Mariannhill Monastery – a haven of tranquillity
Mariannhill Monastery is a haven of tranquillity nestled across the freeway alongside the bustling industrial area of Westmead, Pinetown.
Contrary to what you may have read, Trappist monks don’t take a vow of silence, so you can safely dispel any worries that your questions will be answered with blank stares as you wander around the monastery. The people who live and work there are friendly, helpful, and only too pleased to show you around while telling you about the place. They don’t even have to follow the Trappist dictum that conversations should be entered into only when absolutely necessary, with small talk kept to a minimum. After their predecessors discovered that missionary work in Africa was impossible without healthy communication Pope Pius X signed a decree that separated the missionaries at Mariannhill from the Trappist Order in 1909 and made allowance for them to reconstitute as the Religious Missionaries of Mariannhill Order (R.M.M.).
Mariannhill Monastery was founded by a hard-working monk called Francis Pfanner who established the Mariastern Monastery in Bosnia before setting off on his long journey to South Africa. Once here, he spent two abortive years trying to establish his group of 30 monks at Dunbrody near Kirkwood in the Eastern Cape – no doubt the communication issue had quite a bit to do with his lack of success there.
Pfanner then shifted his attentions to Natal, where he bought a farm called Zeekoeigat (Hippopotamus Pool) on Boxing Day in 1882. The property selected for his new mission was divided into smaller units and Pfanner coaxed the local chief, Manzini, to bring 300 families to live around the monastery and form a congregation. There the local children were given elementary schooling in the mornings, and practical courses in agriculture in the afternoons. They were also taught skills such as printing, carpentry, blacksmithing and tailoring, and the mission soon became self-supporting.
Pfanner retired in 1892 and died 17 years later at the age of 84, but his work lives on, and the mission now provides education, work, health care and religious guidance to hundreds of thousands of people in the Pinetown area and throughout the province.
Brother Albert Brazier – an ex Hillbrow resident – came to the mission in 1981 and today runs the carpentry shop that makes furniture – altars, benches, chairs, and crosses are but a few of the products he and his team of ten men produce. “We also make coffins for the needy because the undertakers are very expensive,” he says. Brother Albert acts as a part-time tour-guide when the need arises, and he took me around the mission and filled me in on its background. “The Fathers hold mass and do all the priestly work, while we Brothers do the maintenance and run the workshops,” he says. “There are about a hundred of us here, but many are old and semi-retired.” Apart from the carpentry and a metal shop, the monastery produces candles for churches and the public and has a souvenir shop full of books and mementoes. There’s a school guesthouse that can accommodate hundreds of children from other parts of the country during their holidays, and a very professional print shop that specialises in publishing books, pamphlets and prayer books.
Rod Riedlinger, who was born in the Mariannhill Hospital alongside the monastery in 1974, recently took over running the printing business. “This print shop has been going for 128 years now. It was the Catholic jewel of southern Africa and did a lot of good work but suffered recently due to lack of investment and strategic continuity planning. We’re back on track with strategy and investment and have a long-term vision that is exciting to be involved in. We print for churches of all denominations, not just the Catholic Church. Our speciality is books and prayer books, and we’re starting to blend our printing with additional new media like Kindle and Facebook.”
Most of the people who’ve devoted their lives to Mariannhill are multi-talented. Father Henry Ratering is supposedly retired, but still plays a very active part in the community. “I’m Chaplain to the Convent of the Sisters, but I’m also a musician and play the organ and conduct music,” he tells me. “I’m the librarian and researcher, and also a member of the commission for the beatification of Francis Pfanner.” Father Henry, who came out from Holland as a young man, has served the church as a schoolteacher, a pastor and a social worker in Africa for almost half a century, and shows no sign of taking his retirement seriously.
I spoke briefly to Father Gideon Sibanda, the Superior at Mariannhill Monastery, asking him about all the farming activities for which his institution was so well known. “Most of those have stopped for various reasons,” he says. “The Brothers used to manage these things but now we’re very short handed and that obviously started affecting operations. Some were discontinued and we leased the land to tenants – Ethekwini Municipality is one of them. The income we generate from this is ploughed back into the running of the mission.”
Tourism is seen as being important to the monastery, and there’s plenty to see if you’re not in too much of a rush. In the old tannery there’s a museum showing many of the agricultural implements used over the last 130 years, and a fascinating display of zoological samples collected over more than a century. There’s also a small corrugated-iron hut that Pfanner lived in for the first ten years. Beautifully restored and furnished, this was the smallest abbey in the world; at the same time Pfanner ruled over what was then the largest Trappist mission worldwide in terms of people it served.
“We’ve recently established the Mariannhill Mission Tourism Trust that will oversee the tour operations,” says Father Gideon. “Guides will soon conduct tours that will be packaged differently for different groups because some people want more information than others and all need to be accommodated.”
Even if you don’t have the time for a full tour, Mariannhill is worth a visit for those who want to enjoy an affordable meal in the tranquil surroundings of the recently revamped tea garden on the right just after you’ve entered the main gate. Breakfasts range from a full-house Happy Monk to a smaller Running Nun and healthy Novice meal for between R35 and R15. The tea garden is closed on Mondays and open between 08h30 and 15h30 from Tuesdays to Saturdays. On Sundays it opens an hour earlier.
Mariannhill Monastery can be contacted on 031-7004288.
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