Jesus reportedly liked to go off to the desert to pray — and if
you visit the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert near Abiquiú, N.M.,
you’ll certainly understand why.
Even though you can’t make an in-person retreat for a while, due
to closures of the monastery’s
guesthouse and public facilities to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus,
you can still make a virtual retreat – thanks to the monastery’s extensive
website, with dozens of beautiful photos and a wealth of information about
Benedictine spirituality and monastic life. You can also plan a future retreat,
because this is definitely a place you will want to visit someday.
The website is much more accessible than the monastery’s physical
location, in a federal wilderness area 75 miles north of Santa Fe. When you are
surrounded by the spectacular red-rock outcroppings and canyons of Northern New
Mexico (famously painted by artist Georgia O’Keeffe) an awareness of God’s
handiwork is inescapable. In fact, you’ll find yourself praying before you even
get to the monastery, as you drive into Chama Canyon on a steep and winding
13-mile dirt road high above the Chama River. As one monk noted, “Our road is
our cloister wall.”
The scenery isn’t the monastery’s only remarkable feature.
You will find a thriving international community of monks of all
ages, which may come as a surprise if you believe the popular wisdom that all
monasteries are dying out. The monastery was founded in 1964 and remained small
for many years. Many monks found their way there from India, Africa, South
America and other places after discovering Christ in the Desert through the
internet, where the monastery has had an impressive presence since the
mid-1990s. The monks still maintain an extensive website of their own, that
includes monastery news, a photo blog and a sophisticated online reservation
system for their two guest houses. Along with a large gift shop that sells
monk-made crafts and books, the guest houses are the monastery’s main income
source, along with donations, which also can be made online.
When you are a guest at Christ in the Desert, you will experience
true Benedictine hospitality, and that comes across even on the website.
“As a community of Benedictine monks, we follow St. Benedict’s
rule, which asks us to treat each guest and visitor as Christ would be
treated,” writes Abbot Christian Leisy in an online welcome letter. “It is,
therefore, our special privilege to have all people of whatever faith or
belief, ethnic or cultural background come to our beautiful canyon and find a
place of silence, solitude, and peace. It is in this setting and by sharing
time with this community that I believe that you can experience that wisdom of
the desert, which has called so many seekers to come to a place of timeless
beauty and profound realness.”
Guests can join the monks at all of the daily prayer services —
starting with Vigils before sunrise at 4 a.m. — and experience the beautiful
contemplative chanting of the psalms in the candle-lit stucco chapel,
originally designed by George Nakashima, the famous Japanese-American
woodworker and designer. (You can hear snippets of chanting online as well.) In
the chapel, how-to booklets are provided to help newcomers get the hang of the
simple musical notation of Gregorian plainchant, and after a short learning
curve, there is a kind of euphoria in finding oneself able to keep pace and
sing along with the monks.
Guests also join the monks for their main meal in the beautiful
refectory (dining room), usually at midday, and for a light supper; continental
breakfast is provided in a separate guest breakfast room. Retreatants can also
sign up for morning work hours, where they might find themselves watering the
garden or restocking books and rosaries in the gift shop.
But the monks make sure there is ample time for quiet reflection,
reading, hiking or just sitting outside and watching the cliff swallows
gracefully glide up and down on the air currents along the walls of the canyon.
Until you can arrange a real retreat, it’s worth taking a virtual
one — and discovering a unique and fascinating modern monastic life, in a
desert right here in the United States.
IF YOU GO:
The Monastery has closed all public facilities and put
public Masses and liturgical services on hold until further notice as a
precaution against the spread of COVID-19. For more information and updates, go
to the monastery website at https://christdesert.org/visiting/.