Abbot's Death

One dawn last week black-cowled Death came to a frail little man lying on a straw pallet in a hushed Kentucky monastery, oldest in the U. S. Soon black-cowled Trappist monks broke their habitual silence to chant the office of the dead for Rt. Rev. Edmond M. Obrecht, 83, Abbot of the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemane, superior administrator of all Trappists in the U. S. and Canada.

Edmond Obrecht was born in France in 1852, four years after 40 French Trappists began building their vast monastery in Kentucky, not far from Bardstown and its Cathedral. Professing his vows at La Grande Trappe where the Order (Reformed Cistercians) received its nickname, Father Obrecht early learned Trappist discipline--to sleep in his rough wool habit; arise at 2 a. m.; spend the day in devotions and hard work;* dig his own grave; speak during the day only to his superiors and during the "Great Silence" of the night, to no one at all. A friend of the last four Popes, he was sent to Gethsemane in 1898.

*Canadian Trappists make and sell an excellent cheese, Oka.

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