| Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas is a Benedictine monastery founded from St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. Today Fr. Gregory Mallya, a Spiritan priest working in Conway, and Charlie Dittmeier were taken by Bob Kordsmeier to visit the Subiaco monastery. Bro. Tobias De Silvo from Conway is one of the monks at Subiaco and gave us an extensive and thorough tour.
|
 |
Bro. Tobias De Silvo (left), a native of Conway, Arkansas, taught at the Subiaco monastery high school for twenty-five years before becoming responsible for the abbey farms and cattle. Here he talks to Fr. Gregory Mallya and Bob Kordsmeier in the abbey retreat house lobby. |
 |
Before lunch the monks gather in the chapel for their noon day prayer which we attended as guests. |
 |
After the prayer we all went to the monastery dining room for a hearty lunch. There are about 50 monks, both brothers and priests, at the Subiaco abbey now. |
 |
Charlie was surprised to meet Bro. Francis Kirchner (right) at the abbey. Francis attended St. Columba School in Louisville's West End where he finished the eighth grade one year before Charlie. |
|
 |
This is the main monastery building at Subiaco. The stone is from a local quarry run by the monks in the nearby hills. The design is a traditional Benedictine layout, with a central courtyard, much like that of St. Meinrad Archabbey. |
 |
Tobias took Gregory and Bob and Charlie to the roof of the monastery to get a good view of the surrounding countryside and all the buildings of the monastery. |
 |
Between the buildings can be seen the white line of the highway running west across rural Arkansas. |
 |
The monastery courtyard, enclosed on four sides by the buildings is beautifully decorated with flowers. The silver flowers in the red base in the center of the courtyard spell out "2008" and "130" to mark the monastery's 130 years in Arkansas. |
|
On one side of the high altar the monks have their prayer stalls where they gather five or six times a day to pray. On the other side are pews for the public. The monastery serves as the parish church for the surrounding farming communities. |
 |
Charlie, Bro. Tobias, and Fr. Gregory, who is from Uganda, outside the monastery in a park-like area with benches and shaded areas among beautiful trees where men and women on retreat can go for silence and mediation in a natural setting. |
 |
The monastery supports itself with its herd of Black Angus cattle which they breed and sell. It is quite a high-tech operation as most successful farms must be in this day and age. Here the manager of the breeding operations explains about the new young bulls in this pasture. |
 |
On the backside of the monastery grounds, an older Benedictine priest works alone at the abbey's woodshop, turning out the planks and lumber the monastery uses. They get trees from their own land and from neighboring farms when a tree falls or is wind-damaged. |
 |
This three-story barn is 106 years old and a remarkable example of the craftsmanship of an earlier era. It was constructed without nails and instead uses mortice and tenon construction to hold the beams together. |
|
Out of sight but ready when needed the monastery keeps six or seven simple wooden coffins for use when a monk dies and then is buried on a hillside below the main building. |
 |
Subiaco, which is also the name of the location of St. Benedict's initial monastery in Italy, has its own grape vineyards and wine-making operations in a cellar of one of the buildings. |
