A Benedictine monk, Br David Steindl-Rast, made the observation one day that even a casual visitor to a monastery is apt to sense in some vague way that there is something special about that place, that time seems to stand still. Does his observation strike you as too romantic, too unrealistic? But then perhaps your own experience is that he is onto something: that the place really IS holy ground, and that the time is sacred time.