\u00a0\u201cA year and a half ago, I could do anything \u2014 run the chain saw, cut up trees, use a backhoe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brother Joseph Swedo\u00a0was bent forward in his chair, his rugged hands folded delicately in his lap. As a monk at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina, he maintains that Roman Catholic order\u2019s code of prayer, work, seclusion, poverty and chastity.\u00a0And for the last 73 years\u00a0\u2014\u00a0since he joined the order at age\u00a017, answering a call from God, he said \u2014 physical labor has been an integral part of his daily routine.<\/p>\n
Lately, though,\u00a0Brother\u00a0Joseph\u2019s health has taken a turn for the worse, narrowing the scope of his monastic\u00a0life. He is no longer strong enough, he said, to regularly attend the first or last of Mepkin\u2019s\u00a0seven daily prayer services<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 vigils at 3:20 a.m., and compline at 7:35 p.m. Nor can he fully participate during the roughly five hours set aside each day for agricultural work and the upkeep of the monastery\u2019s grounds.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, it\u2019s a bleak situation,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re all getting old.\u201d<\/p>\n Mepkin Abbey \u2014 part of a global network of Trappist monasteries that for nearly 1,000 years have provided their communities with reliable sources of prayer, learning and hospitality \u2014 is edging toward a potential crisis.<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n The World Is Changing. This Trappist Abbey Isn\u2019t. Can It Last? https:\/\/t.co\/P0f89mXdnV<\/a><\/p>\n — Makoto Fujimura (@iamfujimura) March 18, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n