Monks in New Mexico desert dedicated to hospitality reflect on two years without guests

 

Hidden in this canyon of crimson sandstone cliffs encompassed by miles of federally protected wilderness, the Monastery of Christ in the Desert seems like an ideal place to ride out a pandemic.

For more than 50 years, a small community of Benedictine monks has quietly lived, worked and worshiped here in a cluster of off-grid adobe buildings along the banks of northern New Mexico’s Chama River. Considered the most remote Catholic monastery in the hemisphere, it can be reached only by a 13-mile single-lane earthen road that winds through the canyon. Abiquiú, the closest village — population 151 — is 25 miles away. Groves of cottonwood and willows line the river where bald eagles hunt for rainbow trout. Black bears, coyotes and cougars prowl the pinyon- and sage-scented Santa Fe National Forest, which surrounds the monastery.

Despite the difficult journey, outsiders have flocked to this serene abbey for decades in search of spiritual renewal. As adherents of the sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict, which teaches that monasteries are to treat visitors as they would Jesus himself, the monks graciously welcome outsiders. As many as 30,000 people make the pilgrimage each year, including past notables such as the artist Georgia O’Keeffe and the actor Matthew McConaughey. Guests are an integral part of Benedictine monastic life and have been for 1,500 years. “Monasteries,” Saint Benedict wrote, “are never without them.”

That was true for Christ in the Desert until March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic forced the monks to close their doors to the outside world. For nearly two years now, guests have been prohibited from staying at the monastery, leaving the monks in a position they have never faced before...MORE