St. Benedict's Monastery

Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.
- Rembrandt

 

In my previous post (Glimpses Along the Way to the North) I have indicated that our last destination was a monastery in the mountains of the municipality of Carmen, Cebu. I was not able to post pics from that site in my previous post because I only made 8 shots out of my last roll of 36. So I made a decision to go back on the next Sunday to add more pictures.

As I have previously stated, it was already dark when we arrived at the monastery. The sun was already below the horizon and the sky displayed great colors of pink and violet. I decided to do some long exposure shots. Below is a cropped picture of one of the two shots I was able to make.



After finishing the long exposures, an Indian priest approached me and he told me that he can give us a tour of the ground floor of their main monastery building, provided that we keep quiet as the other monks were already praying. I was excited to take this opportunity since their monastery is normally off-limits to visitors.

Paintings Inside the Main Monastery Building

While the rest of the priests and brothers were singing and having Vespers, we were busy shuffling through the beautiful paintings taking pictures. I was always the last one to take the pics: I do not like to include other views aside from the paintings themselves and I don't want any shot ruined by unnecessary flash.

Note: All paintings below were cropped to removed portions of the paintings' frames.

First stop: Madonna and Child flanked by other saints and angels. This is somehow inclined to the Orthodox themes.



 

Second stop: Madonna and Child with saints. Filipino themed (look closely on the Madonna and Child).



 

Third stop: St. Sylvester Guzzolini and his vision of the Madonna and Child with the angels. The building in the painting is modelled after the monastery's main building.



 

Fourth stop:  Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II. This is actually my favorite painting in the monastery's interior. The kind priest told us that this painting is perhaps the most beautiful within the Philippines.



I could almost hear the pride in the priest's voice in saying that the paintings here in their monastery were mostly made by Cebuano painters.

The Return

A blogger friend (Dfish) read my previous post and scoured the web regarding the Sylvestrine Congregation here in Carmen. An interesting story has turned up.

His discovery made strong my resolve to return to this monastery the following Sunday (8 March 2009). This time I was joined by two friends.

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The gates of the monastery.

 

The giant statue of the Santo Niño. The Our Lady of Manaoag Rosary Center can be found adjacent to these steps before going up to the Santo Niño.





 

This is the main monastery building during the day.

 

The Kind Priest

We attended Mass together with the local parishioners. The kind priest who ushered us in their "off-limits" monastery the previous Sunday celebrated Mass in Cebuano and delivered his homily in English.

The priest's name is Fr. Thomas Thekkumthottam, OSB. He is one of the Founding Fathers of St. Benedict's Monastery and its current Prior. The interesting find that Dfish was able to unearth was Father Thomas' personal story regarding the power of the Holy Rosary. DFish made a post in his blog about this. The story that Dfish had found introduces an unknown face. I am giving the face to that story. Below is the portrait of Father Thomas, taken right after he removed his other priestly vestments.



Fr. Thomas was actually very busy after Mass as many people both young and old approached him and asked for his blessing and prayers. He was very accommodating and he was smiling all the time. I didn't have to ask him to smile for this portrait.

I approached him and told him that I was one of his late visitors the other Sunday and that he has ushered us into the ground floor of their main monastery building. I also told him that a friend in the web has actually found his personal account on the power of the rosary. I saw his eyes twinkle and his response was "Mao ba?" which loosely translates to "Really?". I also told him about a friend who wants to be an Oblate. He told me that it is necessary that the Oblate should be in Cebu for him to be physically present during their meetings every third Sunday of the month.

I told him further that I am going to make a post in my site about the monastery and I would like to ask his permission to take his portrait to give his story a face. He smiled and said yes. After the shot, I thanked him and I let him be. He once again became very busy entertaining guests and friends.

Paintings Inside the Chapel

When the monastery's chapel was nearly empty, I took pictures of the paintings inside it.

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A priest celebrating Mass.

 

St. Sylvester receiving Holy Communion at the hands of the Virgin Mary.

 

St. Juan Diego presenting roses to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga when the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe miraculously appeared imprinted on the cloth of his tilma.

 

The face of Jesus. This can be found in the prayer room at the back of the chapel's main altar.

Contemplative Arts

In the slow shoeless strolls that I have done (yes, you have to remove your shoes when entering the 3 buildings: the chapel, the main building and the Rosary Center), I realized that the many paintings in the monastery are a great aid in contemplative prayer.

The bulk of the paintings can be found in the Our Lady of Manaog Rosary Center. Every mystery of the Holy Rosary, from Luminous to Glorious, has a corresponding painting. The faithful is invited to approach,  examine and contemplate the mysteries through the large paintings before them.

So as not to saturate this post with the paintings of the mysteries,they will be shown in the succeeding posts.