Cloistered away, down dusty, gravel access roads, a community of 10 women rise at 3 a.m. They pray, they read, they pray more, they work, they sing, they pray again and they sleep -- time passes like this here, amid the barren foothills of the Blue Ridge. They ring bells -- called Mary and Joseph -- that hang in the towering campanile and care for three cats named Ruth, Naomi and Rebel and a terrier. Days trickle by and amble into one another with much the same routine. And yet, for these women, this sweeping lifestyle of solitude and silence bridges them with the Divine.
These are the Trappistine Nuns of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Crozet.
"This is indeed a radical lifestyle," Sister Barbara Smickel said, glancing towards the mountains. "That doesn't mean it's always easy, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world."
Smickel entered the Trappistine Order 46 years ago at age 19.
"I remember that I wanted to give God everything," Smickel said. "Now, I think God has given me everything."
Still, for many people, nuns, adorned in black and white habits, appear shrouded in mystery -- something incomprehensible and otherworldly. "It's really not such a grim business, though," Smickel said. "It's a very happy, happy lifestyle. Sometimes I think to myself 'this is too good to be true.'"
In late April of 1987, Smickel and five other nuns migrated to Crozet from St. Mary Abbey in Wrentham, Mass., during an uncommonly late snowstorm to start a new branch of the Trappistine Order. For two years, the nuns occupied log cabins already present on the property until they completed the current brick monastery in 1989. Today, Our Lady of the Angels, one of only five such monasteries in the country, hosts ten nuns.
"We're not here because we chose one another, but because God chose us," Smickel said. The 10 nuns follow the rule of St. Benedict, balancing their lives between liturgy, sacred reading -- called lectio divina -- prayer, work and community in a hidden life within the monastery.
Smickel and the rest of the nuns have sacrificed marriage, family and worldly pleasures for the religious lifestyle. They leave the monastery only for the most extreme occasions, such as a death in the family. Raised Catholic, Sister Claire Boudreau recalled her perception of Trappistines as a child.
"Growing up, I was always attracted by religion, but the contemplative life seemed out of my grasp," Boudreau said. "Trappistines had a reputation for being the most austere order and my father thought it might be too demanding."
Nevertheless, in 1955, after earning a master's in French and reading Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain, she too joined the order.
"I have never regretted it," Boudreau said. Of course, not all women with a vocation to the sacred life become nuns in their late teens or early twenties. Sister Jan McCoy discerned the need for a drastic lifestyle change in her thirties, and abandoned a successful career in veterinarian medicine to become a nun.
"My family thought that it was another one of my crazy ideas," McCoy said. "But something else was drawing me -- the sisters knew something I needed to know."
McCoy's family, however, found it difficult to accept her decision at first.
"They thought that to be a nun meant to be a Martian -- that is, until they came out here and realized that the sisters are human beings," McCoy said. Ironically, despite the separation monastic life entails, McCoy now feels even more connected to her family. "I actually feel much closer to them -- they're in my mind much more clearly," McCoy said.
Many of the sisters feel as though they've gained another family at the monastery. "The community life is both a great support and the area where we learn most about ourselves," Smickel said.
She also is realistic about the difficulties facing nuns.
"Even nuns aren't always completely awake at 3 a.m.," McCoy said, admitting that she had slept in until 5 that morning. "There are days that are hard -- some days when God is not alive to you. You wish it could be easier. But I haven't found I want to do anything else. I used to want lots of land in the country. If someone gave me 100 acres now, it wouldn't be enough." And McCoy isn't alone in her sentiments.
"There have been hard times, but they're the times of growth." Boudreau said. "God is here all the time. Sometimes we're aware -- sometimes not. It can be at Mass, at the Blessed Sacrament or in seeing that one of the sisters has grown. He's always here, though."
And despite their physical isolation, the nuns still contribute significantly to the outside world.
"We're not here to be in a spiritual cocoon, but to pray for the world" Smickel insisted. "This is a gift for the Church and the world."
For practicality, they even own a new Ford pickup truck which they drive to the local grocery store occasionally. "If people can't picture nuns in a truck, just wait until we show up on our Harley," McCoy joked.
The nuns also maintain a thriving gouda cheese industry, housed in two barns adjacent to the monastery. They make some 20,000 pounds of it annually, shipping it throughout the country and advertising through a Web site. For the nuns, the cheese process fosters a contemplative experience. "I've heard people say that work is more like prayer and prayer is more like work," McCoy said. "So making cheese creates a balance."
Furthermore, for Smickel making cheese is an art-form.
"There's something about the pride in building things with your hands, like a sculptor or a carpenter or a gardener," Smickel said.
But the cheese making also is practical. "The cheese is also here to support our prayer life," Boudreau said. "I pray the mantra. There is the aspect that work is a cooperation with God in creation. He made us so to keep up creation in solidarity with him."
When the sisters aren't manufacturing gouda cheese, they work on the upkeep of the monastery. They're even drafting plans for a larger chapel. "You never really retire," Smickel said. "There's always something to do. Even at the end, people might contribute by suffering or praying." And though women today typically wait much later to make decisions about entering the sacred life, the nuns at Our Lady of the Angels don't worry about the future of the monastery.
"The Lord is the one who calls and he's still calling, but there's so much out there that deadens his voice," Boudreau said.
Even so, the nuns remain optimistic.
"The community will grow and last if God wants it to," Smickel said faithfully.
In the meantime, the Trappistine sisters will continue their way of life -- turning in hastily at 7:30 p.m. after Compline, the final prayer service of the day.
"People see the monastery and know that it points to something beyond this life," Bourdreau said.
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