HUNTSVILLE — "I knew where I was going in life since I was 11 years old," Father Mary Patrick Boyle said.
As other sixth-graders sought answers to "what do you want to be when you grow up," he distinctly remembers thinking, "I want to be a priest."
This calling at such a young age was filled with meaning for Father Patrick, 86, who has now lived a monastic life for 64 years, searching for meaning and closeness to God, even as he dispenses comfort and wisdom to those who come here seeking enlightenment.
"Most of the things in the world, our clothes wear out, our tires wear out," Father Patrick said. "Something's going to live. The monastic life really represented stability."
The young Father Patrick decided that if he was going to serve God, he wanted to go all the way. Life at a monastery represented the ultimate dedication, he said. So in 1950, he left his home in St. Louis to join the monastery in Huntsville.
That year, the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity had 84 monks.
Now, Father Patrick said, there are nine. Some who left simply moved. Many have died. But those who remain are uniquely positioned to share what they have learned on their contemplative journey.
That includes Father David Altman, 76, who said he fought his call to come to the monastery for years.
"I graduated from college in the sixties the first time and I made a beeline for Los Angeles, California, where the sun shines," Father David said.
He joined a social club and went to dances every week.
"I was looking for Miss Right," he said. "There were a lot of relationships I could have followed up on, but I didn't."
Instead, the idea of going to a monastery stuck with him. It became a question.
"Then over a period of years it became more of a question," he said. "Until I realized that if I wanted the most happiness and fulfillment in my life, that I'd have to give it a shot."
So at age 27, he came to the abbey.
Father Brendan Freeman, 76, said he was also influenced to accept the life of a monk. He entered the monastery at age 20.
He served as an abbott in Iowa before he was asked to come to Huntsville about a year and a half ago.
"What appealed to me about coming to the monastery was not exactly what kept me in the monastery," he said. "So it's evolution and unfolding of God's goodness to me and to everybody really."
All three of these men have devoted their lives to God, waking at 3:15 each morning for a life of study, sacrament, prayer, song and work, strengthening their vows of obedience, stability, conversion of life, poverty and chastity.
The small bookstore at the monastery was for years managed by Father Patrick, and visitors entered the store requesting blessings on their new rosaries, pendants or books.
But with the bookstore now closed, the trek to the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity brings those seeking comfort and wisdom from the monks.
Is there a secret or meaning to life?
"God, definitely God, is the first thing that comes to mind," Father Patrick says as he reflects on the most important advice he can give. "God is the most important thing."
That, and hope, he said.
"H.O.P.E." he said, is what he gives those who come in search of solace.
"God taught me that early in my monastic life — hope," he said. "A lot of times God's coming to us intensely and we don't realize it."
Though the sun may be shrouded in clouds, Father Patrick tries to remind others that the sun is still there.
"I try to emphasize hope, and also the fact of love," he said. "Love and hope. That's the most important."
Like Father Patrick, Father David and Father Brendan have encountered inquiring souls who come to the monastery. They reflect on the things they have learned after years separated from the world and their journey to become one with God.
God's love
"God's love for us, our response to him in love, and just enjoy the ride," Father Patrick said.
Father Patrick said Jesus Christ taught him early in life to love.
"If they have the one really important thing in life, to have some love, have someone love them or they love someone and that makes a big difference," Father Brendan said.
Friendships, he said, are priceless.
"If you have family, friendship, love, you'll be pretty content I think," Father Brendan said.
"I think a good lesson in life is to do only what you can," Father Brendan said. "Don't try to do what you can't do. Don't try to be false to yourself. Be who you are."
He said when you're doing those things, you realize it's not enough.
"And then you have to rely on God."
Commune with God
"God speaks to us through circumstances, events and people, our interests and aptitudes" Father David said. "They all congeal to form a mysterious driving call that a person didn't know."
It is how he ended up at the monastery.
But he said for true happiness, the communication must go both ways.
"Find a time and a space which is a person's sacred time and sacred space and talk to God," Father David said. "That's so important because he's the primary player in life. And at the end that's all we'll have, is our relationship with God."
"The most important thing is your relationship with God," Father Brendan said. "That's the one that, God will never let you down."
Adversity
On Thanksgiving day and as the Christmas holiday season draws near, the season brings joy and giving. But some may have feelings of loneliness or adversity. Father Patrick said there is a big difference between loneliness and an aloneness.
"When you're suffering loneliness, there's some kind of absence," he said. "If we're lonely, we're putting too much emphasis on the creature instead of creator."
But an aloneness is each person's unique relationship with God, their contentment with him and their own lives.
Father David said suffering is necessary in life.
"What I've learned about challenges is the only real option for growth is to face them," Father David said.
"We have challenges to faith, and that means we have to grow in faith. We're facing challenge to love, and that means that we have to grow in love," Father David said. "It's God's call every time out."
"You persevere, and Jesus can pull it off," Father Patrick said. "This is going to blossom. If we persevere, and stay with God, this is going to blossom."
Father Brendan said each phase of our lives will present a challenge. One example for him, it was being diagnosed with inflammation of the muscles at age 76.
"God is the potter, and you are the clay," he said. "Everything that happens to you somehow is related to God."
Some die, others are diagnosed with cancer. Father Brendan said there is endless heartache.
"You have to try to accept that God knows what we need more than we know ourselves," he said. "And everything works together for good, according to scripture."
The state of the world
"The poor world is upside down," Father Patrick said.
Father David says it this way: There are dead people walking the streets of each city.
"Men and women who inside, in the deepest level of their being, are really, really dead," he said. "They've failed to face the growth-producing challenges that would make them much more alive."
"The only thing that's going to satisfy us is the deepest level of our being is an indefinite object, and God is the only indefinite object," Father David said.
But people try to satisfy this longing, he said, with pleasures, ambition, or power.
This inability to feel complete fulfillment causes frustration, anger and depression.
Father Patrick said the problem with the world is the refusal to admit there is a creator.
"They think they can do whatever they want, it's not going to work," he said.
Thankfulness
Father Brendan said that gratitude is a lost virtue.
"People very seldom, especially young people, very seldom say thank you," he said. "They're entitled as it were."
He said a thankful person is always aware.
"A thoughtful person is always aware that things are given to him or her," he said.
He said a spirit of gratitude should be continuous.
"You can be a very religious person and still not have an attitude of gratitude," he said. "It's something you have to cultivate."
So is there a meaning to life?
"The meaning of life is growing through challenges and becoming more and more deeply unified with God," Father David said.
Suffering, he said, is an essential part of life.
"When we face challenges, they grate on us. They call on us to be better than we are," he said. "To be stronger and more loving than we are."
Growth means having your comfort zone invaded.
"Nevertheless, we have to overcome ourselves, suffer our little worlds to be destroyed so that we can be greater worlds with broader horizons," he said.
"The meaning of life is meaning," Father Patrick said. "Life has meaning to it, absolutely."
"Finding God in everyday life, loving and respecting people are important," he said.
Father Brendan said the meaning of life is not what you acquire, but who you are.
"Find your true self, your deep heart, that place where you and God live together. To me that's the most important thing," Father Brendan said.
And our ability to go through each phase of life and it's challenges.
"If you can say, 'Well I did the best I could there,' and move on, as you come down toward the end of your life you'll realize, 'I've had a good life.'"
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