By Gretchen Keiser

Father Armand Veilleux, a native of Quebec Province in Canada, has been elected by the Monastery of the Holy Spirit community in Conyers as abbot for the next six years.

The voting took place August 14 and led to the election of Abbot Armand, who has been the temporary superior of the monastery for the past 11 months, pending this election.

Soft-spoken and gentle-humored, the new abbot was asked whether his election at the age of 46 made him a particularly young abbot. He hesitated and then said, “Well, I was abbot 15 years ago” in Mistassini Monastery in Quebec Province. So, he agreed that he had been a young abbot once.

Abbot Armand succeeds Father Augustine Moore, abbot of the community for the past 26 years, as the Conyers monastery became a place that deeply attracts people, including many who are not Catholic, with its spirituality and graciousness to visitors.

This deep relationship between the monastery and those who work and live outside its walls Abbot Armand credited, in large part, to his predecessor. “I think Dom Augustine has been a very important man in that field,” who created an atmosphere of trust with others “that is very beautiful,” the abbot said.

“As far as I’m concerned, I want to build on it,” he said.

The form of voting for a new abbot was designed 1500 years ago by St. Benedict. After the celebration of the Eucharist, Dom Ambrose, Abbot General of the Cistercian Order who happened to be in the United States for a visit of monasteries, and the monks who were voting, assembled in the Chapter Room.

Part of the ritual of the election had been carried out the evening before, including the election of scrutators (vote counters), witnesses and a notary. The Abbot General ordered ballots to be distributed; each monk wrote on the ballot the name of the monk he chose for abbot. To be elected a monk must receive one over half of the votes cast.

Following the election, Abbot Armand was immediately confirmed by the Abbot General. Then the monks individually renewed their vow of obedience to the new abbot, a moment which Abbot Armand said was “very moving.”

“When the old monks – most of whom could be my father – make a vow of obedience,” he said, “it is a very humbling situation.”

The Veilleux family of 12 children begins and ends with religious vocations. The eldest is a priest and Abbot Armand is the youngest. After growing up in Quebec City, where French is the native tongue, he entered the Monastery at Mistassini when he was 18, making his first profession of vows as a brother in 1957 and receiving ordination to the priesthood in 1963.

Following studies in Rome for his doctorate in theology and liturgy, Father Armand returned to Mistassini and was elected abbot in 1969. During those years of great change in the Church, an alteration was made in the terms of abbots. Once elected for life, they now could be elected for six-year terms. Although the change was not retroactive, Abbot Armand resigned after six years instead of staying in the post for life.

“I felt the need of breathing a little after six very active years,” he said, but found himself in a period of different – rather than less – activity.

In 1978 he was sent to Africa to help a local group in Ghana found a Cistercian monastery. The approach followed a new pattern of sending one person, rather than a group, from outside the native community to help with the foundation, so that the formation could take place strongly shaped by the African culture rather than the culture of those sent to help.

“I personally believe very much in that approach, to give basic help to some local groups and let them focus their own identity – to make a really African form of monasticism,” he said.

The experience of living, working and praying with the Ghana community led to a deep involvement with the development of Cistercian and Benedictine monasteries in the Third World. He has traveled throughout Africa and to Japan, the Philippines and India teaching in monasteries.

Coming south to Georgia brought him to a community he had visited in the past and which opened its doors to him as temporary superior. “I love the community and it clicked,” he said.

His election as abbot is “not a radical new beginning,” he said, particularly since he does not think the role of abbot is to make plans, but “to be the agent of communion, to help the community listen as a group to the way of God.”

“I believe very much in that collective discernment,” he said. “I invest a lot of time in listening to people.”

An area he is most concerned with is maintaining the strong relationship between the monastery and the local church in the archdiocese. He is also drawn to “this attraction” the monastery has for some lay people who would like to share in the prayer life of the community in a deeper way. There is a need to “discern what God is trying to tell us” in the aspirations of these lay people, he said, and a need to examine whether the relationship can be deepened while maintaining the monks’ commitment to a life of solitude for God.