At the Trappist monastery outside of town, members of an upscale congregation gathered for their first retreat – little used to monasteries with chanted psalms and billowing incense and uncomfortable with the lonely hours they’d have to fill – for these were social people, after all, and they were city people.

Then there was brother Philippe – one of the monks who ordinarily cared for the garden and the chickens when he was not installed in an open coffin in the main chapel wearing sandals with thick wool socks and looking very dead. He was to be buried on the Monday.

Their Rector had brought three short talks. These were not memorable. What did emerge within the little black notebooks each had been given on day one was how initial horror could turn to wonder and then thanksgiving. The Abbott, bless him, allowed the visitors to attend the funeral in that most private part of the monastery grounds where Brother Philippe was laid to rest with those who had gone before him.