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last summer someone mailed him a check for $3,500.
"I've been walking on water for seven years," he says
grinning. "The whole thing is a pure gift."
odeled after the 12th Century Tintern mona
stery in Monmouthshire, Wales, Stevens's
monastery will resemble the original Tintern in
both looks and spirit. A scale model of the
H-shaped building designed by architect Les Shulz of
Lincoln, sits in the upstairs chapel of the barn. The
monastery is designed to hold some 30 to 40 monks,
Stevens says.
"All this will be," he says, "is a life of study, work and
prayer."
Monks will study. for five years to learn Hebrew, Greek
and Latin, the Gregorian chant and the writings of
theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas or Karl Rahner.
They will live a cloistered, contemplative life and earn their
livelihood from the land and crafts, the 39-page con-'
stitution written by Stevens," contains a daily routine
"I've been walking on water for
seven years. The whole thing is a
pure gift"
patterned after the lifestyle of 8th century Benedictine
monks. Rising each morning at 2:30, the monks will spend
the day praying, working and studying until they retire at 9
p.m. The emphasis on academics is essential, Stevens says,
because the monastery will lack community life. Each monk
will be forced to live on his own resources his mind.
- "We are recovering a way of life here that's been lost for
hundreds of years," Stevens says, "a tradition that has
been cast by the wayside in the name of practicality."
Some critics have labeled the monastery too conserva
tive. It is, they say, a giant step backwards for the Catholic
Church. Stevens scoffs at such comments, saying his
monastery will only benefit the church by breathing new
life into a priesthood that has been consumed by activism.
"A priest has tobe first of all a prophet and a
contemplative and a mystic," he says. "There is too much
over-involvement in the priesthood today, almost like a
Messiah complex, and we lack judgment and imagination."
But despite all of Stevens's intricate planning, he admits
he is still waiting for a "modest miracle." A $4.5 million
miracle to be exact.
That's how much he needs to build the monastery.
"It will happen, and right out of the blue," he says
leaning back in his chair. "Somebody is either going to call
me on the phone or drive up in a nice, big Cadillac and give
me some money. There are people like that."
Pulling a pair of thick glasses from a pocket beneath his
white cloth robe, Stevens grabs a box of index cards he
keeps on the window-sill. In It, he has alphabetized the
names of Tintern contributors.
"The money comes in different incriments," he says.
"Lloyd Skinner was giving $5,000 a year (Skinner died last
year). A druggist in Cincinnati sends money from time to
time. Ten dollars, five dollars, sometimes only one and
that's only the sy :: ; 1: "
. . The priest's face brightens with excitement.
Stevens's unquenchable enthusiasm and optimism have
been his trademark since childhood. One of nine children,
Stevens was born in Battleboro, Vt.: He remembers
