That's a picture from the Clear Creek Abbey's October grape harvest. From their e-newsletter: "The monks of Saint Benedict engage in many forms of manual labor. Recently it was harvest time in our vineyard. We grow grapes of the Cynthiana family, very similar to (some say identical with) Norton grapes, popular in Missouri. We grow them mostly for wine -making, although we do serve them sometimes as table grapes. All available monks participate in the grape harvest, some clipping the clusters, others transporting them to the monastic winery, while still others begin to separate them from stems before placing them in barrels. Then begins the long process of making them into wine."
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By coincidence, I was listening yesterday to a podcast at Discerning Hearts, “Living in Community ”“ the benefits for all of society” ”“ The Holy Rule of St. Benedict with Fr. Mauritius Wilde OSB.
I suspect I'm one of the few people who have actually read St. Benedict's Rules (required reading in a history class at, of all places, the University of Michigan), but I completely forgot about St. Benedict's discussion about two "vile" types of monks, which is pretty interesting:
But a third and most vile class of monks is that of Sarabaites, who have been tried by no rule under the hand of a master, as gold is tried in the fire (cf Prov 27:21); but, soft as lead, and still keeping faith with the world by their works, they are known to belie God by their tonsure. Living in two's and three's, or even singly, without a shepherd, enclosed, not in the Lord's sheepfold, but in their own, the gratification of their desires is law unto them; because what they choose to do they call holy, but what they dislike they hold to be unlawful.
But the fourth class of monks is that called Landlopers, who keep going their whole life long from one province to another, staying three or four days at a time in different cells as guests. Always roving and never settled, they indulge their passions and the cravings of their appetite, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. It is better to pass all these over in silence than to speak of their most wretched life.
Therefore, passing these over, let us go on with the help of God to lay down a rule for that most valiant kind of monks, the Cenobites.
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I think I'd be heart-broken if one of my children entered a monastery, but that, of course, is rank selfishness (when considered at the spiritual level). I think I could quickly grow devoted to their decision. I remember reading years ago that William F. Buckley's nephew entered a monastery. I think WFB was puzzled about it, but later wrote that he speculated that his nephew (rising in the middle of the night for required prayers) was probably the happiest of all his family members.
I went online and found out more information about that nephew. His name is Fr. Michael Bozell He's a Benedictine (the third Benedictine reference I've stumbled across in the last 48 hours . . . kinda eerie), and he paints. You can buy his work here.
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Caution: Slow blogging during the first half of November. Commitments will keep me away from the computer for the most part, but I'll have some decent pre-programmed posts.
