A special visit! Mount Melleray Abbey

Mount Melleray Abbey is situated in the county of Waterford in Ireland and was founded in the year 1833. My friend took me for a drive to this place yesterday and in the middle of February the air was mild and the fields still green. The Abbey is on the southern slopes of the Knocklemealdown mountains, around five miles from the borders of Tipperary! The landscape is mild and beautiful as we see the big, light grey cathedral.

It was a quite day and inside there were no other people than us. The monks of Mount Melleray are members of the Cistercian or Trappist Order, an Order of the Benedictine family, founded at Citeaux in France in 1098.

Constitution 7 says:"In the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance the way of life is consecration to God expressed in fraternal union, solitude and silence, in prayer, work and a disciplined life". My friend tells me that she visited this place often as a child. Now, I became curious! Why? They visited her grand uncle who was a monk at the abbey and further her father was a monk at the abbey, but decided to leave the Monk Order at 23 to start a family. So this is a special place for you, I replied! Yes, she said and told me a facinating story about her grand uncle and her father, once a Monk.

The confession boxes looked rather scary I think, and it was a strange thing to sit in one! A poster invited me to stay and live with the community and actually stay for life as a monk. I could stay for a while, but at this point, certainly not for life.

My friend tells me that at one point there where so many as 700 monks at the Abbey, and they were self sufficient with food, equipment and even had their own power station. They had huge land areas, animals and crafts. It's said that they put food in a certain box for the beggars and poor, and the box never got empty.

Its a special place for my friend, and all her stories made it a special day for me.