was reappointed as the superior of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville, an abbey that is experiencing its final days.

The abbey will close on Aug. 31.

Fr. Brendan’s duties as a superior were clear straight away – he was to make sure the seven monks, many of whom are at least 80 years old, were cared for, and he was to negotiate the sale of the abbey. The abbey is closing because there are no young monks to run it.

That vocations are declining is “a crisis in religious life right now,” Fr. Brendan said. The hardest part of taking over as superior of the abbey in 2013, was experiencing the pain of losing a home along with the Huntsville monks, he said.

“I can understand what these men are going through. It’s like taking your heart out, in a way,” Fr. Brendan said.

It has been a challenge to witness the monks having to say goodbye to the place where many of them have spent their entire lives, Fr. Brendan said.

However, “there’s a goodness in it” as well, he said. God’s will moves through all things, and if it is part of his plan that the abbey closes, then that is what needs to happen, Fr. Brendan said.

“The men here are very dedicated to the Trappist life” and each of them have done everything in their power to support the monastery, he said. If each monk gave his best effort to keep the Trappist spiritual way of life alive, there’s no shame in accepting that this is all meant to be, Fr. Brendan said.

Getting to know the other monks over the past four years also has been a blessing, he said. When he first arrived, he felt nervous, like he was a novitiate all over again, he said, but “the monks have been very good to me. I’ve grown to love these guys.”

Each one’s faith and spirit never faltered even during the difficult transition, he said.

When the abbey closes, the monks who now live there will move to St. Joseph Villa in Salt Lake City, so they can stay together, Fr. Brendan said.

Even as the time draws closer for the abbey to close, “it gets better every day, I can honestly say that,” said Father Patrick Boyle, who arrived there in 1950. Now 89, he runs the abbey’s book shop, and stands up to warmly greet guests. He smiles at visiting children, and jokes, “Do you know the difference between a monk and a monkey?”

They laugh before he even gets to the punch line.

He pulls in strangers for warm hugs, telling them that they are really not strangers to him at all.

“You are an image of Christ, so I know you and love you,” he often tells visitors.

Fr. Patrick received the call to the priesthood when he was 11, he said. When one of his teachers at the parochial school he attended in St. Louis asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. Fr. Patrick told her, “’I’m going to be a priest.’ I remember it like it was yesterday. … I thought to myself, if I’m going to do something for God, I’m going to do it all the way.”

Through the years, Fr. Patrick’s plans shifted and he ended up deciding to become a monk in Huntsville. He recalls that when he drove up the winding country road that leads to the abbey, the landscape was bare. Now, enormous trees line the road.

There have been many other changes in the abbey as the years have gone by, but they are not to be feared, Fr. Patrick said.

“You know that saying, ‘roll with the punches?’” he asked. “I’m not threatened by the monastery closing” because his belief in Divine Providence has kept him from fretting about what could have been, he said. Also, his personal belief in the “sacrament of the now moment” has kept him strong, he said.  “(I’m) not worrying about today. I’m not worrying about tomorrow. I am here, right now.”

The “living in the now moment” attitude is reflected in all the monks as they prepare to move, Fr. Brendan said. The loss of the monastery has not dampened the spirts of the monks or changed the great love they have for their community, for God and for each other, he said.