The Monks Drank Chimay Beer

It is better to light just one little candle,
Than to stumble in the dark!
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need’s a tiny spark!

… if everyone lit just one lite candle,
What a bright world this would be!
What a bright world
This would be!
Joseph Maloy Roach

[In Churches sharing our Common Lectionary (the assigned readings for weekday and Sunday Masses), the “Easter Season” is the fifty days between Easter Sunday and the Feast of Pentecost (this year May 19). By tradition, the Easter Vigil Mass begins in a totally darkened church with the kindling of the New Fire and Lighting of the Pascal Candle, symbols of the Risen Christ. The “fire” is spread throughout the church as the Faithful share the fragile flame one with another – a reminder to people of Faith that “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench.” (Matthew 12:20)

We use this Easter Season to share stories of Resurrectional Faith.]

The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, known by the locals as the “Church of the Resurrection,” is at the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is, perhaps, a bit of divine irony that enclosed within the same structure – the massive Basilica – are the sites - literally just footsteps from each other, of Calvary, the place of the Crucifixion and death of Jesus, and the cave that was His tomb and from which He was raised by and through the love of the Father. 

Decades after his first experience of the Basilica, Father Tobin’s face still reflects his astonishment as he describes his first experience of the Tomb: “It was empty! Empty! Ours is the only faith that goes to the tomb because there is no one there! It was empty!”

“It was empty!” has become the theme Father Tobin recalls with gratitude for the pastoral life-lesson taught by his mentor Bishop Alden Hathaway of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh after his ordination: “Go out there and tell them ‘Jesus is alive.’”

We preach the Resurrection because the tomb is empty.

Because the light of the Paschal Candle pierces the darkness. 

Because an 18-year-old girl in Dayton, Ohio once dreamed of being a missionary in China.

Because the Trappist monks of the Abbey of Our Lady of Mokoto in the Democratic Republic of Congo have refused to quench the smoldering wick and drank Chimay beer on July 30. [The Trappists of Scourmont Abbey, near Chimay, Belgium, have been brewing Chimay since the mid-1800s.]

[We’ll return to the monks of Mokoto in a few paragraphs, but, for now, we’ll enjoy a memory of a totally inebriated Trappist monk!]

In the early 1970s, Brother Larry of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani (Kentucky) volunteered for service in the Abbey of Our Lady of the Andes outside Santiago, Chile.

But first…

First, he had to learn Spanish and, in doing so, he fell into the (on weekends only) rowdy crowd of priests and seminarians at the Maryknoll Fathers language school in Cochabamba (Bolivia).

Larry entered the monastery when he was seventeen; he had been in the monastery for seventeen years. 

When it came to booze… Well, amateur would have been a step up. So, we took good care of him during TGIF “Pisco Sour Times.” Two or three sips and we cut him off.

That went well, until…

Larry came down with a really bad cold! Like, really, really bad! 

Someone suggested: “A hot toddy. Go to the openair mercado, get a bottle of scotch, mix with some honey and tea. You’ll be fine.”

Problem: They didn’t warn him “Take it easy; only a shot or two.”

Larry got blasted!

And a drunken monk who had lived a life of silence for seventeen years had a lot to say.

It was almost mean to laugh. 

But it was funny!

In 1952, two monks of Scourmont journeyed to today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo to investigate the possibility of establishing a new monastery. Two years later, they purchased land on the shore of Lake Mokoto, established a small foundation and accepted their first novice. 

During the Rwanda Civil War (October 1990 – July 1994) Hutu militiamen invaded the steep pastureland of the monastery hunting 800 Tutsi who had fled their homes in eastern Zaire to take refuge in the monastery; many slept in the church. Eventually, more than 300 Hutu militiamen, many summoned from nearby villages, assaulted the monastery; some Tutsi were able to flee through a rear door of the chapel and into the surrounding papyrus brush. Others were hunted down by Hutus armed with clubs, machetes and AK-47s. The invaders severed a woman’s hands and feet and cut out a man’s heart. French Trappist Brother Victor Bordeau, then 60, recalled being handed a baby, still breathing but drenched in his mother’s blood. 

In the end, between 100 and 150 men, women and children were slaughtered at the monastery.

But the monks remained.

And the Trappists continued – faithful to their spirit of hospitality, a light in the darkness.

On July 30, 2023, Dom Damien Debaisieux, Abbot of Scourmont, presided at a Mass in which the Mokoto monastery was raised to the rank of Abbey. The celebration had been scheduled for November 2022, but was cancelled because of violence in the area. It was a joyous occasion – a flickering candle challenging the darkness of an on-going civil war. 

On the international Web site of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists) Dom Damien reported, 

“The celebration, in which many displaced people participated, was marked by the beauty of the hymns and by joy.

“The festivities continued with the community meal, which even included some Chimay beer!

“It was a joyous occasion, despite the situation. That very morning, there were sounds of bullets and shells in the village a few hundred metres away. The sounds of war resumed in the evening to round off the day.

“The political situation in the region continues to be very difficult. The community of Mokoto is facing it with courage and unity. It is also coping with it in a spirit of charity, since it is hosting 15,000 displaced persons on its land. They find security and hope with our brothers…

“May the Prince of Peace protect our brothers and all these displaced people. May He be in their midst.”

“Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht”
“Man (and Woman) plans, and God laughs.”
An old Yiddish adage

Eighteen-year-old Dorothy Stang had a clear vision of her future. “I would like to volunteer for the Chinese mission,” she wrote boldly across her application to join the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

Instead, in 1966, she found herself – and five other Sisters of Notre Dame – in Brazil, where she would live almost forty years serving the poorest of the poor. She has been described by the SNDs as having chosen “to live in extreme poverty in order to help others living in poverty.  She had a passion for people of all cultures, for social justice, peacemaking fairness, and respect for the environment.” 

For almost forty years, Sister Dorothy Stang shared the lives, pains and hopes of the subsistence farmers of the northern Brazilian state of Para on the eastern edge of the Amazon, a region known for its wealth of natural resources and the violence that boils over from land disputes. With her Bible, which she carried everywhere and sometimes called her “weapon,” she challenged wealthy ranchers and loggers, rogue police, and an often-corrupt judicial system. 

Carrying her Bible on Saturday, February 12, 2005, Dorothy Stang made her way along a muddy Amazon jungle road, heading to the village of Boa Esperanca, near Anapu, where she lived. Her destination – a meeting with a group of peasant farmers whose homes had been burned down by agents of wealthy sharks who, acting with the assistance of local politicians and police, were attempting to commandeer properties to which they had no legal rights.

Her journey was interrupted by the taunts of two men who blocked her way and demanded to know if she had a right to be there. In response, she produced maps and documents proving the government had designated the territory as a reserve for the landless poor.

“Do you have a weapon,” they asked. In the rain, she opened her Bible and said “The only defense I have is the word of God. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the peacemakers.’ God bless you, my sons.” The men stepped back and aimed their guns. Dorothy Stang raised her Bible as six shots were fired at point blank range.

Her body lay on the dirt road all day. Nearby villagers were afraid they would be shot if they moved it. 

Brazilian authorities believe the murder was arranged by a local rancher, who paid $19,300 (US) to kill a woman who possessed few material things: a mishmash of colorful clothing, including a number of T-shirts advocating for social justice causes, spartan furnishings and her Bible.

Her assassination provoked Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva to declare the land in question, over 22,000 acres would be reserved for sustainable development by the farmers whose cause Sister Dorothy had championed.

“She always asked for protection for others, never herself,” observed Nilmario Miranda, Brazil’s Human Rights Minister.

At the Mass of the Resurrection for the Dayton, Ohio native and one of nine children, the Pascal Candle stood tall and lit before her simple coffin. Sister Dorothy Stang was buried in a grove in Anapu; her grave is marked with a simple wooden cross bearing her name and dates of birth and death.

In 1991, on her 60th birthday, Dorothy Stang wrote her family and friends in the States:

“That I’ve been able to live, love, be loved and work with the Brazilian people, help them find confidence in themselves, to profoundly sense God’s presence in their lives and then be a creative influence in society from which a more human society can be born, I thank all of you. It’s a chain reaction. We can give positive input - energy into life but we need to be charged also. In the midst of all this violence there are many small communities that have learned the secret of life: sharing, solidarity, confidence, equality, pardon, working together. God is present -- generator and sustainer of all life. Thus life is productive and transforming in the midst of all this.”

As we finished writing this, we discovered a memorial to Sister Dorothy published by the Sisters of Notre Dame. It’s so appropriate, we had to include it:

In the town of Anapu, Brazil, in the Wild West of the Amazon, a little girl said to the man handing out posters with an image of Sister Dorothy Stang, “I want one, too.” 

“No,” the man told her. The priest had said only one poster to a family, and the man had already given a poster to the little girl’s mother. 

“But I want one,” the girl said. 

“No,” the man said. 

“But Dorothy is my friend,” the little girl said. “And she wants me to have one!” 

Sister Dorothy Stang was murdered 15 years ago. The little girl is six or seven. Such is Sister Dorothy’s presence, even today. 

The Pascal Candle will stand high and lit in our sanctuaries through the Easter Season, proclaiming “He is risen! He is not here! The tomb is empty!”

After Pentecost, at each Mass of the Resurrection we celebrate for a friend or parishioner, the Pascal Candle will be placed in the center of the sanctuary, its flickering wick cursing the darkness of death, and Father Roger will proclaim, “The tomb is empty! Jesus is alive!” 

If you are quiet, if in the silence of the night you listen closely, you may hear the monks of Mokoto and the spirit of Sister Dorothy, who once wrote “I would like to volunteer for the Chinese mission,” chanting “He is risen! He is not here! The tomb is empty!”