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By Rebecca Rakoczy, Staff Writer

CONYERS-Turning onto the rural road leading to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit is like taking a detour into tranquility from the expanding suburban landscape of metro Atlanta. For those who journey here for a weekend, the monastery offers a temporary respite and prayerful retreat from the world's troubles. For others who venture here for longer it is a discernment destination-which for many leads to a vocation to the life of simplicity that is part of the Cistercian order of monks who live here. It was here, almost two decades ago, that Brother Alberic Farbolin began his personal faith journey of a lifetime on such a weekend of discernment. And it was here, in the stark grandeur of the monastery church, in the presence of his family, friends, and in the community of monks who had become his brothers in their vows and in their friendships, that Brother Farbolin was ordained a priest Jan. 5. While the ordination was important to Father Farbolin and his family, it also represented the first ordination in the monastery since the mid-1980s. The entire Cistercian community of monks, plus many priests from throughout the Archdiocese of Atlanta, turned out for the event. As is the custom in the monastery, Abbot Basil Pennington, OCSO, presented the monk to be ordained to Archbishop John F. Donoghue and the congregation gathered in the church. The abbot then testified, when asked by the archbishop, that Brother Farbolin was worthy of ordination to the priesthood. In his homily, Archbishop Donoghue reiterated the role Brother Farbolin would play as a priest in the monastery. "For those he serves-this community of Cistercians, especially, the priesthood will work to their benefit in three ways-by nurturing their bodies, their minds, and their hearts. These three parts of the human being were all in the mind of Christ as He offered the Last Supper." The archbishop continued on in his homily about Jesus' influence on the life of a priest. He recalled St. John Vianney who said "'the priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.' If that is so, and I believe we can trust the words of the saintly Curé, then we have come full circle-for if the priest loves with the heart of Jesus, and if he offers us Christ's body in Communion, and if he leads our minds to the answers of God's Word-then in his own priesthood he has recreated, as faithfully as possible, the priesthood and the heart of the Lord." Following the homily, Brother Farbolin approached the altar for the examination of the candidate. He declared, "I am," to each query from the archbishop, who asked if he was resolved to, among other things, "celebrate the mysteries of Christ faithfully . . . to exercise the ministry of the word worthily and wisely, preaching the Gospel, and explaining the Catholic faith," and to consecrate his life to God for the salvation of his people. Brother Farbolin knelt, placing his hands between those of the archbishop, while he promised obedience to the abbot and to the archbishop. After prostrating himself on the stone floor of the church as the chorus of monks sang the litany of the saints, the congregation was invited to pray to "bless this chosen man, and make him holy, and consecrate him for his sacred duties." The archbishop said, "Hear us, Lord, our God, and pour out upon this servant of yours the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the grace and power of the priesthood. In your sight we offer this man for ordination; support him with your unfailing love." The joy and gravity of the day was evident as, one by one, following the archbishop's prayer of consecration, the priests and the monks laid their hands on his bowed head. They queued up again to embrace their brother who had joined Christ's priestly order after their fellow brother, and now father, was vested with a stole and chasuble by his good friend Father Methodius Telnack, OCSO. The rituals were sealed as the bread, wine and water were given to Archbishop Donoghue who in turn handed them to the newly consecrated priest kneeling before him for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. After the Mass ended, family and friends lined up out into the hallway in the small monastery crypt chapel to receive a blessing from Father Farbolin. His family rejoiced after the ceremony. "This is the happiest day of our lives," said his mother, Carol Jean Farbolin. Said sister Julie Pace, "He is an artist, and God has given him many gifts." The happiness was reiterated by his other sister, and brother, but made more poignant by those who were not there-his sister Cindy, who died of leukemia at age 21, and his father, Richard, who died at an early age of complications from Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, the road to the priesthood wasn't always a calling, said Father Farbolin. Born on a U.S. Marine base in Presque Island, Maine, he was the firstborn of five children. The family moved first to Michigan then to Atlanta. His position in his family made him a natural heir to the family business, the Honey Baked Ham Co. But as he grew up, art, not business, was always his first love. After moving with his family to Atlanta, he drifted away from his Catholic roots. "Our family was not a devout Catholic family, and we stopped going to church about the time I was 17," he recalled. He attended Georgia State University and took art classes. "But all the staff there kept talking about how great New York (City) was, so finally I decided to go there." He spent time in the city, taking art classes during the day and working as a security guard at night, along with other itinerate artists, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Everyone on the staff at night was an artist, and (working at the Met) gave you access to one of the greatest collections in the world," Father Farbolin said. But the time was not the happiest in his life. "New York is a tough place to live," he said. Back home in Atlanta, one of his sisters was diagnosed with leukemia. After going into remission, the cancer came back. Cindy died three weeks later. At age 26, after burying his sister, Alberic came home to Atlanta permanently and began dealing with the idea that he might die also. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer. "The doctors told me the same thing as they had told my sister," he recalled. "If it doesn't reoccur within the year, there was a good chance of survival." He went on a macrobiotic diet. "I was preoccupied with my health, and I lived with a lot of fear. But by the end of the year I had a growing sense that I was healthy and that I had a life ahead of me. By the fall of 1983, I knew I wasn't going to die." It was at that point that the thought of a Religious vocation occurred to him for the first time. "I had a sense of my life being given back to me and I had a powerful chance to give it back to God again. During the time I had been studying art in New York City, my dream was to be an artist. Now I asked God, 'You be the artist and I will be your canvas.'" He went to Father Dan Stack at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, to make a general confession and to explore the idea of the priesthood. A photograph in Father Stack's office intrigued him. It was a picture of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. "I didn't know there were monks anymore," he said. "I thought that was something out of medieval times." Father Stack asked him to go on retreat there to help in his discernment process for the priesthood. "The moment I drove down the driveway and saw this place . . . it was a powerful experience. The place just spoke to my deepest, truest self. This was home the first day I saw it, and I realized I had always been a monk." As part of the process of becoming a brother, he entered into observership for two months, living in the cloister, followed by a period of seven years of formation. He took his solemn vows as a Cistercian monk in November 1989. "We are cloistered, contemplative monks, and we take an unusual vow, a vow of stability to promise to live in one community . . . so I will live my life here and be buried in the backyard. Our mission for the church is a life of prayer and our search for union with God in prayer and our cloistered lifestyle." While the monastic lifestyle "struck me like lightening," the idea of the priesthood, now understood more clearly, came slower. Priests are needed at the monastery to celebrate Mass every day, and to do some limited ministry at the retreat house. "I saw priests as extroverts, and I had always considered myself an introvert," he said. As a brother in this order, the idea of the priesthood cannot be self-initiated. "The abbot initiates the process . . . He asked if I would be interested in studying for the priesthood," Father Farbolin said. "I had always loved school, and I wanted to understand my faith better," he said. He recalled how naive he was about the faith when he first entered the monastery. "I remember reading the Gospel of Matthew, and then started the Gospel of Mark, and thought, 'Hey, this is the same story.' I had no idea of the structure of the Gospel.'" He studied at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana where he received his master of divinity degree. He learned there that introverts could also bring unique and special things to the priesthood. As novice director at the monastery, Father Farbolin works with newcomers-the monastery currently has six men in the novitiate. "Maybe Sept. 11 has something to do with it, but monastic orders seem to be doing better . . . God is sending them to us."