Monastic Life

Little behind – apologies. I know everyone is on pins and needles wondering how the life of Jer is going down under. Well here’s an update.

Two weekends ago, I drove up with my advisors to see a Benedictine monastery for the day. One of their monks is currently studying at St. John’s so we thought it would be a nice place to check out. The monastery is on quite a large expanse of land and currently only houses six monks. Let’s just say they have a lot of outside help. Keeping with that self-sufficiency idea, they make their own wine, olive oil, bread (it was pretty good, I guess), and raise sheep. They also have quite a remarkable art collection that draws in a crowd (and thieves – a few years ago a bunch of the paintings were cut from their frames and stolen, most have been retrieved).

The coolest part of the monastery was their church. The Stations of the Cross were done in such a way where there were three colours of plaster (white, black, and red) and depending how deep the artist cut was what colour would show. It looked really cool!

Well, when I say coolest part, I suppose I meant the coolest thing we saw...well, building. When we were in the gift shop we ran into the Abbot and said hello. That was pretty neat.

When we got back from the monastery, I had a boat to catch. There were three ladies who turned 21 and were hosting a boat party. Me, always being the gentleman, accepted my invite and headed out on a boat to celebrate the night. All was well, no seasickness occurred.

Stay tuned!