There is only one male Trappist Monastery in the world which has revived the Usus Antiquior of the Cistercian Office, which is also the only Trappist Monastery in Germany: Mariawald (Mary's Forest) Abbey, established 1486 (on the site of a Marian shrine already well-established by 1479).
The monks are few but the setting is idyllic Deutschland and the abbot is not old (around 50) and strong, zealous and cheerful.
Adjacent the great Eifel National Forest (bordering Belgium and Luxembourg) it attracts a continual flow of German tourists. The nature loving Germans come out here in caravans of cars, motorcycles, buses, bicycles, tractors, etc. making their pilgrimage to their Mother Nature while they acknowledge, respectfully visit and even venerate the Wood belonging to Mary, the Mother of nature's Lord.
Even the most prosperous and sophisticated German wanderer comes here to hear the Cistercian chant in the same Roman tongue in which it has been sung for centuries.
The place was destroyed twice, first by the secularists of the French Revolution and then by those of the Nazi Regime. There are at least a hundred crosses on the over-looking hill marking the tombs of the young men who died in that last wave of destruction.
The diocese is Aachen, the erstwhile Aix-le-Chapelle of France until Bismark in the 1890's
Very green, very friendly, very German, very cool even in the early Summer, but filled with flowers and every form of singing bird and budding tree. The nightingale is the best singer! Cows and calves and a couple of horses feed on the pastures around us. Also a nice gift shop and cafeteria run by the monastery where they sell their own liquor, among other things.
The monastic guests (male only) pay 30 euro per night including all meals (in silence) and you are expected to join in the prayer hours (matins begins at 3:00 AM).
For my private daily Mass they set me up with fine traditional vestments for my three week stay. I also worked in the monastery garden alongside the other monks and abbot.
Here is the text of one of the Marian antiphons which I most enjoyed from my time there, Sancta Maria, sucurre miseris.
Sancta Maria, sucurre miseris, juva pusillanimes, refove flebiles, ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, interecede pro devoto foemineo sexu.
What a timely petition for our present world for the clergy and devout females!
Latter I'll post some more entries on my further Rhineland adventures of last month. There are a few cathedral cities of great historical importance which I visited: Aachen, Cologne, Trier, Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. Then a RyanAir flight to Rome for the Sacra Liturgia conference and Orvieto and back. RyanAir needs a post for it alone, very efficient and most inexpensive ($50 flights!). Sheer delight!
P.S. There happens to be another traditional (Saint Pius X) monastery in the same Eifel National Park not far from Mariawald: Reichenstein. It is a new Benedictine foundation on the site of an erstwhile monastery. One more reason to visit that part of Germany.
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