Holy Trinity Monastery

Seven monks and one nun are the occupants. They share the property with up to 70 lay people - including live-in volunteers who help the monks bake and clean, "holy hoboes" who rent RV space, and a growing number of spiritual seekers who vacation at the monastery.

"I come here every year for Easter. I love walking the Stations of the Cross through the woods, and I love all the prayer services, too,'' said 91-year-old Claire V. DeConna of Miami, Fla., an annual guest for the past 12 years.

Holy Week is one of the busiest of the year for the St. David monastery, which is easily recognizable from Highway 80 - about 50 miles southeast of Tucson - with its 70-foot stone cross. Hundreds of people were expected there this weekend.

Twenty-six years ago when Father Louis B. Hasenfuss founded the Benedictine monastery, he had a vision of three communities living in harmony - monks, nuns and lay people and their children.

There's room for 20 monks and five nuns.

Hasenfuss' dream has been "more or less'' realized, said Father Henri Capdeville, the 44-year-old who assumed leadership of the community after Hasenfuss died last year at the age of 68.

Capdeville has lived at Holy Trinity since he was 18, when many twentysomethings comprised the religious community. The youngest monk now is 33.

Holy Trinity's religious community is now too small and getting too old to keep the place running on its own.

Brother Gary Miller wheels a tractor between another row of trees on the 150-acre compound. Besides a pecan grove, the monastery has a bird sanctuary, ponds, walking paths and camping spaces for "holy hoboes."

"Ideally it would be better if we didn't have to rely so much on the outside for financial support,'' said Brother Sean McDonnell, who is 72. "I do pray for more vocations. The need for brothers here is very important.''

The aging of religious communities is not unique to Holy Trinity. The median age of women in religious vocations in the United States is now 67 years old, and for men it's 61.

Holy Trinity is being helped financially by an increased number of people from all faiths who are making it a vacation destination. That's actually not a new use for monasteries, said Capdeville, noting that hundreds of years ago they served as hotels for weary travelers.

The monastery is currently renovating more space to accommodate its flourishing guest program. Some of the new spaces are called hermitages, for people who want to vacation in complete silence.

"I don't know what the Lord has in store for us,'' said Sister Corinne Fair, 67, the only nun at the monastery. "We are starting a formal volunteer program where people can come for a month or three months at a time. We try to flow with the times, but still strive to maintain peacefulness and quiet.''

Flowing with the times has included adding lay people called oblates who live on the grounds and help maintain the nearly 130-acre property, as well as working in the monastery's bakery, book store, museum, thrift shop and library. Another 700 oblates live off the property.

"The oblates are how we are surviving now,'' said Father Alcuin Almasy, who is 75.

The monastery also rents out RV plots to between 20 and 25 people. The RV renters, many of them snowbirds, are affectionately called "holy hoboes,'' and often do upkeep.

The holy hoboes have in recent years seeded grass, fixed fences, kept up the bird trail, painted bookcases for the library and helped build a new monastery community center.

"They pray for us and we pray for them,'' said 68-year-old holy hobo Thelma Meyer, a retired nurse from Granger, Iowa, who has been renting an RV plot at the monastery along with her 75-year-old husband Vern for the past 12 years.

"It's a beautiful place and we like the daily Mass,'' added Thelma Meyer, whose husband voluntarily completed an irrigation system for the monastery and last week was busy hanging sheet rock for the community center.

Mother Agueda Lima Garcilazo, a nun from Agua Prieta, Sonora, visits the grave of Father Louis Hasenfuss, the monastery's founder. Cheryl Saucier and other visitors pray in the chapel. Those who visit say they are drawn by the monastery's quiet, contemplative ambience.

And "guests,'' who number up to 30 at a time, stay in simple quarters on the property for a suggested donation of between $30 and $45, meals included.

"Hotels and resorts are just not spiritual. Monasteries are a good place if you really want to get rehabilitation time,'' said Brother Gary Miller, a 45-year-old monk who joined Holy Trinity when he was 25.

It's not only the five daily prayer services that are conducive to spiritual exploration. The property is dotted with five ponds, pecan, mesquite and quince trees, a cottonwood stand along the San Pedro River, an oriental meditation garden, and a Stations of the Cross hiking trail.

During the hours between the evening prayer service and the end of morning breakfast, monks and guests observe a policy of complete silence.

Donald L. Lamoureux, a 68-year-old guest last week, called it an "intimate silence.''

Guests say they take cues from the monks, who help engage them in such value-based exercises as "an examination of conscience.'' Participants must ask themselves questions such as: Am I content with my own laziness? Do I help others when they are in need? Do I pray only to ask for favors and never adore or thank God?

"This is holy ground here," said Lamoureux, who is from Phoenix. "I've learned a lot of values, especially from Father Henri. I look at my religion with the simplicity of a little child. Sometimes we dissect things too much.''

Sister Corinne, who gets around the property in a golf cart, said hundreds of people have been through the monastery since it began, many of them seeking monastic life. Not all of them stay.

Visiting certainly is easier than staying. The five monastic vows are poverty, chastity, obedience, conversion of life and stability.

Most young people are unwilling to live a celibate life. And in a time of materialism, self-denial is also difficult to come by, Almasy said.

Even so, Almasy, Sister Corinne and the other monks are keeping faith for the future.

"Monasteries are closing, but I think we have a chance of surviving,'' Almasy said. "Monasticism has been through the grinder through history, and it will probably adapt itself to the society somehow. Its source is a basic Christian spirit.''

Contact Stephanie Innes at 573-4134 or at sinnes@azstarnet.com.

Contact John 'OKeefe at 618-9385 or at jokeefe@azstarnet.com.