Trappist monk: During pandemic, practice prayer, patience and perseverance

Friday, May. 08, 2020
Trappist monk: During pandemic, practice prayer, patience and perseverance + Enlarge
Fr. David Altman
By Linda Petersen
Intermountain Catholic

SALT LAKE CITY — As a Trappist monk, Father David Altman, OCSO has lived a life of poverty, solitude and prayer for many years. For him, the coronavirus shutdown has been little more than an inconvenience, but he understands that for others, this experience has been like nothing they have ever known.
“We have a monastic vocation, so we’ve been living more or less like this most of our lives,” Fr. David said. “It hasn’t been so much of a shock for us perhaps as for other people.”
When life is normal, Fr. David spends much of his time counseling and providing spiritual guidance to those who visit him in his independent living apartment at St. Joseph Villa. He and the other monks who had been living at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville moved to the villa after the monastery closed in 2017.
Now, although no outside visitors except for healthcare workers are allowed on the villa premises, the residents are free to mingle. Fr. David has noticed a sense of camaraderie developing among the residents during this crisis, he said. 
Before the shutdown, Fr. David and his fellow Trappist, Fr. Patrick Boyle, would visit the St. Joseph’s Villa chapel on the other side of the complex several times a day to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Under the quarantine, the chapel is now closed, so the two use a corner of the library in their building for their prayers. 
The two also used to celebrate Mass together at the chapel. Now they join another monk, Fr. Alan Hohl, OCSO, in his room each day for the Eucharistic liturgy.
For those who are struggling during this crisis, Fr. David advises that they do as he is doing: practice prayer, patience and perseverance, he said.
This is a Cross experience, he said. “We’re all assigned crosses during our lives; this is one of them.”
Fr. David said he knows individuals whose spiritual and personal lives have improved during the pandemic.
“They’ve come to grips with themselves in a way they haven’t had the experience before, and it has been profitable,” he said. “They have become more and more men and women of prayer, because when you’re flat on your back, the only place to look is up. Sometimes that’s what it takes.”
For him, however, there has been no difference in his spiritual life as a result of the crisis because he was already developing a deeper and deeper prayer life, Fr. David said. 
“When this (the pandemic shutdown) came along, there were certain inconveniences,” he said. “You just have to put up with that as minor Cross experiences, or major ones, and maintain that prayer relationship with God. 
“It’s important that we respond to the situation in terms of what God is trying to say to us,” he said referring to catastrophes documented in the Old Testament. “It’s a reminder to come back to God, to repent, to give up certain things that are not of God that we may be practicing and become more deeply, intimately united to him.”
Monsignor Michael Winterer, a priest of the diocese who served in more than 25 of Utah’s Catholic parishes before retiring, also lives in independent living at St. Joseph’s and echoed much of what Fr. David shared. 
Each day, Msgr. Winterer celebrates Mass alone in his room; that has not changed during the shutdown, he said. For him, as for Fr. David, the quarantine has caused minor inconveniences, but “it’s not bad at all,” he said.
Although he can no longer receive visitors, he maintains contact with family members and friends by phone. He is choosing to stay focused on the positive things that are coming out of this crisis, he said. Those include the bonding that has occurred among people who are enduring the pandemic together.
“I can see there’s a lot of great goodness coming out of this, and hope there will be more,” he said. “We need to try to focus on the positive.”

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