Eighty-seven-year-old Nicholas remembers those times well, having arrived 60 years ago from Holland to study at Kopua.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a living for ourselves. And we had two big paddocks of potatoes, I have arthritis in my back from picking those potatoes,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n
The six monks at Kopua pray seven times a day, starting at 4am and ending about 8pm.<\/p>\n
What differentiates a Trappist monastery is its observance of the Rule of St Benedict, seeking a life of deep contemplation while living on-site at a monastery, practising significant periods of silence, and often undertaking manual labour.<\/p>\n
At its peak Kopua Monastery had 27 monks, but today there are just six. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n
\u201cMonasteries are usually places quite isolated from cities, that\u2019s why people come here \u2013 they want the peace, the quiet, the silence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Although some monks keep the \u201cGreat Silence\u201d from after Night Prayer until Community Mass the next day, Nicholas said the practice has become more relaxed over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not so strict anymore. Silence is something you have to get into. I come from a family of 12 kids and we talked all the time \u2013 when I came here, I found it very, very hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole purpose of silence is to listen to God. He speaks to us all the time but unless you are silent, you might not pick it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholas\u2019s face lights up as he talks about his love for Kopua Monastery and explains how the monastic institute is all about the holy order to contemplation, which is a deep sustained attention to the divine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always knew I wanted to be a priest from the age of 7, I just knew it. It was a feeling inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Father Nicholas knew from the age of 7 he wanted to be a priest. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until many years later that Nicholas travelled to New Zealand to visit and work with his brother, then began studying with the monks at Kopua Monastery in his 20s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes about six or seven years of preparation to make sure you are called to this. It\u2019s a wonderful life, but it\u2019s not an easy life.\u201d<\/p>\n
At its peak, Kopua Monastery had 27 monks, but today there are just six. The decline in numbers is something Nicholas said is being seen around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany are struggling to get callings, today especially. Our world is not very open to this kind of life at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt usually goes up and down, and at moment we are in a period of going down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kopua Monastery’s graveyard, where many of the priests and monks are buried. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n
There are around 160 Cistercian monasteries worldwide, split between the Common Observance and the stricter Trappist branch, but Nicholas said those numbers are declining.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of monasteries are closing because they don\u2019t get vocations and are full of old people who are going into rest homes … that\u2019s the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while the 87-year-old plans to spend the rest of his days at the peaceful Kopua Monastery, as the only priest, he has begun planning regarding who will eventually take over his role.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that somebody can begin studies … I\u2019m not going to live forever and someone is going to replace me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brother Aelred picking strawberries from his impressive garden beds. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n
Aelred S Antonio is a newer addition to the monastery. Originally from the Cistercian Monastery of Our Lady of the Philippines Guimaras Island, he arrived in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy the monastic life here and it\u2019s so conducive for our life in prayer and silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can exercise your vocation more here because now, in the Philippines, it is too crowded, there are so many houses around … you can hear a lot of noise and it\u2019s sometimes very disturbing for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s passionate about growing food, and oversees a large vegetable garden as well as a number of chickens and ducks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are encouraged as monks to work with our own hands … if you are at work, it means you\u2019re not idle.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment we have broccoli, strawberries, spring onions and potatoes for Christmas,\u201d said Aelred.<\/p>\n
The Kopua Monastery guesthouse was built in 2007 and opened in 2008. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n
The monastery is continuing the tradition of welcoming visitors, and has a modern guesthouse that was built in 2007 and sees hundreds of people stay every year.<\/p>\n
Nicholas said it offers the opportunity to be in an environment which is spacious, tranquil and holy.<\/p>\n
Many of the first monks at Kopua Monastery came from Ireland. Photo \/ Alexa Cook<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always have guests, people come here for all kinds of reasons – to pray and to sort themselves out, to rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of them are Anglican Catholic, not Catholic – our door is open to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eighty-seven-year-old Nicholas remembers those times well, having arrived 60 years ago from Holland to study at Kopua. \u201cWe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4193,1259,4194,2944,125609,125610,117,111,43,139,69,2847,76820,2963],"class_list":["post-205621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-alexa","tag-community","tag-cook","tag-inside","tag-kopua","tag-monastery","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-only","tag-trappist","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}