By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
If we non-monks want to better understand the life and purpose of people who choose to live in a monastery, we need only think of a tree.
“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It ‘consents,’ so to speak, to His creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.” (monk and writer Thomas Merton)
A tree stands in strong, sturdy, and reflective silence, its daily struggles to grow are hidden from the rest of the world. Yet, few things proclaim the beauty and glory of God’s creation more loudly than a tree. A tree’s power to evoke thought, calm, and contemplation effectively makes monks of all of us when we linger beneath its peaceful branches.
“Of all man’s works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.” (American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher)
Trees also may be the key to understanding the life of monk Ivan Harold (“Father Malachy”) Flaherty, one of the founders of Utah’s Holy Trinity Abbey, who died this past month at age 94. He grew up on a family farm in rural Nelson County, Kentucky, entered nearby Abbey of Gethsemani in 1943, and lived the life of a Trappist monk for the next 75 years. In 1947, he and other Gethsemani monks departed to found Holy Trinity in Huntsville, Utah. He made his solemn profession there in 1949 and was ordained a priest in 1960. He served as the community’s abbot from 1983 to 1995 and was beloved as a community leader and spiritual advisor. He also planted trees.
“The man who plants a tree
Must first prepare
The fruitful earth
By moving duff or sod,
And cherish in his heart
A silent prayer
For he is working hand in hand with God.
It is a sacred task,
To plant a tree,
That always should be done
On bended knee.” (conservationist Richard J. Dorer)
One of the Utah monks’ early challenges in establishing their monastery was how to deal with a swamp on the Abbey’s land near their Quonset hut building. Father Malachy solved the problem by planting trees to absorb the excess water. My friend Don Morrissey, the monks’ librarian for many years, told me that Brother Mark Stazinski (1919-2014), convinced various nurseries in nearby Ogden to donate trees to the Abbey. Father Malachy lovingly planted them and cared for them, with the help and assistance of his fellow monks. Over time, he created a small forest with many different kinds of trees, a place of beauty and quiet contemplation on the monk’s 1,800 acre mountain ranch. Ivan Harold Flaherty now rests peacefully with his brothers in a small quiet cemetery just a stone’s throw from the forest he planted.
“Nature has many marvels; but a tree
Seems more than marvelous. It is divine.
So generous, so tender, so benign.
Not garrulous like the rivers; and yet free
In pleasant converse with the winds and birds;
Oh! privilege beyond explaining words,
To plant a tree.” (poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
For seven decades, the Utah monastery stood in sturdy solitude, its monks quietly struggling to grow in love and contemplation of God. Yet, the Abbey’s monks also loudly proclaimed the glory and beauty of God’s creation. They also brought calm to, and evoked thought and contemplation from, all who visited them there. Just like Father Malachy’s trees.
