#trappists

[eelhound]

"I arrive at the abbey in time for compline, the last service of the day. As the nuns chant the Psalms, I look around the church and take my bearings. In place of pews, wooden benches stand along three walls together with a selection of zafus and zabutons. The monastery is Catholic, yet a Zen-like aesthetic is everywhere present, perhaps most pronounced in the center of the chapel, which remains empty. Into that center the day’s last light pours from clerestory windows high up in the ceiling. Along the chapel’s fourth wall, floor-to-ceiling windows reveal a single redwood tree beyond, a four-leader trunk whose girth must be close to thirty feet. On the concrete floor, a series of long cracks run the length of the building. Redwood roots, I learn from one of the sisters, pushing upward. The trees are lifting the entire monastery off the ground.

The sisters of Redwoods Abbey are Trappists, also known as Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a worldwide Catholic monastic order of men and women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Cistercian reforms of the eleventh century. Those reforms brought a return to simplicity, contemplative prayer, and silence. At a time when Christianity was taking a centuries-long detour into logic and rationalism, Cistercian monks were turning their attention inward, to the heart, where Jesus said we would find the kingdom of God.

The sisters chant the Psalms here in this chapel and in between chants they listen. Words are spoken or sung, but they are borrowed from silence and to silence they return. 'The monastic journey is learning how to listen,' Sister Kathy, the abbess, tells me one day during my visit. 'I don’t think we ever stop learning how to listen.' I experience it many times over the next five days — standing inside a circle of ancient redwoods across the Mattole River, sitting on a beach at nearby Needle Rock — but I find it first here among the sisters in their chapel of wood, steel, and concrete upheld by the roots of trees: a deep, welcoming silence."

- Fred Bahnson, from "On the Road with Thomas Merton"

[georgeoliver]

Aspects of Brussels/Belgian life: Drink

There's only one drink I'm going to talk about in any depth in this blog: beer. You can get other drinks in Belgium, obviously, but only beer occupies such a central place in Belgium's identity. In fact, Belgian beer was recently added to UNESCO'a list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. There are around 1150 different varieties of beer brewed in Belgium, ranging from the six certified Trappist breweries, to abbey beers, blondes, tripels, brunes and ambrées, wit beers, geuzes (blending lambics), fruit beers (gueze + fruit during the fermentation process) and lambics (sour beer made with wild yeast).

Whenever I go to a bar, café or restaurant for a drink, I try to have a new beer. Even if I managed this every time, I wouldn't have made a dent.

I like quite a wide range of Belgian brews, particularly chewy brunes and some blondes: Orval, Omer and La Chouffe are some of my easily accessible favourites.

Belgian beers are generally stronger than UK equivalents – from 5 to 10% - and served in smaller volumes (33cl is a normal size). It's very important that you get the right glass with your beer (servers at the bar are often very apologetic when they don't have the right receptacle). A handy tip for anyone visiting Belgium is that the wider the glass opens at the top, the more flavourful it is – weedier beers (standard lagers like Jupiler, Maes and Stella Artois) have narrower openings to concentrate their limited flavour in small spaces.

Last weekend, I, along with some friends, visited the shyest and most retiring of the six trappist breweries. Westvleteren, made at the abbey of Saint-Sixtus, near Poperinge, is, to put it mildly, not widely sold. It is only possible to buy the beer directly from the abbey itself, or from the visitor's centre across the road. To collect any beer from the abbey one has to reserve it by phone and each buyer is limited to 1 or 2 cases of 24 bottles every 60 days.

Just 5 monks (+ 5 more to help with the bottling process) produce only 475 kilolitres (60,000 cases) per year, which is the same as they produced in 1946. They make three beers: a blonde, the 8 (which is 8%) and the 12 (which is just over 10%). The 12 was recently rated the best beer in the world by ratebeer.com which, combined with the limited supply, resulted in even greater interest in the beer. The monks still refuse to increase their production to meet the frenzied demand, insisting: “We are not brewers. We are monks. We brew beer to be able to afford being monks.”

The abbey itself, with a stern sign directing you elsewhere (Image credit: Joscha)

So we got the train out to Poperinge, and walked to the visitor centre in the Belgian, freezing grey. There, we installed ourselves, trying all three of the beers, their cheese, and even an ice cream made with the 12. It was good, though inevitably all the hype around the “best beer in the world” meant perhaps we had built it up a lot. For those who are interested but don't have the time to make the pilgrimage to Poperinge, St Bernadus, also brewed just outside Poperinge, is meant to taste quite similar to the 12, and is much easier to get hold of.

The following day, we visited the De Plukker Brewery, where they make organic beer with hops from their own farm. We had a tour and a tasting (I had already inadvertently tried two of their 5 beers in the local Irish pub). 80% of Belgian hops are grown in and around Poperinge, and so De Plukker decided to make their own beer from their yield. De Plukker = the plucker in honour of the workers who used to harvest the hops. The brewery hopes to start using its own organic malt in the beer soon, and makes some very tasty beers.

De Plukker’s beers, and stretching Hop fields (Image credit: Radhika)

So come to Belgium, and enjoy the intangible liquid heritage of its land! (If you don't like beer.. sorry)

[postcard-from-the-past]

Notre-Dame de Staouëli Abbey of the Trappists in Tibhirine, Algeria

French vintage postcard

[fionabrennanartist]

Trappistines (nuns) working on products for sale. 

Trappists (monks) and Trappistines use the proceeds of products that they make to finance the needs of their religious communities. Anything extra is given to third parties.  In this way, they support projects in developing countries as well as at home, or they offer help to those in need. Their most famous, respected and sought-after product is beer. Trappist beer is considered the best in the world.

[47of74]

Kind of wish our local #trappists did #beer instead of #caskets. (at L.May Eatery) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0KU9-8jC_O/?igshid=c9vqmnzpfl42

[mbisignani]

A place of Peace on Earth .  https://www.spencerabbey.org/

[jkinak04]

When the Pope Talked to the Trappists The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance — commonly known as the Trappists — are concluding their triennial General Chapter meeting today in Assisi. This gathering of over 200 abbots and [...] Source: When the Pope Talked to the Trappists

[spottedcatpainter]

Trappist Robes – Done – Just About I think this is close to being completed.  Thanks again to Judy Garrison from Seeing  Southern for taking the photo this was based upon.