IV. The Building Years

When a person commits himself to the Cistercian life, he makes vows not only of poverty, chastity and obedience, but also ones of conversion of manners and of stability, a commitment to a particular community in (usually) one particular place.

(#8) The Early Pineboard Monastery - Exterior View

The Conyers founders, having made their vows at Gethsemani, carried that commitment to Cistercian community with them, transforming the train coach into a traveling monastery that evening and night from St. Benedict's Day, March 21, 1944, to March 22, when they arrived in Georgia. But this community would have the unique aspect, privilege, and arduous task of actually building the place of their stability. The building of a large physical plant was destined to have significant influence on the building of the new community, both the internal one of the monks, and the wider community of the monks with their Georgia environs.

During the several weeks before their arrival, Mr. Leslie Ray, friend of the Gethsemani community, had converted the hayloft of the Honey Creek Plantation barn into a rudimentary monastery and chapel, one cramped and shared with cows and chickens. So besides continuing the farm work necessary for their sustenance, the monks immediately began work on a more suitable temporary monastery. Working far more that the Rule prescribed, the community was able to move into the "Pineboard Monastery" on the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception, December 7, 1944. Just in time; it is reported that the water in the cruets had frozen that morning while the priests were saying Mass for the last time in the hayloft.

(#9) An Interior View of the Monks in the Pineboard Monastery Church

Once installed in the wooden monastery, the monks commenced building the foundation of the permanent monastery and church. Dom Frederic had a Kentucky architectural firm draw up the plans. It was to be a truly impressive complex, one large enough to take care of the growing numbers of Trappist vocations once and for all. As he quipped to the Conyers superior, James Fox, he didn't want them to be making foundations like this year after year. (And yet within nine years Gethsemani would have started four new houses.)

Dom Frederic's ideas was that Holy Spirit would be basically a copy of Gethsemani, and in this respect he was following a Cistercian practice of the twelfth century when most houses followed a common ground plan. But this monastery was already experiencing its own new spirit, occasioned to some extent by the intense building activity itself. As a community it was destined not to be a copy, and its new character would be reflected by the fact that the Gethsemani plans were not fully executed. Circumstances intervened which allowed the Georgia foundation to begin on its own course.

The new community's first superior was James Fox, and when in 1946 Holy Spirit was raised from the status of dependency to abbey, he was elected its abbot. The building program begun under his and Dom Frederic's guidance came to an abrupt halt in 1948, however after Dom Frederic suffered a fatal heart attack on his way to Conyers and Dom James was recalled to Gethsemani as its abbot. Gethsemani had its own serious financial problems and could no longer support Holy Spirit. The Georgia monastery managed to meet its living expenses, but there was no extra money for building a monastery, much less one on the scale planned by Dom Frederic.

(#10) Intensive scaffolding punctuates the construction of the Abbey Church

Conyers' new abbot was Dom Robert McGann, a monk who had been the Novice Master for many of the Gethsemani community. He considered the situation a long time, was then finally able to secure a commitment from Atlanta bankers to lend half of the amount needed if the monks raised half. But that was, of course, still an impossible sum. The solution? The morning after his conference with the bankers Dom Robert came into the Chapter Room and addressed his assembled community solemnly: "Sons, we want to go on building; but as you know, we can't." He explained the bankers' offer, then, after a pause, continued, "If God wants this monastery here, He will see that it is built. If He doesn't want it, we don't want it. Tomorrow morning, we will resume work on the construction." The next morning they went out with shovels and wheelbarrows and resumed work. They never ran out of money, although they never had a superfluity. This was in 1952. By 1959 the permanent monastery was completed, and by 1969 the church was ready. In 1969 the completion of the Guest House signaled the end of the major building program of Holy Spirit.

The pioneers had faced a hard life in Rockdale County. But in speaking with them about that time one hears repeated references to a new spirit, a freer atmosphere. Although they continued to observe the austere Trappist usages, the very rigors of the building activity necessitated positive changes; the monks began each morning with a substantial breakfast; the work outdoors was exhausting, but it also liberated them from some of the routines and a feeling of confinement. Further, while Cistercian life is by definition cenobitical or communal, the physical demands made on these monks drew them far closer together than the Trappist routine of an established monastery might have done. Along with the physical walls of the monastery, therefore, a sense of community developed.

(#11) Stained Glass construction within the new Abbey Church

The absence of serious accidents is often cited as a sign of God's presence during this period. Actually, there were accidents, but they were near-misses which offer, perhaps, better confirmation of God's designs for the place than would no mishaps. Once a monk dismantling a hoist some forty feet above the ground leaned forward too far and lost his balance, then was pushed back violently against the wall - not by the wind. Another time two monks were cutting down a giant poplar with a chain saw when it got away from them. The first one was knocked into the swamp, the second one was beneath the huge trunk - but with a half inch clearance. The tree had come down and wedged between its own stump and that of a tree felled a few years earlier. (Fr. Ephraim broke silence with a fervent "Pro Maria!") Another monk's fingers were badly mangled in the sawmill and the surgeon wanted to amputate. But the monk was determined to say Mass again with those fingers; he continues to celebrate Mass today.

The intensive construction labor also served to create an outreach into the non-monastic community. Initial distrust by Rockdale County people was overcome by the contact necessitated by the building effort. Already work on the pineboard monastery had set the example. One of Conyers' workmen was widely known for his strong language delivered in a loud deep voice; but every time he let out one of his expletives, one particular monk would bow his head. After a while the workman took note, and over the months the story circulated in Conyers that the silence of that monk had changed the language of the workman. Later that same man became one of the most vocal "boosters" of the monastery. The anecdote illustrates the subtle influence exercised by the quiet but persevering witness of the community. The hard work of the monks won the respect of their immediate Rockdale neighbors.

(#12) Many visitors frequent the Monastery grounds for solitude and spiritual direction

The initial contact with the non-monastic community established an atmosphere of openness to the wider lay community that would continue to distinguish Holy Spirit from various Cistercian houses. The guest house is an instance of this openness. Among the largest and the best equipped of the U.S. Cistercian communities, the guest house had been started during the initial building thrust of the nineteen-forties as the foundation for a large, separate novitiate. When the building resumed in the nineteen-fifties, the novitiate was incorporated into the third floor of the monastery building proper; and the old foundation was then redirected into the foundation for the present guest house.

The change was dictated by the fact that the post-war surge of new vocations had already waned, so that the need for a large separate structure was lessened. But the change was also a result of the community's awareness of its responsibility toward the non-monastic community, of its evolving mission, a commitment to its Georgia witness and its response to the Georgia situation.

It is an intriguing fact that visitors to the monastery, persons of diverse religious faith, women as well as men, now meet for counseling, prayer groups, to share meals, in what was once intended as a novitiate - the training area for men striving for a closer union with God. The foundation - both physical and spiritual - is the same and this monastic space is now helping the non-monastic visitors toward a similar goal.

(#13) Dom Robert McGann's funeral procession