By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
In late September 2020, three years after the Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah closed, my family enjoyed an early evening picnic on the old Abbey grounds. We savored an alfresco dinner, a stroll amidst the autumnal colors, and the subtle sights and sounds that serenaded us.
On the northern side of our chosen picnic site, a gentle breeze rustled the unfallen leaves of several poplar trees. The poplars, justifiably weary from many years as sentinels at the edge of the monks’ quaint cemetery, still shaded the final resting place of the men who planted them.
Just across the green to the south, a flock of turkeys emerged from another grove of trees and faced the poplars. The wild birds heard the leaves stirring, and responded with lyrical clucks and sopranic gobbles. The wind and leaves answered back.
While this unusual chorus swelled, we walked through the small forest the monks planted a half century ago to dry out swampland near their cloister. There was a noise from the top of a thirty foot tree. I looked up and watched the large wing of a launching owl, waving gracefully in pre-flight.
A lone mule deer ambled past, paused, contemplated the scene, and ducked into the nearby brush. Afterwards, we discovered a spectacular web guarding the bovine entrance to the monks’ old dairy. In the doorway corner, at the far edge of the silky masterpiece, an elderly black spider crouched and listened silently.
We left the Abbey driving towards the setting sun. Dozens of sand hill cranes stood in flaxen fields the monks named after saints. On cue as we passed, the cranes jumped and leaped, extending their long angelic wings. Not quite flying, the cranes danced to a rhythm only they could hear.
Soon darkness fell. Bugling and hoof-steps replaced the calls and jetés of the cranes, signaling the arrival of the wapiti. The local wild elk herd had migrated down from the mountain to feast upon the unharvested remains of the alfalfa crop.
As these wonderful events unfolded, I felt a growing sense of déjà vu. The sights and sounds were so familiar. Why? How? And then I knew.
I attended evening prayers at the same monastery site many times. For 70 years, each day at 5:30 p.m., the Utah monks had gathered in their Quonset hut church and chanted vespers. Supper followed. The monks ended their day at 8:00 p.m. after chanting compline. (You can watch some of the monastery chants here: Utah monks chant compline and Utah Trappists chanting.)
One chant from compline was particularly memorable: “O God creator of all things, and ruler of the universe, our days you fill with radiant light, our nights you fold in peaceful sleep. Now that the day has run its course, and darkness covers things from sight, we beg for pardon, plead for grace, and ask protection for the night. O mighty Father hear our cry, through Jesus Christ our Lord most high, who with the Spirit we adore, who reigns with you forevermore. Amen.” (See: Can’t sleep? Sing like a monk!)
When Holy Trinity Abbey closed in 2017, I doubted I would hear this Gregorian chant—this monastic music—again. Our evening picnic in September 2020, however, erased that doubt.
When the Utah monks sang the psalms at vespers and compline, they faced each other. The north-side Trappists started the chant, the south-side Trappists replied, and back and forth and so on. The same exact thing happened during the musical exchange between the breeze, the poplar leaves, and the wild turkeys.
The plain and simple Trappist a cappella chanting always created a remarkable effect. Like an owl in flight, the monk song soared from the open monastery church windows and echoed into the surrounding hills and countryside.
Every once in a while, a Trappist monk would arrive a bit late to the evening prayers, take in the scene, and approach tentatively. Let’s just call him Brother Mule Deer. Older or infirm monks often listened to the evening prayers in stoic silence, from the chapel’s periphery, just like Brother Arachnid in his web.
At the end of compline, the monks sounded the angelus, and the bells in their towering brick belfry bounced and danced like sand hill cranes. As the bells rang, a flock of Trappists, their long white robes flowing like extended wings, moved in sync to the front of the church for a blessing and then retired for the night.
A few hours later, in the pitch darkness that can exist only at 3:30 a.m., the monks were awake again, chanting, praying, and waiting for dawn. Waiting for them—just outside the chapel on a night watch of their own—wild elk grazed and bugled, surely the antlered ancestors of the herd roaming the same sacred ground after our recent September picnic.
I did not anticipate hearing evening prayers again during my family’s recent visit to the old Abbey, but those vespers should not have been so unexpected.
The Huntsville monks chanted every night, 365 days a year, for just over 70 years. Those evening prayers are indelibly imprinted on the winds, the trees, the insects, the birds, and the animals that heard them 25,550 times. How can they keep from singing?
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
