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By Dewey Weiss Kramer
When a person commits himself to the Cistercian life, he makes
vows not only of poverty, chastity and obedience, but also of stability, a
commitment to a particular community in (usually) one particular place. The
Conyers founders, having made their vows at Gethsemani, carried that Cistercian
community with them, transforming the train coach into a travelling monastery
that evening and night from St. Benedict’s Day, 1944 to March
22nd, when they arrive in Georgia. But this community would have the
unique aspect, privilege and arduous task of actually building the place of
their stability. The building of the physical plant was destined to have
significant influence on the building of the new community, both the internal
one of the monks and the wider community of the monks within their Georgia
environs.
During the several weeks before their arrival, Mr. Leslie Ray had
converted the hayloft of the Honey Creek Plantation barn into a rudimentary
monastery and chapel, but one shared with cows and chickens and cramped even by
Trappist standards. So besides continuing the farm work necessary for their
sustenance, they immediately began work on a temporary monastery. Trees felled
in the morning were cut into boards by noon and nailed into place by evening.
Working far more than the Rule’s prescribed four hour a day, the community
was able to move into the “Pineboard Monastery” on the Vigil of the
Immaculate Conception, December 7, 1944. Just in time; it is reported that the
water in the cruets had frozen that morning while the priests were saying Mass
for the last time in the hayloft.
PLANS ARE DRAWN
Once installed in the wooden monastery, building commenced on the
foundation of the permanent monastery and the church. Dom Frederic Dunne had a
Kentucky architectural firm draw up the plans. It was to be a truly impressive
complex, one large enough to take care of the growing numbers of Trappist
vocations once and for all. As he quipped to the Conyers superior, James Fox,
he didn’t want them to be making foundations like this year after year.
(And yet within nine years Gethsemani would have started four new houses.)
Dom Frederic’s idea was that Holy Spirit would be a perfect
copy of Gethsemani, and in this respect he was following Cistercian practice of
the twelfth century when most houses followed a common ground plan. But Holy
Spirit was already experiencing its own new spirit, occasioned to some extent
by the intense building activity itself; as a community it was destined NOT to
be a copy, and its new character would be reflected by the fact that the
Gethsemani plans were not executed. Circumstances intervened which allowed the
Georgia foundation to take its own course.
The new community’s first superior was James Fox, and when in
1946 Holy Spirit was raised from the status of dependency to abbey, he was
elected its abbot. The building program begun under his and Dom Frederic’s
guidance came to an abrupt halt in 1948 after Dom Frederic suffered a fatal
heart attack on his way to Conyers. Gethsemani then elected Dom James as its
abbot, and with his departure the financial support from Gethsemani ceased. The
Georgia monastery was able to meet its living expenses, but there was no extra
money for building a monastery, much less one on the scale planned by Dom
Frederic.
MONEY PROBLEM
Conyers’ new abbot, Dom Robert McGann considered the
situation a long time. He finally got a commitment from Atlanta bankers to lend
half of the amount needed if the monks could raise half. But that was an
impossible sum. The solution? The morning after his conference with the bankers
Dom Robert came into the Chapter Room and addressed his assembled community
solemnly: “Sons, we want to go on building; but as you know, we
can’t.” He explained the bankers’ offer, then, after a pause,
continued, “If God wants this monastery here, He will see that it is
built. If He doesn’t want it, we don’t want it. Tomorrow morning, we
will resume work on the monastery.”
The next morning they went out with shovels and wheelbarrows and
resumed work. They never ran out of money, although they never had a
superfluity. This was in 1952. By 1959 the permanent monastery was completed,
and by 1960 the Church was ready. In 1969 the completion of the Guest House
signaled the end of the major building program of Holy Spirit.
The pioneers faced a hard life in Rockdale County. But in speaking
with them about that time one hears repeated references to a new spirit, a
freer atmosphere. Although they continued to observe the austere Trappist
usages, the very rigors of the building activity necessitated positive changes:
the monks set off in the morning with a substantial breakfast; the work
outdoors was exhausting, but it also liberated from certain routines and a
feeling of confinement.
Further, while Cistercian life is by definition cenobitical or
communal, the physical demands made on these monks drew them far closer
together than the Trappist routine of an established monastery might have done.
Along with the physical walls of the monastery, therefore, a sense of community
developed, akin to that which must have animated the eleventh century founders.
GOD’S DESIGNS
The absence of serious accidents is often cited as a sign of
God’s presence during this period. Actually there were accidents, but they
were near misses which offer, perhaps, better confirmation of God’s
designs for the place than would no mishaps. Once a monk dismantling a hoist
some forty feet above the ground leaned forward too far and lost his balance
– but was pushed back violently onto the wall – not by the wind.
Another time two monks were cutting down a giant poplar with a
chain saw and let it get away from them. The first one was knocked into the
swamp, the second one was beneath the huge trunk – but with a half inch
clearance. The tree had come down and wedged between its own stump and that of
a tree felled a few years earlier. (Fr. Ephraim broke silence with a fervent
“Pro Maria!”) Another monk’s fingers were badly mangled in the
sawmill and the surgeon wanted to amputate. But the monk was determined to say
Mass again with those fingers; he continues to celebrate Mass today.
The intensive construction labor also served to create an outreach
into the non-monastic community. Initial distrust by Rockdale County people was
overcome by the contact necessitated by the building. Already work on the
pineboard monastery had set the example. One of the Conyers workmen was widely
known for his strong language delivered in a loud deep voice, but every time he
let out one of his expletives, one particular monk would bow his head. After a
while the workman took note, and over the months the story circulated in
Conyers that the silence of one monk had changed the language of the workman.
Later that same man became one of the most vocal “boosters” of the
monastery. The anecdote illustrates the subtle influence exercised by the quiet
but persevering witness of the community.
The hard work of the monks won the respect of their immediate
Rockdale neighbors. But the initial contact with the non-monastic community
also established a direction of openness to the wider community that would
distinguish Holy Spirit from many other Cistercian houses.
THE CHURCH
Probably the building best known to visitors to Holy Spirit is the
church itself. The story of its construction is a prime instance of the new
foundation’s openness to changing circumstances. Dom Frederic’s
original intent was to pattern it after Gethsemani.
When work was resumed in 1952 it was decided to work with an
Atlanta firm. It turned out that the architect specialized in grandiose Tudor
gothic (Emory Presbyterian is a handsome example.) Although the building
committee was not convinced of the suitability of the plan, work started. But
since the work had to be done by the monks themselves, rather than
professionals, the elaborate ornamentation was declared too difficult and was
thus simply omitted.
The overly grand conception (the original plan called for an
edifice twenty feet higher than the finished church) was scaled down, the
fussiness was omitted, and out of the communal effort emerged the clean lines
which evoke the spirit of the twelfth century Cistercian reform architecture.
Awareness and acceptance of an evolving mission also accounts for
the monastery Guest House, the largest and best-equipped in the Order. It was
begun during the initial building thrust as the foundation for a large
novitiate. When building resumed in the fifties, the novitiate was incorporated
into the third floor of the monastery building. Holy Spirit’s commitment
and outreach to its Georgia situation had become evident.
Today retreatants and guests of many faiths are welcomed to this
Cistercian place where all are treated as Christ.
(Next: The abbots) |
