As a young man Father Mary Anthony Delisi, now a Trappist priest, walked a picket line in Washington to protest racial injustice. He joined a Trappist monastery in Conyers, Ga., “where the heart of the racial issue was,” and is now on his way once again to help blacks. This time he’ll be teaching the principles of monastic life to fellow monks in Nigeria.

Father Delisi, who celebrated his 25th anniversary as a priest at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Hershey, talked about life in the monastery.

“I was working in the inner city in Washington and came to realize that there was just too much work for one man to do...and I felt drawn to a life of prayer.” So in 1948 he joined the Trappists at Conyers as a choir monk, an aspirant to the priesthood.

He got his wish to work against racial injustice in Georgia. “I have seen a big change,” he said. At one time the monks couldn’t accept blacks in their guest house. Now, he said, they have been able to accept a black into the monastery, although he later decided to leave.

The Trappist, whose early years were ones of political activism, now bristles at the word. “We put too much value on the things we do rather than on what we’re called to become,” he said.

Although the Trappist schedule, which begins at 3:45 a.m. and ends about 8 or 8:30 p.m., includes ample time for becoming, there’s also time for doing.

Father Delisi said the Conyers monastery has many activities - from making stained glass to making hay.

“We’re diversified so that if one collapses, another can take over,” Father Delisi said. But there is no diversity in purpose. “We come together for communal worship...to say that God is worth living for.”

Father Delisi is to spend about a year in Nigeria.

A black priest began a diocesan monastery there several years ago. Two years ago the group was accepted into the Cistercian Order, the formal name for the Trappists, and priests from the United States have going there to help.

“Our goal is to teach them the essential elements of monasticism and to prepare them for the priesthood,” said Father Delisi.

Since the Nigerian monks raise chickens, Father Delisi has his work cut out for him. His first duty is to go to a manufacturer in nearby New Holland, Pa., to find out how to assemble chicken cages that the monks had purchased but couldn’t put together.