Joshua S. Hall
St. Joseph Abbey lies in the pine forests outside of Covington.
Monks and volunteers feed the hungry at St. Joseph Abbey
Every Monday and Thursday morning, earlier than most of the world rises to greet the day, the pine forests outside of the town of Covington bear witness to acts of kindness inspired by Benedictine precepts.
It happens twice a week on schedule, starting at 4 am when six people—three monks and three volunteers—arrive to warm the ovens inside a renovated milking parlor at St. Joseph Abbey. Situated between a woodworks workshop and a dilapidated building full of well-fed stray cats, the white brick hut is simply known as “the bakery.”
By 9 am, twelve hands will have made 750 loaves of fresh bread. Within hours, this bounty will be sliced by another group of volunteers and then delivered to homeless shelters, orphanages, homes for battered women, and anyone else who needs to feed lots of hungry people on a nonprofit budget. For twenty-three years and counting, the service has remained free of charge.
Hundreds of men have become Catholic priests at St. Joseph Abbey & Seminary College, but fewer than forty monks presently call the monastery home. The monks range from twenty-eight to ninety years of age and come from all walks of life and vocation—historians, organists, trained chefs, and horticulturists—and at least one of them has been at the abbey since the age of fifteen. They aren’t ordained priests and cannot perform Mass, but a handful teach the future priests at the adjoining seminary college. They are encouraged to cultivate their hobbies: the Benedictines maintain a garden, a flock of chickens, a flight of doves, and a muster of peacocks, among other activities. They rise at 6 am for Vigil in the church, meet for Mass at 11:15, work the afternoon away, and end in Compline prayer. Their lives are filled with routine—prayer, labor, study … and perhaps, a few small miracles.
Ora et labora
The youngest monk in the order, twenty-eight-year-old Brother Cyprian, manages the bakery where the abbey’s Pennies for Bread program operates. The bakery is a perfect fit for Cyprian; prior to taking permanent vows in July, he graduated from Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute in Austin, Texas, in preparation for a long career in the restaurant industry.
Somehow, that path ended in monastic vows.
“One of the reasons I was drawn to St. Joseph Abbey was because of the bakery,” Cyprian recalled. “It’s a very direct way to feed the hungry, and to live out the gospel message of Christ.”
He did not wear his iconic brown robes for the baking exercise; an oversized t-shirt and loose pants worked fine. Shifting trays of twisted dough from racks to proofing ovens, there was no sign of sleep or frustration in Cyprian’s eyes; he was quite at home in the bakery, even at 6 in the morning.
In the four months he’s managed the bakery, Brother Cyprian has aided in baking about fifteen thousand loaves of bread—all of it handed directly to those who need it. Watching the monk shuffle among his fellow brothers and volunteers in the bakery at 6 am, quietly working toward the massive goal of feeding the hungry in three hours, one might begin to wonder why this isn’t something that everyone does. Is it really this easy to feed the hungry?
“We live by the motto, ‘ora et labora’—it means, ‘prayer and work,’” he added. “Making bread, the work is like meditation to me. I offer it up to God.”
Amid the endless complexities of Catholic iconography and verse, it would be difficult to find a simpler Catholic motto than ora et labora, which dictates the lives of all Benedictine orders. To Cyprian and his brothers, ora et labora, at its foundation, is just a prayer—that works.
Above: Rudy and Joyce Bosch give each other a hand with breadmaking. Photo by Joshua S. Hall.
“Christ asks Saint Peter if he loves him, and when Peter answers ‘yes,’ Christ tells him, ‘Feed my sheep,’” Cyprian said. “In giving food to others, especially to those in need, I personally feel that we are living out the gospel message.”
Pennies for Bread is funded entirely by individual and corporate donations, and depends heavily upon its dedicated volunteers. But the gifts of donations and labor, however generous, are not always constant; and there are weeks when the bakery seems to operate on prayer fumes and faith alone.
No matter how close they get to brushing the bottom line, Cyprian will not play host to doubt—it’s against his vows. “We have faith that we’ll have enough volunteers to make it happen, and we always do,” he stated, unflinching. “God has always provided.”
Faith, miracle, prayer—whatever the reason, the program has survived for twenty-three years.
Rule #47
Across the unpaved road from the bakery is a newer, but equally unprepossessing building: St. Joseph’s Woodworks shop. At its November 2007 opening, the workshop was filled with modest (yet still pricey) new woodworking equipment, which was an investment by the monastery in a somewhat morbid business venture: selling traditional, handmade cypress caskets and urns to the general public.
Jeff Horchoff, a retired postman and five-year volunteer of St. Joseph Woodworks; and Joe Jarrell, a retired police officer (and Woodworks’ only paid employee), gave a tour of the shop and the “showroom.” Jeff also volunteers at the bakery and comes off as a bubbly sidekick to the quiet and thoughtful Joe.
“Joe Jarrell was making these caskets before they started sellin’ ‘em,” he smiled, eyeing Jarrell. “Mostly I just come in and drink too much coffee...and get in Joe Jarrell’s way.” The remark earned a smile from one side of Joe’s mouth.
In the showroom, I asked Jeff why he thought the monks would want to run such a...well, morbid business.
“It ties into the Benedictine theme—Benedictine monks go by the rules set out by Saint Benedict, and one of those rules is ‘Keep death always in front of you,’” he replied. “I’d say building caskets is one way to do that.”
He’s referring to Saint Benedict’s 47th rule, which cites Matthew 24:42 as its basis: “Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh.” As Jeff suggests, frequent exposure to symbols of death invokes practice of memento mori, which roughly translates to the command: “remember you must die.” The command remains the focus—and possibly the point of origin—of most world religions, and it was also a virtue in the eyes of Saint Benedict.
Historically, deceased Benedictines are buried in these caskets, whose aesthetic mirrors the monks’ simple lifestyle, with virtually no ornamental frills (outside of the St. Benedict prayer medal embedded at the foot). Each casket is made of cypress-veneered plywood, and the plain white upholstery is far from luxurious. No color choices are available, and apart from the urns, the merchandise only comes in two models: monastic and traditional.
“We also make infant caskets,” Jeff added, “but we’ve never charged anyone for them.”
The decision to go public with the sales was made out of necessity. Jeff explained that the enterprise began as a solution to the abbey’s grim finances in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: “All the pine forests they used to sell to logging companies were wiped out by the hurricane, and that had been a big part of their income,” he said.
Since its dedication in 2007, the shop has sold about two hundred caskets per year—enough to make the investment worthwhile. But until October, they weren’t legally allowed to sell any of them.
A Louisiana state law, whose sole purpose seems to have been to protect the finances of the funeral home industry, forbade casket sales outside the realm of a licensed funeral director, and the shop was served a cease-and-desist order before they ever made a sale. After choosing to take the State Board of Funeral Directors to court, the abbey’s case was taken up by the Institute of Justice, leading to a six-year legal battle.
They won. The law was found to have no rational basis other than to protect the economy of the State Board of Funeral Directors; so, as of the mid-October ruling, anyone can sell a casket in the state of Louisiana.
Other than the massive amount of work that happens within these walls, something that sticks out to a visitor is the number of dedicated volunteers who work throughout the abbey. With fewer than forty monks in residence, volunteers are crucial to the success of the whole enterprise.
Much like the monks, the volunteers come from all walks of life—police officers, retired postmen, a husband-and-wife team, a handful of women—to assemble and upholster caskets and to slice the fresh, baked bread.
“We do have many different back stories here,” noted Brother Cyprian. “It just goes to show that it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are doing or where you think you may be going, God has a plan for us all.”
Christian or not, after visiting St. Joseph Abbey, the visitor is left with this observation: it feels good to see others being so generous. Ultimately, that leads to a more personal sentiment—it feels good to be generous.
Details. Details. Details. St. Joseph Abbey 75376 River Road Saint Benedict, La. (985) 892-1800 • saintjosephabbey.com
To stay as a guest: For reservations, contact Emmanuel Labrise at bremmanuel@sjasc.edu or (985) 892-1800, ext: 1302. A donation of $30 per day is suggested.
To schedule a tour: The Abbey requests that visitors schedule tours in advance. Contact Kit Friedrichs-Baumann at kbaumann@sjasc.edu or (985) 867-2233.
