As Close to Heaven as Earth can Reach

After getting off the bus and saying good bye to my newly discovered and very generous friends I walked through the town of Norcia to the town square, on which is the Basilica dedicated to St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, in the crypt is the location of their birth. I entered the church as the monks were finishing chanting evening prayer.

Immediately after they finished, the guestmaster, Brother Anthony came to greet me. He was very kind, American, and a bit peculiar in his personality, he seemed almost like he may have been a skater or a surfer in his earlier life, needless to say a very laid-back and welcoming man. He brought me into the monastery for dinner. All meals are taken in silence according the Benedictine Rule, which provides time for introspection and evaluation of the day and so forth. But at many meals there is table reading, one of the monks reads from some sort of spiritual book while the rest eat.

The meal was quite nice, from what I remember it was a pasta with some simple sauce and a table filled with leftovers from the past few days that could be had by all. They also had beer and wine that one could drink as desired. But the note-worthy element, the Monks of Norcia brew their own beer. Of course this is what is served at meals and it is quite good. After my meal I was shown to the guest house, right around the corner from the basilica and entrance to the monastery. I was shown to my room, with two beds, a desk with accompanying chair, two dressers and a few religious pictures it was elegantly simple, perfect for someone who wants a taste of monastic life. It was furnished for two visitors but there were very few while I was there so I had the room to myself.

Compline, that is night prayer, was at 7:45pm and bed followed. At Norcia the monks are up at 3:45 each morning to chant Matins for a little more than an hour. It was quite funny, I wanted to go and I set my alarm clock accordingly, but that very night was the night of the Day Light Savings Time change in Europe, and not accounting for it, I missed Matins the first night. But Lauds, that is morning prayer, was at 6am so I was up for that followed by breakfast, also taken in Silence. The rest of the day was returning to the chapel every hours for chant, Latin Mass at 10am and helping around the monastery with preparing meals or giving more time to prayer.

The first day was notable because the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage that I had previously tagged along on had Mass said in the basilica by the Abbot with an Italian Cardinal present, I forget who it was though. It was a beautiful Mass and was completely packed. But as the Pilgrims funneled out to go tour the town peace once again ruled.

My time spent in Norcia was deeply moving and spiritually invigorating, but much of it was spent in silence, with little real “activity” to write about. Each day was filled with silence, the Liturgy of the Hours, Mass, private time for spiritual reading and recollection, and of course coffee. It becomes quite necessary in order to keep up with 3:45am vigils even for just a few days. I determined to keep a spirit appropriate for the monastery, embracing the stillness and silence of it all as best as I could in order to be disposed to the graces of the place as much as possible, so I did not wander about the town much at all, trying to live the life of a temporary o-so-transitory, but never-the-less… a monk.

I did spend an hour or so one day in the early afternoon walking around the small town, taking some pictures and stopping in some of the stores to pick up gifts. Norcia is a tiny walled town, now renowned for it meat and spices. But it seems like time has really stood still there. A quiet place in the middle of the rolling hills of Umbria, Italy, it seems cut off from so much of the noise of the world, a perfect place for a monastery. 

The last day I was taken on a private tour of the brewery. It is brand new but is tiny compared to most, only a few thousand square feet, really just a large room. But it was very interesting to see “behind the curtain”. After lunch I caught a local bus to Spoleto on my way to Assisi.