Oblates of St. Benedict » Monastery

Belmont Abbey: Christmas Schedule

admin — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:21:30 +0000

Ordinary daily schedule: Sunday, Dec. 18-Sunday, Jan. 8

6:00 AM Vigils

7:30 AM Lauds

11:00 AM Mass

11:45 AM Midday prayer

5:30 PM Vespers

Saturday Dec 24

6:00 AM Vigils

7:30 AM Lauds

11:00 AM Mass

11:45 AM Midday prayer

5:30 PM Vespers

7:30 PM Vigils

Sunday, Dec 25

12:00 Midnight Mass

8:00 AM Lauds

11:00 AM Mass for Christmas Day

5:30 PM Vespers

Weather Monk Faces Northern Winter

admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:50:58 +0000

Perhaps it’s human nature to talk about yourself and your own experiences. My problem is that Br. Elias seems to invite this sort of self-centered behavior. Whenever I sit down with him, he creates a welcoming and tranquil atmosphere that says he’s ready to listen. This past summer, before Br. Elias left to study in Minnesota, he spent many mornings practicing Spanish with me. That is, I learned to speak better Spanish and he listened to me learn to speak better Spanish. He’s been away from the monastery for the past few months, so I had a lot to talk about with him when we met over Thanksgiving. For me, his willingness to be an understanding listener makes him a good friend, Spanish teacher, and confidant (but, also, kind of a less-than-ideal interviewee, as my temptation to yap always sneaks in). For the Church’s sake, however, his willingness to listen truly to somebody may be exactly why he has ended up at Belmont Abbey; it may be exactly why he is preparing for ordination at the Seminary of St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.

Br. Elias ended up at Belmont Abbey by means of a series of events that go back to when he was in middle school. It took a powerful act of nature to make Br. Elias aware of his initial calling. And that act was Hurricane Diana. The development and path of this massive storm system impressed him and opened his eyes not to priesthood, but to meteorology. Through high school, he tracked hurricanes and, he says, “I drove my parents crazy watching the Weather Channel all the time.” He knew from then that he wanted to earn a doctorate in meteorology, because that was the only way to fulfill his dream of working for the Hurricane Center. While studying for ten years at Florida State University, Elias recognized that there was a wider world of meteorology that amazed him. So, when he completed his studies, he accepted an opportunity to be one of the four co-founders of a weather forecast service, Weather Predict. Instead of working for the Hurricane Center, he worked with this company that originated in Florida and relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina. It was not until Br. Elias was in Raleigh that he began considering the religious life. After working with Weather Predict for eight years, Br. Elias decided to enter the monastery of Belmont Abbey. In the summer of 2009, he made his first profession of vows.

Since he was living in Raleigh, it may seem that Br. Elias just picked a nearby monastery in North Carolina and moved in. But he’s sure to say that he did not come to Belmont Abbey simply because it was close by; whether he was in North Carolina or not, he would’ve ended up in Belmont: “God wants me at Belmont Abbey, at least for now. I think I still would have ended up here if my company didn’t relocate to Raleigh; it just may have taken longer.”

Br. Elias is now in Minnesota at St. John’s University, about to experience the very cold winter weather that the state has to offer. His parents are from Puerto Rico and they currently live in both Florida and Puerto Rico. That genetic connection of his to tropical climates led me to fear for Br. Elias’s sanity as the winter approaches him in the north. However, he is not only accustomed to living in the cold as well as the hot (as he has lived in South Dakota, Germany, Japan, and Florida), but he also has an appreciation for environmental differences and the wonders of creation: “You can live in South Dakota and complain about it, or you can enjoy all the good things the cold brings, like sledding or going for walks and seeing nothing but natural beauty for miles.”

Br. Elias is a very intelligent and understanding person. He understands people, he appreciates wherever it is that he may be living, he has a strong faith, he is bi-lingual, and he is knowledgeable in science. In fact, he has taught courses in the college, including Introduction to Meteorology. However, Br. Elias is able to balance these talents with true humility. He does not put himself above anyone, he is modest and polite to everyone, and, he told me, “I try not to let people know I’m ‘Dr.’ unless I’m teaching or at a conference.” As a Benedictine monk, Br. Elias stays in line with the Rule, which endorses this humble personality: “we descend by exaltation and ascend by humility” (RB 7.7).

Christopher Lux

Former Belmont Abbey College president dies

admin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:15:48 +0000

Former Belmont Abbey College President Robert Preston died at noon on Saturday in High Point of pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Helen, of 53 years.

She said Preston, 80, found out he had terminal pancreatic cancer on July 26 after a visit to the doctors’ office. He attended a family reunion in the western part of the United States in July when he began not feeling well. He was diagnosed shortly after returning to their apartment in a High Point retirement community.

Helen Preston said her husband’s cancer diagnosis and death happened “very fast.”

McLean’s Funeral Service in Belmont is in charge of the arrangements and there are plans in the works to have a mass and burial on the campus of Belmont Abbey College, she said.

“He was calm, always calm, even tempered, very slow to anger, always fair, generous to a fault, a gentleman,” Helen Preston said. “He was thoughtful, he was proud of his family, all of whom have done so well. He took great pride in that.”

He graduated from Belmont Abbey College in 1953 and would go on to serve as president from 1995-2001. The Prestons moved from their home at Lake Wylie, S.C., to High Point in 2008.

Harvard ties

Preston received his doctorate from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and did post-doctorate studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said Helen Preston.

During his career, he taught undergraduate studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, and taught in the graduate school at St. Louis University, she said.

He worked as academic dean at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky., and provost at Loyola University in New Orleans, before becoming president of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., Helen Preston said.

From there, he became provost at Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill., and then president of Belmont Abbey College.

“He was quite a scholar. He was very good at what he did,” Helen Preston said. “Universities invited him in to look at their academic programs and to design for them some of their academic programs and their faculty handbooks. When he did his post-doctorate work, particularly at Harvard, he concentrated on that. The different schools wanted his expertise.”

‘A trail of friends’

Preston was born June 6, 1931, in Richmond, Va. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict and worked as a reporter and feature writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch as a young man, Helen Preston said.

He was preceded in death by his son, Robert Andrews Preston Jr., and a sister, Patricia Hardie.

Preston leaves behind four children and nine grandchildren, Helen said.

“He was a very busy man. He was very, very intelligent – did lots of things in his lifetime,” she said. “Looking back on it now as we think about it, I was with him a lot of that time but now I wonder how we did it all. He left a trail of friends all over the United States. I’m getting calls and emails and all kinds of communication.”

Helen Preston said her husband was very active with the work of the Rotary Club and other civic organizations. She described him as a man who loved academics and although his career led to the administrative side of education, his heart was in the classroom.

“He very much made himself available for the students, as this was his mission, to be a teacher… and he was an excellent teacher,” she said. “He was an unusual man and very much devoted to Belmont Abbey College.”

Helen said expressions of sympathy can be made monetarily to the Robert Preston Family Scholarship Fund at Belmont Abbey.

“They honored him and myself with a scholarship when he retired as president,” she said. “We’re must devoted to that.”

Visitation, funeral information as of 8:30 p.m. Monday:

Visitation and Funeral Information:

Tuesday, August 23: 7–9 p.m. Visitation at McLean Funeral Home in Belmont
Wednesday, August 24: 4 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial in the Abbey Basilica with interment following in the Abbey Cemetery.

[original post]

New Book: Enlightened Monks by Ulrich L Lehner

admin — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:53:45 +0000

Enlightened Monks investigates the social, cultural, philosophical, and theological challenges the German Benedictines had to face between 1740 and 1803, and how the Enlightenment process influenced the self-understanding and lifestyle of these religious communities. It had an impact on their forms of communication, their transfer of knowledge, their relationships to worldly authorities and to the academic world, and also their theology and philosophy. The multifaceted achievements of enlightened monks, which included a strong belief in individual freedom, tolerance, human rights, and non-violence, show that monasticism was on the way to becoming fully integrated into the Enlightenment. Ulrich L. Lehner refutes the widespread assumption that monks were reactionary enemies of Enlightenment ideas. On the contrary, he demonstrates that many Benedictines implemented the new ideas of the time into their own systems of thought. This revisionist account contributes to a better understanding not only of monastic culture in Central Europe, but also of Catholic religious culture in general.

Belmont Abbey’s beer-brewing monk

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:39:09 +0000

Photo by Christopher Lux/Speci

June 03, 2011 6:03 PM

Christopher Lux

BELMONT — Crafting of homemade beers within monastery walls dates back to the Middle Ages. Monks drank the filling, grain-based beverage with their meals to

make up for limited amounts of food or to ease their hunger pangs during fasting.

Today, the ancient tradition continues at Belmont Abbey, where Brother Tobiah, a Benedictine monk, crafts and bottles limited quantities of the brew in the monastery’s basement or kitchen late into the evenings.

Brother Tobiah began brewing beer in 1987 after talking with his uncle, who had brewed in the 1970s.

“The passion continued — it’s a passionate art,” he says.

Some monasteries have brewed beer for commercial purposes, but the main purpose has been for the monks’ own consumption.

Benedictine monks, including those at Belmont Abbey, are governed by The Rule of St. Benedict. Among the Saint’s precepts are rules that lay out the appropriate amount of beer to drink while reminding the monks “to drink moderately, and not to the point of excess.”

Brother Tobiah is a quiet, down-to-earth South Carolinian with a quick wit. When asked about his life before he entered the monastery, he responds: “I could sum it all up in one paragraph.”

He came to the Catholic faith and his monastic calling at a late age. For years he served in the U.S. Coast Guard, where he lived in Alaska, New York, Japan and Hawaii. He grew up Baptist, yet he was drawn to the Lutheran Church as an adult because of its more liturgical feel. Within a few years, however, he began looking for something different because, he says, “it was nice, but something was missing.”

He looked into Catholicism, and he entered the Catholic Church in 2002. Within three years after that, he became a monk at Belmont Abbey.

Brother Tobiah briefly left the monastery in Belmont with the intent of finding, perhaps, a more contemplative monastery. He went to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This Trappist monastery is in the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a Catholic order of contemplative monks. He then “had, you might say, a mid-life crisis, and I drove across the country to Las Vegas for a Coast Guard reunion.” Upon his return to South Carolina, he began working 10-hour shifts on the BMW assembly line in Greenville. But he could not forget his former home at Belmont Abbey, and he soon returned.

The principle external work of the monks is Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic liberal arts institution. Brother Tobiah, however, tends to focus on the monks’ primary vocation: praying and working together according to the teachings of the Gospel and the wisdom of St. Benedict. He has taken temporary vows and openly recognizes, “I am still discerning my vocation.”

Brother Tobiah makes about two batches of beer a year, and his brews range from pale ales to porters. He brews only ales, he explains, because lagers require a maintained temperature of 55 degrees during the fermentation. Lagers are more difficult to make, but he may attempt to make a lager-batch in the future. A taste of his beer is assurance that he takes his beer-making seriously.

Still, when asked to describe the taste of one of his beers, he simply says, “it tastes like beer.”

Besides brewing beer, Brother Tobiah enjoys photography, caring for the monastery’s bushes, plants and trees, and “sitting on the porch of the monastery’s lake house, watching the waves come in.”

Some monks, like those of Scourmont Abbey (the brewers of Chimay beer) produce their beverages commercially. Unfortunately, though, Brother Tobiah’s beer cannot be purchased. If you are looking to get a taste, your best bet is to make this monk your friend.