We have received twice as many internship requests since the start of the pandemic, ”tells me Dom Luc Lamontagne, the monk in charge of the Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac. Men wishing to wear, like him, the black bure? ” Yes. We have requests from Quebec, but also from Western Canada, Ontario and the United States. Over the past year, about ten visits have taken place.
Is this good news for the faithful of the order of Saint-Benoît, when all their hotel activities have ceased due to the health crisis? Yes and no. “At first I was very struck, explains Father Lamontagne, with a smirk, by the fact that everyone now has an idea of monastic life based on listening to YouTube videos! It’s troubling. Those who make themselves heard in these videos, often very talkative people, have become their only references. So much so that those who think of joining us imagine, on this basis, living a life in the desert, like the monks in Egypt in the IVand century, or whatever! They want to work to re-educate us, to conform us to their ideal, rather than to understand ours, as if we had to live, as they believe, outside the world! We are not out of the world. What society goes through, we also experience. »
The monks of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac have lived for more than a century in the Eastern Townships, on the shores of Lake Memphremagog. They stay in an imposing abbey designed by the architect Dom Bellot. About thirty monks, supported by more than forty employees, continue to live there, in the name of the primacy of prayer, according to the terms of the Benedictine rule. Each day is cut out by an inflexible practice of recollection in prayer, punctuated by Gregorian chants, all balanced by a previously defined task, a series of concrete works to which everyone works in order to bring the monastery to life. Ordinarily, more than 200,000 people visit the abbey each year.
A monastery for sale?
A rumor has lately suggested that the point of land where the abbey of Saint-Benoît stands would soon be for sale. Enough to make property developers salivate, knowing that neighboring properties are snapping up millions. “That ridiculous rumor again!” laughs Dom Dominique Minier. Master cheesemaker, responsible for the creation of Bleu Bénédictin, the abbey’s most awarded cheese, Father Minier studied biochemistry and microbiology at Laval University, while being passionate about Gregorian chant. At 79, his hair barely graying, he looks 20 years younger. Under his leadership, the cheese dairy grew. It is now installed in brand new buildings, while he now devotes himself to the hotel business of the abbey, while still being interested in the development of some cheeses.
The abbey’s hostelry has made its reputation, like its cider, but it does not sustain it, the cost of stays being left to the goodwill of visitors. For two years, the fifty rooms have remained empty. However, the threat of the coronavirus does not worry Father Minier too much. From the outset, he even suggests that we take off our masks to chat. What we didn’t do.
A sense of duration
“It’s not for sale. And it won’t be,” assures Dom Luc Lamontagne, who, at 50, is one of the youngest monks in this community. “Someone would arrive with millions, what would we do? This is not our objective. Small, thin, quick-witted, willing to laugh, curious and cultured, Dom Lamontagne takes a close interest in the future of the world, particularly in ecological challenges. In recent years, he has developed an extensive reforestation business. On his initiative, 30,000 trees were planted. Spruce, for the most part, but also oak, beech, walnut. These trees will take nearly a century to reach full maturity. He is not in a hurry. Monks are here to stay, he suggests. The monasteries of the Benedictine rule have existed since the year 529.
Faced with the aging of this community, how can it be certain of its future, at the very moment when all the other religious communities are falling apart? “A monastery is not the same thing, he lets it go. Our primary vocation has never been, in one form or another, to do social work, to supplement the deficient functions of the State, as is the case with most religious communities. Our mission has always been to pray, to do what is necessary for this to happen. There will always be people called by this vocation of prayer. It’s not something that’s going to go away. I’m not worried. Monasteries last. »
According to Dom Lamontagne, Quebec society maintains a troubled relationship with its religious past. Good values lie at the bottom of this religious culture, but people are not sure how to actualize them, he thinks. “They put Buddha heads more easily in their homes than crosses, which all the same expresses a part of their attachment to the faith. But today quote the Bible, which remains the basis of our culture, and people immediately ask you if you are a Jehovah’s Witness! Whereas with a Buddha’s head, no one asks you this question…” In other words, one religion can be used to hide another. Is the richness of the Christian experience too easily evacuated?
Luc Lamontagne often comes back to Simone Weil, to the relationship to the world of work to which her work is attached, to the analysis that she delivers of the bad luck inflicted on workers, in the name of the sole religion of profit, of accumulation most outrageous financial. “I worked in construction, says Luc Lamontagne. I was also a factory worker. What Simone Weil describes of the state of dejection in which a work deprived of meaning, if not that of profit, plunges us, it is still this danger that awaits us today. »
Human existence cannot be reduced to the will of a few to always make more money, believes Father Lamontagne. ” It’s ridiculous ! When I walk on the road around the lake, I come across dozens of luxury cars. BMWs, Teslas, you name it. I see millions of dollars worth of vehicles in minutes. […] It seems to me that the display of all this wealth manifests a loss of meaning, a form of emptiness in existence, while the world is suffocating. »
autonomy and society
The monastery is not immune to pecuniary considerations. “We take care to clearly determine our objectives. There is a fundamental one for us: to pray. So we’re doing exactly what it takes to make that happen. No more. Not less. How could increasing our profits, year after year, be a valid human goal? It would, on the contrary, have something ridiculous about it. The main thing is elsewhere. »
The abbey is self-sufficient. The cheese dairy brings in enough, not to mention a few extras. Apple trees allow the production of compotes and various types of cider. All the buildings are heated with hardwood residues swallowed by vast furnaces.
At the heart of the monastery, a magnificent library is housed in the old chapel. “Reading is part of our daily work. We each always have several books being read,” explains Dom Lamontagne, who is often busy in the afternoons attaching books to his studio, a vast space located at the very top of a corner tower, located on the top of a colorful snail-like staircase. He learned this trade in France and the Netherlands.
What does Dom Lamontagne read? During the few hours spent together, he mentioned Simone Weil more than once. “She was about the same age as Simone de Beauvoir. However, despite her young age, she had already written infinitely more than her. Weil’s texts are stunning. On the working condition in particular, it is difficult to offer a fairer look. »
Among his determining readings, he does not hesitate to speak of the work of Henry David Thoreau. “When I went to Walden, in front of its lake, I wanted to swim across it… For me, there is something sacred in Thoreau’s writings. He also read John Muir with passion. Then, he took a close interest in the texts of Jean-Henri Fabre, a famous entomologist. “In the summer, I go down to read Fabre by the lake. He has also just completed 1984 by George Orwell. Has he read Orwell’s other books, those in which the English writer plunges his gaze into popular misery? ” Not yet ! »
At the table, at mealtimes, the monks listen in silence to the reading of the day. She often stretches for weeks, delivered one-sided. That afternoon, a reader continued reading a biography of Lionel Groulx signed by Charles-Philippe Courtois. At the evening meal, the reading is devoted to a work by Michel Pastoureau on the history of colors. “Our readings are very varied. They depend on the interests of each. We discuss it among ourselves. You know, there are all kinds of concerns among monks, as in society. We are not out of the world. »
As I prepare to leave the monastery, Dom Lamontagne is pacing in the hall. Dressed in his black coat, his hood pulled down over his head, he has headphones screwed to his ears, busy listening to a video on his phone screen. “I listen to Alexis Cossette-Trudel! He says some interesting things about the pandemic. “Are you vaccinated, Father Lamontagne? “No, I don’t believe that. It’s a fake vaccine, ”he drops. Without being asked, he suggests that I listen to sites known to disseminate conspiratorial ideas mixed with far-right remarks, including Rumble and the Quinta Columna. And he spontaneously tells me about graphene oxide, which antivax believe could be used to manipulate individuals. I sketch a dubious smile. “If you stayed a little longer, I would convert you! he says to me as I take my leave.