The night before the biggest dinner they have ever hosted, the residents of Our Lady of the Angels Friary have everything under control. Everything, that is, except the kitchen sink. Clogged with potato and apple peels, it refuses to drain. In 18 hours, almost 30 guests will arrive for Transitus and a buffet orchestrated by Bro. Mark Ligett. Faced with a sink full of backed-up water, most communities would call the local plumber. Most communities are not situated in Ava, Mo., miles from the nearest service person.

So the friars of OLA react the way people used to before everything was a touchtone phone call away: They make do. They bail the water from the sink, dry their hands and head to evening prayer. Obviously, it takes more than a clog to flummox four friars who last year started an interprovincial house of prayer in the middle of nowhere. Here, “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is more than a motto. It is a way of life. In Ava, “Service people aren’t readily available,” says Bro. Josef Anderlohr, who was initially frustrated when the contractor working on the guest house canceled a visit because it was the start of turkey hunting season. Now he sees things differently. “To me, that’s a good point. You learn some patience.”

It was cosmic convergence when Mark and Josef started scouting properties for a house of prayer two years ago. Ava was ideal: A rambling, neglected house sat empty on the largest tract of Trappist-owned land (4,000 acres) in the country. The friars wanted a place conducive to their ministry; the small community of monks wanted neighbors who could bring the house and grounds back to life. The deal they struck, $1 a year for rent, suited both parties just fine.

What the friars found was no Shangri-La. “The ground is so hard you have to have a pick-ax” to plant a shrub, says gardener Josef. Daily highs of 90 degrees are not uncommon in the fall. The can of Deep Woods Off they leave in guest rooms is there for a reason. The suggestion to carry a flashlight when you walk outside at night (to spook the snakes) should not be taken lightly. “It’s a challenge” to live in a sylvan setting, Josef says. “The first few nights out here I was awake all the time” from the cacophony of animal activity. But eventually, “It grows on you. The wildness is so freeing. You do develop a relationship with nature. That in itself brings you closer to God.”

Pretty much everything in Ava smacks of life as it used to be, before cell phones (they don’t work), television (reception is non-existent) and radio (nothing but static). But these guys think the tradeoff is worth it. Without the usual distractions, “You can take the time to do what’s important,” says Fr. Fred Radke, a liturgist and missionary whose peripatetic ministry for Sacred Heart Province has taken him to Africa and the Amazon Valley. Ultimately, “You really find out there’s not that much that’s important.”

For Fred and Fr. Michael Jennrich (also from Sacred Heart), for Josef and Mark (of SJB Province), this has not been an easy year. Before they got here, “We were talking about being self-supporting,” says Mark, who hoped to build a cottage industry around weaving by making church vestments while Michael, whose work is nationally recognized, turned out tapestries. But Michael was elected to his provincial council (that means frequent travel) and Mark experienced kidney failure. These days, his thrice-weekly dialysis leaves him too spent for the back-breaking work of weaving. 

Despite the difficulties, all of them describe the experience in Ava as “transforming,” filled with the grace of living in a wild and beautiful place and learning more about themselves and each other than they ever thought possible.

People come here, Michael says, “to let solitude bring them into the presence of God,” and that often means facing their inner demons. “I know people are afraid to look at that. But if a person is strong enough to overcome demons, God knows what they’ll be strong enough to do in life.”

“Why did I come here?” Fred repeats the question. “I think you need solitude to move into deep prayer,” he says. That doesn’t mean sitting around all day staring into the woods. For Fred, “Solitude is moving into God.” More than a state of being, it is a state of mind.

In his previous ministry, Josef says, “I was getting to the point where I was saying, ‘What did I join this outfit for?’” After 14 years of parish work, he felt he was going through the motions. “It was getting so that I was ‘getting my prayers in.’ ” And most troubling of all, “I found my empathy for people was lacking. I knew I had to get to some place where God and I could get together on some level.” Out here, “In some ways, it’s just Jesus and me.”

Fred was ready for a different kind of journey. “I had certainly made my journey in the world. Where I have been has been far-out places. I’ve learned languages and cultures and mentalities.” His ministry before Ava included an annual solitude pilgrimage. “At the end of every year, I never thought it was enough. I always felt called to something deeper.”

Michael’s life took a dramatic turn when he left New Orleans and a soul-searing ministry with those affected by AIDS. “After seven years of burying people, I just kind of cracked.” He pulled the pieces together—and found a new focus—at a retreat center for caregivers in New Mexico. “It was out there I learned to weave. The minute I threw my first shuttle, I knew this was what I was looking for. It became the link to my own healing process.”

For Mark, who left a whirlwind of parish activity in Harlan, Ky., the move to Ava was more about shifting gears. Health restrictions may have sapped his energy and limited his activity, but they haven’t curbed his creativity. When weaving became too strenuous, he turned one corner of the spacious, sun-drenched loom loft over to a different kind of cottage industry. Inspired by the success of a Trappestine community in Norway, “I thought about making soap,” Mark says. The learning curve included a few batches of burned bars and some bizarre liquid concoctions. He kept at it, experimenting with a rainbow of colors and a panoply of fragrances. Now, using a pre-mixed base with his own inventive touches, he’s turning out bars and bottles of Franciscan Soap for mail-order customers as well as patrons of St. Francis Bookshop and religious goods stores in Springfield and Chicago.

On the surface, it seems like a pretty simple life. But simplicity takes work. OLA Friary is more regimented than most, with morning prayer followed by breakfast followed by Mass followed by work time….you get the idea. If prayers are the bricks of the friars’ life together, then the meals ably prepared by Mark and Fred are the mortar, a throwback to the days when families chewed their food and dawdled at the table to talk.

Besides being the social center, the expansive kitchen/dining area is the heart of the friary. There, the process of breaking bread—the cooking, the eating, even the cleanup—is done with such gusto and deliberation that it reminds us there is more than one path to communion. There are likewise many avenues to prayer: braiding the end of a rug; patiently watering grass seed; paring apples for a pie; mixing a batch of oatmeal soap.

“What our mission is, is prayer,” says Fred. “That means entering into the dream. If we get into the dream and experience it ourselves, there are going to be people wanting to be part of it.”

“We all want to see this work,” Michael says. “It can only work if the four of us can show other friars it’s possible to live this way.”

Not easy, but it is indeed possible. As these friars have found, nature doesn’t adapt to suit you; you’re the one who does the adapting. In the ongoing effort to build a community, “I found a new me,” says Josef. “And I kind of like it.”

(Click here to learn more about Franciscan Soap. To order, write Bro. Mark at markofm@hughes.net, or call the friary at 1-417-683-4303.)

The weather was perfect and the crowd was enormous (standing room only) as Bishop Daniel R. Jenky presided Oct. 29 over the re-dedication of Sacred Heart Church in Peoria. The church was closed on Thanksgiving 2005 for a massive renovation aimed at restoring the interior to its former Romanesque glory. Since then, parishioners had been meeting at St. Joseph Church (formerly St. Martin de Porres).

Don’t tell the kids, but the annual “Blessing of the Stuffed Animals” at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston is “more about blessing the children,” says Fr. Page Polk. This year, in conjunction with two chaplains from the hospital, Page spent part of Oct. 4 visiting 40 youngsters (and their furry friends) suffering from brain cancer, stomach tumors and a host of other spirit-sapping ailments. “This is the third year we’ve done this,” says Page. “I wear my habit and they like that.” When the children gather, “I ask God to watch over them and bless their little ‘animal.’” Kids are touchingly frank when he asks what brought them there. “I have this thyroid thing and I have to come here and they put meds in me,” was one youngster’s response.

The future of Friarhurst was the topic of a Cincinnati Enquirer interview in October with Fr. Maynard Tetreault. “Selling a special property like this is nothing like selling a home,” Maynard told reporter Steve Kemme. “It takes time for ideas to germinate and evolve.”

Fr. Frank Jasper’s photos were featured in a Sept. 20 issue of The Spotlight (Indianapolis). The pictures accompanied a story about a neighborhood cleanup organized by Sacred Heart Church. Frank and his sister, Ruth Smith, both won blue ribbons for photography in this year’s Fulton County Fair. “My prize money was $28, which just about covered the cost of my entries,” Frank says. “It was fun.”

The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists last month honored St. Anthony Messenger for Best Religion Coverage in its annual awards competition. Fr. Pat McCloskey and the SAM team that produced the special issue, “Vatican II: Where Is the Holy Spirit Leading Us,” were recognized.

On Sept. 19, St. Francis Seraph Friary hosted a courtyard reception for Maynie Tucker, 86-year-old matriarch of Tucker’s Restaurant, up the block on Vine Street. Earlier, Mrs. Tucker received a key to the city from Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. Maynie and her late husband, Escom Tucker, started their restaurant 60 years ago in Over-the-Rhine. She still spends most days peeling potatoes and washing dishes at the restaurant.

Holy Cross Retreat Center in Las Cruces, N.M., is the site of the 2007 Interprovincial Retreat from Jan. 8-12, 2007, sponsored by Assumption, OLG, Sacred Heart and SJB Provinces. The retreat, “Cross, Lepers and Joy,” will be directed by Basil Schott, OFM, Metropolitan Archbishop of Pittsburgh. A flyer accompanies this Newsletter. The 2008 retreat (Jan. 7-11), also at Holy Cross, will feature SJB’s Fr. Murray Bodo.

There was standing room only at Xavier University in Cincinnati on Oct. 9 as students, teachers and others jammed Kelley Auditorium for a free screening of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary on the global climate crisis. Along with Patrick Welage from Xavier’s Peace and Justice Programs, JPIC Director Sr. Donna Graham co-hosted the screening, which was co-sponsored by Xavier and the JPIC Office of SJB Province.

Fr. Ric Schneider’s feisty orange tabby, Jezebel , was featured Oct. 1 in a story in the Catholic Post about rectory pets that rule the roost. Pastors interviewed for the article talked about the companionship and spiritual benefits of pet ownership. Jezzy’s keeper told the reporter, “She teaches me I need to take a rest now and then. She sleeps 23 hours a day.”

On Oct. 8, the Golf Balls from Heaven fund-raiser for Central Catholic High School went off as planned, with one surprise: The winner of the $50,000 grand prize returned the entire amount to the Bloomington school. St. Mary’s was one of five area parishes at which 750 numbered golf balls were sold to support the school at $100 apiece. The balls were piled into a helicopter that hovered over a cup on Central Catholic’s 50-yard line. When the chopper dropped its cargo onto the field, ball No. 1120, adopted by Mike Hundman, was the only one that found its way into the cup. Mike donated his winnings to the school, making the entire proceeds a whopping $92,000.

Twenty provincial and regional spiritual assistants gathered at St. Francis Retreat House in Easton, Pa., for their annual meeting September 19-22. Fr. Loren Connell, Bro. Juniper Crouch and Bro. Dominic Lococo were among the participants. Bernie Tickerhoof, TOR, guided a discussion on spiritual assistance in a collaborative Church. National minister Carol Gentile, SFO, and national spiritual assistant Lester Bach, OFM Cap, discussed the vision and structure of the vital reciprocity between friars and seculars. “The friars and staff of the retreat house were gracious as usual,” Loren says.